Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Julian Guthrie about her action packed career as a journalist, best selling author and founder of Alphy, an exciting new app designed to empower and inspire women. Julian is the epitome of an action mindset! Here’s her take on what to do when someone blocks your career path:
“’No’ is not something that you should feel is fixed. That ‘no’ in fact, simply means: find another way around. And if you fully believe in what you’re doing, find another way, keep working at it. If you’re earnest, if you’re authentic, if you are bringing a certain skill set and a vision, find another way.” Julian Guthrie, Alphy CEO and Founder
We explored why we get stuck and what we can do to get unstuck, and build momentum in our lives and careers. Julian’s story and the one she shares about XPrize’s Peter Diamandis demonstrates how sometimes, having audacious goals, and making audacious promises without having all the pieces in place, can help propel you into an action mindset and phenomenal success.
This week on Fresh Dialogues, I’m including highlights of our conversation. I hope it will inspire you to have an action mindset.
Listen to the Fresh Dialogues podcast on Listen Notes, on iTunes or below:
.
First of all, you might be wondering what do you mean by an action mindset? Here’s my definition: it’s the belief that you can take action to change your future; that your abilities are not fixed, but can be improved by a bias to action.
If you’re familiar with the term Growth Mindset, think of an action mindset as a growth mindset on steroids. Not only do you embrace new challenges as a learning opportunity, but you harness that attitude to propel you to take more and more action.
New research reveals that our mindsets are NOT binary as was previously thought. We don’t have either a growth or a fixed mindset. Instead we’re all capable of accessing a continuum of mindsets. By becoming aware of our mindset triggers, and using tools from psychology, we can nurture a proactive and potent ACTION MINDSET.
I asked Julian to share the story of one excruciating time she was stuck and found it hard to move forward. After she secured a book deal for her best seller, “The Billionaire and the Mechanic” she hit a wall. She could not convince Oracle founder Larry Ellison (the billionaire in question) to be interviewed for the project. Without his cooperation, her book was dead in the water.
Here’s what Julian told me (edited for length and clarity).
Julian Guthrie: So I get this book deal and there’s a lot of interest in it and my editor starts asking how are the interviews going? In the meantime I’m frantically reaching out to his people at Oracle in the marketing departments. I tried Larry himself, had his email and got no response from him. It went on for a couple of months, so needless to say it was getting more and more unnerving. And finally, one of his chief marketing people told me: you know, Larry answers his emails personally at between one and two am, so you might want to try then.
So I set my alarm.
There’s a fine line between reaching out to someone politely, but consistently, and bugging someone so much, you’re going to get a ‘no’ or they’re going to block you. So I would set my alarm and I’d get up and I’d send some very short email, at 1am or 2am. And I did that for a period of two or three weeks, and got no response. But I kept at it and finally, I sent him another email. “This is a great story…” Brevity is key in these emails I’ve learned. And it was probably at 2am, very late, and I got an immediate response. And it was from Larry and it was a three word response, and it was: “Happy to talk.”
And that was what began a year of very in-depth interviews.
So it put me on that journey. I went from: I was stuck and I was getting a little bit nervous then to: okay, I still believed that the story really needed to told, and I still believed that Larry would love the story that I had in mind, if only I can really get his attention.
Alison van Diggelen: As you can hear, Julian Guthrie is the epitome of an action mindset. I was curious about this major roadblock that could have derailed her whole career as an author. I asked her if the setback helped propel her in writing that book and others?
Julian Guthrie: Every book is like having a baby in a way. It’s a long journey. It has its ups and downs and it’s fraught and this one was full of major, major challenges. But it definitely showed me that “no” is not something that you should feel is fixed. That ‘no’ in fact, simply means: find another way around. And if you fully believe in what you’re doing, and find another way, keep working at it. If you’re earnest, if you’re authentic, if you are bringing a certain skill set and a vision, find another way. So I think it was an affirmation of that.
Alison van Diggelen: And this is where it gets interesting. Julian’s action of promising a book before she had the main character’s buy-in is certainly audacious, but it’s not that unusual in the world of entrepreneurs. Think about how Elon Musk operates for example. He’s always promising the world before he’s in a position to deliver. Julian, Elon and Peter Diamandis all share this action mindset.
Julian Guthrie: And later in my career, I saw other entrepreneurs doing something similar to what I’d done. I wrote about Peter Diamandis who launched the XPrize and he announces this $10 million prize for the first team that could privately fly a manned rocket to the start of space, twice. And he announces this to tons of fanfare, globally, front cover publicity and one minor detail: He didn’t have the 10 million! But he believed that he’d be able to get the money, the easy part would be getting the money and the hard part would be getting teams.
So, it’s something to consider and I think especially for women where we feel that we have to check every box in order to apply for something, or in order to take that next step, or go for that promotion. We don’t!
“A lot of people say to me, I’m going to write a book but I don’t know what the book is. I don’t have the outline written. But I’m like, well, what’s the first page? Start. Just go! Just start writing!” Julian Guthrie
Of course, you want to be prepared. You want to be good and skilled and definitely it was beyond my reach, which I love. I love being in over my head, intellectually and experience wise. I find that to be a great thing in life… we shouldn’t be halted or stalled just because we haven’t done something.
A lot of people say to me, I’m going to write a book but I don’t know what the book is. I don’t have the outline written. But I’m like, well, what’s the first page? Start. Just go! Just start writing!
Alison: Note that Julian said she “loved being in over her head, intellectually and experience wise. That we shouldn’t be stuck, just because we haven’t done something, yet. So next time you feel stuck, think of Julian and take that first step, write that first page. Just start taking action.
During the Alphy podcast, we also covered: Why are our brains like velcro for negative experiences and teflon for positive ones? What is toxic optimism and what are the three requisites to build grounded hope? How can temptation bundling and identifying your triggers help us stop languishing?
I plan to dive into these questions in future Fresh Dialogues podcasts. On Alphy you can listen to our whole discussion and get inspired by the stories of other female trailblazers like Julian Guthrie. Meantime, if you’d like to sign up for the Alphy app, click on the Alphy invitation here and follow the prompts.
Thank you for following Fresh Dialogues. Want to meet more inspiring women? Check out the Fresh Dialogues collection here.
We welcome your feedback and story ideas here or at Facebook and Instagram.
