Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
♪ Opening music ♪
[Bridgitt Belanger] I would like to introduce
Bill Treasurer, the Chief Encouragement Officer, the CEO
of Giant Leap Consulting and author of Courage Goes to Work,
an internationally best-selling book that pioneered
the new management practice of courage building.
Bill is also the author of Courageous Leadership,
a do it yourself courage-building
training program, published by Wiley Publishing. Bill's newest
book, Leaders Open Doors, holds a five-star rating on
Amazon with over 50 stellar reviews. Notably, 100% of the
royalties from sales of Leaders Open Doors, are being donated to
programs that support children with special needs.
Bill has worked with thousands of executives in
places such as Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Zurich,
London and Sydney. Next Friday, he actually leaves
for Abu Dhabi. Bill's clients include NASA,
Saks Fifth Avenue, UBS Bank, Accenture, Hugo Boss, Spanx,
the CDC and the US Veterans Administration Hospitals.
Today, Bill is going to share ideas and insights
from his first book, Right Risk. The book, which was
endorsed by leadership gurus Ken Blanchard and
Dr. Stephen Covey, provides practical tips for taking
smart risks. Please join me in welcoming Bill Treasurer.
[Applause]
[Bill Treasurer] Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone.
How are you? Good. It's good to be with you.
I'm on the road all the time, so it's good to be
able to come back Asheville and spend some time
in Asheville. I see some friendly faces, folks that
I know and such, so I'm really looking forward to
being able to spend time with you today. Talking about
risk-taking, later this afternoon, I fly to
Huntsville, Alabama. Tomorrow I'll be working at
the Marshall Space Center with NASA. So, it's nice to
be off the road a little bit and get to spend time with you.
My aim today is to share some thoughts and ideas
with you about how to take smart risks, so that
you can use it as you get ready to go forth into your careers.
Some of you may be in your career already,
but I would venture to say that many of you are in that
preparation stage where you are getting ready to go out
and be in full force in the career world. So, hopefully,
I'll be able to provide you with some ideas, insights,
approaches, that you can then take in your own careers.
Since I'm home, this is my hometown crowd;
I hope it's okay with you if I share some new stories.
I'm going to share some stories that I've never told before.
First of all, because I like to get out and take a risk myself
and sort of embody the message, but also
because I think that the stories are relevant to the
topic of risk-taking. This is not my signature topic.
A lot of times, I talk about courage building in the work
place, but it's very related to the idea of courage,
because risk-taking. Courage can be thought of as risk in
action. So, with that in mind, I want to drain the
agenda very quickly. Here's what we're going to talk
about today. I'm going to cover: What's your move?
What is it that you're considering by way of
risk-taking? Next, I'm going to share with you a dumb
career move that I made, and then, how I made up for it.
I'm going to share with you some ideas around movers and
shakers - people who have made a career out of using
risk to their benefit. I'm going to talk about a really
important concept called "purposeful discomfort" and
how discomfort is something that should aid your career.
And then finally, at the end of the session, and I hope
along the way as well, I'll share with you some tips and
ideas to help you get ready to take smarter risks as you get
ready to go into your careers. With that in mind,
and I'm going to step away from the microphone.
I'm from New York originally, so I think that my voice is
loud enough that you can hear me. I'm going to do a
quick survey because it's always a good idea to find
out who's in the audience and where they're starting
from and what their perspective on the topic is.
So, with that in mind, we're going to do a quick survey.
No number two pencils or anything like that.
Here's how it works: It's a human survey. I'm going to ask a
series of questions. If you can answer "yes" to the question,
in other words, you have that experience;
I want you to stand up. Then I'll say "thank you" and
you'll sit back down. It's kind of like the game
"Simon Says." Here's the first question, if you understood
the directions for the human survey, please stand up.
Good, thank you. Now, the first official question:
if you've ever gotten a speeding ticket while
driving to school or work, please stand up. Alright,
thank you. If, and let's be honest, you regularly send
text messages while driving, please stand up. Oh yes,
alright. Thank you. If you possess a full carrying gun
permit, please stand up. There we go - right there,
those are our students from Texas right there. Thank you.
Thank you. If you have ever taken a career risk,
that for a little while, put your career in jeopardy,
please stand up. Thank you. If you have ever been
described as, or would describe yourself as,
"controlling", please stand up. [Laughter] Thank you.
If you absolutely love to be controlled by people, please
stand up. [Laughter] Yeah, I didn't think so. Let's see,
if you've ever left one job, before having secured a
different job - in other words, you were inbetween the
trapeze - if you ever left the job, before you had secured the
other job, please stand up. Thank you. If you have ever
made a geographic move on behalf of a company, in
other words you moved for a job, please stand up. Thank you.
If you have ever strongly disagreed with a customer, but
bit your lip and didn't say a word, please stand up.
[Laughter] Wow, thank you. If you have ever strongly
disagreed with a boss, but bit your lip and didn't say
a word, please stand up. [Laughter] Thank you.
If, unlike former president Bill Clinton, you did inhale,
please stand up. [Laughter] Thank you. If you lied on
the last question because you were too self-conscious,
please stand up. [Laughter] Let's see, if you ever spent
a night in jail, please stand up. [Laughter]
There we go, right there. Thank you. Thank you.
