Carine Clark: 4x CEO, First Colony Mortgage, Resilience, Beating Ovarian Cancer, Introvert, Leader

[00:00:00 -> 00:00:05] So Kareem Clark is a four-time president and CEO of High Growth Companies and the current CEO of [00:00:05 -> 00:00:09] First Colony Mortgage. Before that, you led Banyan and earlier you led Allegiance, which [00:00:09 -> 00:00:15] became and became CEO of Merit CX. Earlier in your career, you held major leadership roles at [00:00:15 -> 00:00:21] Novell, Auteris, Symantec. Those are some major Utah players.

Like you run deep in Utah here [00:00:21 -> 00:00:27] and the tech history of Utah. He had a vision that I could help him deliver on and he wanted me to [00:00:27 -> 00:00:33] come and change the mortgage industry, to bring in tech, to clean up systems, to be just this fire [00:00:33 -> 00:00:39] starter. And I loved that. Every time I go up the ladder and meet people of a higher social station [00:00:39 -> 00:00:44] or status in business, I start realizing they're no different than me.

Yeah. They just put on pants [00:00:44 -> 00:01:15] the same one, one leg at a time. And they're just a human. Welcome back to the Startup Ignition Podcast.

[00:01:15 -> 00:01:19] Thank you so much for watching the last episode. It was an amazing episode with Maddie Gay, [00:01:19 -> 00:01:24] who we had the founder and CEO of Primo Golf Apparel. And he had amazing stories with Phil [00:01:24 -> 00:01:29] Mickelson and so many things at the Masters. But today we have an even better guest.

Sorry, Maddie. [00:01:30 -> 00:01:37] We're going to trump you out. Today we have Kareem Clark, who is CEO times four, startup founder, [00:01:37 -> 00:01:44] mentor, advisor, investor, and just has a tenured past. And I'm so excited to dig into it.

So welcome [00:01:44 -> 00:01:50] to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. I mean, I was like so shocked that she's [00:01:50 -> 00:01:53] like, yeah, I'll open up my schedule.

We'll find some time. We'll get this to work. I'm like, oh my [00:01:53 -> 00:01:58] gosh, thank you so much. Because I know you're now CEO at First Colony Mortgage.

First Colony [00:01:58 -> 00:02:04] Mortgage. And, but you've been a CEO many times in the past with a ton of Utah brand names here. I know [00:02:04 -> 00:02:10] you know my father, John. Of course.

And, but yeah. So here's some history for you. So we've got Adam [00:02:10 -> 00:02:16] Edmunds on the program. Yeah.

Yeah. As an episode. And so she is the one that came in after Adam left [00:02:16 -> 00:02:24] to be CEO of Merit CX. Oh yeah.

Which was a first called the Allegiance. Allegiance Technologies was [00:02:24 -> 00:02:29] acquired, I think, by Merit. Is that how that worked? So Adam was the CEO of Allegiance.

Yeah. Yeah. [00:02:29 -> 00:02:35] His investors called and said, we're looking for a new CEO. Yeah.

And I said, I'll only take the job [00:02:35 -> 00:02:40] if I can hire and fire who I want. Yeah. Because they were gonna make a change with Adam. Yeah.

And [00:02:40 -> 00:02:45] Adam was, is terrific and was a platinum bat and he was a spiritual leader of the company. Yeah. So [00:02:45 -> 00:02:50] I wouldn't take it unless I could control that. Yeah.

So they said, okay. So did you end up [00:02:50 -> 00:02:57] keeping Adam? Yeah. Okay.

So you were fighting for him. Okay, cool. Stayed. And, um, we, um, built that [00:02:57 -> 00:03:01] company and then sold it to Merit's Market Research.

Okay. So you can have before Merit's [00:03:01 -> 00:03:05] acquisition. Yeah. Okay.

Got it. And they, then Merit's acquisition, they, [00:03:05 -> 00:03:08] that's when I first met you was that. They would only do the deal if I would stay as CEO [00:03:08 -> 00:03:13] of a combined entity. Yes.

And so Adam really didn't want to stay. He wanted to go to podium, [00:03:13 -> 00:03:18] but he stayed for enough time. And I had Dana Russell. And now he's CEO of Entrada and doing [00:03:18 -> 00:03:22] it.

Yeah. Oh, he's crushing it. I'm so proud of him. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was, we had a fun [00:03:22 -> 00:03:27] time. Yeah. Okay.

So that's, that's, that's when I met her is when she was, I actually didn't [00:03:27 -> 00:03:32] know that you came in before the acquisition. I thought you came with the acquisition. Okay. [00:03:32 -> 00:03:38] Oh, that's cool.

That's good. That's news to me. So explain that, uh, metaphor, the platinum [00:03:38 -> 00:03:42] bat. What is the platinum bat?

I've never heard that before. Really? No. Well, we're [00:03:42 -> 00:03:48] going to have some fun today.

Yeah. Mr. Depp Mountain. Yeah.

So I worked at publicly traded [00:03:48 -> 00:03:53] companies, large companies. I've worked at startups. I have, people say, are you, are you a small [00:03:53 -> 00:03:59] company or big? I'm like, yes, I can call.

Yeah. So, um, in a company that is like growing [00:03:59 -> 00:04:04] really fast, you need someone who I call the platinum bat who can set the biggest deals, [00:04:04 -> 00:04:08] who can close the biggest deals. Like a heavy slugger. Yeah.

Who has a slugger to go in. [00:04:08 -> 00:04:11] You're not going to send them on every deal. You're going to send them on the $3 million, [00:04:11 -> 00:04:16] the $10 million deals. You're going to send them in because you know, they can set it and [00:04:16 -> 00:04:21] close it and that they have the gravitas to be able to talk the talk, walk the walk.

And [00:04:21 -> 00:04:26] that's what Adam was. So he was like the heavy hitter. Like he was the one landing deals. [00:04:26 -> 00:04:31] Yeah.

Because he has, he has great foresight, great vision. He understood the tech, he built [00:04:31 -> 00:04:38] it and, uh, it's a waste of time to put him on running the company. Yeah. Like his, his [00:04:38 -> 00:04:43] skills.

He was a rainmaker. Yeah. Perfect for bringing in the biggest partnerships and the [00:04:43 -> 00:04:47] biggest deals. Yeah.

That's interesting. That's great. Well, I do have a bio for you, [00:04:47 -> 00:04:52] Karine. So I don't read it because it's like, oh, boring.

No, it's people have to know who [00:04:52 -> 00:04:57] we're dealing with here. Okay. Just a girl, the audience, just a girl, the audience needs [00:04:57 -> 00:05:01] to know. So I'm going to read it for you.

If it's wrong, correct me on the fly. Okay. [00:05:01 -> 00:05:05] So Karine Clark is a four-time president and CEO of high growth companies and the current [00:05:05 -> 00:05:11] CEO of first colony mortgage. Before that you led Banyan and earlier you led allegiance, [00:05:11 -> 00:05:17] which became and became CEO of merit CX earlier in your career.

You held major leadership roles [00:05:17 -> 00:05:23] at Novell, Arturis, Symantec. Those are some major Utah players. Like you run deep in Utah [00:05:23 -> 00:05:30] here and the tech history of Utah. Um, I'm old.

Okay. I, I, if you say it first, I guess. [00:05:30 -> 00:05:36] Okay. Today you, you also serve as executive chair of Domo.

Is that still a position you're [00:05:36 -> 00:05:43] holding today? And you sit on the board of MX. Is that true? And Nelnet bank and you chair [00:05:43 -> 00:05:49] Utah's economic opportunity board.

That's still true. And you serve on the executive board of [00:05:49 -> 00:05:54] Silicon slopes. Wow. Okay.

And you, and you actively invest. Are you still investing? [00:05:54 -> 00:06:00] Still investing. Still investing.

If you go to a business event in Utah and there's going to be [00:06:00 -> 00:06:06] panels or speakers, these are always on the dock. Yeah. Always in the dock. Admit it.

They need a [00:06:06 -> 00:06:11] girl. They need a girl. Okay. Well, we were talking pre-podcast.

How many women have we had on the [00:06:11 -> 00:06:14] podcast and we're like, we kind of choked ourselves. We haven't had that many, but you [00:06:14 -> 00:06:19] know, we're super happy to have you. I get born the top of the top. So hopefully you set the example [00:06:19 -> 00:06:23] for many more women to come onto our podcast.

I have a theory though. That's that you brought [00:06:23 -> 00:06:27] this topic up and you're going to finish her bio. Or is that it? Right.

No, that's good. If [00:06:27 -> 00:06:30] I just want to say the Olympics, I work on the Olympics. Oh, you were, I didn't know that. [00:06:30 -> 00:06:34] Yeah.

I was on the big committee and I serve on the in 2002. No. Or the one coming up. Yeah.

[00:06:34 -> 00:06:38] So the one coming up. So Frasier invited me to be on the bid. Oh, that's great. [00:06:38 -> 00:06:41] I went to Paris, delivered the bid.

Now I serve on the steering committee and the people in [00:06:41 -> 00:06:46] contact station. It's fantastic. That is awesome. Here's a little bit.

I've been involved, [00:06:46 -> 00:06:50] as you may know, in entrepreneurial education for a long time and an active venture investor. [00:06:51 -> 00:06:57] And I've talked to a lot of women. It's just some women in Utah too, just select out. I mean, [00:06:57 -> 00:07:04] they're very capable, but they just select out.

And it's not, it's not always that women are going [00:07:04 -> 00:07:11] for it and they get held down. It's that they, a lot of Utah culture causes self-selection out of [00:07:11 -> 00:07:16] it. Right. Because I don't know if you know, I'm, I was raised by an entrepreneurial mother who [00:07:16 -> 00:07:21] at age eight, my mother got divorced, had to lift herself up by her own bootstraps and became a [00:07:21 -> 00:07:27] business owner and did really well.

And I saw a lot of skill sets there. And then what happened, [00:07:27 -> 00:07:32] you know, I just said, I'm going to support women in entrepreneurship. And I've done that. I've got [00:07:32 -> 00:07:37] some things I've just done, but so I've talked a lot about this topic with people.

It's not that [00:07:37 -> 00:07:43] Utah is like oppressing women. It's that sometimes there is some of that going on like everywhere, [00:07:43 -> 00:07:49] but a lot of women too, that are very capable are self-selecting out because we have great women [00:07:49 -> 00:07:53] leaders. Right. And I don't put it on the men actually.

I put it on the women. It's like, look, [00:07:53 -> 00:07:58] you need to show up. You need to raise your hand. You need to have an opinion.

You know, [00:07:58 -> 00:08:01] it's okay to have a seat at the table, but you have to actually contribute at the table. [00:08:01 -> 00:08:06] And if you listen to how a lot of women speak, it is, I think it's a cultural issue. They'll say [00:08:06 -> 00:08:14] things like, I'm just, right. I'm just, it's like they, or they, they pre-qualify things.

So if you [00:08:14 -> 00:08:19] listen in, in the entrepreneurial program at BYU, a lot of women will say, I don't know if this is what [00:08:19 -> 00:08:24] you're asking for, but I'm not sure if this is the right answer, but yeah. And when I speak at the [00:08:24 -> 00:08:30] universities, I get tons of questions from the young men in the audience and no questions from [00:08:30 -> 00:08:35] the women. And then after the event's over, they sworn down to ask me questions.

So, and I say to [00:08:35 -> 00:08:41] them, you need to ask the questions in the room because everyone benefits from that perspective [00:08:41 -> 00:08:45] and that. So I always put it on young women who lack confidence, who feel like they might be [00:08:45 -> 00:08:53] posing, you know, there's, I was just fascinating to me that we have this challenge still. [00:08:53 -> 00:08:57] Have you met Shauna Theobald ever from UVU? She was a leader of the Entrepreneurship Center.

[00:08:58 -> 00:09:03] She said the same thing. She talked just like that, saying that the, you know, it's not the women do [00:09:03 -> 00:09:10] have to step up and do it. Right. Yeah.

And it's, it's an interesting topic, but I just, I mean, [00:09:10 -> 00:09:14] your career is a testament to what can happen in Utah and the leadership that can happen. [00:09:14 -> 00:09:18] Well, you can't be afraid. So I did serve on the UVU business school board for a number of years [00:09:18 -> 00:09:22] and we worked really hard to get the Wolverine fund set up. And I was a little disappointed, [00:09:23 -> 00:09:29] maybe a lot disappointed when we had put, I think, 500K to form the fund.

And the very first year, [00:09:29 -> 00:09:34] they brought the students in to present about what they learned in the fund. And it was all young [00:09:34 -> 00:09:40] men. So I was like, hang on, why are there all young men in the program, no young women? And they [00:09:40 -> 00:09:46] said, no young women applied.

I said, okay, I'll give you that. But you have your investment chair [00:09:46 -> 00:09:52] is a man. You're like every position that they got to pick, they chose a man. And they're like, [00:09:52 -> 00:09:56] we couldn't find any women.

