Pink CEO Reveals Billion Dollar Company Secret w/ Cindy Eckert

IT’S TIME TO “THINK PINK” ON THIS WEEK’S EPISODE! Cindy Eckert is a DEAR FRIEND, and has become an important ANGEL INVESTOR, SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR, WOMEN’S HEALTH ADVOCATE, AND A VISIONARY HEALTH TECH CEO. Whether you’re a man or a woman, if you’ve ever had even the faintest glimmer of walking away from your current job and starting your own company, you’re going to absolutely LOVE Cindy Eckert’s story and what you can LEARN from her. You’re all familiar with what Viagra does for men, but I’ll bet not too many of you know Cindy is the one who got FDA approval for Addyi, the first drug designed to enhance female libido. After FDA approval, she sold her company, Sprout Pharmaceuticals, to Valeant for a cool $1 BILLION. It wasn’t her first company sale either, having previously sold another start-up for $500 MILLION. Here's the fascinating part of Cindy’s story. As part of a lawsuit settlement against Valeant, she reacquired Sprout and the rights to Addyi for next to nothing after Valeant’s stock collapsed by 80% due to insider trading and price manipulation allegations. People like Cindy can’t sit still for very long. So, she launched a “PINKUBATOR” and a VC/consulting firm called the PINK CEILING as a way of leveling the start-up and entrepreneurial environment for women. Cindy has a wealth of KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE you're going to want to tap into. In our ENERGETIC interview, Cindy and I talk quite a bit about the DNA required to be an entrepreneur, how to overcome INEVITABLE SETBACKS, and the MINDSET you need to have in a start-up company, Most important of all, Cindy stresses that to be successful as an entrepreneur, everyone in your company has to have “SKIN IN THE GAME.” We also get into the need for establishing the right CORPORATE CULTURE and why treating customers like GOLD is one of the foundational keys to SUCCESS. If you’re an owner, CEO, or you have management responsibilities where you work, Cindy’s INSIGHTS on finding, hiring, and managing people is something you must hear. Those of you who are ENTREPRENEURS searching for more CAPITAL for your business need to pay particular attention to what Cindy looks for when she's investing in someone's business. Cindy may be well known for the PINK outfits she wears every day, but her advice is TRUE BLUE, and you owe it to yourself to hear what she has to say. Be sure to grab pen and a notepad and take a lot of notes for this one. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈 → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ▶︎ INSTAGRAM ▶︎ FACEBOOK ▶︎ LINKEDIN ▶︎ TWITTER ▶︎ WEBSITE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 P.M. And my third day, 6:00 P.M. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time, too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  Over 20 years in business, over $12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff. Borrow better.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company, for me, of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  This is the Ed Mylett Show.

• 1:48Ed Mylett?

  Well, welcome back to the program, everybody. Just curious, do you have any interest in ever, like, building a company you could sell for around $1 billion? Any of you? Does that sound interesting to you? Because if it does, I have one of the few people on Earth who, in the last decade or so, has actually done that. And is one of the top entrepreneurs on the planet. She's a friend of mine. But what's extra special is her ability to articulate the details and tactics that are required to build something special. Makes her very unique. She's somebody you're going to want to follow on social media and she's someone you're going to learn a great deal from today. So Cindy Eckert, thank you for being here today.

• 2:30Speaker 04

  That's a hell of an introduction, Ed. And actually, when you asked if there's anyone who wants to sell their business for a billion dollars, I raised my hand too. I'm willing to do it again.

• 2:38Ed Mylett?

  You want to do it again? I am willing to do it with you, as I told you before we started. So let me know. I'm willing to do it too. So. What I, there's so much to your story and I know it. I'm going to pretend to not know some things today so I can ask some questions, but. There's so much, we have limited time, so I kind of want to jump a little bit in the middle, sort of.

• 2:59Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:59Ed Mylett?

  When we start and I, we're just, guys, we're going to go through so many different keys. Her story is going to blow you away. If you're on audio, you're missing her customary pink outfit today, which is a part of her brand, which is something we will discuss today. If you're on YouTube watching this, obviously you can see this. So, all right, let's talk for a minute. So you worked for kind of a big company for a while.

• 3:20Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 3:20Ed Mylett?

  Then you went smaller, then you went smaller, then you did your own. And I think there's a lot of people out there in the corporate world listening to this right now that have that entrepreneurial itch, that thing. And I don't think they realize you're sort of getting paid to learn right now. If you're at a big firm, hopefully learning some things. So. Discuss that journey from the big company a little bit to the startup phase of your life.

• 3:42Speaker 04

  Absolutely. So, look, I think I was conditioned very conventionally, right? When I got out of school, I needed to work for Fortune's most admired company. Like, I actually explicitly picked the company I wanted to work for because they were Fortune's most admired company. Thinking I'll get the best training and I can go in there and I can climb the ladder. And I think that, you know, I talked to a lot of students today and I say, don't treat your, don't treat your career like a ladder, treat it like a jungle gym. And swing toward those things that are going to stretch you, that are going to excite you. If I lucked out, that while I was there, not only was I recognizing that I was number, you know, 4,345 from an employee,

• 4:23Speaker 04

  and nobody was listening to all of my great ideas, Ed. And I had a big brother, who it was the moment in time of the dot com kind of boom in tech. And he went to this mysterious thing called a startup. I had never heard of such a thing before. And I'm watching my big brother, who's constantly changing his job. Like every six months, he has more responsibility in this business. And I'm thinking, wow, like, he's never done that before. He's getting to do that. And he has this crazy thing called equity, or, you know, skin in the game. And I'm like, they listen to my brother. He constantly gets to try new things. And he's gonna get a piece of this? What is this special place?

• 5:06Speaker 04

  And really, that informed my decision. I got a chance. They went public. Uh, you know, it was the, the thing to do in the early nineties. Uh, it is again, um, that's the trend. But when they went public, I got a chance to participate in friends and family. I had no money. No, no money. Um, so I thought, you know, I saved everything. I ate rice for a whole year. Like I paid a buck for lunch every day for a year. I'm saving like every little nickel and dime I can. I still didn't have much money to put in, but they like felt sorry for the little sister and let me do it. And I made Forex my money that time. And I was like, bye. Wow. Bye, corporate. Bye. What is this thing?

• 5:47Speaker 04

  And I basically started the, the chase for more responsibility, places where I would be heard, and skin in the game. And so I went to a company that was, I laughed today. It was hardly a startup. There were 400 people at it. But I had stock options and that what met that criteria. And that was the begin of that chase to finally where I was learning, to your point, in all those environments, often things that you never want to do, right? You learn too. It basically, I paid my dues long enough that I thought, you know what? I can do this. I can do that.

