Sally Susman - Breaking Through

Most particularly, I want to tell our audience, Sally imparts so much wisdom about not only how to be the top of your game as a communications professional, but also how to communicate in general and i thought we'd start with the importance of communication i pulled a little excerpt here sally that i'd love you to riff on you say because of the increased scrutiny and elevated stakes communication can no longer be considered a soft skill.

The ability to lead and drive public conversation is a rock hard competency. It tests one's abilities as much as professional discipline, maybe more so in a time when public trust in business, government and media is at an all time low. I'd love you to tell us about the importance of communication, not just in your role, but for any professional at any level of the organization.

It's something I learned from supporting nine CEOs over three companies over more than three decades, working with elected leaders, government officials, and cabinet secretaries, and what I saw Aiden was really that all of those individuals. are highly competent people. I mean because you talk to people at the top of business, you don't stumble into the corner office.

People get there because they've worked hard and they have competencies, but the ones that are the game changers that really can shift the paradigm in their field, whether that's Leonard Lauder at the Estee Lauder companies or Or my current CEO, Albert Bourla at Pfizer, the ones that are the game changers are the one who put as much effort into how they communicate, into practicing those skills of connection, of thinking deeply about what they want to express.

And so I wrote this book to share those insights and to encourage people in leadership positions to really understand the importance. I have to say it brings me great pride that the Harvard Business Review Press took on this, this first time author because I wanted it to really be a book as much about leadership as about communications. And I think the, the guiding hand of HBR helped me to do

the American express company, you joined Estee Lauder companies where you worked with the Lauder family directly and you tell us here Estee Lauder was a master communicator and I'd love you to share the communication story from this little piece, telephone, telegraph, tell a woman Where is the law they claimed this was a key element to her huge success

So she had to do the, The very personal skills of telegraph, telephone, tell a woman, this is, was her mantra. And I always thought maybe she was the first person to go viral before we knew viral was a thing. And also to the point that often , authentic outreaches are more meaningful than just broad scale advertising.

And that was a lesson that Estee learned by necessity, but one that I think we see very much today in all kinds of areas, including certainly in the biopharmaceutical field, that influencer voices come from everywhere, not just from big, splashy advertising campaigns. But I love, I have to say, I love my time at that company because they're so innovative and so creative and so committed to their customers and to their employees.

You mentioned there Leonard Lauder one of estes spawn and how he gathered some skills that are inherent in the company today so they carry through to the company and you too as a mother pass on skills in your family but your own background and your own family had a massive impact on your own mindset and.

What's interesting here is when you see somebody as successful as you, with such an illustrious career with such great brands of companies, et cetera, people go, oh, it's well for them, et cetera, et cetera. But what I loved about your story was that you reckon your teachers and probably many of your co students would have. Voted you least likely to succeed yes you succeeded nonetheless including so much of the lessons that were passed on by your parents,

And I try to tell them unflinchingly because I think it is through the shared experience of making mistakes and, and stumbling at times that people can learn. So thank you for saying that I'm proud to show my warts. I'm also very fortunate and proud to have grown up in the family where I did. My parents were interested in the world. They had a, passion for civic issues and they taught my brother and I many things. We had to bring a, a news fact to the table every night at dinner and discuss it.

And this couldn't be a sports score or a weather forecast. It had to be something of the world and we had to talk about it. My brother and I thought this was inhumane, cruel, unfair but it was actually a great gift Aidan because we learned how to observe the world and how to process information and how to. articulate things. The other gift that my parents gave me was a practice of writing thank you notes. And mom was very strict about that.

Nothing, no gift could be enjoyed until the thank you note had been written.

I was surprised many years later to have a conversation with Lauder. Lauder about pretty much the same thing. And when I joined the, the company, I was new to the industry. As you mentioned, I came from financial services into personal care. And Lauder was kind enough to take me by the hand and introduce me to the top editors across covering the industry. And I remember very specifically one, one day, and I tell the story in the book as well.

Where we went to meet an editor who was less than gracious, she kept us waiting, which more importantly was keeping him waiting because Lauder Lauder is an icon in the industry. She didn't give us a tremendous amount of time. She was rude. She sat behind her desk with her eyes down and then dismissed us shortly thereafter. And as Lauder and I were He said to me, now, don't forget to write her a thank you note. And I was what she was so rude. And he said, nope, that's how we roll.

