Episode 73: Erin Wilson
General Counsel of CU Direct
00:54:46
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Show Notes
Erin Wilson, General Counsel of CU Direct, joins MC Sungaila to discuss the interpretive role played by general counsel, the importance of facilitating communication between various stakeholders in the business, and how her prior work in aerospace, advertising, and even the music business inform her work today. Learn what it takes to work as part of an in-house legal team, and a C-suite leader.
Erin Wilson
Erin is an experienced in-house General Counsel, with a demonstrated history of working in the legal, technology, and financial services industries, and has been featured in podcasts and authored articles in the legal industry. She is a strong legal professional skilled in Contract Management, Complaint Response, Privacy, Litigation Management, Policy and Procedure, Team Building, and Legal Writing. Erin also has extensive experience with Software, End User, and SaaS License Agreements, and has acted as legal advisor to CIOs and IT Teams. As General Counsel, Erin also manages Enterprise Risk, Mergers and Acquisitions, as well as Corporate Governance.
Transcript
In this episode, I'm thrilled to have Erin Wilson who's the General Counsel at CU Direct. Erin, welcome.
Thank you so much. It's so good to be here. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you.
One of the missions of the show is to reveal all the different ways that you can use your legal training, practice law, and work in the business environment. Your background is interesting in that regard, both the business and law background. Talk a little bit about what it means in your role as general counsel and the kinds of problems do you solve in that role? Before we get into that discussion, I wanted to start out with why law and how did you decide to go to law school?
I did not take the traditional path. I did not go straight through college into law school. I was a Communications major and worked in advertising. I was in aerospace doing contracts for a while and did quite a few different things. When I met my husband, we decided to get married and have kids. I thought, "I got to buckle down now."
My father and my grandfather were both attorneys. I had worked at my dad's law firm in the summer, so I had some familiarity. I thought, "I think I can do this." I applied to take the LSAT. One day, I took it. Three weeks later. I applied to law school and two months later, I was in law school. It was a quick decision but a great decision. I'm happy with that one.
Having several different acts in terms of your professional work previously impacted the lens through which you're going to law school and thinking about what you might want to do with that Law degree too. Did you have some idea? You're like, "This is something I could do. It seems in line with my skills. I've seen what it means to be a lawyer." Did you have something in particular in mind when you went to law school or something you could do with a Law degree that you couldn't otherwise?
I didn't, to be honest. When I was in law school, the first thing that seemed cool to me would be to work for the FBI. I looked at being a Judge Advocate General in the military. However, they have an age restriction. You have to be 30 to apply at that time. I was already in my 30s at that point. I missed it by a year. I was 31 at that point. It’s not for me. I wanted to but I couldn't. I thought about a law firm. I’m like, "That would be great." I realized that wasn't the greatest cultural fit for me. I'd been in business, so I decided, "Let's go in-house right from the get-go then." I tried a couple of these other things, the law firm and stuff. In-house was the right one. That was the middle bear.
It is unusual to go in-house in the beginning. Most people go into practice and have experience doing that before going in-house. It seems like you had a professional and business background prior to going to law school. You had that from the business side to bear on in-house work. It's also interesting about the military service. In an earlier show, I had the same question. I wonder what that's like. Mary Card Mina, who has many years in military legal service, talked about what was involved with that and a lot of travel to exotic places.
I bet that was a hoot though. It's hard, difficult and exciting.
What kind of companies did you go to first?
Interestingly, when I was studying for the bar and then waiting for the bar results, I had taken a position with a telecom provider. This telecom provider was looking for somebody who knew contracts, which I knew contracts from aerospace. They hired me on as a paralegal while I was waiting for the bar results. My job was to take a team of 40 people across the United States. We did this all by telephone conference. We had been hired by AT&T to assess all the lease agreements all over the United States for cell site towers because AT&T was getting ready to do their big merger.
Everything you do, professionally or not, can be synthesized into a very powerful tool belt in the professional world.
These people would go out to these remote places where you couldn't get the leases from the county recorder or anything. Some of them were farmhouses where they had a tower on top of a barn. Some of them were handwritten. There were over 10,000 leases across the United States that we went through. We had to excerpt what the relevant terms were, how long it was, how much it was, when did it change, is it a co-location or a single location.
