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OhHello - Mike Zeman of Life360
24 Plays2 months ago
OhHello!
What happens when you blend genuine curiosity, fearless failure, and real mentorship? You get a leader like Mike Zeman dropping in for episode 91 of the OhHello.ai ☕️ pod.
This next mentor's journey spans ad agencies to tech giants (Publicis Groupe, Netflix, Google, Square). Mike shares powerful insights on career growth, mentorship, and the art of turning failures into fuel for innovation. Plus, we learn about his covid 🐰🐰.
Key Takeaways:
♟️ Mentors that made an impact on Mike:
Shoutout to Rishad Tobaccowala, who taught Mike to play the long game and steer clear of short-term politics. Christian Kugel showed him how to have fun while pushing for excellence
😌 Confidence and Optimism Breed Results
Mentorship should spark your team’s confidence. Confident people take bigger bets, and that’s where real growth happens
🌊 Embrace Failure
If your failures aren’t getting bigger over time, you’re likely not innovating enough (inspired by Jeff Bezos). Encourage your team to try, fail, learn, and repeat.
👂Active Listening
Instead of planning your response, really lean in and ask “why?” multiple times to uncover valuable insights.
This was a great convo; thank you, Mike. The best employers are the ones that invest in their people. Ready. Set. Grow.
We're bringing on new mentors and businesses in March - sign-up now at OhHello.ai
#Mentorship #CMO #Marketing #Leadership #Tech #CareerGrowth
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Transcript
Intro
Reconnecting Over Coffee: A Seinfeld Reference
00:00:04
Jeremy Bloom
Oh, hello, Mike.
00:00:07
mike
Hello! How many people have had a Seinfeld thing?
00:00:11
mike
I have to ask.
00:00:12
mike
Does it come up once in a while?
00:00:14
Jeremy Bloom
On Zooms and Google Meets, I would say at least once a week.
00:00:18
mike
Okay, good.
00:00:18
Jeremy Bloom
But on the pod, you might be the first. I love this.
00:00:20
mike
Thank God, I love it.
00:00:22
Jeremy Bloom
I love the sign for the reference. loves catching up with you before we started recording. It had been a very long time since we had caught up. You had put up a fantastic LinkedIn post that resonated so well with everything we're building it at Oh, hello.ai.
00:00:39
Jeremy Bloom
And so we reconnected and and started talking and just had a coffee together. I've had the pleasure of, we've each had the pleasure of knowing each other, seeing each other grow within
00:00:44
mike
Yeah.
From Chicago to Silicon Valley: Mike's Career Journey
00:00:49
Jeremy Bloom
our careers.
00:00:50
Jeremy Bloom
Mike, why don't you tell Our audience, who do I have the pleasure of speaking with? Who are you?
00:00:56
mike
Who am I? Who am I really? So I'm Mike. I'm a Chicago kid. Yeah, I was born in Evanston. I grew up in the North suburbs, the John Hughes suburbs. yeah yeah of Home alone and the Griswolds and and of that stuff.
00:01:09
Jeremy Bloom
Yep.
00:01:10
mike
Went to school down in Carbondale, Illinois, a nice five and a half hour, you know, cornfield line to drive from Chicago to the bottom of the state. And then was an agency guy for many years in Chicago, mostly within Publixis group. And then Worked my way out West eventually in search of, you know, outdoor living and warm weather and landed a role in tech at Netflix. And then I spent the last, you know, dozen years or so within that space of companies like Google Square and now Life360.
Balancing Family and Career
00:01:45
mike
Family Guy as well, three kids, a dog, two COVID bunnies. What more could somebody want?
00:01:53
Jeremy Bloom
when we were catching up, you mentioned the the COVID bunnies that put such a smile on my face and the fact that you're like, Hey, you know what, right before this, right before we started recording, I have to go feed my COVID bunnies.
00:01:57
mike
Still alive. I don't know how, but they are.
00:02:06
Jeremy Bloom
I love that. That was amazing. So.
Rethinking Education and Career Success
00:02:10
Jeremy Bloom
Uh, and shout out to your Salukis, just shout out to the fact that it doesn't matter where you go to college. The fact that Mike has worked at the coolest, biggest tech companies in the world. He is a CMO and he went to Southern Illinois university and look at him now. He's absolutely crushing it. So there there you go, people.
00:02:30
mike
Yeah, I mean I've got a senior in high school and the stress levels that these kids have, especially now for. where to apply to and what happens if they don't get in, you know, to a top 30 school or whatever it might be.
00:02:42
mike
And they say, look, I know a whole collection of state school people and directional state school people, right? Like Southern Illinois, right? Or Northern Illinois, where these folks are doing incredible things, right?
00:02:54
mike
And so the days of setting your career based on where you go to college are just, you know, so that's such a dated concept.
00:03:02
Jeremy Bloom
Thank you for saying that.
00:03:03
mike
Yeah.
The Value of Mentorship
00:03:03
Jeremy Bloom
So Mike, let's kick this off. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about some of the mentors that have made a big impact on you throughout your career.