• 6:27Ed Mylett?

  Do you think everyone, so it's really interesting. It sounds to me like you kind of chase this corporate dream. It really, you weren't being educated necessarily to go become an entrepreneur. It's the stuff with learning about your brother and the equity and all these other things. I'm, I'm interested to know your insight on this because I, my answers have changed over time. I don't even know what I believe anymore. Do you think everybody should be an entrepreneur at some point in their life? Or do you think there's a particular proclivity, tolerance for stress and chaos in somebody that not everybody has?

• 6:57Speaker 04

  Oh, I think it's the latter. I don't think everybody has it. It's not like, by the way, that's not bad.

• 7:05Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  That's just being self-aware. And I think unless you have that DNA of insatiable curiosity and really extreme risk tolerance, you will be miserable. By the way, that even includes people who come work for me. It is a final step in my interviewing process. I really sit down and I'm like, okay, all the cards on the table. This is my responsibility. I'm going to tell you exactly what this environment is going to be like. And you can sit here right now and say to me, I'm out. Like, there's no way because we don't, you know, I don't want them to make a decision where they're going to be unhappy. I don't want to be unhappy because they didn't fit. And I really

• 7:45Speaker 04

  do think there's something about the pace with which you move as an entrepreneur and that willingness to ride the roller coaster and put your hands in the air that not everybody enjoys.

• 7:57Ed Mylett?

  Do you think so? And we're going to go to where you went and what happened in a second. But do you think the thing you said about skin in the game, though, I don't think you have to necessarily be entrepreneurial to get skin in the game. So I want to talk about that for a minute. Do you believe in, even in your business now, finding someone who's not got that risk tolerance? They're not entrepreneurial, but you need them in your company. Are you, are you sort of delving out a little bit of the skin in the game to people in your own businesses? And do you believe that people that may not have that spirit should still be looking for it?

• 8:26Speaker 04

  And this will be the most important thing for everybody listening to this right now. This is my success factor. I got to selling two businesses, the last for a billion dollars, because everyone who came on the ride with me got skin in the game.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  That is absolutely the most important thing you can do as a leader. Be it, you know, building whatever company you're building. People who come and work alongside of you, give them a piece of it. They will make decisions differently. They are owners of the destiny. They wake up earlier, they go to bed later, they spend your money, the company money like it is their own. And by the way, they also hold all their peers accountable. All of a sudden, you're in an environment in which it's not, you know, me sort of looking down, trying to impose that kind of performance. Your peers are looking at you like, hey, man, when we cross this finish line, you're going to have pulled your weight. Cause I own a piece of this. You own a piece of this.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  And I, I will tell you, I think that has been honestly the single most important thing I've done.

• 9:30Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, everybody, I was one of the best piece of advice ever on the show. And when I intro'd you, I meant what I said. You have this incredible ability to articulate these insights that you can only have if you have her experience. And I totally, by the way, agree with that. And since my first few ventures where I wasn't in control of that. That's been one of my benchmarks in anything I'm involved with is can I spread the skin around for reasons you said, but you've added to them better than I would have said it. So totally agree. Okay, so, cause there's so much to this woman's brain. I consider her a bit of a, I wouldn't call it a prodigy because she's learned these things, but I, I will use the word brilliant. Having watched her speak about these things, I, I will use the word brilliant through experience. And so the things she talks about aren't theoretical.

• 10:15Ed Mylett?

  They've been applied and worked. That's what's different from most people you're going to hear anywhere else. So we're going to fast forward a little bit and maybe we'll go backwards eventually. I don't know, but we'll fast forward. Just so everybody knows, if you don't know, you're going to learn about this, but it, she ended up being involved in what was sort of a female sexual health product. Female version of Viagra ends up being their business. Sprout Pharmaceuticals ends up being sold to these guys for a whole bunch of money. We'll give you the kicker in a little bit here of what happened after that, but I want to go into the middle of that journey now. So, because there's so many, I think most people that get into entrepreneurship, Cindy, I think they think, I know I'm going to have roadblocks. I know there's going to be these setbacks.

• 10:55Ed Mylett?

  I don't think they're equipped for the literal slam to the pavement or out of business, probably moments that are probably inevitable before the breakthrough, right? Like as bad as you think it's going to get. It could get so, so much worse, right?

• 11:12Speaker 04

  So much worse, so much worse. It's crying in the corner worse, yes.

• 11:17Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 11:17Speaker 04

  It really is.

• 11:18Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, and you've had a few of those moments. So let's, you end up, Connie finds this doctor, he's got this unbelievable idea. She buys in, her heart changes to be this champion for women's sexual health because no one else is really talking about it. It's mission driven, which we'll get to in a minute. But you got this thing rolling and you're gonna probably try to do something now to have someone with a little bit more capital, take it to a different level, maybe exit it. Take them through sort of that time in your life, because I think this is the best story I've ever heard. That time in your life.

• 11:50Speaker 04

  Oh my God, there's so many of those moments, by the way, with my face being like on the pavement. Because at first, when I was going through this, I was beholden to the FDA who rejected me. Who, by the way, when that came through, they completely controlled my fate. So the business was over. Except that I decided to fight them.

• 12:07Ed Mylett?

  Explain this. You gotta tell them this part of the story because it's unbelievable. Because you literally can't go forward without this FDA approval.

• 12:15Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 12:16Ed Mylett?

  So take them through the rejection part of that a little bit.

• 12:18Speaker 04

  I gotta tell you, so, so look, science, you know, scientific pathways are pretty straightforward. You meet specific endpoints, like these are outcomes you've agreed on with the FDA, right? It's geeky science, blah, blah, blah. So I'd done all the work, I'd met all the endpoints and I'm just sitting here waiting for them to do the review and give me the approval. And so we had a date, there's always a date, you're gonna get your acceptance. And, and I had happened to fly out, so I was flying in that day, like my team is sitting in the office, chilling the champagne. Our day is here, we've done all the studies, we've met all these outcomes, like here it comes.

• 12:55Speaker 04

  And I land in the airport and my assistant calls me and she says, hey, um, we just got a note from the FDA, we got turned down. It was just like boom. And it, it was so, I couldn't believe, I was blindsided, blindsided based on the data. And I sat down in the airport and I really didn't move. And I, and I was just sitting there mostly upset by how many people I'd just let down.