In the process of this, I did get my bar results and passed. They hired me as their attorney. They were getting purchased by AT&T. At that point, I would say, "I'm not so sure I want to be a telecom attorney forever." That's when I moved into the mortgage space because I had been a mortgage loan officer for a couple of years so I had that background. It's one of those things that morph and merge.
There's a good illustration in terms of when you're in-house. It's important that you know the business, and are familiar with the pain points and how the business works. When you mentioned your moves, you said, "I know something about contracts from my previous place and something about the mortgage business from the business side."
You're able to bring that to bear in the legal role. You came with the business knowledge of the different kinds of businesses, which you could bear on to. A lot of lawyers who come to those positions come with legal experience and they have to learn the business. It was smart of you to say, "Which businesses do I know a little bit about that I can have a running start with when I go in-house?"
I took the backdoor path but it worked.
It would be something that the companies would value because it's like, "We don't have to teach you about that because you already know how some of this operates. You'll just have to learn how we do different things but you have a good foundation for that.”
That's so important too. We do this organically but we don't think about it. That's the wealth of experience that you pick up every place you go. Everything you do, and not just professionally, but you pick up things in your personal relationships and things that you do like hobbies. All of this can be synthesized into a very powerful tool belt in the professional world.
That's very self-aware and reflective of you to realize. I always think in retrospect, you can look back at the path and say, "That makes a lot of sense given my knowledge in these different areas." At the time you're making the decisions, you may not be that intentional. Although, in your case, you were because you were thinking, "What do I have in my toolkit already that I can use to bring to each of these positions?"
That's a good point. That's been a threaded tapestry of all the show as well, which is that there are positions that people are uniquely qualified to be in at a certain point in time. It requires a collection of skills that a person has from all different parts of their lives that somebody else may not have that same combination. You have a very business side but also a very pragmatic side to you as well, which is helpful in your role. You tend to think about people, how people interact and what different people need within the organization. Those all seem like very good skills for an in-house counsel to have.
Luckily, some of that does come from my communications training. We tend to forget that communication is a two-way street. Sometimes, even more ways than two, depending on your audience. We may think we're being very clear, pragmatic and analytic in what we're saying. If the audience isn't getting that, you have to change that communication style so that you are effectively communicating. The same is true for listening. I have experienced in-house counsel that they hear you but they don't really hear you. The business will be explaining a situation. A lot of times, in-house lawyers are called the gatekeepers.
It's the department of no. We don't want to talk to legal because they're going to tell us no. We won't talk to legal, which isn't a great way to go.
One of the things that I have always done everywhere I have been in my first order of business is to get to know the people, talk to them and know them as people. I find ways to get to yes if we can. The way you've set it up, "We can't do it that way, and here's why." I never say, "No." I say, "Here's why you shouldn't do it that way. Here's your risk. Here's your viability. Here's what could happen," but let's look at it this way. If we do this, you can still get the same result. You can still get the sales, this and that, but you take on less liability. What that does, in the end, is it increases your profitability because you do not have to have that retention for legal. You don't have to withhold. You're not going to be paying out on things.
This is the reality of business. Legal should partner with people and understand what their concerns are. What is the business worried about? Sometimes it's not just profitability. It's reputation. Sales are having a hard time getting contracts across the finish line because the contracts aren't straightforward or clear. When I came here, we rewrote all the contracts to make them more streamlined, straightforward, and easier to understand. The salespeople like that. They were like, "This is great. This helps us get them over the line." You are right. Communication is key. You do have to listen, digest and talk. You can't just issue edicts. You can but I don't think that's the best way.
There are a couple of things in there to unpack. You have a communication background, so you're thinking about it's important to communicate things clearly, but also to listen to people. An easy way to say it is you're looking at the issues through a business lens but it's more than that. You want to discover what it is in this particular setting that the business wants to accomplish or what this group in the business wants to accomplish.
They may think that this method of doing it is the easiest way or the best way, given their experiences. We have to look at it from the legal perspective, and maybe it isn't the best way. It won't accomplish the things they want to accomplish, could create more problems, and not lead to the profitability or retention of clients or other things. Until you asked that question, "What is it that people want to achieve here?" It isn't just the roadmap they've been using all this time or the thing they're saying, it’s what do they really mean underneath that? That's listening but also being curious.
