Sarah Robb O’Hagan || How to Kick Ass

listening and enjoy the podcast today. It's a great pleasure to have executive activists and entrepreneur Sarah rob o'hagen on the podcast. Oh Hagen has been described by the media as everything from Superwomen Uncover to the pied Piper of potential. She's a high energy combination of disruptive business leader, fitness fanatic, and cheerleading mom. Has been named one of Forbes's most Powerful Women in Sports and one of Company's most creative

people in Business. As CEO of the fast growing indoor cycling company Flyweel Sports, she is currently leading the transformation

of the business through digital content and services. Prior to this role, Sarah became an internationally recognized reinventor of brands, having served as global president of the sports brand Gatorade, where she successfully led the business through a major repositioning and business turnaround, and global president of the luxury fitness company Equinox, where she reinvented the offering through a significant technology transformation. Sarah's latest book is called Extreme You, Step Up,

stand Out, Kick Ass and Repeat. So great to have you on the podcast today, Sarah. So good to be here, Scott, Wow, how'd I do with that bio? Did I kick ass? Or? Oh my god? I half acet or one? That was not easy to get through. I thought I had to read your book. I had to read your book in order to get through that bio. And we didn't even get to the true parts in the bio, like the Sarah's screws up parts. But anyway we can talk about all that. I have that in my notes to talk about.

So I took the quiz that was prepared by my colleague reb Rebellious. Yes, I love it and he's great, and I was excited to take it. And my results were you have your assing gear. Yeah, you're like one point away from being ask You're doing great, right, So thank you for that encouragement. That was my quote extremer quotient. And I advise I suggest all listeners to go online to Sarah's website. We'll put in the show notes and getting your extremer quotient. I like extremer quotient better than

intelligence quotient. Let's just say that that's higher than my intelligence quotient was. So could you imagine that? Like, I would rather like as a parent to be told your child has his or her assing gear, as opposed to your child is not as intelligent as this other person. You know, Oh for sure, any day, I would rather have someone who's got their resilience and grip meter under control. That's what really being heavy your ass and gear is

all about. Yeah, so those are two good buzzwords they use. They're good. They're good grit and resilience. Now you learned a lot about both of those factors personally in your own life, right, I mean you didn't like you weren't born kicking ass? Right? Definitely? Not? Well, actually maybe technically, but I love that you were not born kicking ass.

That's perfect. I mean, I mean I feel like technically you were probably we don't if we think about this too much, you probably were like coming out, you know, kicking physically and liked be like, oh I get me out of here, but not in the sense in which you mean. Now, so you learned a lot a common theme. I've read a lot of your writings in order to prepare for this interview, and a common theme seems to be that you learn to win by failing. Is that right? Yeah? Definitely, yeah.

And it's funny like I look back now, I'm forty five years old, and I feel like the most amative memories of my childhood were just really painful failures over and over again, whether it was you know, I remember failing a really big piano exam I had been preparing for, failing to make the sports team I was trying for, like just all those kinds of things, failing to make

the A grade, you know. And I remember, just to your point of not being born kicking ass, I definitely felt like I was sort of I wouldn't say I felt like I was a loser, but I kind of kept thinking like why am I not reaching success? And I didn't really realize until years later on that all of those failures are what actually propelled me forward in the end, you know, So you wouldn't have treated that, Oh God, no, like I think at the time, I was.

You know, especially as a sort of teenager, your life experience is very short, so these things are probably far more you know, painful and impactful than they would be you know later in life when you've got a little bit more experienced. But at the time, I just remember going, God, this is so painful. Why does it always happened to me? You know? Whereas now I look back and I even as a parent of three, you know, when my kids

have those kinds of experiences. As much as it hurts me, like it hurts my heart seeing my kids go through a tough time, I also in the back of my mind, I'm like, yay, they're learning, you know, this is part of the journey. Yeah, this sounds a lot. I like you and have the growth mindset. Yes, definitely think of Carol's work definitely well. And also hope is in there as well. I'm just doing all the buzzwords here, but yeah, yeah, no,

but I do. It's interesting you mentioned hope because people have often asked me like, why did you keep going? You know, because that is the obvious question, like if you keep failing, why do you bother to believe? And I don't know of hope, you would know better than me is nature or nurture. But I feel like for some reason, I just felt like I deserve to make it, Like like at some point I was going to get there, and I just for that reason, for sure, there was hope.