I'm like, Jackie Zaner, did you ask her to be on your investment [00:09:56 -> 00:09:58] committee? Because she's amazing. Yeah. [00:09:58 -> 00:10:04] And so a combination of unintended things, that's just easier to pick people that you know, [00:10:04 -> 00:10:09] and women not speaking up.

So I try to help young people in general, not just women, [00:10:09 -> 00:10:16] find their voice, speak up and not be afraid. So many people are afraid. They said, I would apply [00:10:16 -> 00:10:21] for every job. You won't get, maybe you won't get any of them, but you will learn something in [00:10:21 -> 00:10:27] the process that's going to frame you and change your confidence level and your ability to learn [00:10:27 -> 00:10:32] something.

I hope there's in our viewers and listeners, a lot of young women that are just [00:10:32 -> 00:10:37] getting inspired to know that this is, this is what needs to happen and it can happen. [00:10:37 -> 00:10:41] Yeah. We need it. I mean, our community is better.

The fabric of our community is better. If we have [00:10:41 -> 00:10:46] a more balanced distribution with more voices, not just, not just, you know, men and women, [00:10:46 -> 00:10:50] but just like all ethnicities or like, we just need a richer fabric. [00:10:51 -> 00:10:56] That's awesome. I will let you know, that's changing.

I go and mentor the Wolverine fund and it's, [00:10:57 -> 00:11:02] a semester to the class and they have an actual credit and a class that is associated with, [00:11:02 -> 00:11:07] and a part of the Wolverine fund. And last time I was there, I want to say two, two of the, [00:11:07 -> 00:11:12] you know, invite young women. Yeah. Just say, Hey, you should do this.

They don't see themselves [00:11:12 -> 00:11:17] because you're looking at 12 guys. Like you don't see yourself in there. You're not going to apply [00:11:17 -> 00:11:22] naturally. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Well, let's get into the podcast, but first I've already told you [00:11:22 -> 00:11:28] about this. I'm going to do it as a trick for me.

Yeah. I've pre-warned you that I'm going to do an [00:11:28 -> 00:11:31] icebreaker. Okay. We call it a startup ignition icebreaker.

And we always play a fun little [00:11:31 -> 00:11:36] game with either John and our guests or just our guests. But today I'm going to have both of you [00:11:36 -> 00:11:39] participate. Okay. Sounds fun.

Sounds fun. So we're going to, I'm going to give you three [00:11:39 -> 00:11:44] founder or employee traits. Okay. And I want you out of the three to tell us which one you would most [00:11:44 -> 00:11:52] promote fund or fire.

So fund would probably be the top. So just what's your favorite middle of [00:11:52 -> 00:11:57] the road or worst trait out of the three. Okay. And they're all going to be semi good traits.

[00:11:57 -> 00:12:02] Okay. And I want you to participate too. Okay. So are you ready for our first three traits?

Fund, [00:12:02 -> 00:12:06] promote, fire. Yeah. Fund, promote, or fire. Like you would throw your own dollars at this person.

[00:12:06 -> 00:12:11] You would promote this person or you would fire this person. Okay. Ready? So first one is [00:12:11 -> 00:12:21] extremely confident, extremely humble, and extremely intense.

Which one would you fund? [00:12:21 -> 00:12:25] The confident, humble, or intense? Which one would you promote? And which one does fire?

[00:12:26 -> 00:12:30] Our guests go first. What are you thinking, Karine? So give me the traits again. Confident, [00:12:30 -> 00:12:35] humble, and intense.

All extremely confident, extremely humble, extremely intense. [00:12:36 -> 00:12:39] What are you doing? I like how you're thinking about this actually. [00:12:39 -> 00:12:54] I would fund extremely confident, humble, and intense.

Intense. Wow. Really? After just [00:12:54 -> 00:12:58] talking about confidence with young women and young people all over, huh?

So why I have to dig [00:12:58 -> 00:13:04] into why intense? Because they're not going to anything stop them. Yeah. They're not going to [00:13:04 -> 00:13:10] hear it.

It's going to be hard. Yeah. Like no, I mean not now to them. Yeah.

So, okay. Intense is [00:13:10 -> 00:13:13] number one. What's confident or humble? Which one are you promoting?

Which one are you firing? [00:13:13 -> 00:13:18] I'm promoting humble. You're promoting humble? Yeah.

And I'm firing the other guy. You're firing [00:13:18 -> 00:13:22] confident. Yeah. Because there's such a thing as false confidence.

Like I run into a lot of- [00:13:22 -> 00:13:26] I'm not going to lie. That's the exact opposite I thought you were going to say. That's the exact [00:13:26 -> 00:13:32] opposite. I have people who have so much bravado and then like big hat, no cattle.

You scrape down [00:13:32 -> 00:13:38] and then you're like, no. My rubric is always humble, hungry, smart about people. So if you gave [00:13:38 -> 00:13:42] me someone who was humble, hungry, smart about people, I would fund them. I would promote them.

[00:13:42 -> 00:13:49] I would make sure that they are well on their way. Yeah. We are talking to a lot of people about [00:13:49 -> 00:13:54] our fund all the time and they're always asking, what kind of founders are you funding? And we're [00:13:54 -> 00:14:00] like people who are teachable, who are humble, who are hardworking, roll up your sleeve type [00:14:00 -> 00:14:03] attitude.

If you have that attitude, you're going to go far. [00:14:03 -> 00:14:06] But those guys become the plumbing of the world. I know. [00:14:06 -> 00:14:11] They are never out front and center.

Yeah. And I love those guys. Yeah. I love those guys too.

[00:14:11 -> 00:14:13] I love those guys. I have to deal with a lot of false confidence. [00:14:13 -> 00:14:19] Should we hear John? Yeah.

I'm shocked by your confidence as a qualifier. Real confidence [00:14:19 -> 00:14:24] that's not phony, not fake, not trying to be a poser. Yeah. That's different.

But yeah. [00:14:24 -> 00:14:29] You and I have talked about this. If you look at the Utah history of unicorn companies or [00:14:29 -> 00:14:35] outperforming companies, it's the intense CEOs. Yeah.

Really get it going. Josh James. Yeah. [00:14:35 -> 00:14:40] Like Ryan Smith.

Yeah. Like Todd Peterson. I mean, like line them up. Yeah.

And they're just [00:14:40 -> 00:14:46] MX, uh, Ryan Caldwell. He's 1000% in that category. Yeah. Yeah.

It's no offense. That's [00:14:46 -> 00:14:50] no shade, Ryan. You're amazing. Yeah.

Yeah. And that, that intensity is right there. And, [00:14:50 -> 00:14:55] and then like, and then you have to come down because you're not sure if the confidence is real [00:14:55 -> 00:14:59] that, that if somebody is really humble, which to me is teachable. So let's hear your three.

So [00:14:59 -> 00:15:03] we don't spend 15 minutes on content and I'm going to have to, I'm falling in line with what [00:15:03 -> 00:15:07] you're saying. You're going to intense, humble, confident. You probably saying that as long as [00:15:07 -> 00:15:12] long. If I didn't know the confidence was real.

Okay. Next one. Next one. Round two.

Here we go. [00:15:12 -> 00:15:19] You ready? Yeah. Well, more than one.

I, so here we go. Next one. Someone who moves fast, [00:15:19 -> 00:15:27] someone who listens deeply and someone who sells naturally. What are you funding?

What are you [00:15:27 -> 00:15:34] promoting? And what are you firing? Again, moves fast, listens deeply and sells naturally. I'll go [00:15:34 -> 00:15:39] first so I don't get it.

You go for her wisdom. Okay. So smart. Yeah.

You agree. Um, so I'm going to [00:15:39 -> 00:15:46] probably say, what does it think deeply? Is it moves fast, listens deeply, sells naturally. I should [00:15:46 -> 00:15:50] have like a whiteboard or something.

Yeah. But listens deeply because probably who I fund, [00:15:50 -> 00:15:56] because in the end, that person will probably win the day because you move fast, you could move [00:15:56 -> 00:16:02] wrong. You do have to be decisive. You can't be, you know, a slug, but at the same time, I want to make [00:16:02 -> 00:16:07] sure that they're listening and somebody who sells naturally is great, but have they got the right [00:16:07 -> 00:16:10] business model?

Have they listened to the market? So you're fun. Listen to feedback. You're [00:16:10 -> 00:16:14] funding listens deeply.

What are you promoting moves fast or sells naturally? [00:16:14 -> 00:16:20] Probably sales naturally. And then moves fast is third. Even though the decisiveness and moving [00:16:20 -> 00:16:24] fast is important.

It's got to be done with those other characteristics. That's how I feel. I'm [00:16:24 -> 00:16:30] going to go. I am promoting moves fast.

Moves fast. This is my only currency is time. Yeah. Okay.

And [00:16:30 -> 00:16:36] if they move fast, I need them to like, she's so wise. I need like, I want straight lines and I want [00:16:36 -> 00:16:44] people that per separate and take forever. Oh yeah. No out.

They drag down out. Yeah. Um, [00:16:44 -> 00:16:49] what's the other two, uh, listens deeply and sells naturally. So that was promote.

Which one are [00:16:49 -> 00:16:53] you funding? Which one are you firing? I'm funding listens deeply and I'm firing sales naturally. Wow.

[00:16:54 -> 00:17:01] Because I'm, I run into like really like they're great salesmen. Yeah. But they got nothing. Yeah.

[00:17:01 -> 00:17:06] Nothing else. They haven't had to work really hard cause they're so good at selling. Yeah. And then [00:17:06 -> 00:17:10] when you dig in, you're like, you can't do anything.

Yeah. And I, I was being, cause I move, [00:17:10 -> 00:17:15] I tend to move fast and sometimes I just worry, you know, I do, I do think moving fast actually [00:17:15 -> 00:17:19] gets you into trouble more than it actually helps you a lot of the times, but you move [00:17:19 -> 00:17:23] fast out of it. Yeah. Yeah.

So then they pivot off of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Like it's not [00:17:23 -> 00:17:28] going to be a straight line. So I just, I want to keep going. Okay. Last one.

Okay. Here we go. [00:17:29 -> 00:17:36] Great storyteller, great operator, or a great recruiter. Which one are you funding, [00:17:36 -> 00:17:44] promoting, promoting, and firing again?

Storyteller, operator, recruiter. Our wise guest goes first. [00:17:44 -> 00:17:50] Okay. So he's passing the baton to you.

Give me the, so great storyteller, operator, [00:17:50 -> 00:17:55] recruiter. Great operator on funding. You're funding an operator. Perfect.

Um, [00:17:56 -> 00:18:05] storyteller, recruiter. Uh, I'm going to say, uh, cause I can do both those myself. I don't [00:18:05 -> 00:18:10] need either of them. You don't need a fireball.

Yeah. Fireball. We'll give it to you. How about [00:18:10 -> 00:18:16] you, dad?

Yeah. Um, so again, storyteller, operator, recruiter. Yeah. Operator at the [00:18:16 -> 00:18:20] end of the day is going to win.

I mean, it's, you've got to have good operations, right? So [00:18:20 -> 00:18:24] that's that, um, he's got to be able to orchestrate all of the same storyteller. And what's the [00:18:24 -> 00:18:29] third one again? Storyteller and recruiter.

Yeah. Gosh, recruiters important too, though. I mean, [00:18:29 -> 00:18:34] the recruiter to be surrounded. I would say, I would put that above the, the, the, I'd probably go [00:18:34 -> 00:18:38] recruiters second and storyteller third.

You gotta be a storyteller is really good in the [00:18:38 -> 00:18:42] pre-seed startup stage though. There's no doubt about that. Yeah. Yeah.

I could support that. I [00:18:42 -> 00:18:47] just, yeah. It, those, that's a tough one. These are tough.

I know. Cause they're actually all three [00:18:47 -> 00:18:51] traits. You won't have any trouble recruiting people. Yeah.

There you go. Um, I, I just feel [00:18:51 -> 00:18:57] like if we actually make it three traits that are actually realistic and you do want, but you have to [00:18:57 -> 00:19:02] force yourself to prioritize is that it was a fun game. That's good. Yeah.

Thank you for playing my fun [00:19:02 -> 00:19:07] little icebreaker. Now let's get back to the beginning. I know. Yeah.

So I want to know [00:19:07 -> 00:19:12] your history cause I don't know it. So yeah. Take us back as far back as you want to go. Like [00:19:12 -> 00:19:16] where, where'd you grow up?

Yeah. Where'd you grow up and go to high school? I went to Heidelberg [00:19:16 -> 00:19:21] American high school. I grew up in Germany.

Oh, Germany. Yeah. Is that where the name comes [00:19:21 -> 00:19:26] from? My mother's name was Claire Irene.

Claire, Claire Irene. So she just combined it. They combined [00:19:26 -> 00:19:30] it to Kareem and then they got tired of explaining it. So my sister's Kathy and my brothers [00:19:30 -> 00:19:35] are Sam and Joe.

Not Joseph, just Joe. Oh, wow. So we have Tureen, Kathy, Sam, and Joe. [00:19:35 -> 00:19:38] Was this military?