I'm curious. I want to know as much as I can about stuff. Not just to be able to assess it but candidly, to enjoy the process. It's way better working in an environment where you like the people and enjoy the work. You like what your company does and understand what they do. That helps you enjoy your job more. At least for me, it does.
When you're in-house, you have one client and you're more integrated into the business of that client. The better relationship you can have internally to understand that, the more proactive you can be, and the more satisfying it is in the legal department. You can see how you're helping the business or new ways to help the business achieve what they want to achieve. You are part of the overall integrated team instead of, "We have to go to talk to legal.” All that is in the corner.
I'm happy that I work with the sales teams and legal all the time. I will share a quick story about that. One time the sales team was onsite, and I walked down the hall. They came out of the conference room and were high-fiving me and giving me hugs. The CEO said, "I don't know that I have ever seen salespeople hug the general counsel."
I said, "They do here," because I wanted them to do the best they could. I have the ability to offer some framework for that to help them get there. That's what I want to do. It's interesting that you said something a few moments back that I have one client, which in the big sense I do. In a weirder sense, I have multiple clients with competing interests within the same organization.
Legal should partner with people and understand their concerns. Business isn’t just about profitability; it’s also about reputation.
That's interesting. I will have sales pushing for something and the technical team saying, "There is no way we can do this now. We would have to shift priorities." You have that conflict of prioritization. Meanwhile, they're pointing to legal, saying that the tech team will say, "Legal says we can't do that yet because we don't have this protection in place." The sales go, "Legal says we have to do it this way to be compliant." That's when you have to stop getting both those clients in the room and remind them of the objective that is everybody's objective or the company’s objective, then gently guide everyone to an acceptable solution. It's negotiation. That's what we do as lawyers.
That's another interesting perspective I hadn't thought about. Sometimes, people will point to legal as being further support for their particular position with regard to, "We can't because legal says this." They're like, "Legal here. Let's talk about this." That's interesting. It's almost like a foil between other departments.
To the outside, they will use legal. I love the word legal. They will use that with outside clients or vendors as well. It comes back, and you see this email chain saying, "Legal says we can." I'm like, "That's interesting."
That is funny. That's a much more nuanced view. Externally, being in a law firm, I would look at it as I have multiple clients on multiple matters. The difference from my perspective is that in-house counsel is embedded in one client and has one client overall. That's one view, but your view is more nuanced and more of what you encounter every day in terms of, "I have one client." There are so many different parts to that organization that there are multiple competing goals or values within the organization. My job, to some degree, is to harmonize those and get people moving in a direction together instead of hitting at each other. That doesn't benefit the company overall either.
The other aspect that I would opine here is that in-house, you need to act as an interpreter a lot of times when you’re dealing with outside counsel, especially in litigation matters. Most lawyers do understand litigation. They understand the nuances and the strategy that no good lawyer is going to tell you hands down that you're going to win this case. They shouldn't anyway, but I've never heard that.
You go back and you are in the middle of discovery. They're saying, "Why do we have to give them this?" I'm like, "Here's why and here’s what we're asserting." You have to break it down as much as you can because you have all these legal terms and legal reasons. You have a civil procedure that is staring you in the face. Civil procedure is not even in the realm of what they want to know or care to understand.
You have to explain it so that they understand. You have to get that information. Even in this digital age, not all information is digital. You have to make sure that you explain this in a way that they understand it. It is in their best interest even sometimes when it seems it may not be for them to understand that there are things and sanctions that can happen. It's not something that businesspeople know about.
You do have to interpret it because outside counsel gets very legal. You're taking that and shifting it down. It's an interesting position to be in. I call it interpretation because it is two separate languages, and that's what you're doing. You're going back and forth and trying to give each one the right message so that they can make the decisions they need to make.
I also think even in the business realm. It's more true with individual clients, but I've come to see that the emotional intelligence quotient is important in the business realm to you. There's the translating and getting that across, but also thinking from the standpoint of that particular person and what is the best way to relay that. We're all still people too in that corporate or business environment. What is the best way from an emotional intelligence standpoint to convey that instead of barreling towards like, "We need to get this document produced by this day?" This needs to happen. That's true but you also want to be sensitive to people about how you do that.
