This week on The EnTRUEpreneurship Podcast, Wes sits down with Susan Scott, acclaimed author and CEO and Founder of Fierce, Inc. — a multi-million dollar leadership and training company that teaches organizations of all shapes and sizes how to have meaningful conversations within themselves. On the podcast, Scott shares her inspiring story of overcoming hardship and discrimination and dives deep on what makes for “fierce conversations,” including both personal and professional takeaways.
The EnTRUEpreneurship Takeaway:
“If in doubt, don’t.”
“The next frontier for exponential growth, whether it’s for an individual or for a company, lies in the area of human connectivity.”
“A lot of people say, ‘It’s lonely being a CEO,’ but if it is, it doesn’t need to be … You’ve hired all of these great people into your organization. Why aren’t you listening to them?”
“It occurred to me — our careers and our companies and our relationships and our lives are succeeding or failing one conversation at a time.”
“I really do believe that, while no single conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a career or a company or a relationship or a life, any single conversation can.”
“As the Founder and the CEO, you better be modeling all of [your values] all the time because, really, you are the culture, and you can’t point fingers at anyone else — it comes from you.”
Bullet Points (w/ timestamps) – Highlighting key topics discussed:
2:22: Susan shares the events that took her from teaching English to working as a communications coach for groups of CEOs.
4:30: Scott further discusses her experience as a communications coach, highlighting the “secret sauce” that made her extremely successful.
7:33: Scott talks about the moment while working with CEOs when she realized the monumental importance of our personal and professional conversations.
9:57: Susan discusses her early differentiators and shares an unbelievably inspiring story that reveals a great truth about our relationships.
13:54: Susan describes the events that led to her resignation from her first company, including coming to grips with the reality of a glass ceiling, and the events that led her to start her own company.
19:29: Scott discusses what made her book a success and shares the unforeseen events involving her first company that initially put her book on the bestseller list.
26:48: Scott speaks on scaling Fierce, Inc. and the types of questions that she — and other entrepreneurs — should consider when deciding to grow.
31:04: Susan talks about her desire to take the teachings of Fierce, Inc. into a B2C context and shares a piece of advice that she wishes she would have known when it all began.
Bullet List of Resources –
Susan Scott
Fierce, Inc.