59. Ann Berry on Redefining Achievement Through Passion

Speakers

Greg McKeown, Ann Berry

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Greg McKeown   

Okay, so why did they kick you out?

Ann Berry     

Well, I wasn’t technically deported from England. But I sorted deported myself because I fell in love with America as a teenager in New York, specifically when I was 18. And I’d come here of all things, having done one of these Model United Nations. Yeah, which I think lots of people did. It was sort of one of those sort of high school activities, and I loved it. And I ended up here visiting the UN, which is this incredible experience. I completely fell in love with Manhattan and the energy. And so for me, it was always, when not if I would cross the Atlantic, and eventually I did, I came to the US to go to graduate school, and came to New York thinking it would be two year itch to scratch, and I’ve been here 13 years. I’m still here 13 years later.

Greg McKeown     

That makes me think you were probably an overachiever before getting here, because not everybody does a UN experience early on. Were you an overachiever at the beginning?

Ann Berry     

I was an overachiever. And I say that sounds awful. It’s such a fancy thing to say. And not at all self-effacing and being English. That wasn’t allowed as a statement. But I worked really hard. And I really valued achievement always, even as a very young child always wanted to strive to, to to win something, or get a prize or be recognized and acknowledged as winning things. And so I was an over-achiever at a young age. Absolutely.

Greg McKeown     

What have you learned about the journey from being successful to being very successful? And that could be your own journey, as you’ve continued to be successful, and got to the next level or just working with other people? What are your observations about that particular journey?

Ann Berry  

Well, first of all, I would say I don’t really consider myself to be very successful. So I can only really answer that in terms of what have I learned along the way, in terms of how I define what achieving means.

And I would say I had a fairly cookie cutter approach to this until really the COVID period. And the most extraordinary thing happened in late 2019. I’ve always had a career in investing. But at that particular point in time, I was asked to replace the CEO of a company that I had invested in at my last firm. And it was such a transformational experience. It was supposed to be a very short-term interim, but what ended up happening was COVID hit. And this particular business was headquartered in Vegas and was in the hospitality sector. So I ended up in that seat for a year and leading a company through a crisis, as profound and traumatic as COVID has been completely redefined what I thought of in terms of defining success. It redefined it in terms of the importance of doing something you really love in terms of having focus on something you’re passionate about, on the energy and the value that comes from leading and being immersed in a team that you really care about. And I would say also, it really brought into focus something, Greg that really resonated as I read your literature, which is the importance of prioritizing, honing in on what’s important, and then running like places that the things that really matter to you, and that are really going to make a difference. Very different from what I thought of as trying to do as many different things as well as humanly possible and probably not doing as well in any of them, as it originally been intended.

Greg McKeown     

When you say that it helped to redefine what next level of success looked like for you. Is it because the job you were doing was more aligned for you. You were more passionate about it. It was a better fit for you than what you’ve been doing before. Am I hearing that right?

Ann Berry     

It was a little unexpected in the sense that I was suddenly living by myself in Vegas, the only pedestrian in Nevada?

Greg McKeown     

Yes, exactly. In the middle of the pandemic, you’re in Vegas, no one else is.

Ann Berry     

Nobody else’s. And I remember this moment where I went along the strip just to see it and it was completely desolate and empty, which was such an extraordinary thing to experience. And as such, the only pedestrian Greg that actually if I wanted to treat myself to a coffee and a doughnut, I would walk to Dunkin Donuts which of course had no indoor dining at all. And I would stand between the cars for the drive thru and then eventually go in and knock gingerly on the on the window and ask them you know, for a Boston Cream or a glazed doughnut and my special Duncan’s coffee. So it was that very much you know, the last human in Vegas experience. And what I found was because we were operating under such challenging conditions, a very physical environment, where we had to think about social distancing and protecting our workers from ill health and so on and so forth. And we’re really the hospitality sector had been just so decimated, that the tenacity and the focus and the desire to teach try find a way to get all our people back to work became just this hugely motivating and energizing passion project. And so it was it was a different fit in the sense that I was suddenly using a whole bunch of different skills I hadn’t really activated over the prior course of my career, but also because there was a mission that really meant something to me. And that was very new. And I don’t think I would have found it but for having had the chance to completely unexpectedly find myself dropped in that situation.