I call that know your audience. That's my phrase. I use it a lot, especially with people in business. You need to know your audience before you open your mouth. You need to know who you're talking to and how they communicate so that you can do that effectively, not offend them and get the best performance you can. One of the ways that I have been able to do that is I'm a performer. I spent a lot of time as a musician. I'm up in front of audiences. One of the things you have to do as a performer is to read your audience every moment you're up there because you can lose an audience like that.
When you do, it's harder to get them back than it is to keep them there. I use that in business to watch people, read them, and see where their brain is going. What are they doing physically? Do they look like, "I don't even want to hear this?" Do they look like they're engaged? All these things and cues, you do have to pay attention to that to be able to know how to communicate with those people effectively. Everything is a trick.
As you said, you're bringing all your different skills and experiences to the situation, including your musical performer experiences as well, reading the audience in that regard. That's a good reminder. When you're thinking about how to address challenges in the workplace, it doesn't mean you can draw on many skills and many different talents that you've acquired in different settings. It's not like, "I'm in my professional zone so I’m only going to use that.” Sometimes some of the best things come from applying something you've learned in a different context and bringing it to a different setting.
That’s a good reminder. It's also a different way of thinking about things. It's not exactly the same kind of audience, but the same thing is going to happen. They're going to tell you whether you're reaching them or not. If you're not, you need to adjust. That's the second part to what you said too, which is to be nimble about things. I sometimes think as lawyers, we can say, "Here's the best way to describe this. Here's how I understand it. Here's how I'm going to describe it to someone else," but that may not resonate with someone else for whatever reason.
I even find this in an appellate argument at times with analogies or things that you've described in the brief. Our job is to come up with different ways of explaining that or different ways of talking about the implications of a particular ruling. Sometimes, maybe the way you described it in the brief didn't resonate with one of the judges. When you describe it in a different way, you can see them, "Now I get what you're talking about in terms of the downsides of it interpreting this case this way." You have to try different ways to reach different people.
Sometimes it takes a little bit of finessing or changing your approach. That's the beauty. That's what you do in court. You watch and as you're watching, if it doesn't look like they're picking up on the argument you're making, you got to try a different attack.
It's like, "Here's another way of thinking about it." I've seen the light go on for people. That's either something about the record that hadn't hit them or something about the decisions. Everyone is a person. They have individual ways of thinking about things and have the opportunity to try another way of explaining something or a different metaphor. You've had various in-house roles previously, and now you're in the general counsel role. How is that different? That's one question in terms of the other previous roles you've had with companies. What kind of advice would you give to someone who's at an assistant or associate GC level who might want to become general counsel?
I was very fortunate that I worked for some great general counsels in very good companies. Starting out, my forte was contracts. I became a regulatory attorney in mortgage. I learned the ins and outs of myriads of laws that I knew from aerospace. In aerospace, everything is FARs. Every FAR points back to another one. It was this craziness of laws. That was helpful in regulatory. From there, I worked my way up to senior counsel, and then I moved companies. I became an assistant general counsel. This was for a Fortune 500 company, which is where I met you. I started doing additional things. They had me working a little bit with employment on some employee matters.
I was then given IP when our company went through a separation. The intellectual property got thrown at me, so I had to learn fast and furiously. I partnered heavily with our outside IP counsels on that. They were fantastic. They are willing to teach and bring me up to speed. The garbage disposal of legal is what they called me. I was the garbage disposal and I was fine with that because everything I learned helped me be better at all my other roles.
A general counsel is exactly that. You need to be a very good generalist in most areas of the law to understand how a corporation works and how it works with its vendors, clients or partners. You have to understand M&A, Mergers and Acquisitions. Even though you will have outside counsel who is an expert on it, you need to know enough to be able to deal with it, advise, give them the information, draft and red line all these things.
You really need to know your audience before you open your mouth.
I feel that I was gearing up for this the whole way with every aspect of law and business that I learned. When I was looking at the general counsel position, a friend called me and said, "This has opened up. You would be great at it. It's software tech. You've been working with tech your whole career." I went to my GC and said, "I have this opportunity. I'm wondering, what do you think?" He said, "You're ready. You just need to do it."
