Translator: Lexi Campbell Reviewer: Roni Ravia
I am an empathic badass.
I cry really easily.
But I also ask tough questions.
I listen to people deeply, but I am also incredibly decisive.
Getting to the point where I could tell you this today has been quite the journey.
This journey started about five years ago for me.
I had a thriving psychotherapy practice that I loved.
It's just that after having done that for over a decade,
I started to feel really bored and restless.
I remember feeling like something was in me and wanted to come out.
I was suppressing something, and asked deeper questions.
Is this it?
Is this all there is for my life?
I remember feeling like a caged bird.
I literally worked in an office that was 15x15.
No windows, and I talked to maybe a handful of people a day.
So you can imagine how that felt.
I knew that I wanted more for myself.
I was no longer satisfied, helping people feel less depressed or less anxious.
I wanted to help them dig deep and figure out what's their great potential.
I just didn't know how I would do that.
What happened next is pretty uncanny.
I met a man who said he was looking for a psychologist
for his venture capital incubator.
It was called Lamp Post Group.
You entrepreneurs out there, you will appreciate what he told me.
And I quote. He said: "Shelley, entrepreneurs are batshit crazy.
And we need a shrink on site."
And I was like, okay.
This sounds like an adventure. Sign me up.
And I was very fortunate to have met these visionary men,
who knew that they did not want to just start successful companies,
but they wanted to build thriving, happy and healthy cultures.
I knew that entrepreneurship was this great experiment in human potential.
So, I was in.
So, that's what I did.
I joined this venture capital incubator, as a founding partner.
I helped startups understand group dynamics,
I did couples counseling with co-founders,
and I helped entrepreneurs navigate the really stressful, depressed,
and sometimes lonely waters of the startup world.
And I think a lot of us, entrepreneurs out there, you know what that's like.
So every journey has its trials
and mine was no exception.
Imagine these ingredients, OK?
So, there's me: psychologist, woman, highly emotional,
thrown into the sharky waters of venture capital.
So you can imagine my impostor syndrome.
It was maddening, to say the least.
I felt like a complete fraud.
There were even meetings where we would be around our big board room table,
and I would have my phone under the table, googling words that I didn't understand.
I was like, IBIDA!
That's an important one!
I keep hearing that, I need to know that one.
And there's some lingo, those of you all out there in startups.
You know this lingo where they say things like, "We're going to kill it!"
"We're crushing it!"
And I'm like, what are we crushing?
I can crush you with a hug!
Want a hug?
That didn't go over so well.
And there were these profound times where I felt a very deep sense of disrespect.
Which is probably the most painful.
People just did not understand what I did.
They didn't know why I was there, and they certainly did not see
a reason for emotions and psychology in the startup world.
So, I did what all confused women do in business.
I went to our bible - Lean In, I downloaded that book in one weekend,
pored through it, hoping I would find all my answers there.
I did, and I didn't.
You see, Sheryl Sandberg says that in all cultures, men are expected to be leaders,
and women are expected to be nurturers.
And that these stereotypes are holding all of us back.
And I hear that, and I read that, and I think, well, I'm both.
I'm a nurturing leader.
So why do we continue to set these two things up as binaries,
when they don't need to exist that way?
And I remember one meeting where I was particularly upset,
must have been visibly upset, and I walk out,
someone stops me in the hall, it was my friend Steve.
And he said: "Psychologist Shelley!" You know, he looks at me.
He says, "You are not coming to bring the medicine,
you are the medicine."
And that one statement left a profound shift,
in how I saw myself, and what my purpose was.
So what I have discovered at this venture capital incubator,
is the tremendous power in leading like a girl.
In fact, I believe that my girl way of leading,
is exactly what we needed to reach our high potential.
And I will tell you, I know that it was what I needed to embrace,
not be ashamed of, if I was going to succeed in business.
And that's exactly what I wanted to do.
There's also a lot of these notions of the old way that we've done work.
These ideas about leadership have been left over from the Industrial Age. Right?
This is coming from old way of working,
where it was a command and control hierarchy.
It was profit-driven,
so we over emphasized these masculine traits.
Like hierarchy, domination, because we needed to get
productivity, efficiency, and order.
And so all along, we have under emphasized these more feminine traits,
like process and sharing.
Community.
And I think that old way of working is dying.
And I believe it needs to die.
And there's a new way of working.
Inter technology.
Technology has ushered in an innovation economy.
The innovation economy, there's some researchers at MIT who have said that,
in the innovation economy, we need one thing particularly.
It's called "collective intelligence."
So, we no longer need smart people competing against each other.
We need smart teams collaborating, and working together.
This is not just about feeling good, getting more women in startups,
more women leading.
This is also about the future of work.
And even Kevin O'Leary, the Shark Tank judge,
the famous Mr. Wonderful, You all know him, Mr. Bottom Line,
He has even recently said that of the 27 companies that he's invested in,
the only ones making any money are led by female CEOs.
So, here's what I want to say.
First of all, this is me.
Everybody needs a graphic designer that turns her into a superhero.
I think it's time we turn over the tables.
I think the coming revolution, maybe even the next wave of feminism,
will require all of us to bring all of our strengths to leadership.
This aggressive face, but also the compassionate face.
The intuitive face as well.
It is time for the business world, in particular,
to descend from the head and into the heart,
and reclaim emotional and social intelligence,
as a real and important form of leadership.
And women, here's what I want you to know.
Those parts of yourself that you have lopped off to fit into some boys' club,
pick them back up and own them.
We need them.
Ask smart questions.
The kind of questions that take
just as much emotional intelligence to answer, as they do logic.
And find your power.
Not to clutch it and grasp it and keep it, or to get to the top with it,
but to give it and to share it.
And, women and men, remember, that empathy and badass,
are not mutually exclusive.
You can have both, and I believe, the best leaders do have both.
And I am terrified to report to you,
that I am jumping from the frying pan into the fire,
and I am starting my own tech company.
(Applause)
With two men, and I am the CEO.
(Applause)
So, despite my fears about what I don't know,
and my anxiety about what I cannot predict,
I am committed now more than ever, to being empathic and badass.
People loving, and results driven.
Nurturing, and a leader.
This caged bird is flying, and she is leading like a girl!
(Applause)
Thank you!