00:03:10
mike
Yeah. Well, I mentioned I yeah my career in the agency world and happened to land a job, my first job out of grad school working for this guy, Rashad Tabakawala, a really long name. But I showed up. I remember the first day he actually thought I was the new administrative assistant.
00:03:28
mike
which was just a funny misunderstanding but yeah worked at Starcom and Rashad was just the best right I think you know obviously a functional expert in so many ways but what I really learned from him is to play the long game right he did not get involved in entangled and short-term politics He did not build transactional relationships. He was about fostering talent, fostering great, you know, peer relationships, and then following, you know, his curiosity, right? So even today, if you look at Rashad's writing, he's prolific. The guy has so many interests, and so I learned a lot from that, right? And the rest kind of handles itself. Christian Kugel was also a guy. Hopefully many of your listeners know him.
00:04:13
mike
He was my first sort of, you know, solid line, you know, boss. And so, you know, I think what I learned from him is you can be, you can achieve great things, but also we spend a lot of time at the office.
00:04:24
mike
So please be sure to have fun. Don't take yourself too seriously. And, you know, that's not at all at odds with performance, right? So bring those two things together. Those were two good early ones.
00:04:36
mike
Yeah.
00:04:36
Jeremy Bloom
Thank you. Those are those are great. So Rashad has put out a fantastic newsletter and and and Sunday morning musings for years now that and an author of several books and a prolific writer and speaker.
00:04:45
mike
Yeah.
00:04:48
mike
Yeah.
00:04:49
Jeremy Bloom
So great call out Amazing amazing So
00:04:50
mike
He's great. I went to work for him again at Vivikey years later as well. He has that draw with many people.
00:05:00
Jeremy Bloom
With that said, in terms of just with that draw, so that leads us to our next question.
Soft Skills for Leadership
00:05:04
Jeremy Bloom
In terms of of power skills or some people might call it soft skills. What soft skills or power skills do you find most crucial for for for success within your career that have gotten you to where you are today and that you like to instill your people and your teams?
00:05:21
mike
that point on curiosity is active listening, right? So, so many people start formulating their thoughts when the other person is talking. And I encourage people to just stop and like hold the space and actually lean in and listen. And you know, there was an old boss of mine at Google who had a sticker on his laptop that said, why did the third power? Which really means, you know, listen to somebody then ask why, listen to them some more, right? Peel that onion until you kind of find the goodness there. So I would say that's definitely one of them.
00:05:52
mike
Having an even keel, you know, I think a lot of people can misconstrue that as a lack of passion at times. Like, oh, like they're not super emotional about this. I don't think it's that at all.
00:06:02
mike
It's funny, I've been watching this show. My kids got me into this YouTube thing called Bondi Rescue, and it's all the lifeguards at Bondi Beach in Sydney, and they're constantly dealing with these crazy issues.
00:06:14
mike
And I always think to myself, like, what would happen if they were completely panicking, you know, during these situations?
00:06:15
Jeremy Bloom
Yeah.
00:06:20
mike
It's just not helpful to the situation. So I think maintaining an even keel is really critical. That extends to things like don't ever send the angry email or the angry stack.
00:06:30
Jeremy Bloom
Never, never.
00:06:32
mike
Like I learned that the hard way early in my career. So for any young person out there, wait till the next day, you know, withhold it and then have the conversation. And then I think the last thing is just really model the socialization of failure, right?
00:06:47
mike
So, you know, we're not gonna get it right every time, you know, as leaders. And, you know, I learned from folks like Reed Hastings who had a couple of really high profile mistakes, right? That he really
00:06:56
mike
and you know, sunshine in all the right ways. And we as leaders, you know, at Netflix Netflix got to learn from that. And I think that gives you as much credibility as anything else does.
00:07:07
Jeremy Bloom
This is great. So the Y squared or Y cubed, was it Y cubed?
00:07:12
Jeremy Bloom
Yeah, Y cubed. I love that one. That is fantastic. Additionally, how you said, don't send that angry email. I would even say in this day and age, don't send that angry slack because that can be just as impactful.
00:07:23
mike
100%. 100%.
00:07:26
Jeremy Bloom
Take a deep breath.
00:07:26
mike
You regret it 100% of the time, I promise you. Yeah.
00:07:30
Jeremy Bloom
You're so right. I back that up 100%.
00:07:36
Jeremy Bloom
With that, how do you how do you track the impact of mentorship on your teams? When you think through how the advice that you're giving right now, how do you track the impact that you've made on your teams at at Publises, at Google, at Netflix, at Square, now at Life360?
00:07:58
mike
I think the direct link is probably a little too hard to measure. And I really think about it as a two-step process. I think step one is, look, mentorship should create a lot of confidence and optimism, right?
00:08:09
mike
I think about, I have a coach, right, which is a flavor of of mentorship. And, you know, he is just so great at making me feel better about myself and the work, right?
00:08:13
Jeremy Bloom
Yep.