And I realized that writing thank you notes was not a casual affair at the company. Lauder himself wrote many, he had blue stationary. It was one of the. The colors of the brand and everyone at the company calls it a blue note. Did you get a blue note to say thank you for this or that? And I realized that again, before they had money for advertising, before they could spend a lot on splashy incentives. They took the time to thank the women who work behind the counter, their best customers.

And so now I try most mornings to take a moment before I start my day and write one or two thank you notes looking at my calendar for, for the day before. And it's a tremendous practice because it gives you a sense of gratitude. Of the good fortune that you have for the people that you know, and people are very touched by it, especially in the age of texting and tweeting and to receive a note through the post with a thank you is still very meaningful. Something I take quite seriously.

So that's why it's almost a whole chapter dedicated to how to write a thank you note, remembering that specific is important to not just say thanks for having me for dinner, but thanks for hosting me in your home. And the the, the vegetables from your garden were so delicious and my. was a lovely choice. The more specific, the better.

I give an example, so I read that story about you and this less than gracious person and I one of the beautiful things about doing the show is lots of the content mixes and becomes this marination of a mindset over a period of time and one of the things that you get from doing the show is huge empathy so.

Empathy for that person who's less than gracious not knowing what's going on their lives and then i try and pass that on to my kids so something similar happened where there was somebody else when we were checking in into security for the airport and she wasn't very nice at all and i smiled and my son said why are you smiling at her and i said well. I said, you know what, I just read it in this book that when you smile, the other person has mirror neurons, they can't but not smile back.

It's really, really hard for them. And you can unlock them. And you never know what's going on in that person's life as well. So maybe, maybe we'll say seen as I'm on that one, that element of How you show up to the other person being such a key tenant and key theme that's right the book as well

I, I have a specific chapter in the book that I refer to as Perfecting your pitch. And I want to be clear to all your, your listeners and viewers that I'm not talking about the dreaded elevator pitch or a cold call where you're pitching an idea, maybe to a cynical journalist, but a quality, a quality of being in the world. So I tell the story, this one from American express and it, it followed 9 11, which here in New York and throughout the United States was a. Unforgettable, horrible day.

And the American Express headquarters are right down at the World Trade Center where the, the terrorist action happened and the Twin Towers came down. Ken Chenault was a new CEO, had just been a CEO for a couple of months, who was actually out on the West Coast of the United States meeting with some people in one of the call centers.

When the tragedy struck and he knew he needed to get back to the headquarters in New York, had to drive across the country because there were no planes flying for days. And Ken had a leader's instinct that he needed to get people together in one place. So they rented out Madison Square Garden, which is huge and invited all the employees from the tri state area. So New York, New Jersey, Connecticut to come together.

And of course Ken's staff prepared a speech for him to give, which he didn't give that speech. He spoke from the heart. He waited into the audience to touch the people whose lives had been impacted. He learned the names of the employees who had perished in the tragedy. And most importantly, he set a tone and the tone was, That American Express's best days, that New York City's best days would be ahead of it.

And I write about that, and it goes right back to your story and your education with your son. That how we choose to show up is so important at, at, at really important moments. And also at everyday moments. Greeting people by their name. Saying hello just these simple things make such a huge difference.

And if I turn up in someplace that's very aggressive, like maybe a, pressurizing journalist or a committee hearing in front of a, a, tough committee, If you start by a smile kindness in your voice, thank them for having you, it can just take that edge out. And I think that's so important.

Clinton's failed candidacy and how she got the pitch wrong. And this is one of the things you detected from your experience. And I thought we'd just juxtapose the American express experience with Hillary Clinton's experience and just how subtle the difference is, but what a dramatic impact that it can have.

I believe she worked hard, but it often felt like she sounded That she was going low as opposed to going high in in her ideals and her tone, or she seemed frustrated and angry, on the defense all the time. And it was heartbreaking to me really, because I do admire her. But she couldn't lift herself up. And of course she famously called people or infamously called people a basket of deplorables. And that, that doesn't reach across the divide the way Ken brought people together in a tough moment.

It seemed that unintentionally, but nonetheless, It's actually that Hillary was seen as divisive. The thing that was also a great irony, because I love politics, I follow politics very closely, is at her concession speech, she did have pitch. And I don't know if any of your viewers and listeners remember that concession speech, but she was actually wearing purple.