• 13:28Speaker 04

  Women I was fighting for, people who'd bet on me and give me money, people who had gone on this ride with me and put blood, sweat and tears into it as my team. It just was overwhelming. So I got, picked myself up. I had to go into the office. I walk into the office and it's like festive, right? Everyone's like walking around. I call everybody around the table and they're like around the table giddy. And I just dropped the bomb. We just got turned down by the FDA. Go home and work on your resumes. Oh. I wasn't quite, I was, I was tearful. They were shocked. No one knew what to do. I stood in the office. I waited till every single car was out of the parking lot. And I like collapsed in tears.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  And over the course of that weekend, my good fortune is that while I was avoiding all the phone calls, because what was I going to say? What was I going to say to my shareholders? What was I going to say to everybody else? I didn't have any answers. I went back and read all the emails from patients, from women who were struggling with this, who had written me. And I was reminded of the purpose, right? I was reminded why I did this in the first place. And it actually made my, me have complete clarity on what I was going to do. And so on a Monday, so it was a Friday, it was a really bad weekend. Um, on Monday, I called the team back in around the table, very different mood. They're coming up to the table, like waiting to know how many days till, you know, the doors are closing. And I said, we're going to dispute the FDA. Love this.

• 14:59Speaker 04

  And no one, no one spoke. And my IT guy finally was like, he, he raised his hand and he's like, um, can you do that? And I said, we're about to find out. And he literally put pink boxing gloves on my desk the next morning and they sit there to this day. We did the craziest thing. We fought the government for women's sexual pleasure. But it was the difference between me letting everyone down. And letting myself down, by the way, for not seeing it all the way through, for not taking it to the mat. Or really challenging what wasn't just.

• 15:35Ed Mylett?

  It's amazing of all of the decisions Cindy you made running that company, day-to-day decisions, who to hire, where to deploy capital, what marketing campaign to do, all of those decisions that a lot of entrepreneurs can relate to those decisions. It sounds hokey because there's a phrase, but it really is true that in our lives, in our moments of deepest decision, our destiny is shaped. It's not corny. And of all of the decisions, that has to be the most critical decision that you arrived at in your career was, we're going to fight this because otherwise the doors are closed, people start bailing, now you're taking water on deck. And I want everyone to get this lesson, and if you disagree, please tell me. The lesson here is that if you're an entrepreneur and your back's up against the wall,

• 16:18Ed Mylett?

  literally in this case, was thrown through the wall. You're no longer even in the room. Your back was not against the wall, they said you're now out of the room, this place does not exist.

• 16:28Speaker 04

  Right.

• 16:29Ed Mylett?

  The thing that's going to hold you together is your cause, is your crusade, is your mission, is your purpose. That is the thing. It's not going to be your, well, we got this tactical, you'll figure that stuff out. But if you're like, I'm almost out right now, if you're listening to this, you better go back to your purpose and your cause, true or false?

• 16:44Speaker 04

  A hundred percent true. And you know, I didn't go into the full story, but in one of those emails, a woman had seen the news blip that we were rejected and she wrote me and she said, I want to talk to you. And you know what, I would have been willing to talk to anybody but somebody inside of my company that weekend because I didn't have any answers. And I thought, I'm going to go meet her. And I drove hours to go meet her. And I sat with her and she basically looked at me and said, this is ruining my life, struggling with this. And she actually said something to me that has stuck with me to this day. She said, I have succeeded in every aspect of my life other than this. And what I saw is a woman who was struggling with something.

• 17:29Speaker 04

  She'd raised her hand a million times, asked for help. She had been patted on the shoulder and told like, it's okay, have a glass of wine, have a bubble bath, everything will be fine and dismissed. And she was who I was fighting for. And I really, in that moment, was so clear, like, I will not let her down. And I think your point is so true. If you're on, if you work on something, whatever your business is, there is some driver at the core, right in your heart for why you show up, why you pull the sheets off every day and you go get this done. You've got to stay really in touch with that every step of the way.

• 18:09Ed Mylett?

  What's amazing is that you've told that story, obviously, more than once in your life. And yet, still, when you tell it, I'm watching you, it impacts you emotionally. It impacts, it impacts me when you say it.

• 18:21Speaker 04

  I really think about the gift she gave me in that, in that moment and really like how much it resonated with me, even just, you know, the like human to human here on those moments in which we're struggling with something, right? And, and we need a champion. And like, are we going to be the champion for ourselves? I mean, you did an outstanding post. I'm a huge fan, obviously, and follow, you know, follow all of your pearls of wisdom on, on social. And you did a post the other day about mental health. And I, I loved it. And I loved it because you said, so many of us struggle with things. We don't speak about it because of shame and stigma. Like if we're struggling with something in physical health, no problem, we'll talk about it, right?

• 19:03Speaker 04

  That's socially acceptable. I'm going to just say to you, sexual health is the other leg of that stool. Mental health, physical health, sexual health, it's so stigmatized. It's embarrassing to bring up if you're struggling. But you know what? It's a huge part of how we are going to move through this life and our happiness and our partner and connection to people. So I, I loved that you posted about that.

• 19:26Ed Mylett?

  Thank you. It's interesting you say that. I made another post the other day about, I'm going to get this thing wrong. Gosh darn it, I'm going to mess this up. But it's such a critical part of people's lives. And I don't think I've ever had an appreciation for how deeply it affects many women. And I don't know why that's getting me emotional right now, but I made a joke the other day on my social because I was ill and I said, okay, guys, I'm done. I've watched Netflix. And I said, not just the movie, I think I've watched all of Netflix, right? But I started getting, this is what's interesting, Cindy, I just wanted to say it's more for me and you than anybody else. But I think the audience will will understand how deeply this is an issue still in our culture. And I'm talking with women here specifically, although of course it affects men, but we hear about that with the Cialis's and the Viagra's and the different treatments they can have and the mental changes and all these treatment centers.

• 20:11Ed Mylett?

  And so I start getting all these messages from people recommending shows on Netflix to me.

• 20:16Speaker 04

  Oh, interesting.

• 20:17Ed Mylett?

  And I'm gonna mess the name of the show up, everybody just forgive me, but most of you are gonna know what I'm talking about. I received literally over a thousand messages from women, my following is more women than men, ironically, saying, you gotta watch, I think it's called Sex Life or something like that on Netflix. You know what I'm talking about, the show? But it was that many, I started to watch it, it's probably not completely my jam, but I watch it and it told me how much that the thinking about it, the struggle, the wanting more intimacy, the wanting to be able to want it.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  Yes, wanting to want.

• 20:50Ed Mylett?