Greg McKeown  

Yes, you were facing not just a hospitality challenge, but a human challenge, which is these people are suddenly disproportionately impacted. Which of course, we know is true. I remember the CEO of Marriott talking about this that that even after 911, maybe they had a 15 to 20% reduction in bookings and hotels. But suddenly, with the pandemic, it’s like 90% reductions, at least in those first few months. I mean that how do you even survive? How does a hospitality company even survive? How did you survive?

Ann Berry     

Tenacity was one, I think we’ll say it was real teamwork. I remember that moment. Greg Sorenson, here referring to came out and addressed his people on video, and he’d had to furlough. I think it was close to 100,000 Marriott associates at the time, and he teared up on this video, and it was such a heartbreaking thing to see one because he had turned out advanced cancer. And he subsequently passed away, which was heartbreaking for the hospitality industry. But it was so inspiring to watch a leader address his team with such humanity and such compassion, and such heartbreak, he was heartbroken, all he had to do. And I remember watching that, and I found that to be such an important moment, when I was thinking about this particular business I was running at the time, and watching him and thinking, you know what, while we’re all going to need our strength to get through this and we’re going to need our creativity to find solutions. The most important thing that any of us can bring to the table right now to our teams, and those we’re leading is authenticity, and compassion, and a willingness to show folks that we really care about what’s happening. And this is heartbreaking for all of us. And that’s going to fuel our desire to find a way through it. So it was really feeling really, Arn Sorenson, that felt that he gave many of us permission to emote publicly, and to be vulnerable. And in that vulnerability to find strength and share it with others.

Greg McKeown      

It was about as good as leadership gets in a corporate setting. I thought it named the emotion of the moment in a way that that I thought was so effective. And I don’t mean because it was intended to have a certain impact, but just the humanity of it in the midst of this catastrophic situation for the industry. He seemed to get the moment right, he seemed to capture it, you seem to be supporting that. You had a mentor through this process. Larry boss today tell us that. For those who don’t know who Larry is, tell us about who he is and why he was important for you in this journey.

Ann Berry     

Sure. Larry Bossidy was the CEO of Allied Signal, he was a tremendously impactful, industrial sector leader. And he actually wrote a book called execution, which talks about how success in commerce comes down to the ability to prioritize, to be able to communicate what those priorities are throughout organizations, and to make sure that there is focus, that there are clear milestones and that there’s continual and clear follow up so that everybody in a team understands what the goal is, and are getting very clear guidelines and feedback along the way on how those goals are being tracked, and executed against. Larry is an advisor to the place I was working. And he was just extraordinary, because he would talk to me every week like clockwork, and asked me a couple of key questions. The number one question always was, how’s the team doing? Which really speaks to someone who’s been a leader in times of crisis, and he really understands that the most important thing at any point in time no matter what you’re doing is how are the people around you doing how’s the morale? How are their spirits? How are their energy levels? The second question he was asking me is and how are you doing, which touched me in a way I can’t even begin to do scribe because so often in moments of crisis, we forget to ask, you know, how are the people leading? How are they individually doing? How are their energy levels and reservoir so that they can focus on undoing the task in hand. But he was always fantastic, again, in terms of bringing about focus and asking me what are the essential things that you are fixated upon now, and those will change, you’ll have to pivot, you’ll have to respond as the facts change. But He always was there to lend a brain experience and wisdom to asking, what are the priorities this week? How are we executing against them? What are the new facts coming in? Let me inform how those needs to change. And one of the best piece of advice he gave me was, and you’ve got to keep moving. This isn’t the time to lose your confidence, you’ve got to make decisions constantly, not all of them will be right. But it’s very important that you remain agile and nimble and mobile. And that means making decisions and just keep going at them. It’s important not to have spaces, you can’t get caught in the headlights and stuck now, which was it, which is a really empowering thing to say, when you hear that from someone with that experience, really encouraging you to just, you know, trust your gut keep going. That was just extraordinary.

Greg McKeown      

I think that’s a really interesting point, because it’s so tempting, in a crisis, to get into the hunker down mentality. Where we’re going to ride this out, we’ll wait to see how it goes. It’s such uncertainty. And it creates a sort of frozen approach. And I think you have one of two options in that situation, you can either stay in it or, or as he says, it’s time to move forward time to make decisions. It’s not about making the perfect decision and waiting for the perfect decision. It’s to make decisions so that we can progress and so that we can keep things moving. And then with some momentum, we can try to create something new. What else did you learn working with Larry?