And purple is a symbol to me because We call our political parties here in the United States red and blue so one side wears blue, the other side wears red. And purple is the, is the coming together of both sides. She, she talked very graciously about accepting this outcome, not challenging the outcome, but in, but in the, in the spirit of advancing democracy, accepting this outcome. And lastly, she spoke to little girls across the country and said, don't let this hold you back.

You can be anything you want. And I remember watching it with my daughter who was at the time, right in the age group to hear such a message and I wished so much she had that pitch throughout the campaign and it it's was a bit of a heartbreaking thing to me. I want to say one other thing about pitch, if I may, and that is.

That, in companies today that are struggling with quality controls, I think it is because people on the shop floor, people in the middle ranks of the company, Are often afraid to raise bad news and problems up. And I don't know the details of what's happening at Boeing today, for example, but I do know that the CEO has lost his position and that is largely seen as a result of the failure.

To deal with the quality issues at the company and having really studied companies that have had crisis from British Petroleum to Disney to Boeing one of the key things is really having a clear line of communication from the junior levels to the senior levels. And you can't have that if people feel they're going to get shouted down or bullied or, you as you say, speaking about Amy Edmonds psychological safety. Psychological safety and pitch go right together in my mind.

So you're absolutely nailed a huge element of why so many organizations fail ultimately, but they blame it on strategy when so much so it's, it's the softer skills and one of the reasons why I think your book is so important. I just want to say to our audience in the book.

Sally gives loads and loads of advice loads and loads of golden rules and i won't have time to cover it i highly recommend it particularly if you're working in communications you have a guru of communications here and i have a copy of for grabs just sign up to our sub stack where i'll give away a copy of sally's great book breaking through. What in the book you give a golden rules on pitch itself now we're not gonna cover all eight but i'd love you to share perhaps one of your top tips on pitch.

And I really think the mindset that one brings to each and every encounter, I referenced it a little bit, but you know, I've been in hostile environments. I've been places where people don't like the big, bad pharma industry, or people have a negative impression just of someone from a, from a large corporation.

And I think if you can really start with the human elements share a little bit about yourself, ask a question, these kinds of very humanizing behaviors are, are really essential to getting on that good pitch at the very beginning of a conversation.

You're the class clown type character when that's not the intent at all. And you share a brilliant story here. I'd love you to tell us a little bit about humor, but also the great story and to intrigue our audience, I'll say, I'll give you two cows for her.

And as you say, nobody wants to be the joker and I especially I'm very passionate about corporate communications and wanting to elevate the field. And it's a terrible thing if the communications person is seen as sort of the, the court jester in the office that that's no good. But I stuck with this because I don't want to live in a world that's joyless. And I want to be able to have a light. and happy atmosphere in the work environment. We spend so much time in the office.

It needs to have a levity and a humanity to it. So I opened the chapter with a story that took place in Ethiopia. I was traveling. Along with some Pfizer colleagues Albert Bourla, who's now my boss was then a colleague and fellow traveling companion on this trip, which was part of the Pfizer Foundation work reviewing what we do to, to help engender healthcare among those who don't have good access. We were, it was the end of a long day. We had some jet lag. It was very hot.

We'd been in a maternal clinic and we were just resting for a moment under a tree, getting ready to get back in our van and carry on. When we saw a group from the village coming toward us to, to seem friendly, to greet us. And the gentleman who appeared to be the leader came up to me. I was our trip leader. I had been guiding and communicating. And he said to me that he wanted to trade me for two cows. And I just lost it. And I did I pride myself on speaking and I didn't know what to say.

I, I was sputtering I am, I am a feminist. I'm a woman leader. I mean, this is ridiculous. And I was just, when Albert, who's very funny came up from behind and said, sir, to the, to the gentlemen, this woman is one of the most senior leaders at a, at a fortune 50 company. And she will not be traded. For less than six cows. And with that, we all laughed mostly me because I realized he was joking me.

And of course we're not going to be traded for cows, but in a far away place at a tired moment, I had lost my sense of humor and I was grateful to Albert for restoring it. And it ended up being a lovely visit with lots of photos and handshakes. And. Albert is very good at that. He can diffuse tense circumstances with humor. And while I can't tell a joke to save my life, I probably just proved it with that story. But I do like to have a lighthearted atmosphere. And so one ritual I have.