  Wanting to want it, right, is so prevalent with women in our culture. And so, speaking of culture, I'm curious for you, how big a part in getting, by the way, spoiler alert, we'll get there. She ends up getting approval, she ends up selling this thing for a gargantuan chunk of change. Lots of people benefited from it and there's another kicker coming in a minute that's gonna blow your mind. But you had to build something special that wasn't just the cause, it wasn't just that the product we could be effective.

• 21:20Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 21:20Ed Mylett?

  It was also some other elements, I wanna pick those apart. Culture, like, does everyone in that company bleed pink like you do in terms of the mission? And how did you get them to do that?

• 21:30Speaker 04

  Oh, unbelievably, I have a joke that sometimes we go up the elevator, you know, with other people in our in our building and they're like, do you all have to wear pink? And I was in the elevator one time with a group of my team and like, they were asking the team, like, more or less, does this woman make you all wear pink? And they're like, no, like, pink is who we are. I mean, pink is. Representative to us, emblematic, if you will, of everything that we're about, right? Power in the hands of women. And I think for me, pink was born out of a lot of stereotype and misconception, right? I reject the notion that pink or femininity is weakness.

• 22:13Speaker 04

  I think it is a strength in the in the boardroom. And I think that perspective is an important one. So I think it is about the mission. It's about picking people when they come in to interview you, who I think, you know, let's face it, I think for anybody listening, if you've built an organization, you're building a team, probably by the time they get to your desk, like they're abundantly qualified, right, for this position. It's really that it factor, right, of are they so emotionally connected to this mission? Like, do they really, is that what's going to drive them on this? And I think, you know, I've been so fortunate to be surrounded by the most incredible people.

• 22:55Speaker 04

  When we started, we didn't say like, hey, you know, let's get a billion dollar product to the market. We started by saying, we are going to change the conversation about women and sex forever.

• 23:07Ed Mylett?

  Forever.

• 23:08Speaker 04

  Forever. We're going to be that group that changes it. And that's what we did. And, you know, to your point, there are 26, 26 FDA approved drugs for some form of male sexual dysfunction. We were the first ever for women.

• 23:21Ed Mylett?

  So amazing.

• 23:22Speaker 04

  By the way, when we broke through, there was no such thing as a category called femtech. So what's femtech? You know, products that uniquely impact women and no such such category. It was coined the year after we were approved. In the next 48 months, guess how big a category it's going to be? 50 billion.

• 23:42Ed Mylett?

  Wow, wow.

• 23:43Speaker 04

  You tell me there wasn't an unmet need sitting there and latent demand. And I'm so proud of that revolution. And that's what drove my team. That piece of the revolution is really, the product was fabulous and it's very important. But it was more about that cultural shift and breakthrough that really, I think, drove everything we did.

• 24:04Ed Mylett?

  You're amazing. I just think you're amazing. I've learned a lot from you. And I thought a lot about that first talk I saw you give and I, where am I not doing some of these things in my company and in my business? And I think the cause, I want to dig a little deeper because you are the first person who I've ever heard say it this particular way, which is that Your whole business stems from the customer.

• 24:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:30Ed Mylett?

  To a degree, to someone I've talked to in a lot of businesses, to a degree that you are obsessed with them in a healthy way, in a loving way. In other words, I feel like there was a love for your customer that caused you to have a healthy, beautiful obsession with them that drove all of your decisions. And I don't think anyone in the entrepreneur space speaks about this as well as you do. So let's hear from you about that whole concept.

• 24:54Speaker 04

  If that's not what drives you, the profits will never come, right? People then profit. Like, how do you focus in so intently on your customer? Customer obsession, to your point. And for me, in that case, like, listen, that was the whole sort of courage, if you will, of making that pinnacle decision in the business was informed by somebody who was the customer, in essence, and being able to sit down with her and have a cup of coffee and talk it through. And I think, you know, over the course of the years, it delights me to sit down and like, I love to answer our customer service line. Like, I love it. I can't, first of all, I can't sit in an office. Like, I'm always wandering. I want to be, I want to know what's going on. And, you know, I love to sit down and answer it

• 25:38Speaker 04

  because if you're not listening to your end user, you are not making the shifts in your business or amping up the things that are working so successfully. Right? And I tease, there's a woman who's been with me for years now and run my customers, three companies later, she runs my customer service group. Her name is Chrissy. And I do sort of laugh because Chrissy will look at me like, I'll sit there for a while and she'll be like, you're not that good at this. Like, she, she, my team's taking back, my team's taking back. You're spending too much time, you're doing whatever. But I think that, that piece of it. And I think that's, again, culture, I think, is in essence what you're talking about. And what we talked about so much, you know, when we were last together, is how do you build

• 26:22Speaker 04

  a culture in which you're the leader, you're setting that tone? And my tone has always been, you know, customer first, culture first. And even to the extent of when I hire, like, how do you hire against the choices that you believe people will have to make to thrive in your organization?

• 26:42Ed Mylett?

  How do you go off firing?

• 26:44Speaker 04

  Hire against it, fire against it, incentivize for it. I mean, I say there are six choices you have to make to come work for me. That is what I talk about in every interview. That is what I'm looking for, that it factor. And, and by the way, like, I also hold everyone accountable to that. Because you would be doing a disservice to those in your culture if somebody is a misfit.

• 27:07Ed Mylett?

  What are some of those six, Cindy? What are some of those six?

• 27:09Speaker 04

  So the first choice, the foundational choices, you gotta choose to be an owner. And look, I'm gonna be part of that. My commitment to you is I'm gonna give you a piece of this. You are gonna own a piece of our destiny, right? But ownership takes many forms, including accountability. I own the successes and the failures equally, so it's an ownership kind of mindedness to it. You gotta choose to be bold. I mean, the fortune favors the bold, that's, that's, that's a true statement. You gotta choose to be quirky. What do I mean by that? Such a weird one. Quirky, I think, is about choosing to show up as your authentic self. And having created an environment, by the way, that celebrates that. Think about it, like, so many cultures are like, this is our way. We're this, we're this process.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  And I know you have to have processes, but actually, as soon as you beat the individuality out of people, you more, you basically homogenize and lessen your, lessen your chance for success. So I, the learning, learning family and appreciative are my final three. You know, as a group, I mean, we have, like, we have weird definitions of fun. When we do, you know, meetings together as a company, we just go learn from other companies.

• 28:21Ed Mylett?

  What do you mean by that?

• 28:23Speaker 04

  So, you know, when I first built customer service, for an example, in this, you know, knowing, like, customers are gonna drive our every decision. I looked around in my industry and I thought, well, you know what? Healthcare companies are not known for customer service. So I didn't really have a peer who's like a CEO I could go, hmm, can I go learn? And I thought, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go learn from Tony Hsu at Zappos. And I flew the whole company there.