Military. Okay. So your father was in the military? [00:19:39 -> 00:19:43] My father was in the military.

Um, he had no way to pay for education. His father died [00:19:43 -> 00:19:49] in World War II. His mother, uh, tragic story. So he raised himself and decided that people [00:19:49 -> 00:19:56] that were educated had better lives.

So he joined the army, ROTC, went to Idaho State University [00:19:56 -> 00:20:02] and he met my mother and they were these poor Idaho kids that decided that their children were [00:20:02 -> 00:20:07] going to be educated and that we were going to be people of tremendous integrity, that we were going [00:20:07 -> 00:20:11] to be hard workers. So moved to Germany when I was an infant, stayed there for a while. My sister [00:20:11 -> 00:20:17] was born there, moved back to the United States.

My dad went to Vietnam, two tours. And then we moved [00:20:17 -> 00:20:25] back to Germany and I was the oldest. So, um, he, I had never been to Utah in my life. And I remember [00:20:25 -> 00:20:29] I was applying to colleges and he's like, your mother and I would feel better if you went to [00:20:29 -> 00:20:34] Bergamo Young University.

Cause I was going to go to Columbia. And, uh, I was like, okay. So had [00:20:34 -> 00:20:39] never, ever been to Utah in my life. Wow.

There's two different colleges. Oh my gosh. At [00:20:39 -> 00:20:42] Colorado Institute of Art. There was three, clearly no one helped me because back then you didn't help [00:20:42 -> 00:20:47] your kids, I guess.

And my father was stationed at the Pentagon. So I stayed in Germany and then I [00:20:47 -> 00:20:51] left Germany and, uh, stopped in Virginia to say hi to my folks. And then flew to Utah. [00:20:51 -> 00:20:55] I got off the plane.

I didn't drive because in Germany you didn't drive. This was for college. [00:20:55 -> 00:20:58] You were now going to, so in high school, were you in an American school? In American [00:20:58 -> 00:21:03] school.

Okay. Because if you go to a German school, you have to take the Abitur and you [00:21:03 -> 00:21:09] go to school for 13 years. So it would put us behind a year. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And my parents [00:21:09 -> 00:21:14] and we, we wanted to play sports. So we went to the American high school and we also wanted [00:21:14 -> 00:21:19] to have access to AP.

So we did, and it was a great education. I mean, four years of foreign [00:21:19 -> 00:21:23] language, four years of government. I mean, like there was no graduate early. Yeah.

There [00:21:23 -> 00:21:29] was no, you took economics, you took calculus. It's really good. By the time I came to school, [00:21:29 -> 00:21:34] I didn't need my freshman year. Yeah.

Cause of all the G they make you take that you don't [00:21:34 -> 00:21:37] need. Yeah. You could test out of some of it. Yeah.

And I ended up doing that. Like [00:21:37 -> 00:21:42] math. So bored. I know.

English 115. Yeah. I was like, what are you doing here? I think [00:21:42 -> 00:21:46] I was a pretty top math science student.

So I loved it when I went there and I got all [00:21:46 -> 00:21:51] the math credit by just taking a test. Yeah. Yeah. And foreign language.

And so came to [00:21:51 -> 00:21:56] Utah, I had no intention of staying here at all. As a freshman. As a freshman. It was [00:21:56 -> 00:22:01] rough.

Yeah. First semester it was rough. Cause the cultural shock, I bet. I hadn't been to [00:22:01 -> 00:22:04] the States for years.

I didn't dress like anyone. Yeah. I look like anyone. Yeah.

I didn't [00:22:04 -> 00:22:08] talk like anyone. I hadn't watched TV. Yeah. Did you, you didn't have an accent, did [00:22:08 -> 00:22:12] you?

No, I didn't have an accent, but. Cause you went to an American school. Went to an American [00:22:12 -> 00:22:18] school, but I was like, I had lived by myself in Germany and I moved into a dorm of six girls. [00:22:18 -> 00:22:21] And they were.

First time away from home. I'd never left their home and had never been [00:22:21 -> 00:22:26] out of the country. Yeah. Yeah.

It was crying all the time. And you're just like. And in [00:22:26 -> 00:22:30] our household, you didn't cry. Cause my dad, my dad was a combat heavy brigade commander.

[00:22:30 -> 00:22:33] Yeah. Like if you cried, he was like, what is coming out of your face? [00:22:34 -> 00:22:40] Where's the law? It's messed up.

Yeah. I've fixed that since. I mean, it explains a lot. [00:22:40 -> 00:22:43] Josh James always jokes.

He's like, tell everybody what you say. You're the daughter [00:22:43 -> 00:22:47] of a combat heavy brigade commander who did two tours in Vietnam. You went to an all black [00:22:47 -> 00:22:51] inner city middle school before you moved to Germany. You had cancer.

You did 18 months [00:22:51 -> 00:22:56] of chemo. What do you have? Yeah. He's like, nothing can break you down.

I'm like, that's [00:22:56 -> 00:22:58] right. That's right. So that's kind of what formed me. [00:22:58 -> 00:22:59] When did you have cancer?

[00:22:59 -> 00:23:01] Yeah. I had cancer 14 years ago. [00:23:01 -> 00:23:01] You did? [00:23:01 -> 00:23:08] Yeah.

And it changed me. Like it refined me. So I, it's on my mind. Cause I went to Huntsman [00:23:08 -> 00:23:11] yesterday.

I go once a year for all my scans and everything. I passed with the best scores [00:23:11 -> 00:23:12] ever. [00:23:12 -> 00:23:13] That was great. [00:23:13 -> 00:23:13] And I'm so great.

[00:23:13 -> 00:23:14] And you're beating it. [00:23:14 -> 00:23:18] Yeah. So I had ovarian cancer and cancer of the appendix. And I talk about it because [00:23:18 -> 00:23:22] Ooh, I just heard somebody with a cancer of appendix is more serious than you'd think.

[00:23:22 -> 00:23:22] Yeah. [00:23:22 -> 00:23:25] Because you think the appendix gets cut out all the time. [00:23:25 -> 00:23:27] Yeah. It would suck to die from something you don't need.

[00:23:27 -> 00:23:27] I know. [00:23:28 -> 00:23:31] Yeah. And it's just usually as a slow growing parcinoma. [00:23:31 -> 00:23:32] I met one other person with that.

Yeah. [00:23:32 -> 00:23:36] Yeah. It's called appendiceal cancer. And he's, I talked to the doctor.

He's like, you have [00:23:36 -> 00:23:40] ovarian cancer and it's really bad. And I was like, okay. And he's like, oh yeah. And you have [00:23:40 -> 00:23:44] cancer of the appendix also.

And I was like, wait, what, what? And I was like, what? It's like a man [00:23:44 -> 00:23:47] dying from breast cancer. It seems like the worst way ever.

[00:23:47 -> 00:23:47] Yeah. [00:23:48 -> 00:23:53] So no, I had it 14 years ago and it was, I was the top of my career. I was chief marketing officer [00:23:53 -> 00:23:58] at Semantic. I had worked so hard to, to get my two sons here.

And I worked so hard for this [00:23:58 -> 00:24:02] career and I like was building something that was really important. And then now I'm going to die [00:24:02 -> 00:24:02] from an old woman. [00:24:06 -> 00:24:12] Yeah. A hundred percent.

So happy that I ride every year at the little red riding hood race in [00:24:12 -> 00:24:17] Logan. It's the first week in June. It's my 10th year. And I raised money and a hundred percent of [00:24:17 -> 00:24:22] the money goes to Huntsman cancer to fight women's cancers.

So when I went to the hospital yesterday for [00:24:22 -> 00:24:29] my scans, they're like, she's the one that raises all the money. So I'm at 160,000. I'll probably hit [00:24:29 -> 00:24:34] 180,000 of the 200 they're trying to raise. So I try to do half of it every year.

[00:24:34 -> 00:24:40] Wow. And, uh, it's because of these, all these folks in Silicon slopes who show up to the playground [00:24:40 -> 00:24:47] and write checks and have carried me and have supported me. So I'm a big, big supporter of [00:24:47 -> 00:24:47] what Huntsman is. [00:24:47 -> 00:24:49] That's the number one way it changed you.

What do you think? [00:24:50 -> 00:24:55] So, um, when you, so I did 18 months of chemotherapy and when you think you're going to die [00:24:55 -> 00:25:02] for 18 months, you live differently. So I spent a lot of time at the hospital deciding, [00:25:02 -> 00:25:06] and even though you're surrounded by people when you're doing chemotherapy, it's just you in the [00:25:06 -> 00:25:13] chair up to the machine for 14 hours once a week. I did only chemo for six months.

And then I did [00:25:13 -> 00:25:24] every 21 days for a year. And I had to, I was like, why did I ever watch TV? Why did I not have cake [00:25:24 -> 00:25:30] every time I wanted to? Why did I spend so much money on shoes and perfume?

Why did I not travel more? [00:25:30 -> 00:25:32] Why did I not tell people how I feel? [00:25:32 -> 00:25:33] Your mind just starts racing. [00:25:33 -> 00:25:37] Yeah.

You start, you start making lists. You're like, cause when you think you're going to die, [00:25:37 -> 00:25:39] there's some good things to dying, believe it or not. [00:25:39 -> 00:25:39] Yeah. [00:25:40 -> 00:25:46] Like I don't have to clean out my husband's garage.

I don't have to pay taxes. I don't have to take [00:25:46 -> 00:25:50] care of my parents. I don't have to have food storage. I like you start coming up with all these [00:25:50 -> 00:25:56] things.

They're like, Oh gosh, there's like, it's like, like it's going to be great. But then you're [00:25:56 -> 00:26:01] like, ah, who will raise my kids? I won't get to be a grandmother. I won't get to meet my daughter [00:26:01 -> 00:26:08] in law.

I won't get to enjoy like the most joyful things on the planet. So it kind of tips over to [00:26:08 -> 00:26:13] this. Oh my goodness. So I just started making lists of things I'm not going to do anymore.

[00:26:13 -> 00:26:19] Like I am not scrubbing toilets ever again. I'm going to outsource it. I am only going to spend time [00:26:19 -> 00:26:24] with things I care about. I'm only going to take jobs.

I care about. I'm all like, I had these, [00:26:24 -> 00:26:28] I'm going to start doing things I talked about forever. It was kind of empowering. [00:26:28 -> 00:26:32] And people said, don't tell anybody about your cancer because it will define you and you'll never [00:26:32 -> 00:26:37] get another job.

You'll be broken. And I was like, that doesn't sit right with me. So I told my [00:26:37 -> 00:26:44] oncologist who I love and adore, she, she's, she's a miracle worker for me. I said, look, I'm not [00:26:44 -> 00:26:49] going to let this cancer define me, but I will let it refine me.

And I'm going to be a different, I'm a [00:26:49 -> 00:26:53] better mom. I'm a better executive. I'm a better human. I'm a better everything because I already [00:26:53 -> 00:26:57] know I'm going to die.

And so I got rid of all the people in my life that were energy vampires, [00:26:57 -> 00:27:02] all the people that don't help me do what I care about. Thank you so much for being part of my life. [00:27:02 -> 00:27:09] Bye. And I wrote, I write a ton of letters.

So I turned 50 after my treatment. So I said, [00:27:10 -> 00:27:14] I'm going to write 50 letters to people that formed me. And it sounds like a lot, but my birthday [00:27:14 -> 00:27:20] is in May. So I did 10 a month and writing 75 letters.

And I was very specific about the part of [00:27:20 -> 00:27:28] me that came from that teacher or that relative or that. And you should put them together in a book. [00:27:28 -> 00:27:36] I feel like it was a great book. Yeah.

My birthday was, is May 7th. And so my, one of my letters was [00:27:36 -> 00:27:40] to be delivered to my mother on my birthday. Well, I had written to a number of people that she knew [00:27:40 -> 00:27:48] and she was like, where's my letter? Yeah.

Well, like there's still coming. And like my mother-in-law [00:27:48 -> 00:27:54] who's since passed away, she, she said that letter was so meaningful to me because you were so specific [00:27:54 -> 00:27:59] about what you learned from me. I mean, it's just was, it was such a lovely thing that now when I have [00:27:59 -> 00:28:05] donors to my ride, I write every single donor, no matter, no matter the check. So I write a lot of [00:28:05 -> 00:28:12] letters.

I, we did all my retirement trips while my boys were still in my house. I want to get them [00:28:12 -> 00:28:17] all done. I didn't want to have any, we took my father to Normandy with all my siblings, my parents [00:28:17 -> 00:28:22] and all their kids to dedicate my grandfather's grave. And we, to be in Normandy with my dad who [00:28:22 -> 00:28:26] served two chores in Vietnam and to be there where his father was buried.

I mean, it was just like [00:28:26 -> 00:28:31] so many lovely things. And if I think about it now, I just do it. [00:28:31 -> 00:28:38] Yeah. So this is, it's like empowering, but you just decided what's important and that's where [00:28:38 -> 00:28:43] you're going to spend time.