I never stop believing that I could make something of myself. Yeah, this is actually a reoccurring theme that I have disdiscussions because there is this common characteristic among a lot of hyper achievers i'll call them. That was even their aspiration as a kid. And you've been quoted as saying that that was explicitly an aspiration of yours kid. That a sort of level of confidence, sort of inner driven, something that's very like inner driven as opposed to outer driven.

And yeah, it's tough to capture that. It's tough for I don't even know if we can necessarily we want to measure it, you know, but it is some sort of inefftable quality that does seem to propel a lot of these individuals forward. And you almost need that, whatever that is. You kind of need that to insulate yourself from the inevitable external criticisms and things, you know, like like me being in special at as a kid and being told I was stupid. I needed to like insulate

myself from that external judgment. Yeah, for sure. And you know, it's interesting you recall that experience for you on one of the things that was so powerful to me about all the people I interviewed from my book, you know, many of whom are some of the most successful humans on the planet. So many of them didn't start out

that way. But what to me stood them apart from everyday people was that just I guess whether you call it confidence or bravery, I don't know, but it's belief in yourself despite the fact other people around you telling you not to do things, and I think you know that. To me, it is like how do you cultivate that

behavior or trait? And kids like because at the end of the day, really successful people, whether it's being an entrepreneur or you know, an athlete, whatever it is, like you'll always come up against people that will tell you all the reasons why you shouldn't do it because they're not you, so they see all of the kind of the reasons where things can go wrong, and they may not have the sort of screaming intuition that you do or the passion to go after something, but you have

to learn to own become those and so to me, that was the difference in these people. They just had that sense of no, this is who I am and I know where I'm going. Yeah, and how do you balance that with humility? The thing that's cool about your book is you cover lots of ways of kicking ass, but some of them may seem contradictory with others, but

they're not right, not necessarily. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean yeah, because I think that was like one of the biggest you know, spending the time with you and my friend Red, trying to really distill what we're the sort of psychological behaviors that were common between these people, and humility was a huge, one, huge one, because I think humility in itself is those head in hand with curiosity, doesn't it, And therefore you're open to realize have all

the answers. Therefore you're open to learn and see things differently. And to me, that's a very very important behavior trait to cultivate is just one of the things that blew me away with these people I interviewed. I mean, some of them so so so successful, slash famous, you know, who would sort of say, oh, you know, Are you sure I'm going to make it into the book? Are you sure I'm not going to be on the count Roy Colore? I'm like, wait what? But I think that

comes from this just really deep seated level of humility. Yeah. I think that's really cool that you got that from a lot of those individuals, because you don't. I think that we can sometimes hear the message kick ass and let that overshadow this other part as well. You know, we have a lot of adolescents who are growing up

very entitled with a kick ass attitude. And I think you're talking about it in a different way though, and you're bringing in these nuances and these ways of these seemingly kindradictrient ways of being, but which all kind of need each other in kind of a puzzle jigsaw puzzles, sort of like they need each other in order to truly kick ass, not kick ass any narcissistic way. Yes, right, yes, hundred percent. Like I even went as far as I gave a great story of my book about trying to

explain this and the story about myself. When I was in my early twenties, I got my first ever promotion where I was managing people. You know, two people reporting to me. Now the ass kicking I'm the shit side of me, you know, could have easily just gone had that go to my head. But then my boss actually in the discussion of this promotion, says to me, but I do have to let you know that you don't dress well enough, like you don't come across like a leader.

