[Music]
please put your hands on your heads
everyone makes you feel good right that
was the best tip that I got out of my
favorite TED talk this is a power pose
and it helps us build hormones in our
body that make us more confident I've
used it many times in my work life and
today I want to share another tip with
you actually something that I think is
the most important thing that you can do
to succeed no matter what you want to
achieve we can relax now the most
important thing you can do to succeed is
to get yourself a wing woman or wing men
my first wing woman was Julie and Julie
was really tough we worked together and
at the same time she traveled to the US
to do an MBA at the University of
Chicago you all do business degrees
right so you probably have heard of that
school I met Roly at my first workplace
and in the first week she took me aside
she took me into her office she closed
the door and she said Valerie we have to
talk about mistakes I was really shocked
I had worked so hard like what mistakes
had I made and what she said really
surprised me because she said Valerie
I've made mistakes in my life that I
don't want you to make and the biggest
mistake was this I thought it would be
enough to just be the busy beep somebody
who puts their head down doesn't annoy
anyone works really hard and someday
somebody's gonna notice how great I am
and opened the doors for me into the
rooms where you actually call the shots
but that's not how it works so I'm gonna
give you some tips for how you get into
the rooms of power after an everything
Julie told me and when I step into the
rooms of power I sometimes feel really
lonely because there's nobody who looks
like me they are very few women and even
more importantly they are very few young
people I'm always the youngest by
decades the rooms of power where we
decide about millions and billions how
they're being spent where we take so
important decisions about the future do
not welcome or currently hold the future
generations who actually have to live in
that future if you look around the
average age of the cabinet of the
government cabinet in this country is 50
in the business world if you look at the
leaders of the tax companies of the
footsie 100 companies the average age is
55 and that sometimes means that for
people like me and for you it can be
quite tough I've been told in these
meetings that I shouldn't be there or as
one person once put it look just face it
there's no space for young female
Rockets like you who just chewed up and
think they can change the world what do
you do in these situations I'm gonna be
honest this can be really hurtful most
of us when we face challenges at work we
cause somebody who's really close to us
like our mom or dad or close friends but
the reality is that those people are
often not the ones who are best placed
to help us I don't know about you but my
mom doesn't really know how I can deal
with sexism or all of the challenges
that I face at work she also doesn't
really know how you negotiate or how you
get a promotion or just in general how
you navigate a work world where do you
just don't stay in the same job for your
whole life
so far of these situations for anything
that I am concerned about it work any
challenge I face I have my own army of
wing women and wing men wing woman and
wing men are people who are dedicated to
help you succeed there are people who
are by your side and no matter what
challenge work life throws at you they
will help you through it we actually
call each other wing woman and wing man
and we play by three rules the first one
is that you share your tips and hacks
and also the mistakes that you've made
so that the other people don't have to
make the same ones julie has done it for
me our second wing one rule wing woman
rule is this that we are committed to
lifting each other up one of my favorite
and best wingwoman
is somebody who helps me do that all the
time we do that to each other we lift
each other
I actually met her at one of the most
boring conferences that we had been to
and at some point I decided I should
probably leave so I looked left and
right to plan my escape route and I saw
her two seats away from me
and I looked at her and she looked at me
I rolled my eyes she rolled her eyes we
understood each other she leaned over
and said to me I think I'm gonna go now
and today I replied yeah I think me too
I'm actually driving to the airport in
case you need a ride
and she did so we got into the car and I
learned that she was the bravest person
that I know by now she is smart and
pretty and intelligent she is a great
entrepreneur she also works on
digitalization and tech like I do and
she also speaks a lot at events so I
could have had the choice of actually
seeing her as a competitor or we would
agree to be in each other's wing women
and support each other and thereby be
more successful together and we make
sure that we are not just the busy bee's
who nobody sees so when we have
successes we share them on social media
so that more people find out about each
other's successes we help each other get
speaking engagements or media interviews
and when we get into the power rules we
help each other get what we want so
we've been in some rooms together where
we had to convince politicians and
investors to support our businesses and
beforehand what we would do is we would
meet in the bathroom and ladies the one
benefit of being the only woman is that
the bathroom is a great place to talk in
private
so we met there and we talked about each
other strategies what we wanted to get
out of the meeting what we might say
when and when the meeting started she
said her point she made her point and I
picked it up and said I think this is a
really good idea for all of those
reasons and that way she actually got
what she wanted
but there's a third wingwoman rule and
there is actually a rule that I learned
from one of my wingmen and it wasn't a
moment when I went through a very dark
valley of fear and failure so you might
have heard that failure is a good thing
that is important for innovation for
success and it's totally true but when
it happens to
it can really suck and I do a lot of
write what I do is I build a lot of
funds funds that give money to people
who have an idea for how to make the
world a better place and some of these
funds work out and sometimes some of
these funds don't and there was one that
I had poured my heart and soul into I
had spent years preparing it and it
didn't work and in that moment I went
through the stock valley of failure
where you try to get out but you face a
lot of your fears and I was afraid of so
many things I was afraid that I had made
wrong choices I was afraid that I might
not have been as good enough as I
thought I was afraid that other people
might think that I'm a losing would
never ever want to work with me again
and I was afraid that I would never ever