• 28:49Ed Mylett?

  Good pick.

• 28:49Speaker 04

  Every employee went and learned at Zappos. And like, that's such a big piece of it. And I, we're totally familial, but I think appreciative is, is. Shouldn't be overlooked. And I think that is a choice for all of us, right? I think that's a life choice. You show up with an attitude of gratitude. And even in our darkest moments, Ed, and I think there were lots of those moments in which we probably weren't going to succeed. We would sit back and I think rather than dwell on the darkness, we would be awestruck with gratitude for what we were trying to accomplish.

• 29:31Ed Mylett?

  Every once in a while, we do a show and I start getting messages, sending people, I should have paid you for the show. Like, I'm just gonna be honest with you, like, I almost want to charge everybody right now. I mean, I do, but I don't, you know? I want to go to two of those things you said. I just, you guys, having had a very long entrepreneurial entrepreneurial journey myself. When I hear brilliant truth, I just want, I do everything I can to go stamp this. Please, if you're an entrepreneur or thinking about being an entrepreneur, or if you know one, share it with them. This is one of these you listen or watch more than one time. I'm just telling you. But the two middle ones there, the appreciative part, brilliant, obviously. The bold part, almost nobody tells people that when they hire them. Almost nobody does.

• 30:15Ed Mylett?

  And the quirky part, I love. You do a little thing with the quirky thing. You create a culture. Don't you like nickname everybody or something like that? Like, that's quirky to me and it's cool. And that helps people express the extreme parts of their personality. The parts they usually conceal from people that really connect you with people to get to them to express. When you tell them to be quirky and express themselves, but you do the nickname thing.

• 30:39Speaker 04

  Listen, I'm such a, it really is my quirk. I've nicknamed people from the time I'm really little. I love to throw nicknames around. And so, you know, when I started building organizations, I nicknamed everybody. And it became our own internal language. By the way, my mom worked for me in my very first company. And her nickname was Two Cent. Because you know moms love to put their two cents in for everybody. But what I would have never expected in my wildest imagination is that a rap persona developed from this. My mom would show up in like gold chains wrapping for my sales meetings. And my nieces and nephews would be like, what happened? What happened to Lulu?

• 31:19Speaker 04

  But look, the beauty of me being me and nicknaming people and sharing one of my quirks with everyone else is that it bonded us in a way that even if, and I have a lot of salespeople, right? They very rarely will be in the home office. When they meet somebody, they already know something about them. They know their story because we have talked about them for all this time on Slack. And they know the funny of that story that was the basis of the nickname. And we're so, I think, really connected in that way. I have to make one point on the bold and not telling people to be bold. That's such a mistake. Yep.

• 32:01Speaker 04

  Right? To not tell people to take the shot, to take the bold action. The worst version is for us to force people into like, oh, I have to make one perfect decision. One perfect decision as opposed to what if you were to make five decisions? Right? Three of them are [BLEEP]. But two of them were really good. And that means you're way ahead of the game because you basically gave that. My very favorite business story is about Southwest Airlines. I don't know if I shared this when we were together. I love this. Probably everybody who's listening has flown Southwest. And maybe this is folklore, but when they came out, think about this as an airline.

• 32:42Speaker 04

  They were totally disruptive in an industry that was very stodgy, conservative. Safety was the most important and they were going to be fun. Yeah. Fun. That's a bold idea, right? An airline is going to be fun, but Herb Kelleher was so clear in that vision that he basically empowered everybody to make jokes. And on one of their very early flights, flight attendant came on and said, "In the case of a water landing, we'll be serving Mai Tais off the right wing." Well, you know, there's a passenger flying Southwest for the first time going, "What?" And they write their strongly worded note, like, "This is not professional. People are, you know, afraid of flying, blah, blah, blah." And the legend goes that that, you know, came into Southwest,

• 33:27Speaker 04

  and as it does, it went all the way up to the desk of the CEO. And you know the classic response. It would be, you know, "Dear so-and-so, we're so very sorry. We spoke with..." He wrote back on his letterhead, three words, "We'll miss you."

• 33:43Ed Mylett?

  Wow, wow.

• 33:45Speaker 04

  That's bold.

• 33:46Ed Mylett?

  I have not heard that story. That's bold.

• 33:48Speaker 04

  But you know what's so great about that is he knew exactly who he was going to be. He knew he would never be for that customer, but he was going to be that for millions of others. And I think that's about, what do you, you don't compromise ever who you want to be. And that in and of itself is a boldness and a courage, I think, in how you want to show up in this world.

• 34:13Ed Mylett?

  Early in my career, a mistake I made, I just want to share with the audience, because I, you probably didn't do this. Number one, if you're going to tell people to be bold, you better have their back, which is what you're saying that old Herb did there. You have their back, right?

• 34:23Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 34:24Ed Mylett?

  And I think the other part of the culture you have to create, and I didn't do this well when I was young. I was too intense. I was too hard on people publicly. And that I think eventually people lost the belief that I had their back. And so the more I was hard on people publicly, the less they were willing to be bold, because they may get some sort of repercussions from me. And so also as a leader, if you're going to create that bold environment... These people need to believe like Herb and that story really believe that you're back. That's something I really changed as I went into my late twenties and early thirties. And I'm just wondering now in hindsight, after you just told that story, I wonder if that's why so many of my supposed business successes took place around those times.

• 35:02Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 35:02Ed Mylett?

  As I stopped doing that, does that make any sense? You know, those really intense driving leaders.

• 35:08Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 35:08Ed Mylett?

  Sometimes that intense environment can cross over into that person doesn't have my back.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. No, I, that's absolutely right. I think that's an awesome observation. When people make crazy, bold decisions, even when they go wrong, I mean, they're part of company folklore. Right? You don't need to talk about them at the meetings because if nothing else, like again, I think having a sense of humor away in everything matters. It matters. You, there are things are going to go sideways. They are not going to go right. And you really have to know that that is not going to defeat you.

• 35:44Ed Mylett?

  Huge thing, I was just gonna say what I learned from you. And the more I've listened to you and I've thought about, okay, what do you have in common with these other CEOs that I know? More and more, humor is part of their game.

• 35:56Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:56Ed Mylett?

  More and more, I'm serious, more and more humor. There's that old school driver leader curmudgeonly CEO thing that does not play a lot anymore.

• 36:06Speaker 04

  Uh-uh.

• 36:06Ed Mylett?