And this whole story of me having to go and freaking shop at Ann Taylor with this guy's girl friend, I mean, it was mortifying, right, And whereas initially my mental response was like, who the hell do you think you are to judge the way I address you, old man you? But then you realize if you actually do have underneath that some level of humility, you like, he's telling me this for a reason. What's he getting out

of this? It can't be fun to tell a young woman that she dresses badly, like he's clearly doing it because he's trying to help me be better. And once you reframe that, that sort of changes things completely, and that opens your mind to your own potential. I think, Yeah, so there's an open mindedness combined with inner confidence, combined with humility. Yes, this is really an episode about combinations. So let's see what else can we add on this?

What about check yourself out? Tell me about that, Tell me about that one? We add that one? Yeah, no, it's funny that that's one that rad really helped me sort of pull out. What is it? And it is about having openness to experience, you know, and like we all meet people in life who you know, go on vacation with the same people to the same place every year, or you have lunch with the same people at the same restaurant every day. And the ones who are more

open to just try different things. Like if you're away on a business trip and and you land and you find that you have five hours free before the conference you're at starts, do you sit in your room doing email? Or do you check out the city that you're in? You know, it's amazing how these people I call them extremers all had that like, wait, I'm in a new place. What can I find out? What what is here? I

responded that way in that in that one. Oh no, wait no, wait, wait, wait wait a minute, wait a minute. I think I may have said I wanted to stay in the hotel room and watch TV. Maybe that's why I'm one point away. Maybe that's why I think the point. I think that's the point, you know, because it really often traveling is exhausting, and also there are introvert extrovert differences as well. But I'm very curious about what's on

that TV. Yeah, and by the way, let's talk about introverts and extroverts for a second, because one of the things that a lot of people have the name of my book is extreme You, and they assume that that

means loud, extroverted, bossy thing you can imagine. And actually I purposely profiled some incredible introverts within the book because being extreme You is being the most potent maximum version of yourself, like leveraging everything that you bring to the table, things you care about, the things you're good at, and introverts like because they have deliver in this extroverted world, I think often we overlook the awesomeness that they bring to the table. And so, yes, checking out something on

the TV. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. That's education, that's learning, that's whatever. At least it's not just sitting there. I have to respond to all my emails. Yeah, that was one of the other options I did not put. Yeah, thank you for saying that. And you know, Susan Kate is a very dear friend of mine and is doing

really cool work with that. And yeah, and I like the idea of kicking asses transcending your temperament in that dimension, but there are other temperaments that are contributing to this. So what about the temperament of neuroticism. I imagine that if you have a lot of persistent fear and anxiety, that's going to consistently keep you away from kicking ass

right totally. And I think on all of these so that one, for sure, you know fear, You know it's on you to sort of learn to overcome your fears. But you know, I think about the introvert extrovert thing again for a second. It's like, I do not subscribe to any belief that introverts should have to change their behaviors to live in this crazy extroverted world. However, I do believe that introverts and extroverts, by spending time together,

can really bring out the best in one another. And so you know, I have a great story in the book of a woman that I worked with actually who was very introverted, and even though by the end of our time together. You know, it wasn't something she wanted to step up and give big presentations in a corporate setting. Overcoming the fears and whatever it was to get there

was such a huge win for her. Likewise, her ability to slow me down and see things that at a deeper level more, it was such a huge win for me, you know. And so I always tell people you should not you know, feel you have to put yourself in the opposite behavior shoes. But like tapping into people with opposite strength to you can really help you just bring out more of who you are and get one step

closer to what you're trying to be. I like that, and also maybe embracing contradictory instincts within you, within yourself. I mean, there's no saying that if you are, on average an introvert, that you can't get enjoyment from acting extroverted. In fact, there's a lot of research on you can, and there's no reason saying it. As an extrovert on average, you can't really get a great enjoyment watching TV and relaxing, you know, and like reading a good book. Yeah, why