I said, "What if I don't know the answer to something?" He goes, "You find out. We all do. You surround yourself with people who know and experts. You hire the best outside counsel for things like litigation. You continue to learn the whole way," which I thought was great. I asked my dad, the lawyer. I said, "Dad, what happens when you don't know?" He said, "As long as you know you don't know, you're fine. You'll find out. As soon as you think you have all the answers, you're in big trouble, and then you should start worrying because you don't have all the answers." I took that advice to heart from both of these people I trusted, and it's served me pretty well so far.
I know this from friends who were prepared for a general counsel role at the company they were with. One of the first things they do and the company does is to make sure they have a broad-based knowledge within the company in different units and different types of legal questions. You essentially got that wide-based knowledge at different companies and laid the groundwork for that. You've touched on lots of different kinds of legal issues. You say you can know what you don't know and hire people for things you need special expertise in.
You were laying the groundwork for a general counsel position across companies. When you said that first, I was like, "That's what people or companies will do when they're promoting people internally." That makes a lot of sense. A number of different types of businesses and things like that, which gives you a little more nimbleness and flexibility within different departments in the company is good too. It seems like you had a mosaic of experiences leading you to the general counsel.
The other common thing which is something that we, as women, tend to ask ourselves more is, "Am I ready for a particular move? I don't know that I have 100% because I haven't done 100% of this in the past. I'm not sure that I'm quite ready for that." It's helpful to have people like your previous general counsel saying, "You're ready. You're going to have to make the leap. You have the toolkit necessary to bridge a chasm if you come to it and figure out how to deal with the problems."
It's interesting. When you look back on things, you go, "That's right. I remember that." I was an adjunct professor for a very small period of time at my alma mater. I was preparing to do that and am still a very young and new attorney. At the time that general counsel, I said, "I'm getting ready to teach law school. I'm wondering what happens when they ask me a question that I don't know the answer to. You don't want to look stupid.”
He laughed and said, "This is what you do. You say, ‘That's a great question and we will get to that, but right now we're doing this.’ You then go and figure out the answer to that question. You come back the next time and say, ‘Let's talk about this.’” He goes, “Everybody does this. You start watching other professors and watch the workplace, and it's not uncommon. You should not be afraid to do that. You can figure out something." That was great advice. It's not that you're trying to pull something over, but it's okay to take a pause, find out, and then come back.
Sometimes you feel like, "When I'm asked that question, I have to know the answer now, and I have to be prepared now." That's not true.
I do that in business. I have found that over the years, businesspeople respect you when you say, "I don't know exactly. Let me look into that." It is so much better than popping off with something that may or may not be correct. I don't want to make assumptions like that when it comes to trying to advise businesspeople who are trying to make the best decision, the most economical or the most compliant. I would rather say, "I'm not sure."
That gives you credibility internally too that you're not just going to give an answer to something, that if you give an answer, you've given it thought and looked into it. If you need to do more homework, you'll do that. That is helpful to internal credibility there.
Heads of state would do that.
It sounds like you've had some good mentors and sponsors throughout your career. You give some good anecdotes about that. Sometimes I'll ask, "What do mentorship and sponsorship look like?" Sometimes people have an image of what that is. Sometimes it's like, "It's this person who has followed me through my whole career and has been there and helped me with different opportunities." That's great to have that, but sometimes we don't have that.
Still, there are mentoring moments or opportunities with a lot of different people who have helped you at key points. That sounds like some of the stories you've relayed already. You feel comfortable going to people asking for advice, which can be hard. It's vulnerable, especially to your general counsel, when you're saying, "I'm looking at this opportunity to leave you."
Most people are very open to giving information, advice and guidance if they know more about a certain area or a particular situation. If nothing else, they can offer their perspective if they've gone through the same thing, "Here's what I did and here’s what happened," which is valuable in and of itself. There's this interesting thing where a lot of people are cautious of doing this. They're afraid they will appear that they don't know or they are the weak factor. I don't have an issue with that. I have found that I never mind when people call me and ask questions or advice. I'll do the best I can or offer them situational advice that I have myself gone through.
When I have asked people, they have always been very open. You're wonderful. I've reached out to you over the years and other counsels I've worked with. I've reached out to other business people. When I was dealing with a business situation, I reached out to one of my prior C-Suite people and said, "This is highly confidential. I'm curious. Have you ever come across this?" They had and said, "This one is tricky. Let me tell you what the company did at that point because I had been there before.”
