The Subtle Power Moves You Need Today to Get Ahead

Welcome to another special episode of Tiger Sisters, our AMA. Yay. And as you guys can see, we are in a new location. We are in the Spotify LA office, and we're reporting in this gorgeous set. Thank you so much, Spotify, Spotify for creators and Trace Gaynor and Travis morning. We love you for having us. Yay, isn't it beautiful? I love colors. OK, so today's topic, the topic du jour is power. We talk about money, power, and love. And so we're doing a couple of

AMA S focused on each topic. Power, guys, you guys asked us and today we're answering. Power is a tricky subject. I think a lot of people shy away from talking about it. It can feel a little bit ick and not everyone is comfortable speaking about it. But these are the things that we've learned and we want to share with you regarding power in your life, in your relationships, and in the workplace. Thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode of our AMA.

It's going to be a little bit different, a little bit dusty, a little bit juicy, and we're so excited because you guys submitted your questions for us and we're answering them today. I'm Jean, I'm Cherie, and we're the Tiger Sisters. We are your Wall Street and Silicon Valley Big Sisters. And we are a top business podcast on Spotify where we talk about money, power and love. OK, So the first question is,

Sheree, what is your secret power that's not obvious at first glance? I love this question and my answer is that I'm really able to read a room. And I know that sounds like a little bit obvious on the surface, but it's helped me so much in like work conversations, in personal life, relationships. If you're able to pick up on cues that people are leaving, non verbal cues specifically and body language and you know, visual stuff, how are they like moving? How are they responding?

You can better decode the situation to know how you should respond to them. And a lot of people don't realize that. Like there are certain things that you can do to make you more powerful. If you can read the room. For example, at work, if someone is presenting their idea to the entire group, even if I'm in Zoom, I can see people's bodies, any language, like are they widening their eyes? Are they like, you know, distracted typing on their laptop, whether in person or on

video camera? Like I can pick up on those to know and gauge what everyone else is feeling. Yes, it is exhausting at times. I can't really turn it off. It's just something that I'm naturally attuned to. But if I know that like 80% of the room is not supportive of this project, then I can figure out like ways if I want to like push the project forward, what it how do I position it to address their concerns? Or I can even call. I'm like, Andy, it seems like you're concerned about this.

Is that right? Like I'd love to hear more about your opinion. Oh wow, so you would bring it into the conversation live on the spot? I. Can or I'm like, hey, or like maybe not even call it out so much if you're like a little bit nervous about that, but you can like bring it to like hey, Andy, do you have any questions? If you notice that like, their body language reflects something. Yeah. Or if you know someone disapproves it, you can avoid them and then like, you know

what I mean? Like actually not have them join the conversation and then talk about them, talk about it with them after the fact. Yeah, I think, yeah, either one works. It's just one, being very attuned and two, you now have more information that perhaps other people might not have. So then you can act on that information however you'd like in the moment or after.

I think a way to develop this skill is to really empathize with all the other people in the room, like better understanding what are their concerns, what are their motivations, and then just really noticing, like what is their body language tell you? What this makes me think about is actually the fact that now there's AI and like tools to help you do this. To decode. Exactly like one of our sponsors read AI. Read AI Shout out.

What they do with their technology is they read the sentiment of each like video call that you're doing, and then they can call out when the sentiment is high or low to actually help you action on it, Especially if you're like in a sales being or something. That's so funny that it's like now technology is developing ways for people to like, learn how to attune themselves the way that you're naturally attuned.

Yeah, I think I've just had a lot of practice as like a child, like reading other people's emotions. Hyper vigilance. Yeah, hyper vigilance. We honestly won't go into that today, but you shouldn't know that's where that comes from. But it it honestly has become a superpower for me. How can people work on the skill

themselves without childhood trauma? My answer is going to be something that you guys don't expect at all, and it's going to be reading fiction books. I was. Going to say something similar. No way. I was going to say watching TV. Watching yeah. Watching TVI think a lot of drama shows actually like Grey's Anatomy like. Or even like reality TV. Or succession. Yeah, yeah. I watch a lot of reality TV. No, when you watch reality TV, you can start to learn why did

people act this way? Like obviously the situations are manufactured. They're not actually reality, but people are reacting to it in a true way that's like true to their nature. So like, why did one person act this way and why did another person not? And like, how did things unfold? And like, how did you expect to unfold? How did the characters or the people in the show expected to unfold versus like how it

actually? Plays out if you are diagnosed as someone who is on the spectrum or you just have a hard time reading people's reactions, their faces, and just understanding their emotion. Just like it comes very intuitively to me and I know that's not where everyone, that's not everyone starting baseline. A very real recommendation is to start watching reality TV.