Last question, if you have at least one career risk that
you've always wanted to take, but thus far have not,
please stand up. Thank you, and give yourselves a hand
for doing the human survey. [Applause] If we look at the
information that you just gave me in that survey, as data
points, what can it tell us about the idea of risk-taking
and risk-avoiding? What are some insights that we could glean
from that snapshot of data that we just took of you all?
[Looks at watch] I've got all day. [Laughter]
What reflections do you have after seeing that or
experiencing it? Yes?
[audience member] People took the
risk to stand up.
[Bill] Some people took the risk to stand up.
[audience member] They might not have
in another situation, or might not have admitted to it.
[Bill] Some people took the risk to stand up,
even when it was questionable as to whether it was safe
to do so. I honestly believe that there are many more people
that have inhaled than actually stood up. [Laughter]
We get to a place where how much am I willing to reveal? Is it a
risk for me to step out and be vulnerable in that way?
On the other hand, some people were like "this is
who I am. I own everything of mine and I'm not ashamed
of it or afraid of it, here it is." So we have a different
calibration for that. What else can we infer by how we
answer the questions? Did anybody not stand up for any
question at all? Did anybody stand up for all of the
questions? What does it tell us about risk?
[audience member] Some people take more risks
than others. [Bill] Some risks are safer than
others. [ audience member ] Some people
take more risks than others.
[Bill] Some take more risks than others.
Here's the deal, I'm going to talk a little bit
about risk-taking today. You are all risk takers.
You have all taken risks in your life. And that doesn't stop.
Believe me, you're going to have to take many risks in
the course of your career, especially if you want to
have a fulfilling career and if you want to be relevant
in the workforce. The worst thing that you can be in the
workforce is irrelevant. That's a death nail to a career.
If you want to have high relevancy, you are going to
have to take risks and have an appetite for risks.
All of us are risk takers in this room. And all of us are
risk avoiders too. There are some things that we avoid on
purpose. There are some things that just aren't safe
for us that might be safe for somebody else.
My grandmother was born of strong southern Irish stock.
She could speak to a person who was wealthy, or in authority
and tell them like it was. She had backbone
when it came to asserting herself, but my grandmother
never learned how to drive a car because that's where she
felt vulnerable - taking physical risks. My brother,
for those inhalers in the room, is a special agent in
the D.E.A. [Laughter] and he's right outside.
Come on in, Doug. [Laughter] He really is and he runs with
guns in the streets of Charleston, South Carolina.
He's a pretty macho guy. He carries a gun on his ankle
when he goes to work. He's got a glock. But my brother
has a hard time telling me and our two sisters that he
loves us. I know that he does, but for him, that's a
risky thing, that vulnerability. Vulnerability
for some people is a risk. So, all of us are risk
takers and all of us are risk avoiders.
If you thought you weren't a risk taker coming into this
session, please know that you are. And if you prided
yourself on being such a magnificent risk taker,
please know that maybe you're not as much as you
thought. Alright, so, here's what I'd like you to do,
I want to make sure that today is interactive, a little bit
fun. I'd like for you to have a two-minute
conversation with the person next to you and here's the
question: "What drew you to a session on career
risk-taking? What career risks are you considering?"
I'm going to give you a very generous one hundred and
twenty seconds.
[Audience speaking amongst themselves]
[Bill] Clap once if you can hear me.
[Clap] Clap twice if you can hear me. [Clap] Clap three times
if you can hear me. Is there anybody who might be
willing to share the career risk that they are considering?
I know it's risky, right? [Laughter]
Here we are in a risk-taking session and we're afraid to
stand up. Please, if you will.
And your name is?
[Constantine] Constantine. [Bill] Hey, Constantine.
Its nice to see you.
[Constantine] Well, I'm planning on starting up
my own business from home. Pretty much, it's a big risk.
[Bill] Yeah, that was actually a question
I was going to ask in the human survey and
I forgot to ask that question. So what is the business if
you don't mind my asking? [Constantine] Well, first
I was looking into more into computer services, but I
might branch out. [Bill] Okay and why do
you want to be in computer services?
[Constantine] Well, I'm good with computers. I like helping
people with "computer problems" and that's why I'm
going with a computer information major.
[Bill Treasurer] How come you want to do that,
as opposed to go amd work for a big IT integration company?
[Constantine] That's helping that company,
not the people that need the help.
[Bill] Okay, so you want to work a little closer to
the customer and such. And you think you might be good at that?
Okay, terrific. Thank you for sharing. Is there
anybody else who cares to share on the risk that they
might be considering? How about some brave person from
this side of the room? [Laughter] There we go!
What's your name? [Cody] Cody Sluder. I've considered
residential real estate redevelopment.
[Bill] To start your own home business?
[Cody] Absolutely, as an LLC. I do know that involves
a lot of money, though. And it's hard to take a leap of faith.
Knowing that you could gain everything or lose everything.
[Bill] Okay. Fair enough.
Thank you both for sharing the examples of maybe stepping
out on your own, which would be one expression of risk-taking.
And it's one that I have experienced. I'm going to share
with you a dumb career move that I made. We'll probably
circle back to the idea of the entrepreneur as risk-taker
here in a few minutes. I had a really great job when
I got out of graduate school. I got a job in Atlanta, Georgia
with a company called Executive Adventure.
