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OhHello - Scott Hess (Part 2)
30 Plays1 year ago
It's episode 61!
🚀 Embrace Your Authentic Self: An OhHello.io 🌞☕️ Conversation w/ Scott Hess | Volume 2 🚀
In a recent chat with Scott Hess, we delved into the power of authenticity in navigating professional life. Scott shared his journey of straddling ego and shadow, realizing that being authentic doesn't mean being perfect—it's about owning all facets of oneself.
🌐 Integration Over Segregation: Scott emphasized the importance of integrating personal and professional personas. He discovered that being his authentic self meant embracing both his competitive, mosh pit-loving side and his appreciation for '80s bands like Spandau Ballet.
🌟 Mentorship Wisdom: Mentors like Tom Fox and Dick Costolo played pivotal roles. Tom urged Scott to define his happiness explicitly and ask for it, shifting responsibility for fulfillment onto oneself. Dick showcased that true success is achieving goals on your terms while staying true to your authentic character.
💡 Key Takeaway: Authenticity is about uncovering, not finding. It's removing the covers we place on aspects of ourselves for fear of judgment. Scott's journey highlights that being authentic isn't just okay—it's powerful.
🤔 Food for Thought: When did you realize it was okay to be your authentic self in your career? Share your thoughts! 🚀
#Authenticity #CareerJourney #LeadershipInsights Publicis Publicis Groupe Publicis Media Spark Foundry Starcom Digitas North America Publicis Sapient Publicis Health Publicis Health Media
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Transcript
Balancing Personal Style and Professional Expectations
00:00:00
Speaker
You know, I did, I had a bad t-shirt on this morning, which is one of my all-time favorite t-shirts. It's this teeny baller band called Laney, L-A-N-Y. It's super faded and gross. And I was going to wear it, and I guess I'm going against my advice, but I was like, fuck, you gotta be like a legit business guy. So I went up and put my black shirt on. This is like, this is the intersection. I do like this shirt, but this is the intersection of trying to meet professional life with where I fit.
00:00:29
Speaker
I don't do the blazers that everybody else in our industry does. I just feel uncomfortable in them. I don't pretend to find joy in some of the process and protocol that other people pretend is interesting in our industry. But I think if you do that thing where you trust your body and you show up as yourself,
00:00:50
Speaker
It's just all of a sudden work, to me, this is
Integrating Identity with Professional Life
00:00:53
Speaker
important. I did not want to be a work person and then a personal person. And people that work knew me as one thing, people in my professional life knew I was actually like. It's been so much better integrating who I am across everything. Yeah, I really respect that. So that sauce took a long time to ferment and distill and all that. But you bottled it up. You're selling it. People are buying it.
00:01:18
Speaker
You still don't know if it tastes as accurate as it could, but it's still some really damn good sauce. And that's what matters. And that you had fun making the sauce to do fun making the sauce.
Self-Discovery Through Career Challenges
00:01:29
Speaker
Not all the time. I suffered a lot. I did not have fun. I have not had fun throughout my career. Talk more about the suffering. Like what part of suffering
00:01:40
Speaker
I still suffer. Okay, go on. Like when you're making the sauce, and if you're suffering, what are the elements that make you suffer? First of all, I don't ever remember consciously making this sauce. All I did was persist. And over time, things became apparent to me. So it isn't like I was like, I'm going to build this skill, like I all my performance reviews would be like, you're
00:02:07
Speaker
your brain goes all over the place. You need to learn to focus. And I was like, fuck, I need to learn to focus. And I'd be like, eh, like that. And then it'd be like, well, I, no, where can I be a guy that has a million ideas and is creative and my energy is celebrated? That's what, I don't need to change who I am. I need to go someplace where who I am is valued. So, so the suffering, this, oh, you're my dog's going crazy upstairs.
00:02:36
Speaker
The suffering is most of the time suffering is when I tried to pretend things weren't what they were and that I was somebody who I was not. So whether it was when I was at Anderson consulting proofreading technical manuals and then I was like, well, I don't want to proofread technical manuals, but maybe the next great job at Anderson would be this. I spent six years
00:03:00
Speaker
chasing the, you know, trying to grasp the ring in an arena that I didn't care about at all. I have respect for Anderson Consulting now Accenture, but it was the place where I was going to make my career.
00:03:12
Speaker
And people say, Yeah, but look at all the learning you got. I think that's true. I just think at first, it took me a long time to see the lessons, to understand my body and to have the confidence and the fearlessness to show up as myself. What has accelerated over time is I can just identify, I can feel it more quickly. I don't spend as much time and guilt and shame and fear.