Just start reading more fiction and watch more like drama on TV because then you get to understand people's reactions, you get to understand why people reacted that way, and you can pick up on more subtle micro emotions that you might not notice already. I have another recommendation. Another recommendation from me is to actually go out and put yourself in situations where you're interacting with people who are different than the people you normally interact

with. Like go out and meet people who are from different backgrounds who like think differently than you, who are just like have a wide variety of interactions so that you can sort of build that almost like library of interactions in your head so that you can start to better attune yourself to different types of people. Yeah, I think that's one way to really build deep empathy. If you don't feel like you have that library in your head

already, you can read fiction. You can meet people in real life to understand people and what they've gone through. I think memoirs are also fantastic. Yeah, I mean, we want to start a book club. This this answer is too long, but this is kind of like a crazy episode. So like, we'll just let it, we'll let it ride. But like also I really want to start a Tiger Sisters book club like you guys. Know avid reader she. Loves. Reading She's the biggest nerd and she will read until. 5:00 AM

Yeah, beyond she. Will literally not sleep and read. I'll pull an all nighter for either reading or partying, one or the other. There's no in between, there's no sleeping, and there's no in. Between or or binge watching TV. Or binge watching TV. We all have her vices and if her vices binge reading, I guess that's OK. Gene, you have 50 patents in AI

and machine learning. You went to Dartmouth and Harvard Business School, you were a product executive at Snapchat. You worked in finance on Wall Street and you've had an amazing career. And you're my sister and Co host of this top ten business podcast on Spotify. I could go on and on, but I have a question for you from Manuela Lito. How did you come to the decision to quit your job and start a podcast? Was it scary?

Well, Manuela, I'll tell you, it was the hardest decision of my life or one of the hardest decisions. But I realized that if I stayed in that position, I would be settling. You had the money, you had your dream role, but you didn't feel, but you thought you were settling. Yeah. I mean, we talked about recently on an episode about the concept of zone of excellence versus zone of genius.

And the idea is that you can be in your zone of excellence, but it's not something you're not doing something that gives you life or gives you energy, gives you joy, gives you just that, like shwa de. Vivre de leaning purpose. Yeah, exactly. I'm not saying that you can't always be in your zone of excellence and that the zone of excellence is not something to strive for.

But I think me and for probably a lot of people who are watching this, we are the type of people that if you are in the zone of excellence for too long, you start to feel like you're settling. You start to feel like you're stagnant. You start to feel like you are just not operating at your highest potential and like contributing to the world. And that's exactly how I started to feel. I mean, I was at Snapchat for a

very long time, 6 1/2 years. And I will give a lot of credit to, you know, the leadership at Snap. Over the course of my time there, I worked in many different roles and I was given the opportunity to do incredible things like running hundreds of millions of dollars of M&A, running massive teams, standing up entire new initiatives at the

company. And like, I think the reason why I stayed so long is because I was able to learn so many different things and do so many different things, even within my role as a product leader. But I think ultimately, by the end, the way that I felt is that I was squarely in the zone of excellence, but not in my zone of genius.

I wasn't doing something that I felt like I was like using my special brand of genius, which everyone has to help the world, to really do something that was meaningful and that I wanted to spend, you know, 80 hours a week or whatever it was on. Yeah. And that's why zone of excellence is so dangerous because just because you end up being good at something doesn't necessarily mean it's what gives you purpose or meaning joy and fulfillment.

And it's it's like dangerous because if you are good at something like, you derive a lot of. Yeah, you get a lot of fulfillment from it. You just feel when you're good at something, you feel satisfied. Yeah, you feel satisfied, but I think over a long period of time, if you're not like learning and evolving like all the time, I feel like you just

get bored. Yeah, it's like when you if you have like a machine or a knife or something, just doing a repetitive motion, like if a knife is just like always chopping the same vegetables on the chopping board and the knife never gets sharpened and that knife gets dull. Yeah. I feel like. You guys like my metaphor. I don't know why I just came up with that metaphor. It also depends. On the type of person that you are too, Yeah. But I think in general, most people like new to be