You literally cut out some of the things you think are urgent or [00:28:43 -> 00:28:48] important and said, no, what's truly important. And that's what I'm going to spend my time on [00:28:48 -> 00:28:53] because like you just said earlier, time is the most precious thing. That's my only current [00:28:53 -> 00:28:59] is time. And so I don't have, I don't have any regrets.

I issued a full pardon to anyone who [00:28:59 -> 00:29:05] has ever wronged me because I'm not carrying any of it. And I don't get into fights. I don't get [00:29:05 -> 00:29:10] into, like, I don't have a lot of chop in my life. How, how does that change you?

Like your business [00:29:10 -> 00:29:14] mentality then? Like the decisions you make on a daily operation? You see it, you see it in the [00:29:14 -> 00:29:19] jobs that I do. So, um, when I took the job at First Calling, so it's been two years now, [00:29:19 -> 00:29:24] uh, everyone had a lot of things to say about me taking that job, which I was like, why do y'all care?

[00:29:24 -> 00:29:29] Why do y'all care? I do what I want to do. I only do what I want to do. And people are like, [00:29:29 -> 00:29:33] why would she go to a mortgage company?

Cause I'm not a mortgage person. I'm a financial services [00:29:33 -> 00:29:38] person, but I'm not a mortgage. Yeah. And, um, the chairman of the company, his name's Corey [00:29:38 -> 00:29:44] Shelly.

He's amazing. He's a young man who's built this, his father started the company, but he's [00:29:44 -> 00:29:50] really grown it. When I, um, joined the company the year before they had done 1.3, 1.

4 billion in [00:29:50 -> 00:29:56] production revenue, which is great out of Pleasant Grove, Utah. 42 year old company. So the reason I [00:29:56 -> 00:30:02] joined the company is partly for him, but he had a vision that I could help him deliver on. [00:30:03 -> 00:30:09] And he wanted me to come and change the mortgage industry to bring in tech, to clean up systems, [00:30:09 -> 00:30:17] to be just this fire starter.

And I loved that. Um, when he first said, I want you to come run my [00:30:17 -> 00:30:23] company. I'm like, absolutely not. Absolutely not.

He's like, just hear me out. And it was [00:30:23 -> 00:30:27] lunch. And he said, when we're done with lunch, I will shake your hand. We're done.

[00:30:27 -> 00:30:33] Like you're going to do this. And I was like, how am I done? So fast forward the year I joined [00:30:33 -> 00:30:38] the company to 2.8 billion last year, 4.

4 billion this year, we're going to do six and a half billion [00:30:38 -> 00:30:46] with 500 employees. Wow. So he was true to his. So now people are like, she's so smart.

Look what [00:30:46 -> 00:30:50] she did. Right. So now it's a tech enabled financial services company. It's the fastest growing [00:30:50 -> 00:30:57] mortgage bank and his designs and ideas.

We built an insurance company. We are working on a tax [00:30:57 -> 00:31:01] company, on a title company, on a servicing company. All I want to do a billion a month. [00:31:02 -> 00:31:07] And at the end of last year, he's like, what is happening?

We did 4.4 billion dollars. I'm like, [00:31:07 -> 00:31:12] yeah, wait till we get to a billion a month and then 2 billion a month because we can talk about it [00:31:12 -> 00:31:17] because he has helped. Like he just tells me what he wants to do.

And then we run fast. [00:31:17 -> 00:31:21] Are you one of the only mortgage companies that are experiencing that kind of growth right now? [00:31:21 -> 00:31:25] I would say yes, because interest rates have gone up. So when people come, so I got, [00:31:25 -> 00:31:29] I was in Atlanta last week for my son's graduation from Georgia Tech.

He got his master's degree, [00:31:29 -> 00:31:33] super proud. Master's degree in what, by the way? [00:31:34 -> 00:31:38] It's called, he's a data analytics guy, but it's called industrial systems engineering. [00:31:39 -> 00:31:44] Number one program in the nation.

Didn't know that till I got there. And this is a kid who, [00:31:44 -> 00:31:50] this is a brilliant human who didn't think he could get into the program. And his wife is like, [00:31:50 -> 00:31:54] oh yeah, we just got to apply him. So he got hung up though because she had to write an essay.

[00:31:54 -> 00:31:59] So he wrote the essay. He got in, but when he walked across that stage, I'm like, he couldn't see [00:31:59 -> 00:32:05] himself in that, in that. I mean, he three year, he took in three years to the program. It's a five [00:32:05 -> 00:32:11] year program.

He had two kids and worked full time during the program and he couldn't see himself [00:32:11 -> 00:32:15] there, but we could see him there. So we kind of helped him visit his future. When he walked [00:32:15 -> 00:32:19] across that stage, I was like, this is what you got to do for young people. You got to help them [00:32:19 -> 00:32:24] visit their future.

You got to show them that it's just one step after one step and then take away [00:32:24 -> 00:32:29] any friction that you can. But he absolutely did that program and he did a great job in that program. [00:32:29 -> 00:32:30] And now he's well on his way. [00:32:31 -> 00:32:37] That's awesome.

It's amazing. I mean, just the wisdom coming out of this episode, [00:32:37 -> 00:32:41] viewers and listeners, this is gold. Otherwise, thank you for spending some of your gold, [00:32:41 -> 00:32:47] which is your currency of time with us today. Let's go back.

Freshman year, go forward. [00:32:47 -> 00:32:51] No, no. I didn't want to derail you from my question of like the mortgage industry and how [00:32:51 -> 00:32:55] you're one of the only. Yeah.

How, how are you derailed you from that answer? [00:32:55 -> 00:33:00] So if you think about the mortgage industry, so when I first started in the company, Corey said, [00:33:00 -> 00:33:03] you don't need to get your mortgage license. Like I don't need a loan officer, but I was like, [00:33:03 -> 00:33:08] but what if I did? Yeah.

Yeah. So I started the end of just to educate yourself. Yeah. Yeah.

Why [00:33:08 -> 00:33:14] not? Yeah. Like why not? Cause people say she's not a mortgage person.

Right. So I get that. So [00:33:14 -> 00:33:17] I started the end of June, I went to Paris for the Olympics in the first week in August, [00:33:17 -> 00:33:22] I got my license and Corey's like, who are you? Like people don't pass this on the first time.

[00:33:22 -> 00:33:26] I'm like, they don't, I didn't know that. It's just a test, right? It was a test. So when I passed [00:33:26 -> 00:33:31] it, I wrote a blog in the company.

I signed it with my NMLS number. And he's like, if that was ever a [00:33:31 -> 00:33:36] mic drop, like if there was a mic drop, it was like boom, all of a sudden nobody says she's not [00:33:36 -> 00:33:42] a mortgage person, but I'm a really good financial services person. So the first colony had struggled [00:33:42 -> 00:33:46] because everyone says to me, every time I meet someone, they're like, yeah, I never heard of [00:33:46 -> 00:33:50] first colony, but Hey, you'd get my mortgage every time because we do most of the mortgages in the [00:33:50 -> 00:33:54] state.

What Corey wanted to do is go national and bring in brokers in this whole wholesale [00:33:54 -> 00:33:58] business, which is completely different business. Now I'm working on a direct to consumer [00:33:58 -> 00:34:03] business. So because there are not conveyor belts of money coming into mortgage companies, [00:34:03 -> 00:34:07] they're either a wholesale or a retail, they haven't figured it out. We use technology to [00:34:07 -> 00:34:12] not add more bodies.

We use technology. We use AI. We scrape the appraisal. We go out [00:34:12 -> 00:34:17] to 40 insurance companies.

We get bids back for our customers. We take the friction out of the [00:34:17 -> 00:34:20] mortgage buying process. The problem with mortgage is it hasn't been disrupted yet. [00:34:21 -> 00:34:26] Yeah, it will be.

It will be. And it's a lot of old white guys that don't want to really [00:34:26 -> 00:34:30] want to change that have just, they just like, have you seen the paperwork that they had you [00:34:30 -> 00:34:31] signed for a mortgage? [00:34:31 -> 00:34:31] Oh my God. [00:34:31 -> 00:34:34] I mean, I'm on a second house.

I was like, I'm just going to write a check. I'm not, [00:34:34 -> 00:34:35] I'm not, I'm not filling that out. [00:34:35 -> 00:34:41] I know. I know.

I'm insane. Right. And who, nobody, companies for, by the way, nobody reads [00:34:41 -> 00:34:41] it. [00:34:41 -> 00:34:45] Well, and how about how can this form?

Okay. Sign this form that you just signed that form. [00:34:45 -> 00:34:48] Okay. Sign this form.

I mean, it's just like, I'm like, what is happening? Yeah. [00:34:48 -> 00:34:49] What is happening? [00:34:56 -> 00:35:00] AI to be able to go and pull all your, all your information.

Yeah. So we can actually [00:35:00 -> 00:35:04] have the application populated for you and we can tell you how much you can qualify for. We can tell [00:35:04 -> 00:35:08] you how to clean your credit up. I mean, there's so many things.

So I'm trying to build with Corey [00:35:08 -> 00:35:13] and the team. I mean, it's not me. It really is. These guys know this space better than anyone.

[00:35:13 -> 00:35:18] 42 years in business. I just know how to make it, take the friction out. I know how to build systems. [00:35:18 -> 00:35:22] I know how to make it so that we don't have to add a lot of people.

I'm always, I'm a capacity [00:35:22 -> 00:35:26] model person because I'm an operator at heart. So I'm always paying attention to capacity. I'm [00:35:26 -> 00:35:31] always paying attention to, okay. I'm, I'm projecting out best case, worst case, most likely.

So when I [00:35:31 -> 00:35:35] say I want to do a billion a month, he's like, I'm onto you. You said a billion a month so that [00:35:35 -> 00:35:40] people can have that vision and that they can see themselves there. I'm like a hundred percent. [00:35:40 -> 00:35:46] Yeah.

So you, okay. This amazing accomplishment, what you're doing right now, disrupting an industry [00:35:46 -> 00:35:51] and all these numbers, let's go back. How did you become this? Yeah.

Solid of a business [00:35:51 -> 00:35:57] operator and what you do. So fret, you're at freshmen at BYU, fish out of water a little [00:35:57 -> 00:36:02] bit. The worst, the worst. Okay.

What, take us forward. What happened after that? [00:36:02 -> 00:36:07] So, um, graduated in organizational communications, which they, it's part of the school of business. [00:36:07 -> 00:36:12] It's a rhetoric.

So apparently I'm really good at persuasion and negotiation and communicating [00:36:12 -> 00:36:17] and marketing. So stayed in marketing. I went to work for Novell, was there 14 years, worked [00:36:17 -> 00:36:21] for every single CEO of Novell, except for the very last one. So I worked for Eric Schmidt.

[00:36:21 -> 00:36:26] I worked for Ray Norda. And you know, David Bradford? Yes. He's a neighbor and was on here [00:36:26 -> 00:36:30] and stuff.

So you asked him about me. Blake Morzitzki. Did you meet him? Yeah.

Very well. [00:36:30 -> 00:36:34] Okay. Very well. These are all my friends.

He was just on here two episodes ago. Oh, he, [00:36:34 -> 00:36:38] I just love and adore him and his family. Yeah. So these are, I mean, Novell in my twenties, [00:36:39 -> 00:36:43] like I'm, I have an international marketing job.

I mean, you're able to cut your teeth on [00:36:43 -> 00:36:48] things that most people don't. Is Ray Norda still there? Yeah. I worked for, [00:36:48 -> 00:36:53] my office was right outside his.

Really? Yeah. So got to build Nobel KK. [00:36:53 -> 00:36:56] Did you meet Jan Newman?

Yes. Very well. Jan heard it at Altiras. [00:36:56 -> 00:37:03] Yeah.

Yeah. So was there, loved it. Left from, went from there. So big public company went to [00:37:03 -> 00:37:08] Altiras before they were public.

Jan called, Jan hired me and he's like, look, I don't even care [00:37:08 -> 00:37:12] what you do. I just need you to come help me do this. So took a job for a third of my pay, [00:37:12 -> 00:37:19] no staff, no title. Cause I was pretty, I was a senior executive and no, like nothing but a bigger [00:37:19 -> 00:37:25] stock position.

So I'm sitting in a cubicle building out the Dell partnership, working on [00:37:25 -> 00:37:29] partnerships. And the CEO, Greg Butterfield comes to my office. He's like, you make me nervous. [00:37:30 -> 00:37:35] I'm like, okay.

He's like, you're kind of a big deal. And you took a job for nothing. [00:37:35 -> 00:37:39] I'm like, I know Mr. Butterfield.

He's like, I think you rolled your dice, [00:37:39 -> 00:37:43] the roll the dice on your own skills. I'm like, maybe so. So I was the only person to be an [00:37:43 -> 00:37:47] individual contributor, work my way all the way up to executive staff. And so I worked for Greg, [00:37:47 -> 00:37:55] became the CMO for Altiras, loved it.

Great time, five years. And then Symantec came to acquire the [00:37:55 -> 00:38:00] company. People don't know. We actually had a hostile takeover.