It's very valuable and good to have that type of relationship where you can do that. This is not someone I talk to all the time, but it's somebody I worked with quite a bit. You have to gauge what you can and can't say so that you're not breaching confidentiality or putting somebody in a situation that you cannot put them in, but you can speak in general terms as well. It can be very beneficial to reach out.
I also think that you don't get what you give. In your case, you're very open to others and helping others in that way so that people would be reciprocal. You also come from the position of thinking that people want to be helpful. If you have a different attitude, you will get a different response. A part of it is you and the approach you take in giving to others, but also looking on the sunny side of things. People want to help as opposed to thinking that they don't want to help.
That's true. I even use that approach because that is my belief in negotiations. I understand that each business in a negotiation has its points that they want and need. There are very few deal-killers out there. Sometimes, opening that dialogue to find that middle ground is huge. If you don't ask open-ended questions, if you're only asking very pointed questions because you're trying to further your point, you're not going to find it. They're not going to offer those nuggets of wisdom to you.
If you can get to those, a lot of times, you hit the middle ground much more quickly. It's because both sides do want something to work. It's almost like marriage counseling in a very weird way, but it is because each side wants to hold tight. Maybe they have an ace up their sleeve and they do not want to show you that. If you can find out what each person's real hand is and what they want from that pot, you're going to be in a much better position to get there.
You made a good point too. Part of that is listening and asking them open-ended questions. The other part is that somebody may not be forthcoming about that. They won't want to reveal certain things, or the one thing we can't let them know is X, which impacts what they need. That's more of an art in terms of how you draw that from people who may not feel comfortable sharing that or it's in their interest to share that.
There's an art from many years of experience that you have to make people feel comfortable in that regard in doing that. Maybe not comfortable, but in some circumstances not realizing that they're revealing something as well when you're asking more open-ended questions. When you're talking about a deal, the parties are coming together for a particular reason they would like to. They clearly have some sense that they would be better together in a particular circumstance or transaction. It's trying to figure out how to make that work. It's a little different from litigation. People are clearly adversarial by that point, and trying to negotiate can be a little different.
You’re fine as long as you know that you don’t know. But as soon as you think you have all the answers, you're in big trouble.
Alex Carter has a great book out there on negotiation and it is fabulous. In her presentations, I was lucky enough to attend a presentation. That's one of the things she talks about. What resonated with me was asking open-ended questions. Don't lock people into a box with your question because you're going to get a locked-in answer if you ask a lot. Open-ended, you may be able to further that dialogue. It's great. I always appreciate that when I'm dealing with people too. If you're too aggressive from the get-go, you have to put up the wall.
You're already like this and you’re going to pass this, then people put up their defenses. It's hard after that to have a meaningful discussion that can get you to the deal that both sides would benefit from. Are you ready for the lightning round of questions to end? I'll ask a few of them. What talent would you most like to have but you don't?
Math.
I was going to say that in most circumstances, most of the answers have been related to singing or music or something like that. I'm like, "I know that Erin is not going to answer that because she's got that down." What is the trait you most deplore in yourself, then what is the trait you most deplore in others?
I have a quick temper, and the trait I deplore most in others is hypocrisy.
That's a good one. Who are your favorite writers?
Stephen King and Michael Connelly.
Stephen King's books are good, as well as his technique of writing. Who is your hero in real life?
That's a tricky one because I do have lots of heroes. One of my heroes is my best friend who is a police lieutenant, who is a fearless, huge-hearted individual, who is ethical, moral and a hoot and a half to go out with.
A multifaceted person who fits with you as you are. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
It's my family. We say prayers every night. I still do with my grown kids when I talk to them. I always say, “For my family, friends and all the blessings I've been given.” I am such a fortunate person and I’m grateful for everything.
That's a good practice to have. We talk about gratitude practice now, but that's to be aware of that, especially in this day and age where so much chaos is going on in the world. It can be hard to come back and center on. That is a valuable practice to have.
We talk about this in my family. You and I live better than 99% of the world's entire population because we have food to eat when we're hungry. We have clean water to drink when we're thirsty. We have shelter from the heat, cold or wind. We have transportation. We can get to places and see the people that we want to see.