do you think I run so much? Get away from all of the people in my life and have quiet time for sure. Yeah. None of this stuff is absolute than anyone you know. Okay, can you tell me about the freezing of this one a lot? So ignite your magic drive? Anything does the word magic in it? I tend to like. So. Yeah. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out why are some people more driven than others? Because you know, we've all met those people in our life where you go, wow, you're so driven, Like,

where does that come from? And in the end, for me, it is associated to checking yourself out, which we talked about before, so really having spent the time sort of sampling and exploring things to really understand what you love and frankly what you hate, so that you're getting yourself into the right path that works for you. But then, what I noticed for people who have a lot of drive, it's generally because they've set themselves a goal that is

a little bit of a stretch. You know, it's not easy to attain, it's not impossible to attain, but it's far enough out you know, they're pushing themselves to get there, and it's like once they get to that goal. I use the mountaineering analogy, like you get to the top of the mountain, you suddenly see there's a whole beautiful mountain range behind it that you couldn't see before. Now

you want to go tackle that one. Yeah, And people I notice people talk about that their drive waned when they didn't feel challenged in that way, like if they got to the top of the mountain, they were just hanging out. Might be fun for a while, but then it was kind of like, my drive's gone. I've lost that challenge. Good good, good, good good. So where's the

magic part come in there? I just think the magic is when you connect, You set the goal against something that you realize you really care about, it's your thing, and you push it far enough out that it's like triggering in you this like magical desire to make it happen. And I think the third piece that contributes to the magic drive is often telling others about it. You know, so many people told me, like they'd told their friends, I'm going to go, you know, climb a mountain, or

I'm going to go start a new company. And because all these other people say here's the thousands of reasons why it won't happen, it like triggered in them just like, let me show you good. Yeah, I really like that one. Actually, yeah, okay, so let's talk about getting over yourself. And we kind of already touched on that, right, but yeah, that's the one mainly about humility. Humility very just a little bit, you know, one aspect of getting over yourself as well.

I noticed the importance of laughing at yourself. Yes, yes, yes, that's a thing. So agree with you. Like, I feel like we live in the society that just puts so much weight on everyone looking perfect and amazing. And you know, everyone said to me, I've had the comments so many times that it is unbelievably rare for an executive of your level to be willing to just put it out there and talk about how epically you've failed and the embarrassing things you've done. And I'm like, I get it.

But if you just laugh for yourself, there's nothing to be scared of anymore. Like every human screws up. It's not new news, you know. And I think it's when you try to hide it and put on this kind of like airs of being perfect that you kind of live with the fear that someone's going to find out the truth. Yeah, and you've said this phrase somewhere stay stubbornly humble. Oh yes, I love that. Uh. I never

heard that before. We came up with it when writing the book because it was just again, so many of the successful people we spoke to, they had that willingness to just not get ahead of their skis, not get to you know, cocky, I get this, or arrogant. And I do think, like from time to time, look at yourself from the outside in and say, you know, am I getting stressed out about the way I appear appearances? Or am I getting stressed out because I'm really not,

you know, achieving my goal or whatever. The former is something to just like take it off the table. It's a waste of effort and energy. I mean, I used to worry back in the day about like how embarrassing the pictures of me on the internet were, And now I'm at the stage where I like openly tell everyone, here's the Google the link of the worst picture of me with helmet hair after I had my third child,

because it's hilarious. I love that referring. I mean, I there was this big Think interview where I did have the worst haircut ever known to man or a woman, and I will admit, like I can admit that, No, that was a really bad haircut, and I deserved all the everything I got. So I would like to challenge you because I feel like mine might have been worse. I'm talking like giant bad bangs. It was just like everyone was like, what were you thinking? Yeah, at least

they knew it was hair. People thought I was wearing a helmet, so that was the problem there, it was. I mean, at least you could tell it was hair. But okay, yes, so far this is really great stuff. And I love that you're incorporating things like humility and getting over yourself into a model of kicking ass because you know, it didn't need to be the case, right, you could see that. So I like that a lot. What about what's the connection between igniting your magic drive

and playing your specialist game? I feel like those two are really related, right, definitely, So this idea of playing