Ann Berry      

I learned the importance of very clear communication. One of the things that Larry was at is just phenomenal that and for anyone who’d seen him on CNBC, where he was a commentator for a long time, he has the ability to be in very complex discussions, hear complicated ideas. And then he can break it down beautifully simply into straightforward concepts with very clear language, often monosyllabic, which is something I’m trying to learn because I tend to talk in paragraphs, and then everyone can understand it. So it’s very clear, it’s very concise, and get straight to the point. And with that comes gravitas. And with that comes the ability to speak to many different kinds of audiences. And if you think about someone who’d been in diversities position, he had to communicate equally effectively, in the boardroom, with shareholders, and then with employees through to the manufacturing shop floor. And I think to do that takes a particular kind of empathy, a particular kind of EQ, and a real command of language to be able to, to speak many different languages to many different audiences with the same impact. I thought it I think it’s a tremendous skill. And I really, really admire it aspire towards having it one day.

Greg McKeown     

If you tried to pinpoint that particular skill? What is it that sets apart? Someone who’s smart and driven, as I would say, most executives and CEOs are versus what you’re describing which you said, this particular EQ, that allows him to cut through the noise, identify what’s essential, speak in clear, simple ways, so that whoever he’s speaking to not only understands what he’s saying, but cannot misunderstand what he’s saying. And what what’s he doing that differentiates him from others, who are also competent and capable in other ways?

Ann Berry     

I think he knows moments when his communication is so powerful. He’s got such clarity of thought, and such clarity on what is the most important essential message that that laser like focus comes across, in his articulation of it. There’s convoluted organizational structure, which was de facto not structured, was described by Larry and he looked at it for a very brief period of time, we quickly decided and quickly said to me, this org structure is the muddled result of muddled thinking,

Greg McKeown     

The muddled result of muddled thinking, carry on.

Ann Berry     

And so when he speaks to his audiences, he speaks in unmodeled terms Because he has unmuddied thinking, he does not use superfluous words, he there are no extra phrases, because he has such clarity on his core message that he doesn’t need to gussy it up with extra language. And I think that is a particular skill. And I think it’s really reflective of the own clarity of thought that he tends to have when he’s communicating in those moments.

Greg McKeown     

And what would you do if you could do absolutely anything.

Ann Berry     

I’m very lucky because I’m doing absolutely the moment one of the things that I would I would do no matter what, which is work with really inspiring, hungry, passionate founders of great organizations. That’s what I do in my current role. I support investing in them and being soundboards to them and helping activate what they’re doing in commerce with content and entertainment. So I feel extremely, extremely lucky that I get to do that every day. Now. I do get to scratch this itch of talking about markets and the sort of pseudo journalism which I had. If I think I could do one thing more. It would be traveled to just really interesting far flung places. Do you know fantastic TV shows about them or fantastic podcast? Greg, do you want to just up sticks actually and take your podcast to some far-flung part of the world? And just do it from there, I think then you’d be living the dream. I think there’s something about discovery and something about exploration. That is his pitch that’s on scratch. I used to joke actually that I was almost born in the wrong period. I wish I’d been one of these sort of Edwardian explorers where are so many new geographies that nobody had gone to from the Western world still and go and find things. Other things, you know, people hadn’t found yet. That sounds like a missed window.

Greg McKeown     

You could imagine yourself as a sort of Anthony Bourdain.

Ann Berry     

Exactly, exactly. Also, and I do think this is a function of the last year and a half the  desire to go and do those things are somewhat counter weighted by the desire to do slightly more fundamental things in one of the things I’ve missed in the last year and a half is going back to England, which I typically do four or five times a year to see my family, all of whom are over there. And it’s been such an interesting period, because on the one hand, I think many of us have had this desire to just up sticks and go and have an adventure having been cocooned for such a protracted period of time. But on the other hand, there’s been a real desire to sort of hold on to what I would call the most important things or the basics, which are things like our family, our loved ones, our friends, who we haven’t had necessarily the opportunity to spend as much time with, by virtue of what’s been going on. So it’s really interesting push and pull. It’s these two extremes. It’s the extreme of go out into the world, go beyond our boundaries and horizons and see what’s out there. But on the other hand, it’s this real burning desire to stay close to him we love as well.  