challenged. I think people like to rise up to a challenge. I think in human nature to want to be good at something. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's really interesting the zone of excellence versus the zone of genius. And that's. Not to say that the goal of achieving the zone of excellence is not a super like veritable and worthy goal, because you're not always going to be in your zone of excellence. Being zone of excellence means you've worked in something and you've honed your skill in it

for a very long time. So I think even reaching the zone of excellence is a great goal to have. And then, but the question is once you've reached it and you've been in it for a long time, then you start to feel like it's time to do something new. It's time for me to sort of like break out of this and then enter the zone of genius. This episode of Tiger Sisters is

brought to you by read AI. Yes, and it's. Not just another note taker, it's like an AI copilot that can read, transcribe and summarize your meeting notes. It reads the energy and vibe of your meetings to give you the next smart steps. I'm obsessed because it's like having a chief of staff that manages your inbox, your work meetings, basically your entire work life. Yeah. Last week I missed a meeting and I was able to type. What did I miss and read?

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And you guys might remember we actually interviewed David Shim on Season 3 of Tiger Sisters when he was talking about his new startup, which is actually Read AI. And now Reid has over 4 million users. Wow. Wow. And they're giving Tiger Sisters listeners a 30 day enterprise trial, which is worth $30 and that does not require a credit card to sign up. We don't. Know how long this 30 day free offer is going to last? So if you're at all curious, try it right now.

Go to www.read.aislashtigersisters for a free 30 day extended trial and you don't need to put in your credit card. Sign up. Through our link because then they'll know that we sent you. We're obsessed. With Read AI and we think you're going to love it too back. OK, so our next question comes from listener Nainika, who asks how are you so productive all

the time? I love. This question because I can talk about productivity for hours and days. I think of course there are tools and frameworks to help being productive like Atomic Habits. Great book. Cal Newport has an amazing book also that talks about work. Of course, they're frameworks and I could just like launch into those and talk about them. They're tools like read AI that help you with productivity. But honestly, I think my answer

is more holistic. And the reason why I'm so productive in my career and in like the more professional sense is twofold. So one, I found my zone of genius and zone of excellence. So I've really found something that I'm excited to work on every single day. And I hate to say it because it sounds so cliche, but it is my passion and I'm able to monetize from it, which is I think a very

important distinction. If I had a passion that I wasn't able to monetize on, trust me, it would be a lot harder. But I found something that I love to do and honestly a problem that breaks my heart so that when I get to work on it every single day, it is so fulfilling. And like I don't even want to procrastinate because like the more I procrastinate, the more that I'm not achieving my own personal mission, vision and like my God, even reason why I'm

on this earth. So like, I feel like deep, deep internal desire to do this thing. So that's one of the reasons why I'm more productive because I've done a lot of experimentation and figured out what I'm good at and something that will help the world that makes me feel good to work on every day. The second reason why I feel very productive in my life is that I view productivity as something that impacts all the different pillows in my life.

So if I'm not sleeping right, I know my next day is not going to be as productive as I can be. If I'm not eating right, I feel like crap. My next day is not going to be as productive. If I'm feeling, you know, there's like some problem in my like relationship or something like either romantic or just like friend social relationship, like I know I'm not going to be as productive. So I make an active effort to work on every single pillar of my life and I can't do it all at once.

So sometimes it's a little bit of everything and making some adjustments, but I feel so productive when the other pillars in my life are going right. And so that also means going to therapy. That means knowing yourself, that means eating healthy, means prioritizing yourself. I don't really. I try not to drink alcohol because it honestly lowers my productivity. So I've cut that. Outgoing to the gym, doing what feels good to you.

Now that I'm in my 30s, I feel like I'm more in control of my life, my habits, and then that means I can control the outcomes. OK, let's do our last question

for this AMA and it comes from Shruti C who asks how do you make meaningful friends who are as motivated, aligned and passionate as you exclamation point? Such a good question, So. Good. Well, this. Is a really good question. Talk about like friendships and relationships all the time. Yeah, it was. One of our earliest episodes, actually. We did a whole episode about friendship, yeah. You are the product of the five people closest to you. So right now many exercise, go

into your life, take stock. Who are the five people in your life that you spend the most time with? It could be family, it could be teachers, it could be friends like whoever. It is Co workers. Who are you spending the most time with in your life and who are you closest to and speaking to the most? Take stock of them right now because you will become more like them every single day. Guys I can't believe she just did a mini exercise like off RIP, off RIP, off RIP.