Pretty cool stuff - we were doing high ropes courses and
ground-based initiatives and facilitating sessions with
mostly overweight, balding white male executives.
Then we would take them outside and do ropes courses with them
and such and it was really very gratifying for me.
I got to work in a Polo shirt and khakis. I got to
have very meaningful, depthful conversations with
people who tended to avoid those kinds of conversations,
but by having these outdoor initiatives,
it would broker, or sort of puncture, the ability to
have an enriching conversation,and I would get to
facilitate those and it was a really cool job. And after
about three years, I had realized that graduate school
had prepared me for more than that. And I was starting
to become too specialized in just team-building and just
experiential team building and there was so much
more that I wanted to do. And somebody told me that
Anderson Consulting was interviewing up at UGA and
they thought I may be good for it because there was a
practice called "Change Management Practice."
It was human performance and changed management. This was
really exciting to me because I had studied
organizational development and I had done my thesis on
leadership in times of downsizing.
So, I applied for it. I went through the interview process
and I went to that first interview. These were people
who were dressed differently than me. They spoke in a more
refined manner than I did. They went to better colleges
than I went to. They would interview me at these
posh restaurants and then they'd bring me to their boss or
senior executive and it was very intimidating. I was very
intimidated by this job. I was very fearful. I wanted it.
I kind of wanted it because I knew it would set up
the rest of my career, but I was really fearful of
"could I do it? Could I even be successful in this kind
of environment?" It was an up or out kind of
environment where you knew you were going to be working
a minimum of 50 hours per week, but 70 hour weeks were
not unheard of. So, I went through the hoops and
I remember the last interview, and the fourth - actually the
third interview, and it was at the City Grill in Atlanta.
We had Creme Brulee after our meal and we were dined over,
"would you like some cappuccino?" "Yes, of course
I'll have a cappuccino."
Then they took me up to see a guy named Tony Clancy,
who was a senior partner there. And even as they were walking up
to his office, you could tell that they were like, in awe,
but afraid of this guy, like they were intimidated by
this boss person. And then I met him and he was an
intimidating guy. And I came out of the experience
thinking, this is too good for me. I'm too afraid that
I won't be successful. Here's a risk that I really
want to take, but I don't know that I have the
competency for it. And I don't want to take this risk
and lose this job that I really like, but doesn't pay
enough and I've outgrown. This is safe for me.
Moving over here could set up my career for the rest of the
career, but it's unsafe for me and I declined the job
opportunity. Over here I was making about $30,000, and
this over here was a carat at, I don't know, $50,000.
And I declined the opportunity and I felt like hell.
I felt really bad about it and for a year and a half
I went back to Executive Adventure
did more team-building programs, graduated to vice president
of the company, was doing more team-building programs than
anybody else - ended up facilitating 300 hundred team
building programs. I looked at this situation over here and
almost pined for it like a girlfriend you let go of that
you really want to get back. And so I reapproached Anderson
Consulting and I wrote Tony Clancy a letter and I said,
"I've been rethinking my declining of the opportunity
before and if you all put me through the interview
process, I will accept the job. I will tell you here
and now: I will accept the job." I don't know what
happened on that day that Tony Clancy got the letter,
but they initiated the interview process again. They made me
go through four more interviews. By the time I did
accept my job at Anderson Consulting,
which is one of the largest, most respected
technology-consulting companies in the world, it
became Accenture while I was there. They are a
$30 billion company and they employee 150,000 people.
And I accepted the job after those eight interviews.
And it has made all the difference in my career.
The reason I declined it was self-consciousness and fear
and latching on too much to safety. I had to let go of
this safe trapeze and be untethered and then grab on to
this trapeze to find out what was in store for me.
Maybe I wasn't ready at that moment in time and maybe
I had become ready at this moment in time. And I spent
6 years there and it made all the difference in my career.
It ended up far exceeding the salary that I had made
at Executive Adventure. Now you would have thought
that I would have known something about risk-taking
the first time. You would have thought that
maybe I would have evaluated it differently, especially
when you consider what I used to do for a living that
had a lot of risk involved with it. Here's what I used
to do before Executive Adventure and Accenture.
♪ Background music on video ♪
For seven years, I was a member of the
U.S. High Diving team. I used to travel the world, diving from
heights that scaled to over 100 feet, traveling at
speeds in excess of 50 mph before hitting a small pool
that was 10 feet deep. I used to be 6'4", but all the
impact shrunk me like I am today. But here's the thing,
I'm a high diver that's afraid of heights. I started
out with a profound fear of heights. When I was a little
kid, my dad took my brother and I to the top of the
Empire State Building. And my brother, who is younger
than I am, was at the edge of the building, looking
down at the metropolis below with my dad, and I was
pressed up against the Empire State Building,
petrified with fear. It was the first time it registered
for me that we're not all the same in terms of what
we're afraid about. I didn't like the fact that I was afraid,
it had control over me. I was a lousy athlete,
not good with football, not built for basketball, and
not great at team sports. But one day at the local pool,
we were doing back dives and by mistake,
I pulled my legs back around and did a backflip.