Greg McKeown     

I was just talking to Kim Scott just written a couple of great books. And one of them radical candor is probably the one she’s most famous for. And she had this idea, she said, everybody right now should draw out a two by two. And on one access, it’s love and hate. And on the second axis, it’s before the pandemic and during the pandemic. So that you get to evaluate, what did I love before this all happened? What did I hate? Before this all happened? What do I love? What did they love through this experience? What did they hate through this experience, so that you can try to get clear in your mind, what kind of lifestyle you want to create post pandemic? What’s clear, to me at least is that the most people do not want to go back to how things were before. As I hear you describing this last, last person in Vegas type stories. There’s something in the adventure that that’s all been, there’s something about that, that that implies what a different kind of thing going forward something different. What do you want post pandemic, what do you see as a way to, to create the best of before and the best of through?

Ann Berry     

One of the big learnings through all of that was some of the things like being really attracted to you and I left the UK and I came to New York. I hadn’t realized until I didn’t have them anymore. Just how unimportant they were in the grand scheme of things in contributing to my happiness. So I live in New York. I lived in New York for a long time. I love New York, I love the energy here and the people who come here with many of whom are chasing dreams, which is such a wonderful environment to be in and to watch people do that. It’s also a city with struggle. And I think part of what makes New York and many other cities so interesting as these are not easy places to live. And yet people come here and there’s something about these places that want them to get through the struggles of being in these in these cities and continue doing what they’re doing. And there’s so much about the heart, the hub up here brunches, with friends. There’s fantastic museums, it’s fantastic culture. There’s always something to do. They’re always people to see. And assuming I was this big extrovert. All of the Sort of played to what I felt really recharge my batteries and kept me going. And then suddenly in an environment when none of that was available, and what my day would entail was waking up and going outside to a completely different landscape, the bluest blue sky, the most beautiful red rock formations, didn’t know anybody. I did in a work environment, but certainly didn’t have any personal friends or personal context there. And I actually found the way in which I filled my time made me feel as though I didn’t miss some of those other things. I was reading books and being by myself, actually, for large tracts of time, or running around outside or going for walks. The simplicity of that even though it was such time a terrible crisis, but the simplicity of getting rid of all these things I would say yes to, for the sake of keeping busy, and being less busy and embracing being less busy. That’s something I really want to carry forward. Because I found coming out of that, Greg, I was so much more creative. I searched better clarity of thinking, to go back to what we said earlier at my decision-making capabilities were faster, were clearer. And I think it came from that decluttering and having a more decluttered life is something I want to definitely carry on pursuing in this next, you know, in the roaring 20s, we’ll see how that goes. It’s almost a roaring 20s and decluttering almost seem to be, you know, in conflict with each other.

Greg McKeown     

Yes, it was sent in a sense they are in it, in a sense, I think they’re the one can enable the other, you know, that that by creating space by saying no, by finding by escaping the  , the noise, it feels like to me that at the beginning of the pandemic, everyone was experiencing involved.

Everyone was experiencing involuntary centralism whether you wanted to or not, you know, you go to your it’s like we were teenagers, you go to your room, and you have a think about it. You know, every everybody was more isolated than they were than they were before. Everyone had the chance for more solitude, even though it was an enforced thing. What is one thing that you want to voluntarily eliminate? Now, as at least in the United States, we were emerging from what has been.

Ann Berry     

Am I allowed Greg to talk about not what I would eliminate, but what I perhaps replace other things with, or something I would add, which I think eliminates other things, which is gratitude. Gratitude was something that I started to practice, really not in an attentional way, it crept up on me because I was sitting in the state with nearly 30% unemployment, it was one of the hardest hits areas of the country.