Dude that's take stock. Of the five closest people to you. And then what? It's really. Helpful if you can go through this exercise and write down one thing you admire about this person. That's so good, I've actually. Done this before because, you know, it's like exercise. You can see the thing you admire about them. It makes you appreciate your friend more, of course.

But it also, if you're having trouble, like thinking of something that you admire about this person, do they really deserve to be in your inner circle? Your energy is the most precious thing in this world. Your energy, your time, who you spend time with is so important. So take stock of that. And it's OK if it's time to recalibrate. Yeah. Fellow podcast guest Taylor Swift actually said something recently about how she was like my energy. She's like, think of your energy as a luxury good.

I'm paraphrasing here. Did you see this clip? Yeah, of course. She's like, think of your energy as a luxury good. Not everyone can necessarily afford it. And like, by a Ford, she doesn't mean monetarily. She means, like, energetically. Not everyone can match you energetically. That's actually something I've learned recently. And it's like hearing myself say that. It sounds very woo woo like. It sounds kind of weird but it's

so true. Like I feel it deep in my soul and now I know it too, especially. If you're a giver, like Gene is a giver, and I'm sure a lot of people who are watching this podcast right now, you're just like a giver in your life, a giver of time, a giver of energy, just like generous, super generous. And if people aren't matching your spirit of generosity, like that's just not a fruit. It can be an. It might not be a fruitful relationship.

Yeah, and. It can actually be very draining on you because I think we've talked about before the concept of like if you are naturally, you know, your generosity level, whether like Sheree said, it's your time, your energy, your empathy, your even like listening to someone and like, you know, holding their emotions in your heart, in your hand. If your natural level of that is at an 8 and someone else's natural level of that is a three in terms of.

Giving yeah in terms. Of giving and you're just always going to be at an 8. They're always going to be at a 3. It's really hard to meet in the middle. And if that's something where over time you feel like you need someone who's at your level or at the same amount as you, you're just going to end up. Being really disappointed in that relationship, I think different. Seasons for different reasons is something that Gene says all the time.

And now that I'm in my 30s and reflecting on my 20's, the thing that I wish I knew when I was in my early 20s is that you don't need 100 friends. Like, I think when I was, you know, in college and a new grad, I was so concerned with the number of friends that I had, not like a sorority sisters it. Wasn't even like a specific. Number, like, I'm not saying that, but you know what I mean? Yeah. You want to feel well. Liked it's important to you to

feel well, liked. It's important for you to feel popular. Even if you're not someone who like considers yourself popular, it's still just like, important for your, your ego. Like when I was young. Like it was younger, it was just like so much more important to me. But I think like as I'm in my 30s now, like the circle just gets so much tighter of like who are the people? And the, I mean, my interpretation of friendship has also changed too because like, I

don't need 100 friends. I just need like 5 to 10, like ride or dies in my life. People, guys and girls who see so deeply into my soul make me feel loved and cared for and like can hold my emotions the way that I hold theirs. There's, I think it's actually quite literally impossible to find 100 people who will meet me as deeply as I meet them. And I think it's really hard to maintain 100 relationships. It takes up so much time in the way that I want to do

friendships. So I think 5 to 10 and this is all I can personally manage. And with that mindset, I can stop putting so much pressure on like even new friends that I meet, you know what I mean? I'm like, you're not going to be my soul mate friend. That's fine for friends for different reasons. Dude, I. I saw this TikTok a while ago and I don't remember who posted it so I can't attribute it properly now but if someone ever sees it please attribute it for me.

But it was this woman who said in your life you will have people who are your friends, your true friends. You will have people who are your fans, and you will also have people who are there to teach you a lesson. They're there to be a case study for you of some sort. And maybe that case study takes you a long time to learn. Maybe that case study takes you a short time to learn. But like, these are the three categories. And I was like, I was like, what?

Because I think very naturally a lot of us, especially women, go through life naturally bucketing people as friends. Like when you meet someone I think I very easily default to be like Oh my new friend, but I think we should stop. Calling people our friends, like people we like meet on a night out or, you know, go to a bar and with your friend's friend. Like, I don't think those people are my friends and I should stop calling them. They're my friends.