a specialist game. I stumbled upon that actually by looking at you know, my whole career has been in marketing for the most part before I became a CEO, and so I've worked for some of the most sustaining global brands that have really impacted us, whether it was Nike or Virgin or gatoray by these great, big, important brands, and what they all have in common is that they focus on a very very specialist position in the marketplace

and therefore say no to a lot of things. So for example, you know, get me anyone who will raise their hand and say I fucking love United Airlines. That would be nobody, right, Whereas Virgin people passionately talk about it because they have this very specialist positioning that they bring to life in the market and they never waver from it. And I realized that that was actually a really interesting way to think about yourself as developing your

career and making the most of your own skill. What is your positioning, what is your set of skills that are unique, and how do you sort of get your life onto your own playing field that really plays to your specialist skills. So that's this idea of playing the specious game. And I do believe that when you figure

it out, it does trigger your drive. I mean by myself, I didn't start out my career in the airlines thinking that I was going to end up running fitness companies, but it was just the trial and error of things. I really loved and was good at versus things I really sucked at, Like when I worked at freaking Atari, the video game company. I mean I sucked at it. I was like, I hate video games, nothing about this is my specialist game. And I didn't do well, you

know so, and I didn't want to do well. Whereas if if you find yourself in an environment where it's just so col to what you care about, suddenly the magic turns on and you're just driven in a way that you wouldn't otherwise be for sure. But when did you work at Atari? I'm really interested in that For

a second. I was there, This is hilarious in around about two thousand and it was Atari had basically been acquired by a French video game publisher, and I was there to sort of help work on the rebranding of Atari. And it was a D for disaster. I mean it was like, Sarah is mortifyingly not good at what we need her to do here. Wait, did you say a diva disaster D for disaster? Oh? D for her? Okay, that that makes a lot more sense. Well, I mean

I didn't even know Atari existed. Do they still exist? Yeah? They do, But it's basically just a shell. Now you know, it's just a brand name as opposed to a full operating company, which is sad because the heritage of what it really is is actually pretty cool. Oh I mean that was like my whole childhood, so I had palm come on, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I mean that's I grew up on that. Okay, back to the specialist game idea. Yeah, so it's great. What are you drinking? Was that getory?

What are you drinking? Oh, it's it's soda water. Were you at one point CEO of that company? I don't know. I kicked my twenty year diet coke habit. Oh well, that's that's actually pretty good. Good thing. You need to talk to Elon Musk about that, because here he's apparently he drinks like ten diet cokes a day or something once upon a time, and I'm really glad I don't now. Okay,

back to the specialist game idea. So you use the word grit in the beginning, and I think there's a lot of discussion about like when the grit whendo quit sort of thing, like it's okay if you've engaged in something that's not your specialist game and you don't want to grid it right totally one hundred percent. And yeah, I do think that, you know, if people ask question, how do you know when to push you and when not to? But I think generally most of us do know.

Like when I was a tatari, I actually ended up getting laid off. I could see it coming, if I'm really honest, you know, like I just not only was I not performing well, but I didn't enjoy it. I didn't get up in the morning going woo who I'm going to the office. And I think the difference between that and when you're in a role like when I was leaving the turnaround of Gatorade, which for eighteen months looked like it wasn't going to work, but I was

so fucking passionately determined to make that thing succeed, you know. Yeah, And I also knew intuitively that even though it looked like it wasn't coming together, that it was eventually going to Like I had much more something that was right in my wheelhouse. And so I think most of us do know if you really listened to your to your gut. Yeah, I like that idea. You said that you kind of

knew it was coming. It wasn't surprising. I mean I very rarely faced situations where I was really truly absorbed and immersed in something and you know, like got laid off a job, like people like, you know, we don't want you to work on that anymore. Like very rarely will someone say like we don't want you to work on something anymore that you are actually truly genuinely absorbed