be successful in my life again and I
knew all these fears were so irrational
and at the start when I could only talk
about them with my husband and some
really close friends I just couldn't get
them out of my body they were in my
system and for months they really
dragged me down and paint me and I got
to a point when I understood that I
could only get rid of it
if I found a wingman or a wing woman who
could actually help me with their
experience to get through it so I
thought about who I could ask and I
asked one of the investors that I know
and like do you know these people who
just have this aura of self-confidence
and like knowing things and he is one of
them and he has this gift of making
everybody who he meets feel like they
can change the world and do anything
they want so I arranged to meet with him
I met him I took all my courage together
and I told him how much I was struggling
and I asked him if he had some tips for
me because he had invested in so many
startups over decades startups fail so
he must have some tips that he gives to
the entrepreneurs who failed with their
venture and he was a bit surprised he
promised me he would get back to me you
won't believe how many times that
evening I refreshed my inbox and the
next morning I refreshed my inbox
because I really really desperately
needed his help and when his email came
I opened it and he didn't have
any tips for me what he had done was
something so much more powerful he had
told me what he was afraid of and in
what moments he felt like he wasn't good
enough and that it released this pain
that I had carried around for month
because he did what the 3rd wingwoman
ruler wingman rule is he was open about
him also struggling with things and the
reason why this is so important is
because so many of us we go through life
thinking that the people that we admire
the people who seem successful the
people you see on magazines who are
unfortunate afford lists or might give a
TED talk that somehow they don't feel
the same worries and insecurities and
struggles that you face every day but
the reality is that all of the people
who are successful feel exactly the same
they might not always talk about it or
tweet about it but they do and the
success that they have it's never their
success alone
you are never successful by yourself but
success is always things to the help of
so many people and that's why it's so
important that you if you want to be
successful with whatever you want to aim
for in life have wingwoman and wingmen
by your side so I'm going to give you an
exercise to find your wing woman in wing
men because maybe you you don't have
them yet and it's a super simple one
everybody can do it
starting tomorrow the exercise is this
tomorrow you're gonna think about a
person who inspires you who gives you
energy who you would like to spend half
an hour with and that can be somebody in
your organization it can be somebody who
you met at another workplace it can also
be somebody you meet today here at Ted
and if you really really struggle to
find somebody then you just Google for
an event you search for an event where
people come who share your interests so
I for example go to events called global
digital woman events because they are
meet other woman who are also excited
about technology and digitalization so
you have your name on your list and then
the next thing you do is that you ask
them to go for coffee people love that
if you say I think what you do is so
interesting can we go for coffee
they were definitely
say yes and when you meet them the way
that you get them to be your wing woman
or wingmen is by doing this you start
being their wing woman or their wingmen
share some tips that you've learned
today or they have really helped you in
your work life ask them what they want
to achieve next and offer them to help
and to lift them up and maybe not in the
first coffee meeting but afterwards you
share something that you might be
struggling with something that you might
be afraid of and people love that
because we because we talk about that so
rarely and I promise you 9 out of 10
people will start being your wing woman
in your wingmen that's because you all
have this secret power weapon inside of
you that you might not be aware of but
everyone has that and that power weapon
is generosity and kindness generosity
and kindness is our most powerful and
most undervalued tool for success we
should have so much more generosity and
kindness in our workplaces and the
generosity and kindness will not just be
important for your wing woman and
wingmen but it will have this true this
kind of trigger down triple effect it
will start the change that we should see
in the workplace and in the world so
what I do with my team said that
sometimes I take them into the room I
close the door and I say to them look we
need to talk about mistakes and then
some of them we get really scared and
think that they've done something wrong
and then I say to them look a lot of us
make mistakes and I don't want you to
make the same mistake and the most
important mistake you need to avoid is
that you are not just the busy bee you
can't just put your head down and do you
really really work really really hard
and hope that someday somebody's gonna
notice how good you are and open the
doors to the rooms of power but there
are some tips and tricks I'm going to
share with you so that you can get into
the room and call the shots and after I
do that what often happens is that a few
days later I can overhear some of my
team members in the kitchen when they
talk to somebody else there and they say
look I actually want to share with you
like you shouldn't just be the busy bee
some mistakes that people make and
here's some tips for how you can get
around that and once I actually heard
two women talk about this and then one
said to the other look we're gonna make
a pact as to we are not just going to be
the busy bee's you and me we're going to
be queen bees I had never thought about
that but yeah you should go out and be
queen bees you should go out and be
young or older or male or female rockets
that shoot through the sky and change
the world and when you do that you need
to be tough and you need to be brave but
you also need to be kind and generous
because there's so much potential in
each and every single one of you and
everyone who's watching this and the
world needs exactly that they need you
to unleash this potential and when you
do that you will succeed you will fail
but you must persevere where others
falter and the one thing you must never
do is to let the future out of your
hands and with other people shape it you
need to take the future into your own
hands and shape it and make it your own
and for the moments when things get
really tough and rough just make sure
that you have some wing woman or wing
men by your side
[Applause]
you