My friends went "wow." And I went "whoa." I found
something that I could grab onto that was my own and
I became a good diver on the one-meter springboard,
the low board. I was like one-meter specialist.
When it came time for college, colleges started to dangle
scholarships in front of me and they would eventually
all get to that single most important question,
"Hey Bill, you have a great one-meter list of dives.
Tell us about your high-board list of dives."
And I had never bothered to learn a high-board list of dives
because my fear of heights. And then, with a coach
that believed in my potential more than I believed in it
and who held me accountable to that potential,
because he could see the potential that I had,
moved me into a zone of discomfort and helped me
slowly, incrementally get a high-board list of dives.
I got a full scholarship to West Virginia University for
all the time that I was there and graduated undergraduate
from West Virginia University. And the guy who started out
with a profound fear of heights, traveled
all around the world, as a professional high diver.
This is how fear and risk can sometimes work.
Fear is like a schoolyard bully that pokes you in the
chest and says, "hey man, you're afraid of me.
What are you going to do about it?" And then it becomes up
to you, do you walk away from this fear, or do you learn how
to contend with it and move through it, which is really
the definition of courage- acting despite the fact that
you are afraid. Courage is not fearlessness. Courage is
fearfulness. When you are being courageous, you are
full of knee-knocking, teeth-chattering fear, but
you are carrying on despite the fact that you are afraid.
And being there, at the top of that risk, 1,500 times,
sort of helped me understand the cadence of risk.
It sort of helped me understand this threshold
that we get to. All of us have high dives to face in our
career and our life. They become decision points -
Will I? Won't I? Can I? Can't I? Should I? Shouldn't I?
Get off this platform of safety, whatever that platform may be.
But all of us face those platforms at times
in our career. Risk-taking is really important to a
thriving career. All of the figures you see here on this
iPod, or iPhone, are people that have taken gigantic risks.
I'm going to share with you an example of a risk taker
I've gotten to work with, who has this great
risk-taking ethos which she carries to her company.
Does everybody know this is? Who is it? It's Spanx lady.
It is Spanx lady - this is Sarah Blakely, the founder of a
company called "Spanx." Most of the women giggled at this
point, alot of the men are like - huh. Spanx? Spanx makes
women's shape wear, made out of seamless lycra.
She actually invented the product and, now,
last year she was on the cover of Forbe's Magazine
as the youngest self-made female billionaire.
I've worked with Sarah on four occasions. She wrote the
forward to my second book, a book called "Courage Goes to
Work." She wrote the forward to it. Sarah's story is really
kind of cool. She invented this product because she needed
the product. She wanted to have- and some of you may know
this story better than me, some of you women especially -
but she wanted kind of like a pantyhose, but that were capri
style. So she figured out a way to make this happen, and she
didn't want the gurdle-like ruffles that come with a girdle,
so she ended up working with manufacturers in North Carolina,
begging them to manufacture her prototypes. They did and then
here's what she did. She took her little red backpack,
which she talks about fondly in the story
when she tells this story, and she would bring these
prototypes - these early versions of her product -
and she would go to places like Neman Marcus and she would
put them on the store shelf. And then women would come by
and they're like "this is exactly what I need."
Then they would go up to the counter. [Makes scanning motion]
"Oh, it's not scanning. Let me try it again. Let me punch in
the numbers. It's not coming up. Let me get the manager.
This is the third time today that someone has tried to buy
this product." "Well maybe we ought to buy the product. Maybe
we should order the product." She got the product on the
shelves of Neman Marcus by doing just that.
That's Moxie. That's a risk, right? Now she has this
billion-dollar enterprise because of the risks that
she took in doing that. Here's what she says in the forward
to my book. She says:
She told me the story once
that on Friday evenings, her dad would sit her and her brother
down at the dinner table and ask the same question every Friday
night. He'd say "okay kids, what have you failed at this
week? What have you failed at this week." She said she
learned an important lesson, that if you are not
extending yourself to a point of failure
occasionally, then you're not learning, you're not growing,
you're not risking enough. Now she carries that
ethos into Spanx. It's made her quite an innovator.
Here's another example, it's not somebody that I've
worked with, but it's somebody that you know.
Does anybody know who Jack Dorsey is? Come on now.
It's in your demographic, people. This is the co-founder
and co-inventor of Twitter, which is having its IPO today
with evaluation of what, $14.2 billion.
There's Justin Belome. He spoke at the last session
that you had of this and he's one of our entrepreneurs in the
community and a good friend of mine. He would know that
this is the co-founder of Twitter. Not only has he
co-founded Twitter, but he also is the inventor and
founder of this company (holds something up).
Do you know what this is? This is square. This dude wants to
be the next Steve Jobs. He admires Steve Jobs. He loves
the Beatles and the way that Steve Jobs loved the Beatles.
He had to give a pitch for Square and in pitching to VC's,
he came up with 140 reason why they shouldn't invest
in the company. 140 reasons, because
he is really into this number "140" for some reason.
But he also gave them 10 reasons that they
should invest. He identified, here's the risks
of investing, but here's those gems that seem to be
the bet worth placing and then people invested in Square.
So far, it's been successful. I'll bet you'll see it
have an IPO as well. Let's take a look at what
Jack Dorsey says about the idea of taking risks.