in so totally. But then there are the times I definitely paid those times where I thought I was like the ship and I got talk wasn't I was like, oh, okay, well, getting fully absorbed in genuinely and something it is not necessary the same thing as thinking you're the ship in it, right? Sure? So my point still hold. Yeah, definitely, Yeah, and according to your model of kicking ass, you should really keep

your eyem the ship thoughts in check constantly. Yeah. So I love the next one obviously because I love creativity. Change the game, right, So it's the point of life is you know, let's praise it this way. Part of kicking ass is also changing someone's ass. We No, No, that's not I'm trying to say, I'm trying to come up with a better for Okay, you helped me out here because I'm embarrassed. This may be one of the most fun podcasts I've done in a while. I'm blushing

right now. Yeah, I see it, I see you. The idea of changing the game is like, once you know your specialist game in terms of what do you really thrive at, you then want to use your skills to like innovate and create and change the game around you. And so you know some of the examples that I gave, and there obviously I use the business as example of the Gatorade turnaround, Like because their specialty was they knew more about exercise physiology and sports nutrition than any other

company on the planet. Change the framework from being just a sports drink company to making all sorts of sports nutrition products. Right, that's a change the game moment and getting things on your terms instead of looking at competitors in their case power. But think about that for yourself personally. How many humans out there spend way too much time comparing themselves to the neighbors, to the other person in the cube next to you, Like that person's doing better

than me, to making more money than me? Who gets a shit? Like play your own game and like move the environment around you to get the things your sort of turf that plays to who you are, and you'll do a whole lot better. Oh yeah, no, who'd agree with you? Is one of the great creative researchers E. Paul Torrance in the sixties. This is my world. I'm

infusing it with your world. He had this manifesto for children that he came up with based on his work with all these really creative He followed these people up to find what were the best predictors of life on creativity Over a fifty year of time spend. He found one of the best predictors was kind of setting your own rules and finding your own game to play, and so he empirically found that predicted life on creative. Yeah, that's cool. I'm gonna have to look him up. I'll

send you. I'll send you his manifesto for children. Yeah, I'd love that. Cool. So I'm going to ask you one last question because I want to be respected all your time and we have a minute till thirty five more. Okay, so break yourself to make yourself? Now, how much do I really have? I don't like breaking myself generally, Like, what's the optimal level of breaking, and then what's the optimal level This is my question, what's the optical level breaking?

And then also when am I allowed to have kicked ass enough for me personally? And then I'm like, good, like, is there a personal standard to kicking ass that's okay versus societal expectations of kicking ass? Go? So to answer that part first is I think it is all a personal standard, So you should only care about what you care about. But if you go through life and you a kicking ass and you're good with that and you just want to be good with that, that's your decision.

But if you want to continue, like learn and grow, that's the idea of break yourself to make yourself And by the way, I'm going to make it very doable for you if you don't want it to be that painful. It can be as dramatic as I quit my job a year ago with nothing to go to and was fucking terrified, Like that's definitely breaking because that's putting you

totally outside of your comfort zone. But it can be as little as in the year when I quit my job, I committed to my kids that I would take piano lessons again, and that was incredibly uncomfortable, like to be sitting like a child with an instructor teaching me and me having to play incredibly badly in front of it. But it was forcing me out of my comfort zone to learn something creative that actually, in its own way

was opening up some more growth for me. So it could be anything, you know, It's just about making sure if you want to keep growing, that you have the curiosity to go explore and find something else to challenge you who. I was getting scared there that I was going to have to literally like break myself in order to make yourself. You're like, I could see you doing a rap, you know song like break yourself to make yourself. I don't know, that's not rap. That was like a ballad. Sorry,

that was like not rap. Okay. So I want to thank you so much for kicking so much ass on this interview today and in life. And also I want to say congratulations. I think you may have used the F word just as many times as our prior first place winner, which was Mark Manson in his episode The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, So congratulations on that. That's awesome. Well, I've had a blast, Scott. This has been really fun and I look forward to staying in

touch me too. Thank you so much, You're good bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as thought provoking as I did. If something you heard today stimulated you in some way, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the