Created in, in my own department is every summer we have open mic night. And what that is, is we do it at the end of the day. We have some refreshment and we have a microphone set up to try to make it look like a comedy club and people get up. I usually start and they share a recent mistake that they made and people tell it, these stories with flourish. And I've heard it all at this point top secret documents left on the subway all kinds of embarrassing mistakes made.

But once we share our stories and we laugh together, the shame is eradicated and the humanity fills the space and we're all better off and we learn from doing it together. So I think we stick with humor. We never laugh at the expense of others. I should also mention that here. At Pfizer, we have four corporate values, one of which is joy. And I think joy is very uncommon for a value of a big pharma company. But we, we thought about that and we thought it was important to be joyful.

And we even got into the substrate of what does it mean to have joy as a corporate value? And it means that. We take our jobs seriously, but not ourselves. And that we recognize laughter is good medicine too. a joyful company, humor and lightheartedness as my personal goal its way into that chapter.

You mentioned something though, Sally, which was the Albert burla. And indeed throughout the book, you start with the story of the pandemic. And I I've had such empathy for you during that period, because you'd come from I'm X you'd come from S day and you'd come to Pfizer.

Add a period where it wasn't the most trusted organization then we had these horrific documentaries for example about purdue pharma et cetera which doesn't help your job because you're trying to change how people view the company and you mentioned how you joined Pfizer in two thousand seven but in the early days you almost quit on multiple occasions because of the hostility that the company faced and you felt very very viscerally yourself i thought we'd share that because You're

a human being i think people forget that there's human beings working in all these organizations i'm trying to change some blip that the organization has had or the industry, it can be so visceral on you as a human being it can be so damning it can be so emotionally draining as well and i'd love you to share that part that you share in the book because it shows how human you and your colleagues are.

And, they have products that delight women around the world. And where mostly wherever this family goes, they're. Red carpet is rolled down because they're, they're generous and they're kind. But when I got a call about coming to Pfizer from a recruiter, I thought, wow, these companies make life saving medicine and yet they're pretty much reviled. The reputational data showed.

big pharma companies down with oil and gas and even with tobacco. And I guess I was naive or perhaps overly self confident cause I thought, that's crazy. I'm going to fix that. This is a great challenge for me. I'm going to go over to the biopharma sector. And fix this reputation problem and as I'd also like to just as a slight side note to say switching sectors is really fun because you just are drinking from the fire hose and you're learning all the time.

But for me I felt like I ran headlong into a brick wall. I had underestimated the cynicism towards the industry. I started to hear from family and friends saying, why did you go there? These are bad. bad places. I, I, I sat in on focus groups where I heard people say these companies have a cure for diabetes, but they won't put it forward because insulin is so profitable. And while Pfizer is not an insulin company, it wasn't personal to Pfizer to me.

It was indicative of the level of cynicism and negativity towards the industry. So for my first 10 plus years, I was banging my head against that brick wall. I was trying all sorts of things. And, I like to think I was perhaps having incremental progress, but not much.

You leaned into the power of your colleagues as well you listen to them just like you said earlier on about who has ideas from lower in the echelons of the organization that they can share and that became the epiphany of the book including how albert burla showed up. End the crisis as well i'd love you to share that cuz this is the genesis of the book but also it was the genesis of your new communications approach. When it matters most

And Albert Bourla had gone to Greece to give a speech at a conference. And by the time his flight landed, he was dead. The conference had shut down and we all recall that closing of doors across society as people were starting to, to hunker down in anticipation of the pandemic. So Albert had to just turn around, came back to New York and on his flight, he wrote on a little piece of paper that we still have at the company today that he had to do three things.

First, Take care of our 85, 000 employees across the globe because employee wellness became a top priority. Secondly, to ensure the steady stream of medicine around the world because horrible illnesses like cancer and Alzheimer's, they didn't go on break during the pandemic. And third, that we would make a vaccine by the end of the year. And this is where I thought, Oh no, it's a global pandemic. And my boss has lost his mind because he was expressing something that felt impossible.