We had three downstream acquisitions [00:38:00 -> 00:38:05] we were making. And then we had a hostile bid to take over the company that Greg was afraid the board [00:38:05 -> 00:38:12] would take. So Greg called John Thompson, who was the CEO of Symantec and said, buy us 1.3 billion.

[00:38:12 -> 00:38:18] This is why. Because the most secure endpoint is a well-managed endpoint. This is accretive to what [00:38:18 -> 00:38:23] you're doing. So that's how that deal came together.

Wow. Very quickly. So I was the only executive that [00:38:23 -> 00:38:28] was not supportive of the deal. Symantec, I didn't have any interest.

They were buying up companies in [00:38:28 -> 00:38:35] Yeah. So we got the deal done and I became, they asked me to be the CMO of the bigger company. And [00:38:35 -> 00:38:43] I was like, no, y'all are, no, this is a sales company. We're in a marketing company.

And Greg [00:38:43 -> 00:38:46] said, you have to take the job because if you don't, they're going to close Utah and 600 people [00:38:46 -> 00:38:51] will lose their job. And I was like, that's not right or fair. I was like, welcome to the NFL. [00:38:51 -> 00:38:57] So I took the job.

Greg left me there, but I ended up working with John Thompson, who, [00:38:57 -> 00:39:02] if you look at my press release, when I took the CEO job at Allegiance, I have a quote from Eric [00:39:02 -> 00:39:06] Schmidt and I have a quote from John Thompson. So the chairman of Google, the chairman of Microsoft [00:39:06 -> 00:39:11] and Adam Edmonds, who was the founder said, can I be the quote in the middle? Cause that's the [00:39:11 -> 00:39:18] closest I'm going to be to those two guys.

Yeah. So, so, so explain to our viewers and listeners a [00:39:18 -> 00:39:22] little bit about, you said hostile takeover. So because Altiras had gone public, is that right? [00:39:22 -> 00:39:25] It was public.

So how does a hostile takeover, what happens? [00:39:25 -> 00:39:31] So you have an interest, so we had, we had quite a bit of cash, uh, but a company that's [00:39:31 -> 00:39:35] interested that's also public could make a, an offer to buy the company. The company doesn't [00:39:35 -> 00:39:40] want to be acquired, but the board of directors will take it because it's lucrative for them. [00:39:40 -> 00:39:45] It's not in the best interest of the company necessarily may not be, but if the board votes [00:39:45 -> 00:39:50] to take it, then they'll sell the company to the other public company and they'll take your cash as [00:39:50 -> 00:39:54] part of the deal.

Right. They get cash with it. Yeah. As they're buying the stock.

So they're buying [00:39:54 -> 00:39:57] the whole thing. They get the whole thing. That's why you don't want to have a ton of stuff. Like [00:39:57 -> 00:40:02] Nobel had a ton of cash.

Yeah. And I was always worried they were going to be acquired. Yeah. So, [00:40:02 -> 00:40:10] uh, Greg is the most amazing mentor because he, he cared about the company and he was able to [00:40:10 -> 00:40:16] negotiate a pretty good deal.

So it was, um, it was a purchase from semantic hadn't made that big [00:40:16 -> 00:40:21] of a purchase since they bought, uh, the storage company Veritas. Yeah. It was their second biggest [00:40:21 -> 00:40:26] acquisition. So John Thompson shows up.

I mean, he's a historical figure. He shows up at our office [00:40:26 -> 00:40:29] when we were making the announcements early in the morning, we're waiting for the markets to open. [00:40:29 -> 00:40:35] I'm sitting next to him in this conference room and I'm like, no offense, sir, but are you here [00:40:35 -> 00:40:41] on this conference call? And why do you have presidential cufflinks?

He's like, well, I'm [00:40:41 -> 00:40:45] here because this is the, this was a handshake deal that I made with Greg Butterfield and I'm [00:40:45 -> 00:40:48] going to see it through. And it's the second largest acquisition I've made since I bought Veritas. [00:40:49 -> 00:40:52] And I forgot my cufflinks and these were rolling around in my dop kit. I'm like, [00:40:53 -> 00:40:58] did President Obama give them senior?

He's like, he did. I was like, you and I have very different [00:40:58 -> 00:41:03] problems and we became friends over the years. So that's why when I asked him to do a quote for me, [00:41:03 -> 00:41:08] he was, he was great. He was, and I'm like Forrest Gump.

I'm not anybody, but I'm in the picture with [00:41:08 -> 00:41:14] Eric Schmidt on Thompson and, you know, Steve Jobs and with the, I've met because my time at Nobel, [00:41:14 -> 00:41:18] I got to meet all these historical figures who shaped the technology industry. [00:41:18 -> 00:41:23] Yeah. But every one of those people has a Kareem Clark that they needed to be who they were [00:41:23 -> 00:41:28] because you did, you've done a lot of behind the scenes and work to make those things happen.

[00:41:28 -> 00:41:32] Well, and I've loved it. I mean, it's really been a wave. It's really been this technology. [00:41:32 -> 00:41:37] I remember the very first Utah Information Technology Association Hall of Fame event.

[00:41:37 -> 00:41:38] Yeah. [00:41:38 -> 00:41:42] Ray Norda, Alan Ashton, Philo T. Farnsworth. [00:41:43 -> 00:41:43] Uh-huh.

[00:41:43 -> 00:41:47] And I was sitting at the table because I was like, Ray, I was- [00:41:47 -> 00:41:50] Philo Farnsworth, inventor of television. [00:41:50 -> 00:41:50] That's right. [00:41:50 -> 00:41:51] From Idaho, Utah. [00:41:51 -> 00:41:53] What year was this?

[00:41:54 -> 00:41:56] Well, he was being, he was being posthumously awarded. [00:41:57 -> 00:41:58] Oh, I was going to say. [00:41:58 -> 00:42:03] His wife accepted the award and she got up there. She was so cute.

Her grandson escorted her to the [00:42:03 -> 00:42:09] stage and she said, when I'm, when, when Philo asked me to marry him, he said, I need you to [00:42:09 -> 00:42:15] understand I have a mistress. And she was, she was so distressed. He said, my mistress is TV. [00:42:16 -> 00:42:17] And she said, then she was fine.

[00:42:17 -> 00:42:18] Okay. That's fine. [00:42:18 -> 00:42:23] So, so there's this great series on, um, oh my gosh, now I'm forgetting which network it's on, [00:42:23 -> 00:42:29] but it's called, uh, uh, captains of industry. And they've done about 12 episodes where they [00:42:29 -> 00:42:37] showed two people fighting like Edison versus Tesla on electricity.

Right. Okay. They have an episode [00:42:37 -> 00:42:43] of Farnsworth versus, and now I'm forgetting the name, very famous name. I can't remember from RCA.

[00:42:43 -> 00:42:52] Huh. And when television came and it was a huge lawsuit and Farnsworth won the right to be called [00:42:52 -> 00:42:56] the inventor of television. Cause RCA was trying to do that. Cause they went, oh, television was [00:42:56 -> 00:43:01] wiping radio out.

Right. Right. RCA was huge radio corporation of America. It's RCA.

And it's a [00:43:01 -> 00:43:07] great episode. I'm saying, yeah, it's a great episode. Cause Farnsworth, little old Idaho, [00:43:07 -> 00:43:12] Utah guy. Yeah.

Who would, who would plow the rows? I know. And he would go, and that's how we [00:43:12 -> 00:43:16] thought about the horizontal scan lines. That's right.

That's right. It's such a great story. [00:43:16 -> 00:43:21] And they tell us in there, but they show the court dramatization. Oh my gosh.

You would love that. [00:43:21 -> 00:43:26] I would love to see it. Because, but it's fascinating. And, um, cause RCA tried to bully [00:43:26 -> 00:43:31] him and he stood up and said, no, this is my patent.

This is my patent. Think about talking [00:43:31 -> 00:43:36] about an entrepreneur. He, and I remember sitting there at the table, a raised table and thinking [00:43:36 -> 00:43:43] Sunday, I'm going to be, I'm going to be inducted in. I'm going to be the first woman [00:43:43 -> 00:43:47] inducted in.

Oh, that'd be awesome. I remember, I remember as clear as, because here was, here [00:43:47 -> 00:43:51] was Evans and Sutherland. I mean, these were all these folks that brought to pure science [00:43:51 -> 00:43:59] to Utah and then, and then the partnership with BYU. Yeah.

So, um, it was like a great time [00:43:59 -> 00:44:03] to be a young person. Yeah. And I felt, and I was not afraid to move out of the state. [00:44:03 -> 00:44:08] I just never had to.

Yeah. No. Well you, so, okay. So you went from Novell to Alturis [00:44:08 -> 00:44:14] to Symantec.

So you took that CMO job and saved those 600 people. Big company, five years [00:44:14 -> 00:44:19] of Symantec, loved it. I had a half a billion dollar budget. Wow.

I mean, I'm meeting all [00:44:19 -> 00:44:25] these, you know, it's like, um, Colin, Colin Powell was one of my heroes. Right. And so hired [00:44:25 -> 00:44:29] him to help to do this customer event for us. Don't meet your heroes.

Cause it was so disappointing [00:44:29 -> 00:44:35] because the Enrique Salem was the CEO by this time. And he's like, we, we know how much you [00:44:35 -> 00:44:40] love him. So you get, you go first to, cause we had paid for an greet for 75. Yeah.

And I was so [00:44:40 -> 00:44:45] nervous. I had prepared everything. And so I'm like, general pal, you know, I was going to talk [00:44:45 -> 00:44:49] about my dad and he's like, how long do I have to do this? And I was like, Oh, I didn't know what [00:44:49 -> 00:44:54] to do.

I said, we actually paid you $150,000 to spend 30 minutes with 75 customers. Do you think [00:44:54 -> 00:44:58] you can do that? It's like, yeah, I think I can do that. So the picture, you see me kind of like [00:44:58 -> 00:45:03] I have this weird face.

I I've had that experience of meeting your bureaus and be, it's like, you know, [00:45:03 -> 00:45:08] it's like wizard of Oz behind the curtain. Yeah. You have this same, I've, I do not want to say [00:45:08 -> 00:45:13] who it is. Cause it's people that people would know, but I mean, you go, they're not, I mean, [00:45:13 -> 00:45:21] but it also, I, it didn't take away their skill and what they achieved, but they could be nicer [00:45:21 -> 00:45:26] people behind the curtain.

Yeah. We're just regular people. Right. Maybe it even leveled [00:45:26 -> 00:45:29] the playing field a little bit.

It's like, Oh, if they're like that, I could be like, that reminds [00:45:29 -> 00:45:32] me of something Josh James has said to me all the time. He said, he said one time he goes, [00:45:32 -> 00:45:37] you know, cause I mentored him at first and helped on return there days. They would come up to Seattle [00:45:37 -> 00:45:43] or exactly. So Josh James, uh, he says one thing he about, I don't know, 10 years into it, let's say [00:45:43 -> 00:45:48] when he was successful, I think they've got maybe close to going public or public.

He goes, man, [00:45:48 -> 00:45:53] one thing I've learned is every time I go up the ladder and meet people of a higher social station [00:45:53 -> 00:45:59] or status in business, I start realizing they're no different than me. Yeah. They just put on pants, [00:45:59 -> 00:46:06] the same one, one leg at a time. And they're just a human, not, he goes, he goes, and that's, [00:46:06 -> 00:46:10] and that I said, cause you know, where did his confidence come to pull off what he pulled off?

And [00:46:10 -> 00:46:16] you know, he changed Utah forever. Right. Yeah. With, uh, think all nature and Adobe.

And I'm thinking [00:46:16 -> 00:46:22] the sagebrush area of Lehigh is now a thriving, fast growing, incredible place. [00:46:22 -> 00:46:26] He doesn't get a ton of credit for that. Yeah. Well, he does for me because we all know it's [00:46:26 -> 00:46:30] true.

Right. And so, but the point is, is that it's interesting. He told me that one time and he [00:46:30 -> 00:46:33] goes, it's just interesting. And I go, I'm listening to that because of all the experience he had rising [00:46:33 -> 00:46:37] up through that.

And he's just, it was, it's kind of interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm in [00:46:37 -> 00:46:43] Symantec on top of my game.

Um, I'm like ranked like number 25 in the world for CMOs. I'm like, [00:46:43 -> 00:46:49] is that a thing? And then, um, I'm on my way to go to a meeting. It's Martin Luther King [00:46:49 -> 00:46:55] holiday.

And I had the stabbing pain and I call my assistant. I'm like, Hey, cause I was in San [00:46:55 -> 00:47:01] Jose a lot. It was my office. And, um, I was so sick all of a sudden.

And it turned out that I had [00:47:01 -> 00:47:06] ovarian cancer. That's when you discovered it. I said five years into Symantec. I had ovarian cyst [00:47:06 -> 00:47:09] rupture.

Top of your game at Symantec. Yeah. You had a rupture. That was the, [00:47:09 -> 00:47:13] they had ovarian cyst rupture.

And I went to Utah Valley and they're like, yeah, you had ovarian. [00:47:13 -> 00:47:16] That just put poison throughout your system. Yeah. I'm like, just give me a motor.