[Interviewer on video] When you talk about mistakes, anybody
thinking of going out and starting a business or starting
something on their own will make mistakes. Talk about how that is
as an entrepreneur and how you can learn from that and not just
see it as a failure.
[Jack Dorsey] Yeah, one of the best things about this country
is that we have this personality and desire to
keep getting back up. So we make mistakes and get back up.
You look around the world at other places,
places like France, and you just don't have that same sense,
right? So one of the things I love is that we have this
amazing ability to take big, big risks and not be afraid
of making a mistake, not being afraid of failing,
but just seeing it as a step along the path.
And that we will likely make better mistakes tomorrow, and
fewer mistakes tomorrow. But it's always a learning
opportunity and with every one of those, we need to recognize
that we need to stop and say, "Why did that work? Why didn't
that work?" And move on.
[Bill] So he said, that they have to have an appetite
for risk if he wants to be successful with his companies.
Risk is sort of what its all about for an entrepreneur.
Certainly if you are in Silicon Valley or the technology space,
or the on the cutting edge of pretty much any new technology
or even a new service innovation, you've got to have
an appetite for risk and accept the fact that you will have some
failures along the way too. And the predecessor to
Twitter was a company Odem, I believe, and it was a failure,
but led to the innovations that gave us Twitter.
I'd like you to have another quick conversation.
But we are going to do what I call a "Half-Half."
I want you to have a two-minute conversation over here
with this question relative to your career.
In what ways are you playing it too safe?
If you're not in your career yet, maybe you know it about
yourself. Where do you play it too safe? In what ways do you
play it too safe? Have a two minute conversation on that.
Then you all have a two-minute conversation over here.
What fears get in the way of you taking career risks? So I'll
give you two minutes and I'll circle back.
[chatter]
[chatter]
[Bill] Part of my job is to interrupt really
good conversations. So I must be the interrupter at
this point. Hopefully, you had a meaningful conversation
there. When I wrote my first book "Right Risk" I wanted
to understand why did some people, why did they get off
the platform. Even though, they were really afraid and they had
the same fears as everyone else did, why did some people have
this appetite to get off the platform, if you want to
call that courage, and why others did not.
That was really... authors don't always write about what they
know. They write about what they want to know, especially
non-fiction authors. So, I wrote "Right Risk" because
I had avoided risk so much in my life, but this one area
of my life, I had taken those high-dives. So I kind
of wanted to process it now, about ten years after I'd done
the high-dives. It's a well researched book, 80 research
citations and such. But then I came across this gem of a book
that kind of explained it for me. It was called
"The Dangerous Edge" by a guy called Dr. Michael Apter,
who is a British fellow that teaches at many universities
including Georgetown and some other places.
And so, I reached out to Dr. Apter, because he
had like the Rosetta Stone of me understanding risk-taking.
I almost wanted to not write my book after I found his book.
I'm like, "here's the answer, why do we need to have
my book?" So I reached out to Dr. Apter through email
and he was very kind and he said "well I accept
your flattery and I'm very honored that you would reach
out to me and any time you'd like to, just feel free to give
me a holler. Tally ho." He didn't actually say tally ho,
that's my "Britishness" coming out. So, he left his telephone
number in the email and I'm like, I'm calling this dude.
So I called him the next day and I'm like "Dr. Apter, you said
that I could call you, so I'd like to know some more
things about risk-taking." I had this conversation
with him, and again, he was so gracious and he was
really kind. At the end of the conversation he said
"you seem to be very passionate about my work, Bill.
If you are ever up in the DC area, why don't you let me know
and we'll go out to dinner." I said, "That's awesome Dr. Apter.
Ok, goodbye." and I hung up. I went home that night
to my wife and I said, "Honey, this guy knows.
He like knows about risk-taking. I'm writing a
book about risk-taking. I got to go see that guy."
So, I called him up the next day and I said, "Dr. Apter, it's
Bill Treasurer again, hey remember how yesterday you
said I could come up and see you anytime? Well I really
want to do that. Can I come up this weekend and stay at
your house?" He said, "...ok, sure" When you really want
something, you got to take risks, you have to dog it down.
I hopped on an airplane- it was like Odyssey.
I'm like Homer, going on my Odyssey, here.
I'm in an airplane and my wife is like,
"He might be serial killer. He might have heads in a jar,
downstairs, you don't know?" But I go up and see Dr. Apter
to ask him about risk-taking and why some people do--- because
fear is the big issue. This whole group talked about
the fears that get in the way of us taking a career risk.
And, most of us think of fear as the old Yerkes Dodson Model
around arousal and performance. [Draws Graph] Arousal... and
performance. Sorry if you can't see. Make sure we can all
get a look. But we kind of think of fear as, we need a
certain amount of fear to be able to perform pretty well, but
then it has diminishing returns and out performance goes down,
so we need this fear arousal to feel some sense of... there's
some skin in the game and my sweaty palms are going. I get
aroused to the point that I'm actually now more focused
and my senses are alive and it's actually helping me take the
risk. I've got energy for it, but then we reach a point of
diminishing returns. And this is how it's commonly
explaned as the Yerkes Dodson Model. It was invented in 1908.
You can wikipedia it if you'd like to.