Typically it would take 10 to 12 years to make a vaccine. Albert then did something I've never seen any of the other nine CEOs do. And that is he appointed a project manager. Looked around the room and it pointed himself. And that's when I thought, well, maybe, just maybe this is going to happen.

And from that moment forward, the company went about doing things very differently, put 2 billion at risk, did not accept government money so that we would be liberated from any strings attached. Took a big bet on MRNA technology just put all chips on the table. And when I saw this aid, and I thought, this is my moment, this I didn't know in 2007, it would take until 2020 to have my moment, but here it was, and I want it to be very intentional about changing the reputation of this company.

And so I did, I too did things very differently. I took some of our treasured intellectual property like a clinical trial protocol, and put it right up on the website. Because we didn't have three years to fill this trial. We didn't have three months. We had like three weeks.

And I embedded media along for the journey. I had two senior reporters from the Wall Street Journal. And a documentary film crew from Nat Geo. It was a big risk. There were many nights I couldn't sleep worrying that I was filming the greatest debacle. In corporate history, but I also knew that if we were successful this would be the narrative that the world would need to know. And that I couldn't go back and recreate it as because it it's, it's now history.

Pfizer was the first company to find a successful M. R. N. A. Covid vaccine. And the next when we when we found out the vaccine work the very next day, the Wall Street Journal dropped four full pages, every detail under a wonderful headline. The Pfizer vaccine, crazy deadlines and a pushy CEO. And while that's funny, it's also true. It was the audacity of the of the The charge and the tenacity of the leader that made it happen.

The film called Mission Possible is still available on YouTube and it's 46 minutes of pure heaven for me to watch it. And for the 85, 000 people who work here, it's a, it's a chronicle, a testimony of what we did today.

Pfizer is a top 10 global brand, according to fortune magazine and other reputable reputation tracking sources. And. We were able to really achieve both a scientific transformation, but also a trust and reputation transformation at the same time.

But then also you had a different approach as an innovator because one of the things i saw here was a pattern that you had experienced. A video you know a documentary before gone the wrong way.

When it didn't go so you'd seen this first time you'd seen the documentary maybe you'll share that because you had been stung in the past but yet you had the bravery to innovate and go you know what this is the way forward, i'm hopefully will drive us and hopefully we'll get a result at the end of this i love you to share that because that that to me was a key part that i don't know even if you knew how brave that was because, So many times people will have failed like

that or seen failure firsthand and then not risk it once again, because the safe bet is where innovation doesn't happen, but you actually went with something really, really brave and it paid off. Luckily,

As I mentioned earlier, I love politics and follow and engage in politics very closely. You're referring to a situation here in New York city. Where I was supporting a woman, Christine Quinn, who had been the speaker of our city council and was running for mayor and was the odds on favorite to win. She was seen as the, the front runner and the leader.

And the campaign agreed with the New York Times to embed a documentary film crew with Chris along the way of her campaign there was a belief it was going to be a historic win first female mayor to possibly lead the city and this film crew is following her around and over the course of the campaign, for reasons that we don't have time to get into today, but.

her, her her lead started to evaporate and suddenly she wasn't necessarily going to win and in fact had several stumbles along the campaign trail that were vividly videographed by this company. And in the end, she, she didn't win. She did not win the primary. She was exited early from the race. And that, that film is quite painful to watch and to see the sinking hopes of a great public servant. And it did caution me about , don't embed a film crew lightly, but there is there is.

It's hard to say this, Aiden, but there was a gift of this crisis in that all bets were, were off. And if Pfizer had failed, I think the, the, the, the trauma of that would have been much bigger than a bad news cycle for, for the company or the video that probably nobody would have watched the stakes were so high and Albert's leadership was Was really pro risk. Albert is himself Greek, proudly Greek, and he likes to quote Greek philosophers to us here at the company.

And one of my favorites of his quotes is from Aristotle, where he says, Our problem is not that we aim high and miss. Our problem is when we aim low and hit. And this was a moment where we were all aiming so high. The scientists, the people in manufacturing, Before the pandemic, in our best year, we produced 200 million vaccines. During the pandemic, we jumped up to 4 and 5 billion production.