I'm good. [00:47:17 -> 00:47:21] Changed my flight. And then I started to deteriorate like rapidly. So that went from [00:47:21 -> 00:47:26] like a Monday, Martin Luther King day to by the Friday, my husband was like, something's not [00:47:26 -> 00:47:28] right.

I got to take you back to the hospital. I'm like, I'm fine. I'm fine. Just give me, [00:47:29 -> 00:47:32] cause I have a really high tolerance for pain.

So he takes me, which I think is a problem [00:47:32 -> 00:47:37] because then you don't go. Yeah. So I go back to Utah Valley and they're, um, Dr. Callis.

I'll never [00:47:37 -> 00:47:41] forget. I'm in the emergency room and he comes, he's like, we're going to do a CP scan with contrast [00:47:41 -> 00:47:45] this time. And he's like, you need to hold your breath. I'm like, you can't even breathe.

So I [00:47:45 -> 00:47:49] do the thing to scan with contrast. He comes back. He's white. He's like, Mrs.

Clark, we missed [00:47:49 -> 00:47:54] something when we did the scans on Tuesday. You have an ovarian cyst rupture, but you have a [00:47:54 -> 00:47:58] massive tumor behind it that has also ruptured. So we're going to put you in a medical transport [00:47:58 -> 00:48:02] to Huntsman. And I'm like, Huntsman cancer.

And he's like, if it's cancer, they know what to do. [00:48:02 -> 00:48:07] If it's not cancer, they know what to do. And I was like, okay. So I have little kids at home.

[00:48:07 -> 00:48:10] So I said to my husband, just go home and get the kids ready for school. Like it's fine. [00:48:11 -> 00:48:15] So it's Thursday night late. So they take me to Huntsman cancer.

I remember calling him saying, [00:48:15 -> 00:48:17] Hey, I'm gonna have surgery in the morning. It's fine. I got my credit card. I know what [00:48:17 -> 00:48:23] I'm doing.

It's great. And he's like, Oh no. So he calls my parents, like everybody mobilizes. [00:48:23 -> 00:48:27] So I'm at Huntsman cancer.

I'm ready. First thing in the morning, I'm ready. I'm going to have [00:48:27 -> 00:48:32] surgery. We're going to get this thing figured out.

I got it all dialed in. They take me to the [00:48:32 -> 00:48:37] surgical room and I'm ready. I'm signing everything. And they're like, this woman comes out and she's [00:48:37 -> 00:48:40] like, we made a mistake.

There's a scheduling problem. I'm like, Nope, Nope, Nope. I'm next. [00:48:40 -> 00:48:46] I'm the fast pass person.

I'm next. We don't have a surgeon for you. So they take me back to my room [00:48:46 -> 00:48:53] and I'm a brat all day long. I'm in pain.

I've had this, this thing since Monday. I like, I cannot [00:48:53 -> 00:48:58] solve for this. And I'm so agitated. So they finally take me back down in the afternoon.

They're [00:48:58 -> 00:49:03] like, we finally have somebody to work on you. And back then surgery was not at Huntsman. You had to [00:49:03 -> 00:49:09] go to the U. So you had to go through the garage, right?

So I finally get in there and this guy [00:49:09 -> 00:49:13] walks in, I've signed all the papers again. This guy walks in at Cowboy Hat and he's like, I don't [00:49:13 -> 00:49:17] know who you are, but I've been trying to get to Montana all day. My flight's been delayed, [00:49:17 -> 00:49:21] delayed, canceled, delayed, delayed, canceled, delayed, delayed, canceled. And I finally called [00:49:21 -> 00:49:24] my office and says, is there someone I'm supposed to work on?

And they're like, yeah, she's a lot too. [00:49:25 -> 00:49:28] So he shows up, turns out he's world famous for his surgery. He only does it [00:49:28 -> 00:49:33] laparoscopically. Really?

And he has all these tools and he's like, and my, my, my doctor's [00:49:33 -> 00:49:39] like, you would have never gotten him ever. So he does the surgery and I come out of the [00:49:39 -> 00:49:42] surgery and he's my husband, my husband, like not a clue. I come out of the surgery. He's [00:49:42 -> 00:49:46] like, so the cancer's really bad.

I'm like, I have cancer. It wouldn't have occurred to [00:49:46 -> 00:49:50] me that I had cancer. I mean, a Huntsman cancer. He's like, yeah, it's pretty bad and it's not [00:49:50 -> 00:49:55] great.

So then I talked to the surgeon and he was perfect for me because he's just straight [00:49:55 -> 00:50:00] line. Ms. Clark, you could die from this. I said, what's my survival rate?

He's like, [00:50:00 -> 00:50:03] I'm not going to tell you. I'm like, you know, I have the internet in my hand. So just tell [00:50:03 -> 00:50:08] me. He's like, you have a 20% chance of beating this.

People don't beat it. I'm like, people [00:50:08 -> 00:50:12] don't beat it yet. So what do I got to do to be part of the 20% or the new 21? And my [00:50:12 -> 00:50:16] husband, he can't form a sentence because he's like, what has happened?

And it took me [00:50:16 -> 00:50:19] 22 years to get my two sons here because they're like, Ms. Clark could never have children, [00:50:20 -> 00:50:23] but it took me, I did in vitro, I did everything to get them here. Now I'm going to die [00:50:23 -> 00:50:30] and lead them for the second wife. I don't think so.

So I was like, I was very, I'm a vision [00:50:30 -> 00:50:35] and plan person and my vision, not die. My plan, do everything to not die. But I decided I'm [00:50:35 -> 00:50:41] going to take this. Like I take everything.

I'm going to run this myself. So I said, can [00:50:41 -> 00:50:48] I interview oncologists? They're like, uh, okay. I'm like, don't assign me someone.

Like [00:50:48 -> 00:50:53] I want to meet the people that are going to work with me. So I interviewed oncologists from [00:50:53 -> 00:50:57] my hospital. But yeah. And it was super, I think you have to take control of your health [00:50:57 -> 00:51:02] that way.

I did too. Yeah, I did too. And so, uh, I, and I kept it really simple. I asked [00:51:02 -> 00:51:05] him one question.

Do you think I can beat this? And this one doctor, I'm not going to tell [00:51:05 -> 00:51:09] you who he is. He's like, absolutely. I'm like, okay, so if I don't, you don't have to explain [00:51:09 -> 00:51:14] it to me.

And he's like, pretty much. I'm like, no. So when I interviewed Dr. Teresa Werner, [00:51:14 -> 00:51:17] I said, do you think I can beat this?

She's like, well, I guess it's up to you, isn't [00:51:17 -> 00:51:21] it? And I was like, you're my oncologist because she kept me in the power spot. [00:51:21 -> 00:51:26] Yeah. And so I worked with her and my protocol was two cancer drugs every three weeks for six [00:51:26 -> 00:51:32] months.

And I'm like, not interested in that. I need a higher success rate because I am not [00:51:32 -> 00:51:35] going to deal with the second wife. I am not going to deal with her coming in and spending [00:51:35 -> 00:51:40] my money doing with her rotten six kids. I'm like, I had this whole thing for this scenario [00:51:40 -> 00:51:44] going.

Yeah. Oh, I had it all. I had the dialogue and everything. I made my husband drive [00:51:44 -> 00:51:50] me to the estate attorney sick on the desk.

The second wife can't get my money. She's like, [00:51:50 -> 00:51:54] why are you in here? I'm like, he's like, you set your estate up, estate up fine. She's [00:51:54 -> 00:51:57] not, she only get half of what he gets.

I'm like, how about we don't give him anything? [00:51:57 -> 00:52:03] How about we give it all to the boys? So she worked with me. So instead of the protocol [00:52:03 -> 00:52:09] that was the standard protocol, we worked on six months of weekly chemo every single [00:52:09 -> 00:52:14] week, three drugs every Monday morning, and then one drug every 21 days for a year.

And [00:52:14 -> 00:52:18] so that's what we built. And she's like, no one can do this. And I'm like, uh, no one [00:52:18 -> 00:52:23] can do it yet. Cause I'm pretty tough.

So why was it just really draining? And [00:52:23 -> 00:52:27] well, if you have chemotherapy every week, you can't come back from it. Right. You don't [00:52:27 -> 00:52:30] cause usually you have every three weeks.

So you get hit, you feel terrible. You're [00:52:30 -> 00:52:33] nauseous. You're sick. And you're going to fight.

Yeah. Yeah. And the third week you [00:52:33 -> 00:52:37] come back and you're ready to go again. You're like, I can still do this.

When you do it [00:52:37 -> 00:52:42] every single week, you don't get any recovery time. So there was one week, um, like two [00:52:42 -> 00:52:46] thirds of the way in. They're like, she's like, your white count is so bad. You could [00:52:46 -> 00:52:50] die from paper cut.

So we're going to take a pause. I'm like, Nope, Nope. Like [00:52:50 -> 00:52:54] let's keep going. Let's keep going.

And it turns basically bring you to the brink [00:52:54 -> 00:52:58] of death to cure you. They just kill everything. Yeah. They just kill [00:52:58 -> 00:53:02] everything.

And though, like, I'm a pretty faithful person and I'm a pretty [00:53:02 -> 00:53:06] determined person and I have a high tolerance for pain. And I was like the [00:53:06 -> 00:53:11] first day of chemo, um, I brought treats for everybody. I'm like, let's go. And I [00:53:11 -> 00:53:14] told my uncle, I said, I'm not gonna lose my hair.

And she's like, ah, nah, you [00:53:14 -> 00:53:16] gotta worry about the cancer. I'm like, you need to worry about the [00:53:16 -> 00:53:20] patient. Cause a six foot woman is bald. Everybody knows you have [00:53:20 -> 00:53:24] cancer and people treat you like you're dying, not interested.

So I [00:53:24 -> 00:53:27] found this cold cap therapy out of the UK. She's like, I've never seen it [00:53:27 -> 00:53:30] work. I'm like, you've never seen it work yet. So I did.

That's what I did. [00:53:31 -> 00:53:35] And I'm in the, I'm, I got the cold caps on, I'm in the chair. You have all [00:53:35 -> 00:53:39] these pre-meds like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I've got a great attitude. And the [00:53:39 -> 00:53:44] first drug they give me is called Taxol.

And I have a cardiac event. I go and I [00:53:44 -> 00:53:47] have a heart attack. You, are you kidding? No.

Wow. And they didn't tell [00:53:47 -> 00:53:50] me that. Green, I've known you and I've never heard all this story. I was [00:53:50 -> 00:53:55] like, and you, I couldn't even speak.

And my husband had just gone to get a [00:53:55 -> 00:54:00] drink. Cause we'd been there for a few hours and I start slamming on my table [00:54:00 -> 00:54:05] and the nurse, she comes running. She shuts the line. She throws on a bag of [00:54:05 -> 00:54:08] steroids, Pepsi, Benadryl, a hundred milligrams of Benadryl.

Go get Dr. [00:54:08 -> 00:54:13] Werner. Like everyone's, and I'm like, I have a strong heart. Like I've never had any [00:54:13 -> 00:54:18] heart, anything.

Yeah. And so I see my oncologist run and she's talking to the [00:54:18 -> 00:54:22] doctors for an hour. My husband comes back with his diet Mountain Dew. And he's [00:54:22 -> 00:54:25] like, what is happening?

Like they're working on me. They won't let him near me. [00:54:25 -> 00:54:30] And I've had so much Benadryl and Pepsi. My eyeballs are like vibrating.

So she [00:54:30 -> 00:54:33] comes back. And at this time, I don't really know her that well. I've only known [00:54:33 -> 00:54:40] her for like a month and she pulls my chair back up and she's like, all right, so the [00:54:40 -> 00:54:45] medicine we gave you is a new drug. We like this drug a lot.

It's new to this [00:54:45 -> 00:54:50] treatment. And, um, but your body has rejected it outright. So your body will not [00:54:50 -> 00:54:54] accept it. So the old drug is called Taxotere.

We like that drug too. Pretty [00:54:54 -> 00:54:57] good drug. So we have to make a decision today. We have to decide, are we going to [00:54:57 -> 00:55:02] go with the new drug or are we going to go with the old drug?

And I was like, I look [00:55:02 -> 00:55:07] at my husband and he's like, he's not going to be any help. So she said, but before you [00:55:07 -> 00:55:12] decide, this decision may be the difference between being here and not [00:55:12 -> 00:55:17] being here. So I want you to trust me. And I rear back in my chair.

I'm like, [00:55:18 -> 00:55:23] Teresa, like a cardiac, a heart attack. She's like, we're just going to call it a [00:55:23 -> 00:55:28] cardiac event. I'm like, it felt like a heart attack. She's like, I'm going to [00:55:28 -> 00:55:32] give you the meds again, but I'm going to slow the flow and I'm going to give you [00:55:32 -> 00:55:37] so much Benadryl and so much Pepsid.

But over time, I think you'll tolerate it. And [00:55:37 -> 00:55:41] then I think you get to be here. So I said, okay. So that's what we did.