And I and you see it everywhere. And I remember at one point, I did come back to New York for a brief period. And your point about enforced solitude and being teenagers, again, actually, the curfews were kicking in, in New York, and I remember actually calling my parents and saying, you know, that De Blasio has managed to do what you as parents could not do to me as a teenager, there was a curfew. And I’m actually observing it I’m actually hearing. But I was really conscious when, when they’re in the eye of the storm in the hospitality industry here in New York, when there were literally riots blocks from my apartment. That I have been, and I’m exceptionally lucky. And there was such a disconnect in a strange kind of way, because so many people, I had been to graduate school, whether I had worked with many of my immediate social circle, had obviously, as so many people didn’t know, a very lonely COVID period, they’d had their own stresses and strains coming out of this. Everybody did no one has been untouched by this, but they didn’t have uncertainty around their income, they didn’t have uncertainty around, you know, trying to tackle things like getting unemployment insurance, because the state systems were being overwhelmed. Whereas I was actually seeing those things up close and personally. And so I just had this constant sense of feeling lucky to the point of feeling guilty that so many people I cared about were okay that I personally was okay. And it’s really having a sense of gratitude for and awareness of the privilege that I have. That’s something I really want to carry forward and really not lose. I think it’d be too easy to lose it in the sugar high that we’re getting right now as the world reopens. And so just keep remembering that the way I’ve been very fortunate

Greg McKeown       

One of my favorite insights that that came to me as I was grappling with some personally changing things in our family was this idea. If you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have. And if you focus on what you have you gain what you lack. And the challenge, I think, is to take that that truism, and turn it into lifestyle. For years, I have written a gratitude journal. And that’s been very, very good exercise for me. I mean, I think I’m 10 years into that I don’t think I’ve missed a day in 10 years. That’s just sort of a once a day check in, you know, it’s a moment that you come to, and that’s a lot better than not doing it, but what about all the in between, I mean, your  life is lived in the in between, and, and that’s when I introduced a practice, that, that doesn’t sound like a very high standard, but turns out to be quite a high standard. And that is, after I complain, I will say one thing I am thankful for. And what I noticed when I first did that, is that I complained a lot more than I really like for real. And, and, and that I noticed too, that that has an effect on people around you. You know, that’s not just on your own mental well-being but on whoever you’re complaining to. Now, there’s space for some complaining feeling of being less alone, if you can share some of your concerns, and so on. There’s a place for it.

Ann Berry   

I think it’s a fantastic practice. And I think I’m so glad that you brought that up, because it’s, in theory, an easy thing to do, the only thing that costs you is that minute or that second to do it, it’s your time. And I think a practice of being thankful, really for the overachievers to use the term that is at the beginning. It’s an equivalent of being solution oriented in a strange kind of way. It’s sort of saying, okay, something may have gone awry. But here is something to counterbalance that that takes me forward with positivity. And I think it’s, I think it’s a very solution-oriented way to approach things.

Greg McKeown       

Ann, give us the last word.

Ann Berry   

You know, related to that, Greg, I was walking around the streets of New York the other day, and there’s one particular street in Soho, and I saw graffiti on one of the doors, was the following slogan, die with memories, not with dreams. And it really struck me when it comes to this idea of you know, how do you listen to what it is you really want to do? And how do you find that path? And how do you just go for it? I saw that Greg and I thought, one that’s why I love living here in the US and in New York. And something about that statement just really captures the place as well as the moment. But also it was a reminder, you know that that that if you were to say, what is the one thing coming out of this period? That’s been so difficult for everybody? I think it is this desire to make sure we’re focusing on the dreams and going after them as best as possible.

Greg McKeown   

Yes now, I said, I’ll give you the last word. But I just want to riff on that one final time, which is it connects to what you were saying earlier on about not trying to make perfect decisions, you go make a memory, is sometimes memories aren’t quite as good as you were hoping they would be experiences but they’re still memories go make a memory is a nice, realistic way to go about life. Go try it. As Jon Acuff says to me, he says you in life, you either have a success or you, you get a story. And it’s, it’s a nice way to think about it, like go make a memory, go take an action, go take a risk, so that you are full of stories at the end of your life and not full of just Well, I was waiting till the perfect moment to go.

Ann Berry, what a pleasure to have you. You’ve designed for yourself a career that has been gold plated, has had so much experience and, and achievement. And I think it’s going to be really interesting to see the next act in your journey, continue to design towards, you know, that really, what is it that that I came here to do? What a pleasure to have you thanks for being on the What’s Essential podcast.

Ann Berry   

Thanks, Greg.