These things alone make us more fortunate than most people in the world. I am eternally grateful that God or the cosmos or whatever you believe in dumped me where it did when I came out of my mother. It is the cosmic lottery. We won the cosmic lottery. Nobody is more deserving or less deserving of it. We just happened to be there. For that, I am wildly grateful.
Those are good fundamentals that can get lost. That's a good reminder. If you had a dinner party or a dinner guest, who would you invite if you have the choice of anyone in the world?
It would either be Cleopatra or Steve Martin.
Those seem to be very different. What's the interest or attraction in each of those?
Cleopatra was a female leader in a time when women weren't leaders. She was extremely educated. She spoke several languages. She had all these things happen and yet a tragic end. What she must have experienced in that being so ahead of her time and leading in a crazy world. There were so many battles and things for land and power. She would be phenomenal to talk to. Steve Martin is such an intelligent, funny and thoughtful person. He is so well-read up, so up on politics and history, and yet has a sense of humor that is unparalleled. He would be amazing to sit and speak with.
He's a renaissance man, which I don't know that everyone realizes that, his banjo playing and all of the musical sides to him. He's also quite the connoisseur of visual art and is quite well-read. It would be an interesting and a very wide-ranging conversation.
You could talk about anything with that guy. You'd learn, you could bounce things off and laugh. He's a great person.
Understand that it’s okay to reach out. A lot of people are cautious of asking for help because they're afraid they will appear that they don't know.
That's a great combination. I like those two suggestions. It's the strong female leadership and a renaissance man person. He could talk about a lot of different things. The last question, what is your motto, if you have one?
My motto is to take the shot. That is always my motto. That is in many different ways. Opportunity can present itself, and you need to take it. If it knocks and it's something you want to do, don't think it's going to come around again. Most likely, it won't. If you have the chance to do something you want to do in this life, do it and take it. I'm very big on that. I am not super risk averse. I am conservative in my financial practices because I don't want to be left destitute. I will go for it and you should.
If you have something to say and you're afforded the opportunity to say it, you take that opportunity. Those chances do not always come around, and sometimes your voice needs to be heard. That's very important, especially those of us who have views on things which can present them in a well thought out manner and have the opportunity to influence. You should do so.
I'm glad you tease that out a little bit more in terms of taking the shot. It can come in a lot of different ways and be apropos in a lot of different situations, not crazy risks but taking the opportunity that presents itself. Sometimes, people generally can be hesitant about that, but women also, in terms of, "I'm not sure. I don't know if I should speak up on this or if I'm 100% qualified for this. I don't know if I'm going to take that opportunity." If it presents itself and it's something that you're interested in, you should follow up on it.
I have very few regrets, but one time I did not take the shot and I'm surprised that my mom didn't goad me into doing it anyway. I was in college and singing in the rock band as well. I was working and in the choir at college. They were going to go to Carnegie Hall for Christmas to sing Handel's Messiah. The choir director said, "I want you to go. There's a part in it I would like you to do." Here I am, all young and ridiculous. I said, "My band has a bunch of shows up in LA, and I can't do that." What an idiot and absolute moron right there. I should have canceled those shows up in LA and gone because I would have been able to say, "I sang at Carnegie Hall." Now I can't. I should have taken that shot.
I was going to say, "You could always say you sing at Carnegie Hall."
I can say I sang at Anaheim Stadium and did the National Anthem for two Angels games, but it's not quite like Carnegie Hall. It's beer versus champagne.
Thank you so much. It's such a great way to close out with your motto and even say, "One time, I didn't take that shot in terms of judgment about which shot to take." You had two shots. You chose one and not the other. There's that. That's what youth is for to some degree. I understand how that happened. Erin, thank you so much for talking about a lot of the things you've learned along the way on your path and some good general wisdom and pragmatic business sense. I appreciate it.
Thank you so much. This is great. I appreciate it because it gives me that chance to think about some things too that ordinarily, I wouldn't be thinking about. Thank you. It's a great opportunity for me to reflect on some of this stuff.
There's value in reflecting on where you've come from and how far you've come. You can use that to propel yourself further as well. I hope this helps you take more moonshots and things like that, Erin. Thank you so much for joining.
Thank you.