Pursuing Work That Aligns with Personal Beliefs
00:03:37
Speaker
And now my suffering comes when I end up in a meeting and it's a bunch of senior people like me and everybody's saying the same thing. And it seems like we're going to do something. And I hear inside my body that this isn't true and it isn't going to work. And I say, that's not true and it's not going to work. And then everybody turns and I'm like, Oh God.
00:03:56
Speaker
I wish I could have kept quiet, but I can't anymore. So the suffering is either. The suffering is inevitable. That's the salt that goes into the sauce. Yeah.
00:04:11
Speaker
I initially suffered because I maybe wasn't doing things the right way. And now I suffer because in order to pursue things the way that I want to, it doesn't mean I'm always going to be in harmony with everybody around me. But the difference, I think, is there's a kind of nobility or a purpose to the suffering that I do now that I lay down at night and feel good about, whereas I used to suffer because I was too dumb to tell somebody to stop kicking me in the shin.
00:04:34
Speaker
So if you choose to go to the gym and work out, that is righteous pain. If you sit around your house and stub your toe a hundred times, that's not righteous pain. So I think that one of the things is maybe the quality of that point.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, the quality of my suffering has improved measurably, even if I haven't even if I haven't learned how to stop suffering. And most of my mentees, I'll be like, Yeah, that sucks. Wow, that's awful. Yeah, I'd be miserable too. And they're always like, but I think when you accept reality, this suffering either abates or it becomes righteous.
The Role of Mentorship in Defining Career Happiness
00:05:11
Speaker
So when it becomes righteous, looking back at your career thus far, are there different
00:05:17
Speaker
people and or events that helped reframe or frame the righteousness that helped you get to just the self-realization, self-actualization. Who are some of those people? Who has made a profound impact on your career thus far? It's interesting because I was trying to think, when you think about mentorship, I'm like, who are my mentors?
00:05:43
Speaker
And I have not been in a lot of formal mentor relationships. Like a lot of my young peers will be like, you're my mentor meeting once a month. But I thought about it.
00:05:51
Speaker
There was a guy in my fraternity in college. I was a freshman. He was a senior. He was the president of the house. And that dude just looked like he knew what he was doing. And I stayed close to him. Over time, this guy's name is Tom Fox. He eventually, after school worked for Gatorade, rose all the way up to be the head of sports marketing for Gatorade. Ended up being the chief revenue officer at Arsenal, the Premiership Soccer Club, and ran Aston Villa. He's had this really cool career. But
00:06:16
Speaker
One of the moments I remember clearly that was unbelievably powerful for me is we went out to lunch, Tom liked, Tom's a blazer guy, I like to go to the university club, come to the U club, shoot, I gotta put a blazer on. So we go there and we're talking about a boss I have at the time who drove me crazy, who's my friend now. And my friend Tom looks me in the face and says, yeah, I don't think, I'm not sure that this is your boss's fault. And I said, what do you mean? He said,
00:06:44
Speaker
What would make you happy? What situation could your boss put you in tomorrow where you'd be like, I love this place and I never wanna leave? I was like, what? He's like, well, I've heard a lot of complaints, but he said, I've never heard you describe what happiness looks like. He said, do you know what would make you happy? And I was like, well, broadly. And he's like, okay, all right, let's say you do. Have you said to your boss, this is what would make me happy. This is what I want from you, explicitly. I was like, no, I haven't. He's like, here's your assignment.
00:07:14
Speaker
Think about what could your boss tell you? You could work half time. You could be in charge of this group. What could he say that you'd be delighted to be there and you'd be all in? And then I want you to figure that out. Take as long as you need and then go ask him for it.
00:07:33
Speaker
If he says no, you don't need to stay there. If he says yes, you're happy. But he said right now, if you haven't figured out what will make you happy and asked for it, and this works in marriage too, by the way, it's your fault. It's not your boss's fault or your spouse's fault, or even frankly, your kid, this works with kids, believe it or not. So that was massive. Foxy, we call him Foxy said, figure out what you want and ask for it. And if they say no, go someplace else where they're going to say yes, that was massive.
Authenticity as a Path to Success
00:08:03
Speaker
And my second mentor is somebody I mentioned to you in a recent conversation is my friend, Dick, who I worked with at Anderson Consulting. We were both losers making very little money in cubicles and lamenting our lot in life. Dick eventually rises up, becomes an angel investor in Twitter, sells some companies, and he ran Twitter to the public. And Dick, if Dick would ever watch this and hear me call him a mentor, he would absolutely be like, no, I'm not. But here's how he's a mentor.