So, the whole place, was running with this energy and with this this sense of purpose that is so critical. To getting things done to innovating. I mean, I'm sure you see this throughout your work. The higher the stakes in many ways, the better

Is that you called your team together and you said forget the old rules of how we operate imagine we are founders of a startup not a hundred and seventy one year old company now hundred and seventy three perhaps i'm no longer in. There you go. I'm no longer interested in playing defense or dodging the broadsides against our industry. This is the moment to strike out and break through to people. And you said to your, to your team, what do you think?

And what I loved here was that their response, they were longing for this. Something that was bigger than themselves and i think this is one of the core messages of the book.

The teacher asks you to set an intention and it can be something usually something for a loved one, a family member, maybe resolution of a problem. And so that morning. I was doing a little yoga and I decided to set this intention to make the most of this moment, not knowing how it would turn out. And as you say, I grabbed my team and we jumped on a video call and I started talking to them about this. And rather than sensing they're feeling tired or, or tired.

overwrought or worn down by this, I literally saw them rise their eyes lit up, their, their, their kind of their posture got better. Because this is what people want to do. And as I mentioned, I, I had gotten a bit ground down over the decade. And I am not proud to say that I didn't always, Take this, the, the, the harder road I might not tell people what I did in my profession cause I didn't want to get into an argument, but in this moment lives were at stake.

Literally we would think about every day, how, how many people died. We you'd hear it on the news that the need for the vaccine was urgent and I suddenly felt more confident. And I opened the aperture on the stakeholders that we would engage with. We always, of course, it would engage with patient groups and regulators and, and those stakeholders close to home in the biopharmaceutical industry.

But during the pandemic, I was invited to speak To the restaurant workers association, because they wanted to know, how do we try to get our restaurants open in this environment? What, when will we have vaccines and how will they protect us? Same that I went and engaged with the teacher's union, someone I'd never talked to. And importantly for me personally I came out from behind the scenes. During my whole career, more than 30 years, my job had been to help others.

To know what to say or, or where to go and what, how to build bridges to stakeholders. And because we were all running flat out, some of those opportunities turned to me. I went on television. I did more podcasts. I gave speeches, things I hadn't done before.

And I wrote a book which had been a lifelong ambition never before achieved until in this moment because I was just driven by this intentionality and it, it opened up new lines of thought for me about, yes, communications, but also leadership and connection. So now that the pandemic is behind us, Aiden, I try to maintain a firm, Focus on intentionality. So this morning, for example, before sitting down with you, I said this guy talks to all the big shots in innovation.

My, my goal will be to add something new to the conversation to try to my own perspective and hopefully to make it interesting. when I'm talking to my parents, my daughter, my colleagues, my, my boss, I try to say ahead of the. Take 30 seconds and claim an intention. It's really very powerful.

Link to the next one where about being curious and here you can use the word breakthrough communicator synonymously with an innovator you say here breakthrough communicators are relentlessly curious, they are interested in things outside themselves they are virtual so listeners and they ask probing questions and listen mindfully, to the answers so this is actually truly being present truly listening etc. But I wanted to share this and perhaps this is the last tenant we'll, we'll share as well.

I absolutely loved how your own curiosity and leaning into it and your practice of journaling as well, that you haven't really mentioned. You mentioned about thank you notes, but you also journal very, very regularly, the things you're grateful for, et cetera, but also note things you're curious about. And this led to your dream intern. And one of the things I talk about in my work is reverse. Reverse onboarding.

So when you have somebody who comes in as an intern in the organization or a newcomer, rather than program them in the way things are done around here, ask them to report back to you, warts and all, what they see that you're doing wrong with their fresh eyes, cause you've become used to it, but I loved how your creativity. Flip that on its head and brought in this dream intern and this is something that any organization can do and approved to be a master stroke for you.

They wear funky clothes and they are have divine powers of creativity and the rest of us don't have that. I strongly reject that notion and I believe all of us, each one of us, have the power to be curious and And that will lead to some creativity. I learned a bit about this from the dancer and choreographer Twyla Thwarp. And she has a concept she calls scratching. And scratching is simple. It means that you just scratch the surface of all the things that are happening around us.

on a daily basis. It can be as simple as taking a different street when I walk home to see different things, or picking up a book that's not the typical genre that I usually read, or going to a restaurant with a cuisine that I've never had before, and that this kind of simple scratching gives you big ideas. So I had such a moment, I was flying home from a business trip, and I was tired, too tired to work or even to read.