  And the, the humor things, another thing I learned from you, I just want to share the others that I learned from you. Because I am an intense guy and I think that if you're somebody that's that way and you, one thing you do that was just a very simple thing you did that I've started to do in a couple of my different businesses now is, you said to me, it was so basic, you think, because when you're an entrepreneur, you're looking for inches, right? Because.

• 36:26Speaker 04

  Sure, of course.

• 36:27Ed Mylett?

  Level. And you said you basically had lunch every day with the team in the boardroom, like you'd just be in there. And I went, I don't do that. I, I close the door and have lunch. And that may sound silly because I wanted to work through lunch, but I missed hundreds of opportunities to bond, create culture, quirkiness, all these other things that you described, something that simple made a difference for me. So thank you for that.

• 36:49Speaker 04

  Thank you. That's awesome. We still have it. We call it the glass table. It's technically metal today, but we started out in my very first company with this, you know, pretty small, like rectangular glass table. I mean, there were three of us. We had lunch together, but over the years, I mean, it has looked like the last supper. Like my table is the longest thing you've ever seen, but we still sit down every day together as a team. And the, the glass table not only. Gets us all on the same page. We have absolute transparency in the company because everyone's always talking about exactly where we're at, right? Nothing is ever missed, but it is really like we'll, we do that for part of the time, but it's not all business. We also of course have to chat, you know, solve the dilemmas of reality television the night before.

• 37:30Ed Mylett?

  I know.

• 37:31Speaker 04

  Insights into.

• 37:32Ed Mylett?

  I learned these things aren't little. They're huge when you, they're holes in your game as an entrepreneur. That's why when you're listening to this, by the way, maybe you're not even an entrepreneur. Maybe you're a school teacher listening to this. A lot of these principles apply to being a better school teacher, if you're listening to it. Okay. So spoiler alert, because I want to get to a lot of your principles too. Spoiler alert, she does, she sells this thing for a ton of cheddar.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:54Ed Mylett?

  What's most incredible is what happens after this, without getting into a lot of the details, but tell them kind of where you are and not, we're going to get to the incubator stuff.

• 38:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:06Ed Mylett?

  Tell them where you are now and what happened after the sale of this company, because this is all timer, guys. This is an all timer, all timer, all timer. You do a B type exit like she had, and not that long later, tell them what happened.

• 38:20Speaker 04

  Oh my gosh. So I sold it for a billion dollars in cash upfront and then they never launched it. So if this is not like the case study for, there is no such thing as a happy ending unless you create it. This is it, which seems apropos for the story. And I just, I gotta tell you, I went from fighting 26 drugs for men, one finally across the finish line for women, women who deserve this forever and need it, have access to it, to nothing. This was again, that moment of, am I going to let everyone down?

• 39:00Speaker 04

  Not on my watch. And so I ended up going back to the company and I said, you haven't launched it, give it back. And the first, the first conversation, which was a breakfast meeting in New York, their CEO, who's a, who's a nice guy, and by the way, was a new CEO from the one who'd purchased it from me. He said, "We paid you a billion dollars in cash for it." And I said, "I know. This is a lot of value." I'm like, "I'm glad you know that, because so too do my shareholders." And so ultimately, the punchline of the story is, I made them pay attention. They weren't doing the things they had committed to do in the deal contractually.

• 39:42Speaker 04

  And in exchange for me not seeking action, they gave it back to me and we kept the billion dollars and we invested today in other female disruptors.

• 39:51Ed Mylett?

  I was just hearing it. She just said, she sold this thing for a billion dollars. She got it back for a ham sandwich. And she has it right now and she's going to be the one to take the mission to its final fulfillment now. It's unbelievable story. And by the way, let a little thing I learned, I'll get too detailed because it's a private thing. Little thing I learned is when you have an exit, if you're an entrepreneur, write some stuff in that sucker that makes them deliver on some benchmarks so that they have to perform or you can get it back, right?

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Everyone, everyone, everyone who's ever going to sell a business, when you sell a business, you are going to most likely get some money upfront and you're going to get a backend. It may be royalties, milestone payments, whatever that is. That backend, I promise you, in a standard legal document is going to be governed by, quote, "best efforts", a best efforts clause. You know what you're going to think as a founder, as soon as somebody else takes over your baby, you're going to think, "Your best efforts are not my best efforts." And so I'm really unhappy because you're not maximizing the potential of this asset. So really, you get smarter as you go along, right? Ed, I sold my first business, best efforts clause. This business for a billion dollars, really specific things. How

• 41:03Speaker 04

  many salespeople would they have? What kind of marketing budget would they have? And again, it wasn't extraordinary asks. It was what was required to launch this brand. But when they didn't do it, I had leverage.

• 41:15Ed Mylett?

  I love it. It also protects the people that you feel in your heart and mind you're leaving behind that are going to stay when you ultimately might leave everybody. So I learned, I've learned so much. I just, and by the way, it's just your treasure chest of information. All right, let's talk, let's talk female entrepreneurs for a minute, entrepreneurship in general. So pink ceiling, the incubator, she is now, I don't call it an angel investor because that's not exactly the term I would use, but she is now investing in female entrepreneurs on a pretty regular basis now. She's got several in her portfolio. And I'm curious, the basic question first, what do you look for to where you're willing to part with some of your capital to back somebody? What, I'm an entrepreneur right now, maybe I'm a female entrepreneur, I'm listening

• 41:59Ed Mylett?

  to this. What does someone with all of your knowledge base look for in an entrepreneur that you want to believe in?

• 42:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. Okay. So first I'll tell you a little bit about the incubator. I'm looking for disruption. I'm looking for those people taking big swings at firsts. I like firsts and they're the ones that are hardest to get people to bed on. I know, having built it that way, right? So first, and often things that are going to really change the social conversation. So those are, that's my love. And my love is in health and wellness. But when I'm looking at an investment, I gotta tell you, I'm looking at the person. That's it. I'm looking at that entrepreneur, right? They may have great ideas. I see great ideas walk into my office every day. But you know what? Great ideas don't execute themselves. People execute great ideas. So who is that

• 42:49Speaker 04

  person and how are they wired? And I think one of the things I value so much beyond that resilience, right? Beyond that ability to get back up when you're, when you're knocked down is curiosity. Can I tell you the two things that are the most underrated characteristics? And actually, I think they're very intertwined. Curiosity and humility.