00:08:31
Speaker
I met Dick when we were at Anderson, but he was at the Annoyance Theater as a founding member doing an improv show and he was goofy. He's a goofy guy. He's a character. He stayed that guy when he ran Twitter. He stayed that guy post-Twitter, running a massive venture fund.
00:08:50
Speaker
And so what I took from Dick is that you, the greatest success is when you succeed on your own terms as yourself. My friend, Tom Fox likes to go to the U-Club, that's him. He loved that. He wasn't putting that on. He did that and he went, but Dick, Dick doesn't wear suits and he doesn't talk in a bunch of fancy acronyms and stuff. He's a kind of rye comedian who sees most things as absurd. And that's how he ran Twitter. And he was wildly successful doing it. And he stayed happy the whole time.
00:09:19
Speaker
I just went on a trip with him. He said, say something nice about me kind of jokingly. And I said, you're still you. He's like, I love that. And that that was a kind of mentor for me to see that that was possible.
Embracing Authenticity and Overcoming Societal Expectations
00:09:32
Speaker
That's amazing, Scott. And I think I've mentioned this in the past. What's fascinating about love caring about Tom Fox, aka Foxy, but also what you just said about Dick. Dick was one of the first investors in to mogul where you and I met. Gosh, I don't know.
00:09:51
Speaker
Over a long time ago. And so just understanding and knowing that he had the foresight to invest with a handful of other just amazing people to help my mentor, Brett Wilson, who was the founder and CEO of Tube.
00:10:13
Speaker
who hasn't sold so much in me. And one of the things that, and down the line, I'm gonna have Brett come on, but one of the things that I have valued so much is Brett always push, just be your authentic self, just be real, get shit done, make shit happen, but just show up and just have that grittiness. But be yourself, don't pretend to be other people. And so it's really refreshing to hear just how,
00:10:40
Speaker
One of your mentors, one of my mentors, who actually work together to build a business where coming full circle, obviously in past roles, our teams had worked with one another. Just really insightful how people get it, how they're able to articulate the differentiators, but also have that realization
00:11:09
Speaker
going back to what you were saying 10, 15 minutes ago about building that sauce, creating that sauce, just the level of being vulnerable, failing, thinking that you don't know how to make the sauce. The sauce is still getting made. So you were saying the phrase you used a second ago was being your authentic self. And I can, again, imagine myself at 25 being like,
00:11:34
Speaker
What's my authentic self? Yeah, if I knew what it was, I'd be it right now. And because I had thought that being your authentic self was being your perfect self. Being your authentic self when you stopped, when I stopped being unfocused, when I stopped wishing I was outside screwing around instead of sitting in my cubicle proofreading technical manuals.
00:11:56
Speaker
What I've come to realize over time is being your authentic self is sort of straddling ego and shadow. So it's about owning those best parts of yourself, but then also it's about owning those other things and recognizing that those things you might've thought were the worst parts of yourself. I'm like a weird competitor. Like I have this, like when I played pickleball with my wife, I turned into a monster because I want to win so bad. And then I try and temperate stuff. When you play with it or when you play against it.
00:12:26
Speaker
More with, to be honest. We played another couple last night and I turned into a monster. And I used to think, I gotta kill that part of me. But that weird competitive kind of driven thing is a pretty, that's helped me a lot. Yeah, so understanding, being able to see it, okay, here I am, I'm going crazy. What am I gonna do with this? I can make fun of it a little bit, I can harness it, I can work with it. But being your authentic self means,
00:12:54
Speaker
Like, here's another great example, I hope. Play it back, maybe not. I had to realize that
00:13:03
Speaker
I so want to be cool and fit in and be liked, right? But I also think Spandau Ballet is one of the greatest bands ever. And a lot of people would make fun of me because they're a kind of preening 80s band that sang that song true, but I loved them. But I also love being in a mosh pit and sing a band called Hate Breathe. But I would kind of keep quiet about both of them because one was too pretty and one was too ugly. And then I like a lot of stuff in the middle too, right? I can like a Wilco show too. What I had to realize was
00:13:34
Speaker
That's all me. Spannabale and hate breed and Wilco. That is all me and it's all okay. And I don't have to be, there are no guilty pleasures. You know, finding your authentic self is literally, it's all there. It doesn't mean finding it. It almost means uncovering all the shit that you're, we put covers over all kinds of stuff. Your authentic self is when you just stop covering how you react to things because you're worried how other people might perceive it.