And so I decided to scratch a little bit, and I looked at the movies that they were showing on the, on the plane. And there was one called The Intern. And if anyone is not familiar with that movie, it stars Robert De Niro, who plays a retired man. Who didn't like his retirement, felt very much on the margins and joined a firm as their summer intern. The other main character is Anne Hathaway, who plays the business boss lady, who's lonely in the job and struggling.

It doesn't really have anyone In the company that she can talk to cause she's the boss. She and he form a close relationship and become great friends. And of course, solve all their mutual problems. Happy ending. As I'm watching this on the plane, I start to tear up because I'm deeply moved by this, and very next morning, I marched myself into the head of HR at Pfizer and I said, this summer, I'm going to have a senior intern. I then asked him if he would be my summer intern.

And literally he, he tapped his ear, Aiden, cause I think he didn't think he heard me correctly. And I explained the concept and he told me he had to think about it overnight. Which I knew meant he had to ask his wife if she agreed and she did. And we're all, we're friends. And he came back to me the next day and said, yes, he will be my intern. And I said, well, please let me offer you a consulting contract because you're so senior. He said, what do the other interns make? 18 an hour.

He said, I'll take it. And I said, but please let me give you an office. So you have some privacy. Where do the other interns sit? He asked, I said, over here in the bullpen. He sat in the bullpen and he became this much beloved figure. And he helped me as well with things that were marinating in my mind. But what was most incredible is that people heard about this thing we were doing. It went a little viral.

Fast company magazine asked us about it and covered it and put us on the cover of fast company magazine for a decade plus. I've been trying to get Pfizer on the cover of fast company with no success, but this kind of quirky, Very human, simple intergenerational experiment put a shine on the company. It's a company willing to do things out of the box. We were also invited to go onto the main stage at South by Southwest and tell our story.

So I love, I love telling this story because its roots were so simple. I watched a movie. That sparked an idea. And I believe as long as you give full credit to, from wherever, whomever you're scratching, it, it can lead to really wonderful opportunities rooted in curiosity, living in, in the freedom to be creative.

And I was like, there's bound to be people out there who are brilliant and nobody's no longer going to them because they're not just on the circuit or whatever, etc, etc. And it's just, I think those kind of outside the box. Thinking driven by creativity can if you lean into them and don't worry about how it's gonna pan out it will always work out you'll never regret those things so i absolutely love that story now i'm gonna land the ship on something.

That you mentioned earlier on the book but i thought it'd be a lovely way to finish this book firstly congratulations to you on the matrix award and for people who don't know what that is it is the highest honor, that can be bestowed upon somebody in sally's professional and communications.

And I loved your intentionality here. So you mentioned that you brought that intentionality that you have in yoga to your

And all of a sudden, Aiden, after all these years of like dying to get this award, I panicked over what I would say in my speech, because I guess it just meant so much to me and it, it was a very important opportunity in my life. And I did several drafts, sort of cliche after cliche after cliche, when I finally hunkered down and tried to get to the heart of it.

And the purpose of this organization, The Matrix, and Women in Communication that lead it here in New York, is not really to honor those of us who've done it for a long time, but to provide scholarships to those rising in the profession. So I decided the most meaningful thing I could do. And what became my intention was to speak directly to those young people in this field that I care so much about.

And I was reminded of a line by one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, and her poem titled the summer day. It ends with quite an evocative question.

And Mary says, tell me, what is it you will do with your one wild and precious life? And I just let that question hang in the air because, , the phrase tell me is full of good pitch, right? It means I want to know I'm listening. And what is it you want? Not what other people want. And each life is truly in my mind, wild and precious. So it was, a very powerful moment for me. And I hope one in which inspired the young women in the field, helping young people in the field.

is extremely important to me. Corporate affairs and communications isn't singular in how people credential themselves for this work. If you're the general counsel of a company, you better have a legal degree. If you're our head of R and D, you likely have at least one PhD in science, but in my field, people come from all All different backgrounds. There are journalists, politicians, poets, philosophers, and we learn our trade and our craft by watching others do it.

this book, Breaking Through, is my apprenticeship for people who want to be in this field, and want to know the lived experience for doing the work. And so I'm just again, super grateful to you for allowing me this opportunity and the time for answers to breathe and really thank you so much for your interest , in the book.