• 43:12Speaker 04

  That curiosity, that willingness to cut, like, I want to know, is that, is that something better? To your point, it's inches, right? I want to understand that technique. I want to go learn this. If I know by stories that people tell me, if they have been wired with this from a really young age, and those people will be wildly, the most successful people I know, like you, Ed, are inherently curious. And there's a humility to it, right? We have a really pretty profound arrogance right now in, in, in entrepreneurship. It's become cool. It's actually pretty cool to be an entrepreneur. Sexy. It's not like, I think, when we both started and everyone looked at you and said, are you insane?

• 43:53Speaker 04

  Like, back at, you know, nowadays, you start and you start to win awards before you've ever executed. That doesn't work. So that humility is actually what's going to allow you to pivot when you have to, to take the constructive advice, to feel the sense of obligation that when somebody wrote you a check, that was their kid's college fund, that was their parents' long-term care, and you have an obligation to be a good steward of that and actually pay them back and then some.

• 44:24Ed Mylett?

  I look for that in my friends. Curiosity and humility are interesting people and great to be around.

• 44:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:30Ed Mylett?

  You know, I don't want to be around super arrogant people that every conversation's about them and I don't want that. And I also don't want the same conversation every single time. I want people that are curious and learning and sharing things with me. And so.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  Can I tell you, I have to tell you a story, Ed, about this. So this was like a great, I don't know, like an eye-opening moment for me even in this. My very first company had a product that was like an in-office procedure. So there was a, a technique to doing it. And we would film like all these surgeons doing their respective techniques, and we would use it for education. If I got to like the tier B surgeons, right? And I would show them other people's techniques, they would be like, oh, that's wrong. Oh, no. But if I went to the top people in the field, the tier A plus, plus, plus, I would show them videos of other people, they'd be like, oh, my God, what's that? Oh, I never thought of that. Oh, I'm going to try that.

• 45:25Speaker 04

  That is the difference between A plus and B minus.

• 45:30Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh, that's so true. It's so true. I have to tell you, you're making me think about things I haven't really thought about in a while. But you know, when I do my private coaching, I don't, I'm really picky nowadays about who I'll do this with. But I've been blessed to do it with, you know, some really well-known and influential people.

• 45:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:49Ed Mylett?

  And it's so interesting to me that you said it the way you did because compared to say 10 years ago, when I was working with somewhat influential people.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:57Ed Mylett?

  Compared to the real leaders that, you know, some have led countries or, you know, big businesses or entertainers, whatever, the more prominent they are, they show up with their notes out in a pen and are leaning in and writing. And these are the people you would think that need me the least.

• 46:13Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 46:13Ed Mylett?

  Are the most curious, the most inquisitive, ask the most follow-up questions, are the most detailed, send the follow-up email with, I thought about what you said. And whereas 10 years ago, I got very little of that. I'd get people on calls kind of with their hands here kind of nodding because of the difference between the B and that elite level is so true. Oh, my gosh, that's true. Very good.

• 46:34Speaker 04

  That's it. You gotta get to that. When anybody's looking at a pitch, get to that, like, get to that curiosity and how, how early that showed up.

• 46:43Ed Mylett?

  Has it been worth it? Has it been worth it? All you've been through, all the ups and downs, the work, the things you sacrificed, by the way.

• 46:51Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 46:52Ed Mylett?

  You mean, social life, family life, personal life, all those things.

• 46:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:57Ed Mylett?

  Has it been worth it? I think it's a valid question to ask somebody.

• 47:02Speaker 04

  I wouldn't change a thing. But again, I think that's about, you know, inherently being grateful. How lucky am I? Right? This is what I say to myself every day. How lucky am I? How lucky am I to sit here and have people with unbelievable ideas want to share them with me? How lucky am I to be sitting here talking to Ed Mylett? All of that. But is there sacrifice? For sure. For sure. Like, I, I worked every hour of every day on this and on my baby. And like, I didn't have a social life. I tease my, I'm engaged now. But when I started dating, it was after I'd sold my business. And, and I've lived in Raleigh for 10 plus years at that point. And he would ask me

• 47:45Speaker 04

  out like on dates and say, have you ever been to this restaurant? No. Ever been, no. Have you ever, and I think by like the third or fourth one, he was like, "When did you move here again?" "Ten years ago." And he loves to say to me even to this day, "Welcome to your city." And, and I think, look, you know, that was, it's not that that wasn't at moments very painful, right? And lonely in, in going through that. But in the end, no, I'm so, I'm so fortunate for everything. And, and most of all, I think I'm fortunate for the multiplier effect of ownership. For all those people who I gave skin in the game, to watch what that has done in their lives, to watch this is how they make decisions differently,

• 48:28Speaker 04

  um, to watch the things that they've been able to do that were really just their passions. It's awesome.

• 48:34Ed Mylett?

  Please listen to this incredible woman, those of you that are building a business in the sharing of equity. I have friends that sold businesses where they kept it all, and I have friends who shared. And I will tell you the difference in their bliss and happiness and fulfillment level, five, 10, 15, 20 years down the road is so infinitely different. Because I relate to what you said. I, you know, you and I are fortunate enough now that we now sort of are around people that also have a couple bucks from time to time. Whereas when we were doing these things, we did it. And so many of my friends are like, "So yeah, you've been to so and so restaurant in Paris, right?" And I'm like, "No, I've, I've not been there." Well, you, the Monte Carlo blah, blah, blah hotel, you've clearly been

• 49:16Ed Mylett?

  there on your global express because you've got the jet, you can go there. And no, no, I haven't been there either. No. Because for the better part of my life, I was in the same seat in the same place. And I can tell everybody now, looking back, I don't feel like I missed out on something.

• 49:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:31Ed Mylett?

  I'm not saying that during those times I didn't. Sometimes when I'd see posts or people doing things or, but I now on the other side of it, which is, by the way, guys, that's why you have to win. If you're gonna sacrifice so much, win. So the end of the story is a good one. We don't want you to sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, and then lose. Right? So there's gotta be this part of you that's got this will to win.

• 49:55Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 49:55Ed Mylett?

  There's, Cindy, one thing you underestimate about you is, and I know everyone you are, you, you, there's probably people that if we took them out of your company, you, this doesn't happen. But there's also the, the stoic, quiet will of this woman, of this leader in many different moments. And I know you have humility. But at least admit that to my audience, please, that you had this will, this depth of will that is special. You know you do, and all great entrepreneurs do. True?