[00:55:42 -> 00:55:43] So you kept taking it. I kept taking it. [00:55:43 -> 00:55:47] Did you have another cardiac? No, because she gave me, she slowed the flow and she [00:55:47 -> 00:55:50] did it right.

She was, she gave me, she pushed me. [00:55:50 -> 00:55:52] But she involved you as a partner. Yeah. [00:55:52 -> 00:55:55] She didn't dictate.

No. And she, so she and I speak. [00:55:55 -> 00:55:59] What a good doctor. She was perfect for me because she always kept me in the [00:55:59 -> 00:56:05] position of a power position, but she informed me, she, cause there's a lot of [00:56:05 -> 00:56:08] crap out there about cancer.

So she gave me the right direction to where to study [00:56:08 -> 00:56:12] and where to read. And we had this interplay. Like I pushed her cause I [00:56:12 -> 00:56:15] want to do the cold caps. And I did save my hair.

I didn't lose my hair because I [00:56:15 -> 00:56:20] didn't want my sons, their friends to be like, dude, why is your mom bald? I needed [00:56:20 -> 00:56:25] to shield them from, they were nine and 17 at the time. I didn't need them to see the [00:56:25 -> 00:56:29] worst part of cancer. I need them to be in scouts and in high school and being [00:56:29 -> 00:56:34] regular boys.

And, but we celebrate my cancer anniversary every year, which is [00:56:34 -> 00:56:39] January 20th. We celebrate it every year. And the boys talk about what it, what they [00:56:39 -> 00:56:43] learned and what it meant for them and, and the struggles that they had that no one [00:56:43 -> 00:56:47] knew about. And my daughter-in-law said when she was new to our family, she's like, [00:56:47 -> 00:56:52] I think it's weird that you celebrate your cancer anniversary instead of your clear [00:56:52 -> 00:56:57] day or like, should I think that's weird?

And I'm like, Rachel, the day that I was [00:56:57 -> 00:57:01] diagnosed was the day the universe ripped in half for this family. And it was a day [00:57:01 -> 00:57:05] that we had to either become people of tremendous faith, people of tremendous [00:57:05 -> 00:57:12] strength. Like we, it, it, it formed a metal in this family that we recognize and [00:57:12 -> 00:57:16] that we honor. And so she said, would you excuse me?

She got up from the table. She [00:57:16 -> 00:57:20] went to my office and made me a paper crown that said cancer survivor. And I have [00:57:20 -> 00:57:24] that crown today. And she's like, it makes sense to me now.

[00:57:24 -> 00:57:29] Yeah. I get it now. Yeah. So, so how long were you in that regimen of all the [00:57:29 -> 00:57:30] cancer treatment?

[00:57:31 -> 00:57:37] So I was diagnosed 2012 on January 20th and I did 18 months of chemo and 18 months [00:57:37 -> 00:57:43] of chemo is not for sissy. So four root canals, like hardening of the joints and [00:57:43 -> 00:57:47] my soft tissue, because one of the drugs was a trial drug. I had a medical port put [00:57:47 -> 00:57:50] in before I wanted to have a medical port put in before all the treatment because [00:57:50 -> 00:57:53] it's pretty hard on your veins and everything.

And when I went to have the [00:57:53 -> 00:57:57] medical port put in, they took me to Huntsman and I'm sitting there with all [00:57:57 -> 00:58:01] these old guys. I'm like, wow, the prostate patrol and me, it's super, right? [00:58:01 -> 00:58:04] And my husband's there with me because he's got to drive me home. And as I'm [00:58:04 -> 00:58:08] sitting there, I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this the way I want to do [00:58:08 -> 00:58:11] this.

So they call me back and they're like, Mrs. Clark. I'm like, I wonder [00:58:11 -> 00:58:14] who that is, right? One of these things, not like the others.

So I go back, this [00:58:14 -> 00:58:17] technician, the way they do it is you're in these, they have four rooms and you're [00:58:17 -> 00:58:21] on the gurney and the doctors are on the cameras, but there's a [00:58:21 -> 00:58:23] technician that does it. So he's explaining to me, Mrs. Clark, we're [00:58:23 -> 00:58:28] going to put you under. And I'm like, Jason, how good are you at this?

He's [00:58:28 -> 00:58:31] like, I'm pretty good. I'm like, are you Captain America? Best of the best of the [00:58:31 -> 00:58:34] best good? Or are you just like regular good?

He's like, I'm the best of the [00:58:34 -> 00:58:38] best. I do thousands of these. I'm like, okay, so here's the deal. I want to do it [00:58:38 -> 00:58:42] with no anesthesia.

He's like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't do [00:58:42 -> 00:58:46] that because it's microscopic surgery. It goes into your carotid artery. You put a [00:58:46 -> 00:58:49] cable in and they put this medical port in there.

It goes under your skin. It's [00:58:49 -> 00:58:53] about an hour and then you got to go into recovery. He's like, no, no, no, we [00:58:53 -> 00:58:57] don't do it that way. You're like, you cannot move.

I'm like, I understand. And [00:58:57 -> 00:59:01] he's like, I said, but I want to walk out of here on my own legs. I want to have [00:59:01 -> 00:59:04] lunch with my kids. I don't want to be in recovery with all the old white guys [00:59:04 -> 00:59:10] out there.

He's like, that's not how we do it. I'm like, Jason, I need the [00:59:10 -> 00:59:15] cancer to know that they are the Somali pirates and they just landed on a U.S. [00:59:15 -> 00:59:25] Naval frigate.

I can do it. Great analogy. Yeah. And he says, okay.

So we go into the [00:59:25 -> 00:59:31] room. I walk in there and the doctor's like, why isn't Mrs. Clark on IV? Why hasn't she [00:59:31 -> 00:59:36] been sedated?

Why is she walking? And they had a problem with one of their machines [00:59:36 -> 00:59:40] because they had a guy that came in Wyoming and he had a stroke. And so they had to move [00:59:40 -> 00:59:43] me around. And I'm like, do you need me to help you with the computers?

Like I can [00:59:43 -> 00:59:46] reset them for you. And they're like, why is she not sedated? I'm like, you know, I [00:59:46 -> 00:59:50] can hear you. Right.

And he said, she doesn't want to be sedated. She wants to do this without [00:59:50 -> 00:59:53] anesthesia. We don't do that. We do that.

We don't, we don't do that. We don't do [00:59:53 -> 00:59:56] that. We don't do that. We don't do that.

And I'm like, I'm going to be fine. So I get [00:59:56 -> 01:00:00] on the gurney and they have to put a drape so you're not breathing over it because [01:00:00 -> 01:00:04] they're doing surgery right here. And I said, Jason, if you talk to me, I'll be [01:00:04 -> 01:00:07] fine. You tell me what you're doing.

He's like, okay. He's like, are you [01:00:07 -> 01:00:11] ready? I'm like, I'm ready. He's like, okay.

So it's more physical than you [01:00:11 -> 01:00:15] think. Right. They're making incisions and he makes this incision. And I feel [01:00:15 -> 01:00:19] this stuff running down my neck.

I said, Jason, is that blood? No, Mrs. Clark, [01:00:19 -> 01:00:22] that's lidocaine. And I'm like, Ooh, don't lidocaine to me because lidocaine [01:00:22 -> 01:00:25] evaporates when hits the air.

And he's like, no, it's just like him. So then he's [01:00:25 -> 01:00:28] telling me what he's doing. I'm watching it on the, cause you're on a CT, you're in a [01:00:28 -> 01:00:32] CT machine while they do it. And they put this cable down in there and then it [01:00:32 -> 01:00:36] goes into your carotid.

And then they just put pressure on it for it to seal. Like [01:00:36 -> 01:00:43] I'm thinking, okay. So then like 45 minutes, he's like, he stitches it up and [01:00:43 -> 01:00:49] he's like, Mrs. Clark, I never would have believed it, but I guess you can go.

So I [01:00:49 -> 01:00:54] hopped off the gurney, I shook his hand and I get to the door. He's like, Mrs. [01:00:54 -> 01:00:59] Clark, uh, I wouldn't bet against you if he doesn't have a chance. Yeah.

I was [01:00:59 -> 01:01:03] like, got him. So I walk out of there. I got this ginormous bandaid. My husband's [01:01:03 -> 01:01:08] moved in for the day.

He's got his laptop, his Wi-Fi, he's got beverages. And I walked [01:01:08 -> 01:01:10] down the hall and he's in this waiting room. He's like, they're not going to do [01:01:10 -> 01:01:15] it today. And then he sees the bandaid and he's like, oh my gosh, what did you do?

And [01:01:15 -> 01:01:21] I'm like, wheels up, buddy. Let's go. Went home, stopped at the dodo, got lunch, brought [01:01:21 -> 01:01:23] it home to my kids. And I was like, this is what winning is.

[01:01:23 -> 01:01:29] We are so glad that you survived this and did this. I mean, you, you, you took the bull by [01:01:29 -> 01:01:30] the horn, didn't you? And just beat it. [01:01:33 -> 01:01:37] Ted talk about it.

Ted X talk about it. First time I spoke publicly about the cancer [01:01:37 -> 01:01:42] and, but I got to the point where I was like, dude, you're just going to, you're going to [01:01:42 -> 01:01:47] do everything you can, but you have to give it to God. Like you have to give it to him [01:01:47 -> 01:01:52] and, uh, whatever happens, it's going to be fine. Your kids are going to be fine.

Your [01:01:52 -> 01:01:57] husband's going to be fine. Not sure about the second wife, but like it's going to be [01:01:57 -> 01:02:03] fine. And that was part of the refinement is that, so when you do stuff like that, people [01:02:03 -> 01:02:07] try to come after you, you're like, really, really? That's what you got?

Yeah. Who cares? [01:02:07 -> 01:02:09] Yeah. So you did 18 months of chemo.

[01:02:10 -> 01:02:15] 18 months of chemo. And so I, um, took a six month medical leave from Symantec. The day [01:02:15 -> 01:02:19] before I came back, the CEO calls me, he's like, he told me Shira cause I was the most [01:02:19 -> 01:02:22] powerful woman in the universe. Cause I got him tickets to twilight for him and his [01:02:22 -> 01:02:27] daughter and the after party.

And he's like, Shira, they just frog marched me out the building. [01:02:27 -> 01:02:31] They fired me today. So they fired the CEO the day before I came back. He's like, [01:02:31 -> 01:02:35] you have to come back.

I'm like, nah, I actually don't. Because when you think you're going [01:02:35 -> 01:02:41] to die, you start looking at everything. So I'm like the guy they pick from the board, [01:02:41 -> 01:02:44] I don't actually like him. So I call my attorney and my attorney is like, Hey, you're highly [01:02:44 -> 01:02:49] decorated.

You're one of the few females. You have a perfect career. You can get whatever [01:02:49 -> 01:02:54] you want. So I negotiated a way out.

It took me six months to get out of there. But, uh, [01:02:54 -> 01:02:59] Greg Butterfield called me and he's like, I want you to take the CEO job. And when you're [01:02:59 -> 01:03:03] not afraid anymore, cause I had had offers before, but I was like, oh no, I can't do [01:03:03 -> 01:03:06] that. Cause that's what we do to ourselves.

Like you haven't done it. I can't do it. So [01:03:06 -> 01:03:13] when he said, I want you to take the CEO job, I was like, okay. So I took the job.

I called [01:03:13 -> 01:03:16] Dana Russell, who was a public company CFO. I'm like, Dana, I hadn't talked to him in [01:03:16 -> 01:03:20] 10 years. Send him a text. Dana, I'm taking a CEO job.

I need a CFO. Just say yes. He's [01:03:20 -> 01:03:24] like, will you at least take me to lunch? I'm like, sure.

I said, just give me a year [01:03:24 -> 01:03:30] so I can get this company where I need it to be. Cause I am, I know how to fix things. I know [01:03:30 -> 01:03:34] that friction points means opportunity to fix things. I know how to make straight lines to [01:03:34 -> 01:03:38] money.

I know how to make a lot of money for a lot of people. So it turns out that's like a good [01:03:38 -> 01:03:44] skill. Yeah. And that's why you've done it multiple times over and over and over.

We, how are we doing [01:03:44 -> 01:03:48] on time? I will be okay. I mean, we're getting, we're getting up there. I want to be sensitive to [01:03:48 -> 01:03:53] your time.

Yeah. But I want, I want to get through the timeline. I want to get through the timeline. [01:03:53 -> 01:04:00] Yeah.

So we're missing a lot of time between semantic to current day. Right. Well, so [01:04:00 -> 01:04:07] so after semantic, then, you know, I just, I was the first CEO job, Allegiant. Yeah.

And then [01:04:07 -> 01:04:13] Merit's Market Research bought the company and then Merit's CX, then Banyan, then Pelion, [01:04:13 -> 01:04:16] which loved my time at Pelion. That's right. You were a partner. What did you do at Pelion?

[01:04:16 -> 01:04:21] Oh, you were a partner? I did not know that. Yeah. They call it the, the, like an operating [01:04:21 -> 01:04:24] partner.