They're my acquaintance, They're my peer. But like, I want to be using that word way more selectively now that I'm in my 30s, guys. She. Has been 30 for one month and she said the phrase 10 times. It feels good. To be in my 30s, what can I say? It's her new identity. It is. I'm in my 30s now. I like don't even. Want to mention it. And she's like now that I'm in my 30s for 27 days exactly. Yeah. And I think the second part of the question was like, how do

you how do you make meaningful friends who are as motivated line and passionate as you? So it's like, how do you actively do that? Like, let's say, you know, you're coming at it kind of from a position of abundance of being like I already have many people who I can choose from.

But like, let's say, you know, you listen to this podcast and or you're listening to the podcast now and you kind of take stock of your own group of friends and you're like, you know, what of this many exercise these five people, I only have one person who meets this bar that you guys described.

So how do I actually go out and make four more friends that I can surround myself with who are, you know, at the same level as me and have let's see, what are the qualities that she said again, motivated, aligned and passionate, I think. You go to the places where those people are, go to the events that they're at, like whether they're networking events or like women's clubs that are like that or like run clubs, like what is the facet where you want to grow in and what are those

people doing? So I think if you want to become like a healthier person, go to a run club, meet those people because then they're there for that reason. And then you can do that activity with them and then grow in that way. If you're looking for like bad ass bitches to be friends with, go to the networking events. Like there's a bunch of events that I see all the time in New York, SF and LA. It's like women's entrepreneurship like groups. They host these events.

Sometimes they're free, sometimes you do have to buy ticket and pay for it, but like you are paying for access to those people and it gives you a reason to talk to them. And if you can find people to, you know, that you actually have a genuine bond with, like, what a great outcome. So what are the types of people you're trying to attract and

where are they naturally going? Yeah, I actually I. Really connect with and like resonate with this question because I kind of feel like I'm in the process of doing this again myself just because I am somewhat newly single but I'm sort of coming out of a phase of my life for a really long time where 99% of my friends were couple friends and like I would do couple activities all the time with my ex fiance.

Now I'm kind of like building up a new roster of friends who in addition to my, you know, previous friends, I can do more like single person activities with. And so one thing I've done that's just really like tactical

is that when I meet someone like a girl that I like and I feel like a like mindedness and like a positive energy between us. I'll follow up. And you said this too. You've said this too. Like I'll actually be like, hey, want to get coffee sometime or like want to get lunch, want to get dinner, want to get drinks? The power of the follow. Up and. Like, sometimes it'll pan out, sometimes it won't. But like, you sort of you've put

yourself out there. Yeah. And you've made that, you know, bid for attention or like you made that bid and it's for a relationship bid. For a relationship. Exactly. Yeah, I feel good about that. OK, so then you know what? Let's do like a power move or like your mini exercise for today. So your main take away for today is if there is someone who you've met that you feel this like mindedness with and you are interested in getting to know

better, ask them out. Like in a non romantic friendship way, in a platonic way. Ask them out and ask to get coffee or lunch or dinner or drinks and then see how it goes and write. In the comments after you've done this because we want to support you and cheer you on and honestly asking someone out or asking someone to do an activity, it's like kudos to you for doing that because totally it's putting.

Yourself. In a vulnerable place like, maybe they won't respond or maybe they won't reject. Like that's the worst possible scenario. But the best possible scenario, which is how I like normally think about it, is like a beautiful friendship could blossom from this. So there's only really upside and there's like no ego involved like whatever, just ask someone and I'm sure you will learn something from that.

Yeah, and I know we're. Supposed to wrap up, but one thing I will say is one way you can go into thinking about it that we've talked about before is that different people are in different seasons of their life. Sometimes people are open to new friendships because they have the capacity and they're in a certain time in their life where they are looking for new friendships, kind of like me. Other times they might not be open to new friendships because of XYZ reasons.

You have no idea. Like they could be going through a medical thing. They could be going through like family issues. They could be going through, you know, investing deeply in their relationship. You just don't know, and you're never going to know. Don't assume, Yeah. You're never going to. Know if you don't put yourself out there and make that bid, and conversely, if they say no or you kind of get like a not now, then you don't have to think that it's about you.

Like they just might not be in their season and that's totally OK. There are so many other people out there who are like minded and I'm sure excited to get to know you. Thank you guys.

So. Much for tuning into this episode of the Tiger Sisters. We hope you like this new AMA style and this new studio. Thank you, Spotify and Spotify for creators. We'll catch you next time on the Tiger Sisters podcast. Bye.