But Dr. Apter had a different take. He said, "Bill,
fear and excitement are very very close together.
What happens to you when you're really, really afraid
physiologically?" Tell me. Clammy hands. What else?
Your heart is racing. What else? Bad judgment?
You could have bad judgment because of it.
That's true. This physiological response.
Your palms are sweating, you're panting, what else?
You're really strong? Now, here's the thing. These same
physiological responses you have in intense fear, you have
during sex. Really strong. Bad judgment. [laughter] It happens,
it happens. Intense feelings of arousal associated with fear
is a neurological correlate, with intense arousal feelings
of excitement. The only difference is that we
experience fear as displeasure. We experience
excitement as pleasure. Dr. Apter says, "Bill, what if you
can convert your feelings of displeasure into feelings of
pleasure and convert fear into excitement?"
I said, "Well then I'd probably want to take more risks."
He said, "That's right you would and you do." He said that so
far as we know, mammals are the only living creatures that
purposefully seek out fearful situations in order to feel
alive and excited. You go to a horror film to feel really,
really afraid because it's exciting. You go on a roller
coaster to feel really, really afraid because it's exciting.
He said, "The reason that it's exciting is because of what he
called a protective frame that if you have a semblance of
psychological safety, it will make you know that you
can have confidence in this situation. So instead of
trying to reduce the size of your fear, increase the size
of your protective frame, which is your confidence, by
doing things such as getting coaching, by getting as much
information about the risk as you can, by speaking to
other people who have taken this risk before and been
successful. All of these things increase your confidence
and your protective frame. He described it as a tiger
in the cage. Imagine you went to a zoo and saw a tiger
roaming around with no cage, you'd be scared as
hell and you'd want to run. And you should. You're going
to get eaten up. But he said "What if you went to the zoo and
saw a cage with no tiger? You'd be bored and you'd want your
money back. You got to have both. You got to have to have
the tiger, which is the metaphor for fear and you have to
have the cage, which is the metaphor for your protective
frame. Then you can withstand greater intensity
of fear as long as you're building greater intensity
of confidence. Then this makes this neutral.
It takes this piece and says it's not
always about diminishing returns. Sometimes it's
about making sure you have a strong enough psychological
protective frame to withstand the fear and carry
it with you. Remember- courage is not fearlessness,
it's carrying that fear with you and doing that thing
you're afraid of. So, another way to look at this
is what I call "purposeful discomfort." That we exist
on a grand continuum, that ranges from safety-seeking
behavior on the one hand, to opportunity-seeking behavior
on the other hand. Most of us are willing to go out on
this continuum in any given situation to some degree.
Then we stop and we hesitate and we're not going to go any
further because we get to uncomfortable. What do you think
we call this the zone that we're willing to go out and then no
further? Our comfort zone, right! It's our comfort zone.
If you're not in comfort, by definition,
where are you? You're in discomfort. Good. You are
students. Good students at that. If you're not in comfort
you're in discomfort. Here ís the thing,
human beings and organizations, that is you as
an individual and collectives of people,
organizations, don't grow, progress and evolve in a
zone of comfort. That's not where the growth is.
You grow, progress and evolve in a zone of discomfort.
Not so far out into discomfort that you
experience fight or flight or freeze, the classic
responses to fear, but enough out of your comfort zone
where you're getting the arousal and your palms
are sweating and your eyes are dilating and your mouth is
getting cotton mouth. to let you know that you've moved
into your courage zone. You can also think of it
as your learning zone. so here's just a few
examples of what that looks like in your career:
Pursuing a job that eclipses your current skills.
It is a risk and it is uncomfortable and it will
help you grow. Quitting a good job
to start your own business like these two fellows.
That's a risk and it's uncomfortable. But it can
pan out. How about leaving a job before you've lined up
another job. It's uncomfortable but it's absolutely a risk.
How about giving your boss a dose of tough upward feedback.
Almost everyone bit their lip at some point when it came to
talking with your boss. It's a risk, but
it's a courageous action. And it could influence your
career in a positive way if you do it in a positive way.
How about moving to another geographic region on behalf of
your job. All of these are small-scale risks, but important
to a thriving career that you will be able to do it at
some point in time. There are consequences. It's so important
to be able to sometimes move into discomfort and put
yourself in over your head, that one of only about 17
people in the Fortune 500 who are CEOs, who happen to
be women. Here's one, it's Ginni Rometty. She is the
CEO of IBM. She says comfort and growth do not coexist.
You want to grow in your career? Get uncomfortable.
Don't be searching for comfort. So now think back
to the risk that you're considering in your own career.
How uncomfortable does it make you?
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being I'm pretty comfortable
and 10 being I'm really uncomfortable.
How uncomfortable is the risk you're considering? I'll ask
you two fellas for your own business. How uncomfortable?
What's the number? [Audience] About 7 and a half.
[Bill] About 7 and a half in the discomfort. How about you?
[Audience] Solid 8. [Bill] Solid 8.
Even a 9. That's pretty uncomfortable. So you
have to decide is the calibration for you worth
taking? Alright, I'm going to share with you a way that
you might be able to do that. It comes from my first
book called "Right Risk: Ten Powerful Principles for Taking
Giant Leaps with Your Life". That is actually me on the cover
of the book, on fire. I was Captain Inferno on the high
diving team as well. Here's 5 criteria
with which you can use when you are evaluating a risk.