Is that what it is? I was an operating partner for years. Yeah. Then I was one of [01:04:24 -> 01:04:29] the group of guys.

General partner? Yeah. Hey, well, GP a little bit. Uh, was there a couple [01:04:29 -> 01:04:34] of years?

That was in the 2018, 2019, 2020 kind of era, right? I think so. Something like [01:04:34 -> 01:04:38] that. Yeah.

Yeah. I remember that. Love Blake, love Chris, love the team. And then, but I'm [01:04:38 -> 01:04:45] an operator at heart.

Yeah. So, um, Greg Butterfield had, uh, called me and said, Hey, I put [01:04:45 -> 01:04:50] four companies together. We did 860 million in revenue and I need somebody. Is that Lumio?

[01:04:50 -> 01:04:54] Yeah. Lumio. Oh, okay. And he's like, is it okay that you're not going to be the CEO?

I'm [01:04:54 -> 01:04:59] like, dude, I don't care. I love building things. So he hired me as chief innovation officer. [01:04:59 -> 01:05:03] I became chief people officer.

I became chief marketing officer. Like whenever he had, [01:05:03 -> 01:05:08] whenever he had a change, take it, take it, take it. You and Ray have had kind of good [01:05:08 -> 01:05:12] working. Yes.

Oh yeah. I love him. Yeah. We've worked with him.

Uh, he, he actually came [01:05:12 -> 01:05:16] through and wanted to learn about startups with us and Scott. So it was fun. He's amazing, [01:05:16 -> 01:05:20] talented, best sales guy I ever worked with. I've traveled the world with him.

I've built [01:05:20 -> 01:05:25] partnerships with him. I would do anything for him. I'm like hopelessly devoted. And so he [01:05:25 -> 01:05:29] needed help.

So I went there for a few years. Um, I've done, I have a lot of boards I've done [01:05:29 -> 01:05:34] all along the way and governor stuff all along the way, limpy stuff all along the way. But then, [01:05:34 -> 01:05:42] um, uh, I was at Lumio, he left because the investor's not great. Like it wasn't set up [01:05:42 -> 01:05:46] to be great from the, they took a debt facility and they wouldn't move out of the second position, [01:05:46 -> 01:05:51] even though we had a big investor that would come in.

And when Greg said, I'm not going to do it if [01:05:51 -> 01:05:55] they're not going to support this. So I had said to them, Hey, he's out, I'm out. I won't leave [01:05:55 -> 01:06:01] overnight, but I will make an easy transition for you. And, um, that's when Corey, Corey called me and [01:06:01 -> 01:06:05] said, I had worked with, I met Corey at a family office event and had helped him through the years [01:06:05 -> 01:06:10] when he needs to, Hey, I want to buy this tech company.

Hey, I want to buy a bank. And so whenever [01:06:10 -> 01:06:15] he called me, I'm always like anyone, I was happy to help. So then when he, out of the blue, he's [01:06:15 -> 01:06:17] like, Hey, I want to take you to lunch. Where's your favorite place?

I was like, Ooh, that's a weird [01:06:17 -> 01:06:23] question. So we had to lunch and then he truly mid, mid sentence. He's like, I want you to run my [01:06:23 -> 01:06:27] And then you told us that whole story. So that's awesome.

What a fantastic career. I mean, [01:06:27 -> 01:06:33] and all you've done to contribute to Utah. So, well, I love it here. I love building things.

[01:06:33 -> 01:06:41] So if we can wrap up the episode, I have a few more questions. Okay. What, what is the one thing [01:06:41 -> 01:06:48] you would attribute to a lot of these CEO positions, high power positions, the networking [01:06:48 -> 01:06:54] you've been able to experience. If you were to leave all of our audience and viewers and listeners with a [01:06:54 -> 01:06:58] thing, what would it be?

Like, what are you, what are you telling these new entrepreneurs, [01:06:58 -> 01:07:04] these new business owners, these new people who are trying and budding right now? What do they [01:07:04 -> 01:07:08] need to focus on? Don't let fear determine your fate. It's the confidence thing.

It's okay to be [01:07:08 -> 01:07:12] afraid. Just do it anyway. And don't be afraid to fail. Guess what?

You're going to fail. Who cares? [01:07:13 -> 01:07:17] Who cares? You tell yourself what's the worst thing that can happen.

And then you have to ask [01:07:17 -> 01:07:20] yourself, can I survive it? The answer is always yes. You can always survive it. Yeah.

It doesn't [01:07:20 -> 01:07:26] matter. Like all these CEO jobs do this, the rough spots. It's not, it's like, it's been, it's a lot [01:07:26 -> 01:07:32] of work. It's like really hard work to get companies to turn around, to sell them, to, to make sure the [01:07:32 -> 01:07:36] investors are happy.

But you learn something wonderful and magical on every single turn. [01:07:37 -> 01:07:41] Yeah. Just do it anyway. So just do it.

Yeah. And don't let people write a script for you. I [01:07:41 -> 01:07:45] didn't let people write a script for me for cancer. I don't let people write a script for me for my [01:07:45 -> 01:07:51] jobs.

I do what I want to do. I, if I see the clay and what, and I hear the vision of the founder, [01:07:51 -> 01:07:56] I'm super respectful of the founder, but guess what? I know how to, I know how to move a ton [01:07:56 -> 01:08:01] of dirt. I know how to get a lot done and I'm not afraid.

We were in a negotiation a couple of weeks [01:08:01 -> 01:08:07] ago and I was negotiating for First Colony with Corey and it got super tense and I just kept, I held my [01:08:07 -> 01:08:13] line. And, uh, at the end of it, the guy we were negotiating with, he says, you're a stone cold [01:08:13 -> 01:08:19] killer, aren't you? And I was like, maybe so. Yeah.

And later I said to Corey, was that okay? [01:08:19 -> 01:08:24] He's like, that was perfect. That was great. Perfect.

That was great. Thank you. Cause I'm [01:08:24 -> 01:08:28] not afraid. Like what's going to happen?

They're going to be mad at me. Like say that again. Don't [01:08:28 -> 01:08:35] let fear determine your fate. Is that, is that like the leadership quality that you're saying or just [01:08:35 -> 01:08:39] general life?

Just general life. Like if you think of something, Hey, I should go and approach that [01:08:39 -> 01:08:44] person. I remember when I, Ryan Smith and I were competitors, Merit CX was bigger than [01:08:44 -> 01:08:47] Qualtrics at the time. And people wanted us to fight.

They put us on panels and they would pit [01:08:47 -> 01:08:52] us against each other. So I called him one day and said, if people want us to fight, we should be [01:08:52 -> 01:08:58] friends because I need Qualtrics to do well. He's like, come to my shop. So I went down and it was [01:08:58 -> 01:09:03] supposed to be 30 minutes.

It was hours. And I just love and adore him. He's done so much for the [01:09:03 -> 01:09:09] state of Utah, but I wasn't afraid to just call him and make it what it, what it needed to be. [01:09:09 -> 01:09:13] Right.

And just say, Hey, I need Qualtrics to do well. And they did very well. Right. They won [01:09:13 -> 01:09:21] and to not be afraid to say what you think to be like, I'm not a stone cold killer, but I'm actually [01:09:21 -> 01:09:27] not afraid to challenge people on their stuff.

Another question. One more question. I just don't [01:09:27 -> 01:09:35] want to let her go. What out of all of these moments, this whole timeline, since your Germany [01:09:35 -> 01:09:42] days and pre Germany days and growing up in your career specifically though, what's like the number [01:09:42 -> 01:09:51] one moment that's like coming back to your head and saying that was really defining for me, where [01:09:51 -> 01:09:57] maybe you got that confidence or you knew of your capability or where fear left the building or, or [01:09:57 -> 01:10:03] what's, what's like the most defining.

So I was paralyzingly shy as a young person. [01:10:04 -> 01:10:04] Shy? [01:10:04 -> 01:10:12] Shy. Paralyzingly shy.

I'm an extreme introvert. So I read 31,000 pages last year. I'd rather be in a [01:10:12 -> 01:10:18] book than anywhere else. I have to go outside of myself to do it anyway.

Every time I speak, I speak [01:10:18 -> 01:10:22] all the time. I have tremendous stage fright the second before I get on that stage. [01:10:22 -> 01:10:26] I mean, you casually dropped it. You did a TEDx talk.

So that's crazy. [01:10:26 -> 01:10:30] Do you know that my wife read a book? I'm trying to remember the name of it because it's very much. [01:10:30 -> 01:10:36] And she found out that I, my, my youngest daughter and I are introverts and I am an introvert too.

[01:10:36 -> 01:10:36] Probably the book Quiet. [01:10:37 -> 01:10:40] That's it. Quiet. That's it.

You know about that book. [01:10:40 -> 01:10:40] Annie. [01:10:40 -> 01:10:44] And she read it and she, then she told me about it. And I am an introvert, but the funny thing is, [01:10:44 -> 01:10:46] I haven't heard about this book.

What's this book? [01:10:46 -> 01:10:51] It's called Quiet. Yeah. Your mother read it and she instantly goes, I'm parented Ashley wrong.

[01:10:51 -> 01:10:56] She's an introvert. Yeah. And it's okay. Yeah.

And cause Ashley's an introvert and I'm an [01:10:56 -> 01:11:04] introvert, but I've, my passion for other things or ambition or whatever help people. People think [01:11:04 -> 01:11:10] I'm not, but I am. And people would not think you are. No, you are stunned.

But it's, it's very [01:11:10 -> 01:11:14] interesting. And when I score a Myers-Briggs, like I have to retest me. Cause it's like, you're like, [01:11:14 -> 01:11:20] you're like clinical. Yeah.

How introverted you are. And people are stunned, but extreme introvert. [01:11:21 -> 01:11:30] So I think the real pivot point was when I left Novell. Um, I was, I was six months pregnant with [01:11:30 -> 01:11:38] triplets.

Whoa. And they had brought in new leadership and I lost my job and I go home and [01:11:38 -> 01:11:42] my son is like, are we going to have enough food to eat? And I'm thinking to myself, I haven't had [01:11:42 -> 01:11:47] any debt since I was in my 30s. Like I did a bad job of making sure he felt okay.

And when I, [01:11:48 -> 01:11:52] when Jan Newman called me and said, we want you to come and help us build this company. [01:11:53 -> 01:11:58] It was, I had five other job offers for much bigger jobs, much bigger titles, much more money. [01:12:00 -> 01:12:05] And I knew exactly what I had to do. So when I took the job, I was here.

So my husband's like, [01:12:05 -> 01:12:12] are you sure it is the pregnancy? Like messing with it. Lost your mind. I knew exactly what I was [01:12:12 -> 01:12:18] supposed to do.

And I trusted it and it became a springboard for all this career. And I think [01:12:18 -> 01:12:24] that's the first time I was like, dude, you know what you need to do, but you have to be willing to [01:12:24 -> 01:12:28] do it. And so when people have opinions about when I went to Altera's, people said, she's lost her [01:12:28 -> 01:12:33] mind. When I went to Samantha, everybody has something to say.

And I'm like, why y'all, [01:12:33 -> 01:12:38] why y'all care what I do? I'm just me. So I stay my line. I think as being an introvert, [01:12:38 -> 01:12:43] you just stay your line because you're used to being by yourself.

And so it turns out that [01:12:43 -> 01:12:50] the introvert has been the power for me that I honor, respect, and both my boys are introverts. [01:12:50 -> 01:12:53] And so I'm trying to get them to get their own confidence. [01:12:53 -> 01:12:53] Very interesting. [01:12:54 -> 01:12:55] What a great conversation.

Do you have more questions? [01:12:55 -> 01:13:01] No, no. I mean, I do, but I'm not going to ask me more because we got the five minute warning [01:13:01 -> 01:13:03] from our studio manager here, Corrine. [01:13:03 -> 01:13:04] He's like, y'all bring her back.

[01:13:04 -> 01:13:08] I hear me. He's like, you guys are talking forever. Thank you so much for coming on. [01:13:08 -> 01:13:09] Thank you for inviting me.

[01:13:09 -> 01:13:15] No, seriously. We attacked business from so many different angles, right? From you being [01:13:15 -> 01:13:20] an operator, from you being within venture, from you being within startups, from you being [01:13:20 -> 01:13:21] with the big boys at the top. [01:13:21 -> 01:13:21] I'm a lovely girl.

[01:13:21 -> 01:13:28] I know. It's so crazy. So this is definitely an episode to watch. Thank you so much for coming [01:13:28 -> 01:13:28] on.

[01:13:28 -> 01:13:29] Thank you for being here. [01:13:29 -> 01:13:33] We will see you next episode. We're going to wrap up this episode. Anything else to close [01:13:33 -> 01:13:35] with?

That's it. [01:13:35 -> 01:13:39] Well, thank you for watching your favorite father and son duo here. Hopefully, maybe [01:13:39 -> 01:13:43] probably the only father and son duo within the startup podcasting realm, but thank you [01:13:43 -> 01:13:45] so much for watching. We are out.