• 50:26Speaker 04

  Well, absolutely. I and I'll tell you, we had this one last moment. So you know, when I fought the FDA, it like forced them to have all these public meetings and to actually very publicly discuss this issue with with women and with scientists. And in the with a very last meeting where they invited in all these experts from the country who had to vote basically on our data, would you approve it or not approve it? It was just their recommendation. So most important like game of our life, our Super Bowl, right? We've done so many hours of prep to go in because it's like being at the Supreme Court. It's not the Supreme Court, it's at the FDA, but literally you're in the room being quizzed. They get to ask you questions. The public gets

• 51:10Speaker 04

  to speak. Unbelievable. And the night before we go, I threw a victory party. And my chairman of my board was like, what? What's happening? Everybody needs to be in bed. Go to bed. Like, get get prepared. It's the biggest moment of our life. And I looked at him and I said, we are walking in tomorrow as champions. Win or lose, we have done everything we can inside our control. We will walk in as champions. And I got to tell you, my team walked in as champions and we won the day.

• 51:42Ed Mylett?

  I love it. I love it. I love it. You you fire me up. You fire me up. Okay, I we're out of time. I want to do one. But before the show, just so you know, guys, off camera, like, we'll probably do two of these. And we will. I already know when people are listening to this, that they're gonna go, please have her back. And so we definitely will. But I'll give you a basic. First off, because I'm gonna let you finish and I'll send this out when you're done. But first off, I want to say thank you to you. You're important. You're important for a lot of reasons. One, I'm I'm a man, right? And

• 52:18Ed Mylett?

  You know, you would think that your role is that you're this example to women in business, and we need you. We need more of these unbelievable women leaders in business to be willing to share their ideas and their thoughts, because a lot of the guys do, but not enough of the ladies have done that. So you're so important in our culture, I believe, as an example. I can't wait for Bella, my daughter, to watch this conversation. I've told her all about you, obviously. But also, you've been important to me. I've learned a lot from you, and you've inspired me. You've made me think through some of the ways I handle some of the businesses that I'm in. And you know this, you and I are around everybody. It's not often that that type of impact is made on me. So I want to thank you personally. And that's why I had you today. You know, everyone doesn't

• 53:02Ed Mylett?

  know this, but I'm ill. We were gonna do this in person. She's like, let's delay. I go, no, we can't delay this. I need to have this conversation with you. So thank you, number one.

• 53:09Speaker 04

  Well, thank you, Ed. I'm so appreciative, really, for you to have me on and to expose me to your incredible audience. I really, I appreciate. That's a gift to me.

• 53:19Ed Mylett?

  I know that your focus is on helping women, but I guess my point is, is that you help everybody. If there is a gaping hole in the entrepreneurial space, it is for we need more women to step forward and have these incredible stories and teach us these lessons. There's just, there's not enough. And by the way, ladies that are listening to this, there is a huge need, a huge space that is waiting for you to emerge, that is waiting for you to contribute in a way that you cannot even imagine could happen if you'll just go do something great and then share with us how you did it. So I want to make sure that I've at least acknowledged that fact. Okay, last thing, easy question, but it's, it's an important one. So I always have this thought in my mind. I get access to somebody like you, but people listening to this are thinking, I'm

• 54:01Ed Mylett?

  an entrepreneur right now. I've started. I'm not where I want to be. In fact, I'm, I'm not even where I thought I would be.

• 54:07Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 54:07Ed Mylett?

  I got a little bit of this imposter syndrome that both you and I have had before, that you kind of start looking around one day at your office on a Wednesday, and you're like, am I kidding myself and everybody here with this whole story I'm telling? We all have had that.

• 54:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure.

• 54:20Ed Mylett?

  What would you say to that person who's like, hey, listen, I need to know what you think I should be thinking or doing if I'm at that stage of my career? And I know that was a long time ago for you. But if you could go back and help, because we've helped entrepreneurs at all levels. So I want to go all the way to that level last. Hopefully, you stuck around to listen or watch at the end. What would you say to that person who says, hey, listen, I'm, I'm, I'm further behind even than I thought I would be. What do I need to change? What do I need to think or do differently?

• 54:45Speaker 04

  I'm gonna tell you, just as you've set that up, you've gotten into your own head. And you've had this idea that you have to have all of the answers to take the next step. That you have to have perfectly imagined it. And I'm gonna tell you, that is a false assumption. You just have to have the courage to take the next step. Just go. And I think we can, because of all of those feelings, basically erode our own confidence, right? And confidence, we all talk about the confidence, the swagger that you need is in entrepreneurship. I'm gonna replace that notion for you right now. Replace confidence with competence.

• 55:31Speaker 04

  No one knows this stuff better than you. And for that reason alone, you can walk into the room, with any room, with authority and pitch it and convince people and persuade them.

• 55:45Ed Mylett?

  So good, so good. I, uh, I'm stealing that from you, just so you know. I, I, I just believe if you're, I agree with you. If you're great at something, good things are gonna happen long term. You're just great at, you're the best, which I think you are. I just think you're remarkable. I know I've said that probably 50 times during the conversation, but I just, I'm very grateful that you exist. I'm grateful that, because you don't need to do it, very similar like me. You don't need to be out here, you don't need to be teaching this. You could be sitting on some beach somewhere with your fiancee and just counting your cheddar. But you're out there, you're out there helping other people accumulate, you know, great things in their life, and so.

• 56:22Speaker 04

  I gotta tell you, and when I got to the, you know, the billion dollar club, um, as a, you know, a female entrepreneur, getting to sell her company for a billion dollars, that should not be a lonely club. And, uh, and so I so appreciate your comments. It doesn't make any sense. And nothing fires me up more than the multiplier effect. Like, how do I create? Yes, I've gotten to, um, you know, a billion dollar exit for myself. I really hope I'll build a billion dollars worth of wealth for women.

• 56:54Ed Mylett?

  I love it. Oh, you're going to, you're going to. I, uh, you're gonna be, you're, you're gonna be a leader for all these women that are gonna do this. So Cindy Eckert, thank you for today. So, so.

• 57:06Speaker 04

  Feel better.

• 57:08Ed Mylett?

  I feel so good after this conversation.

• 57:11Speaker 04

  Bad, by the way, people.

• 57:13Ed Mylett?

  All of this medication that I'm on, and I just needed to talk to you for an hour, and I'm like, ready to run through a wall. I also can't wait to listen to this back. And honestly, I'm gonna listen to this before it comes out, because I got some things I want to write down, because we went through so many things. So, thank you. Guys, follow Cindy all over social media, you'll find her. And then, in my case, share the show. If you're listening to the audio, go to YouTube, subscribe to the video. If you're watching the video, go to Spotify, or Stitcher, iTunes, or one of these places, and subscribe to the audio as well. Okay? God bless you all, and max out.

• 57:49Speaker 03

  This is the Ed Milat Show.