Too many times, when we have a big risk that we are facing,
what do we resort to? The pro and con list. Right?
I think it was invented by Abraham Lincoln in his
autobiography, that's how old it is. You'd think that
we would have evolved past that, I mean its useful, but
it gets us only thinking about gain. What am I going
to get if I take this career move? What am I going to get?
Am I going to get more money? What am I going to get?
They only think about the "get". You have to think more
than just the get. I think there's other dimensions that
you need to think about when you're considering
a career move. The first one: Does it give
you passion? Does it make you feel alive?
Does it give you energy to consider this risk?
Do you get excited in a good way?
Or does it exhaust you? Does it make you so afraid that you
get a pit in your stomach and you get the Sunday night blues?
Does it stir your passion in a way that's healthy
and productive and exciting and generates energy or not?
That's criteria number one. Secondly, is it connected to
some higher purpose that you're going after?
A great risk should not be about compensation.
It should be about destination, not what will this risk get me,
but where will this risk take me towards who I'm trying to
become. Thirdly, it should be connected to some principles
that you uphold or that you say you uphold and
that now you need to embody. So if you tell me that you're
somebody that you're really into creativity and that you're
really into independence and then you go get a
government job that has no independence and no
creativity, are you outside of your own value system?
How about prerogative? The fourth criteria-
are you taking this risk because your dad told you he wants
you to be a lawyer because that's what he was?
Or are you taking this risk because it's of your own
volition, of your own choice, other people have given you
all the consideration that they needed to nay-sayers
and yea-sayers, and you push them aside.
Is it you taking the risk on your own behalf, an exercise
of your own free will? Or because somebody else is
pushing you off that platform? And then,
after you've had the four P's, then you go on to the 5th P:
profit. What will this risk get me? What do I have to gain
and what do I have to lose? But, that shouldn't be the
first question that should be the last question.
I can't guarantee you that that will give you a 100%
accurate risk and that it will be risk-free and I can't
guarantee you that you won't get hurt, but I will
guarantee you that if you walk through that criteria
and not just a pro and con list, you will increase the
likelihood of a high probability of a good outcome.
So you will increase your probability of a successful
risk. Here's another couple of tips I want to share
with you on personal risk taking.
The first one is, answer the holy question. If you've got a
pen, you might want to write this down. These are the
four most important words you'll ever learn in the
English language: "What-do you-want?" What do you want?
What do you want? What do you want?
That's not for somebody else to decide.
You are the captain of your own ship and
of your own career. No one will love your career as
much as you. No one is responsible for your career
as much as you. What do you want? If you can't decide with
specificity and accuracy what it is that you want,
you won't be able to get it and nobody else will be able
to help you get it. That question is a question of
accountability and it's entirely up to you. A lot of
people can tell you what they don't want, but going
further that's half the battle, knowing what you don't want.
But going further and going deeper, What do I want?
Then you can decide what's worth applying your courage towards.
What risks are worth taking towards getting you
to the end of what you want? Second, dive
in over your head. Do like Ginni Remitty did and sometimes
take on roles and jobs that eclipse your current skills as
a way to grow. It's pretty much the best way to learn
how to grow. Don't go so far out to the deep water that
you might drown, but you've got to be enough out into
the deep water where you can bob up and down and
maybe just barely touch the ground.
Finally, apply the theory of least regrets.
The theory of least regrets. That is, ask yourself,
what will I regret the least? Taking this risk and maybe,
maybe wiping out, or not taking the risk and never knowing
if I could have been successful. When I declined that opportunity
at Accenture and Anderson Consulting, it was because
I didn't want to take the risk and then maybe wipe out
and fail. But I couldn't live with the fact over time that
maybe I could have been successful. That stuck in my
craw. It's ultimately, what led me back to reapproach
them about getting the job again. So now, I'm going to
open it up to a few questions and then I got just one
or two things I'll do as I close it up. But I want to ask
the questions first, and then I'll do the wrap-up.
So let me ask you, what questions have surfaced
for you so far during my presentation?
Are you dumbfounded? You're like, man, this guy, he's like a
full force. I don't know what to do with this information.
There we go, thank you. Bridget's got a question
because I gave her five, in case.
[Bridget] I'm actually really curious to know
what you studied in school. I think you mentioned
something about organizational development.
[Bill] Yes, I studied administrative science at the
University of Wisconsin in Green Bay and
it had a tract, which was organizational development.
This was my graduate studies. I was the diving coach there.
So that got paid for too at that school.
Undergraduate was at West Virginia University and
I had a very worthless sports management degree
because I couldn't be a P.E. teacher because I never took
the certification to be a teacher, nor did I want
to be one. And, I couldn't go into the business world because
I had focused on sports management, so I could
basically run a health club. I decided after doing the
high diving show that I really wanted... I actually got
into the studies of leadership because I did such a poor
job of leading people. One of my divers came back and
told me one day, "you're totally obnoxious, you are
the worst boss I ever had." He's like, "You talked to us like
that everyday and I'm like this close to walking."
I thought about what he said and I realized that he was right.