00:08:18
mike
And I feel more confident and optimistic in what I'm doing. And that optimism and confidence then breeds the result, right? So that's kind of the second phase of the two-step process. And to me, that's what entrepreneurship is really about. right by entrepreneurship, I don't mean starting a business. I mean really having creativity and vision and doing important things in the workspace. And without optimism and confidence, you're just not going to have that irrational optimism that you need to succeed. So that's kind of what I look for is finger on the pole. So do people feel that confidence? Do they feel supported? Do they feel optimistic? And so that's how I try and kind of connect those dots.
00:08:53
Jeremy Bloom
All right, that's perfect. So how do you make sure that your teams learn to accept failure? Because when you're in the earlier components of your career, even mid career, so many people in their 30s, early 40s, mid 40s, they still have issues. Understand it's ah know what, I'm gonna take that back. It doesn't matter about age, there's so many people that just get too caught up on not understanding or just being set back on failure. How do you help your teams with that?
00:09:21
Jeremy Bloom
when it comes to confidence and picking picking them up.
00:09:21
mike
Well, um I'll say it's It's sort of scientifically proven at this point that struggle is necessary in most cases for strong performance, right?
Embracing Failure for Growth
00:09:30
mike
Lots of studies on childhood struggle and it can't be too much, right? There's a right amount of struggle that's necessary for that growth. Anecdotally, if you look at many of the great leaders in any given field, you know, business, politics, etc., you know, everything wasn't handed to them on a silver plate, right? They definitely overcame a lot of challenge, right? plenty that narrative to kind of go around.
00:09:52
mike
I think also knowing what doesn't work is critical to finding out what does. You know, you think about toddlers learning to walk or crawl, like same thing, like you gotta fall down, right?
00:09:57
Jeremy Bloom
Alright.
00:10:03
mike
Or you gotta run into something and fall down and then know not to do that again, right? So a lot of this is just sort of basic to be honest, but I actually think, you know,
00:10:13
mike
If you look at Jeff Bezos and the code he's had around, I think it's something like if the size of your failures isn't growing or getting bigger, you're not inventing at the right rate. And I think that's absolutely true. If you play it safe and you know a 10 out of 10 on everything, that's not super exciting. The way I extend that to my team in terms of performance management is, yeah, we do use OKRs, so objectives and key results. And if people come and have five that are kind of layup-ish,
00:10:42
mike
and they accomplish them all, they're not going to get promoted or get the best increase in their compensation. If they come with five very stretchy ones and they hit three of them, that's more the formula for success in my view.
Advice for New Leaders
00:10:53
Jeremy Bloom
Nice, nice. All right, so Mike, if you were to leave us with a few words of wisdom for growing leaders, for people that are growing in terms of their marketing careers, their executive careers, or just people that are leaning in within the tech community, they just want to to learn and that are engaged with just understanding how to be better people, how to be better business people, and just better in their careers, what what kind of guidance would you provide?
00:11:18
mike
Yeah.
00:11:23
mike
The first one I would say for new leaders is what I just mentioned, which is, you know, when you're working with your, your folks, your team. empower them by stretching them. People don't want to come in and do safe, modestly decent work.
00:11:37
mike
You know, people want to, you know, self-manifest kind of their best self, right? And so help them do that by making sure that they're influencing the goals that are being set for them and that they're stretchy enough.
00:11:42
Jeremy Bloom
Totally.
00:11:49
Jeremy Bloom
You asked him today.
00:11:49
mike
I think, you have to stretch folks and and they have to want to stretch as well. The second is be yourself. This is in my post. I think a lot of people try and be the quote unquote marketing leader or the CMO or the whatever. Acting just, it doesn't feel good and it doesn't get you there ironically, right? So just lean into who you are and and where it goes. And then I think, you know, related to that is lean into your strengths. There's, you know, the sort of discipline of CrossFit is a really interesting parallel. You have to be able to lift weights. You have to be able to, you know,
00:12:24
mike
run really far or sprint or whatever it is, you can't be amazing at all of those things. And it's a waste of time for a skinny guy like me to try and be an amazing powerlifter. So I'm going to lean into the running and the swimming and and of everything else that's better matched with my talents. And so figure out what those are. Be aware of your non-strengths, but definitely spend a lot more time and energy know sharpening and leveraging the strengths that you have.
00:12:50
Jeremy Bloom
I love that. That's why I i lean in the gift of gab and my keen listening skills for that exact
Closing Thoughts and Gratitude
00:12:56
Jeremy Bloom
reason. Mike, this has been fantastic.
00:12:57
mike
There you go.
00:12:59
Jeremy Bloom
We really appreciate you hopping on the Oh Hello Pod being part of our community. Thank you. Kudos to all the great work that you're doing at Life360 and just thanks for being you.
00:13:09
Jeremy Bloom
Thank you.
00:13:10
mike
Great to reconnect. Thanks so much, Jeremy.
00:13:12
Jeremy Bloom
Thanks, Mike.
00:13:12
mike
Take care.