Deb Liu: belief

Transcript context

…And I imagine people may feel like they say one dumb thing and their career is over, they're going to be fired, everyone's going to think they're terrible. And in your experience, would you agree it's not actually true? People just forget it and they would even ever think about something you said that you think is really dumb? Well, I always ask people, think about the last three meetings you had and somebody, I'm sure somebody's kicking themselves or saying something dumb. Do you even remember when it is? I bet you don't. I think we are in our heads so much more than other people are in our heads. And so instead really say, "You know what? I want to add overall value. Every single thing doesn't have to be perfect. It has to just come together." And not everything has to be ideal. Not every word has to be gold wisdom. Instead, actually say, "You know what? I want to be part of the conversation and I want to be in this room and present. " I think we overthink the downside risk and we actually underweight the upside risk. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. You're definitely going to fail if you say nothing. But if you say one thing that's bad, most people don't even notice you miss the shot, so what? But you took a lot of shots and you're able to sink the ball enough that you're going to help win the game. I have a friend who was promoted to be a senior leader at a big tech company, and he used to be really nervous saying things in big meetings with all the execs. He thought they'd think about it and remember it, and he just thought about it for the next week every time he said something dumb. And then being on the leadership side, he's like, "I don't remember anything anyone said really? What was I thinking? Would they have time to think about my dumb comment?"…

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