That, I wasn't me being a leader, I was me being my
previous boss and the boss that I had before that. Ultimately,
I was being my dad. I was channeling my dad.
I didn't know who I was as I leader.
In leaning in to him and trying to control him and the other
divers, I was just me being my dad as the authority figure,
right? So, it got me thinking about leadership and I started
reading books about leadership and group dynamics
and I came across this term "organizational development".
and I was chasing a girl at the time and she lived
up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They had a decent
program up there and you could carve it out the
way that you wanted to. Administrative science
was the formal master's degree, but the emphasis was
organizational development and my master's thesis was
on leadership. But it was the impact of role ambiguity
in a recently downsized environment and what leadership
style would be most appropriate after a downsizing. It turned
out actually, Directive leadership, like my dad,
would be very good in that kind of thing.
Other questions you might have.
[Question] What about risk when you have like other people
involved? When its your risk, but its also other people's
risk? [Bill] We take different risks at different stages in our
career and in different stages of our life. When I was
in my mid-20's, I was immortal and I could dive
off of a 100-ft platform. I wouldn't do that today.
For one, I'm more fragile with my body, right? Like I'm 51 and
my back doesn't like that kind of thing.
But, now when I take risks... so physical risks
are not the risks that I would take today. And now, were I to
take risks that I took in my twenties, it would not just
impact me, it would impact my family. The interesting thing
is we start to take risks early on in our career in pursuit,
a lot of times frankly, in the pursuit of the acquisition
of more wealth. Then we start acquiring things, and
wealth and a 401-K and some security. Once we've
acquired, then we start taking risks, or even avoiding
risks to preserve the wealth that we have accumulated.
So we take risks of a different fashion. When I got to 40 years
old, I was no longer willing to be berated by controlling
authority figures, like my dad and other people that I had
then worked for. I'm 40 years old man. I'm a grown man now
and my hair is starting to get gray. I'm not going to take
it anymore. Don't talk to me like that. So now I would
assert myself in ways that I wouldn't below 40 years old.
So you'll take risks in different stages of your
career in different ways. You'll factor in,
you'll have to by the time you move up to 30, many people
probably most in this room will have a spouse and probably
children. So then the consequences of your risk
will go beyond yourself. Good question.
So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give some prizes.
I'm going to ask three questions. If you can be
the first one to stand up with the correct answer, you will get
one copy of one of my books. Are you ready?
First question: Name three of the five P's.
[Audience] Progress, Passion and Principle.
[Bill] Ok, good. You get a copy of "Right Risk: Ten Powerful
Principles for Taking Giant Leaps with Your Life". Good job.
[applause] Terrific. Next one. What kind of frame did Dr. Apter
theorize about? [audience] Protector frame.
Come on up here. Yes. You get "Courage Goes to Work".
Remember, the forward is by Sarah Blakely. I don't know
if you would fit in to Spanx, but you could try.
[applause/laughter] Nice job. Last question.
What is the holy question? [Audience] What do you want to
do? [Bill] Oh, look it's the two entrepreneurs! You can share.
You can share this book. This is "Leaders Open Doors".
Let me just give you the 30 second advertisement
for the book. I'm not making a penny on this book.
100% of the royalities of this book go to kids with special
needs, to programs that support kids with special needs.
Partly because I have a kid with special needs. The book is about
creating opportunities for others. When you're in a
leadership role, that's what you should be doing is opening doors
for other people. I wanted the book to embody
its own message. You'll see the cards on the table.
I would invite you to go out to Amazon and buy a
hard copy of the book. It's also in soft copy.
But you my friend, after you're done reading it,
help him read it too. Then you will both start
your successful careers and come back to me
and I will invest in your companies so
you can be the next Square person. Good job. And then,
feel free to get in contact with me. These are the ways:
btreasurer@ giantleapconsulting.com;
also go to Leaders Open Doors for some videos that you
can view out there and such. Twitter me at Bill Treasurer.
Join me on Linked In. Join me on Face Book. Like me.
Like my company. That would be awesome if you would do that.
One last story for you. I ended up getting that job with
Accenture and then fast forward 6 years after working for
Accenture, I got to another decision point. Another platform
of safety. I had started to become confined.
I realized that my premier values are independence
and creativity. Here I was stuck in a cubicle
like it was a Dilbert cartoon. Confined, selling portions of my
soul every single day. I had just written a book on risk
taking. I sat down with a councillor friend of mine and
I said you know, I'm really stuck whether to leave Accenture
and I don't know how to. I got this good 6 figure income.
I want to start my own job, my own career. I think I can do it
but I'm kind of afraid whether I could do it or not.
And, she said, "Bill, why don't you read your own book
on risk taking?" I was like, "that's not a bad idea."
I took that risk. I started my company Giant Leap Consulting
over 11 years ago. I'm in the courage building business.
Today I'm going to go and work with NASA tomorrow.
Next Friday I'm going to Abu Dhabi.
I've traveled all around the world living in my passion
space because somebody convinced me to live my
value system and that's what it's all about.
Be congruent with your value system. Know what your
values are at the deepest level, know what your
principles are at the deepest level and then take
the risks that will honor your own principles and own values.
That's the thought that I'd like to leave you with.
Thank you so much for letting me be a part of your day!
[applause]
Thank you.
♪ closing music ♪