Noelle Russell

Episode 88
Brave UX

Others Don't Get to Choose Your Path to Success

In this episode of Brave UX, Noelle Russell provides a beacon of light for anyone who’s staring down a dragon, as she shares her against the odds and remarkable journey to and through technology.

Highlights include:

What is wing clipping and why is it dangerous?
Do you really have over 130 voice enabled devices in your home?
Why did your Dad teach you that other people don’t get to choose your path to success?
How has your son’s disability inspired you to raise awareness of the potential of AI?
What can people who are struggling to find their voice in the workplace do?

August 30, 202201:18:04

Listen on:

Who is Noelle Russell?

Noelle is a multi-award winning technologist, entrepreneur and big tech executive, who has invested the past 25 years in helping people to understand, productise and ethically apply emerging technologies to their businesses.

She is currently a Global Partner in AI and Analytics at IBM, where she works with business leaders to speed up their digital transformations, and to reinvent their business models through the creative application of technology.

Prior to joining IBM, Noelle was the Vice President of Digital Technology at National Public Radio. She has also held senior roles at Microsoft as a Principal Product Manager in AI and at Amazon, where she was a Senior Architect working on Alexa.

Alongside her busy corporate career, Noelle is also the CEO of the AI Leadership Institute, a global organisation that she founded to empower and inspire senior executives to think deeply about AI and how to apply it responsibly.

Transcript

Brendan Jarvis:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Brave UX. I'm Brendan Jarvis, Managing Founder of The Space InBetween, the home of New Zealand's only specialist evaluative UX research practice and world-class UX lab, enabling brave teams across the globe to dearest product design and equally brave leaders to shape and scale design culture. You can find out a little bit more about that at thespaceinbetween.co.nz. Here on Brave UX though, it's my job to help you to put the pieces of the product puzzle together. I do that by unpacking the stories, learnings, and expert advice of world-class UX, design and product management professionals. My guest today is Noelle Russell Noelle is a multi award-winning technologist, entrepreneur and big tech executive who has invested the past 25 years in helping people to understand productize and ethically apply emerging technologies to their businesses. She is currently a Global Partner in AI and Analytics at IBM, where she works with business leaders to speed up their digital transformations and to reinvent their business models through the creative application of technology.
Prior to joining IBM, Noelle was the Vice President of Digital Technology at National Public Radio. She has also held senior roles at Microsoft as a Principal Product Manager in AI and at Amazon, where she was a Senior Architect working on Alexa. Alongside her busy corporate career, Noelle is also the CEO of the AI Leadership Institute, a global organization that she founded to empower and inspire senior executives to think deeply about AI and how to apply it responsibly to their businesses. For the past two years, Noelle has been awarded Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional award for her leadership in and contribution to the field of AI. She has also recently been recognized by VentureBeat receiving their Responsibility and Ethics in AI award. A consistent champion for increasing the public's understanding of AI, Noelle has been featured by the BBC World Service, the Boston Globe, and CIO Magazine, amongst others. Experienced, energetic and empowering, I've been looking forward to speaking with Noelle on Brave UX today, and well here she is. Noelle, welcome to the show.
Noelle Russell:
Thank you so much for having me. This is really exciting. It's always really cool to connect with someone that we've only met online and now is our chance to get to know each other live in front of everybody.
Brendan Jarvis:
[laugh]. A hundred percent. And I'm calling from the future here, so this is like, that's right. Super sci-fi.
Noelle Russell:
My favorite my favorite.
Brendan Jarvis:
Well, speaking of your favorite, speaking of sci-fi, I understand that you are a bit of a sci-fi fan and that was thanks to your dad when you were growing up and I was curious if you had to choose a favorite work of science fiction, whether it be a TV show, a movie, a book or anything else, what would it be for you?
Noelle Russell:
Oh my goodness. That's asking which kid I love more.
Well, I'll have to say my current favorite and it's nice cuz there's actually a whole series, but Asimov's Foundation series I think is probably my favorite. And I've read it, I've read the entire series multiple times and it's kind of interesting cuz my dad actually now has a cognitive brain injury that wipes his memory every day. But it's been very interesting cuz we reread these books for the first time every time he reads them. And it's fascinating. I love it. It's been really, truly enjoyable. But yeah, that whole series, all seven of them, is that cheating? I think that might be cheating.
Brendan Jarvis:
No, I think that I, I'm going to think that's a valid response. And so they're thinking about that series or perhaps science fiction more broadly and if you cast your mind back to when you were a child and your dad had introduced you to the genre, what was it about it that captivated you?
Noelle Russell:
I would say as an adult, now I'd call it the metaphysical aspects of these books, but when I was a kid it was really the non-science side, the relationships, the humans falling in love with robots and not knowing that they're robots and [laugh] like the human dynamics attached to technology, which is really telling because now that's exactly the work that I work on. But when I was a kid that's what I was attracted to is these really rich philosophical books that happen to be set in these futuristic spaces.
Brendan Jarvis:
And for you, someone who has worked on Alexa and continues to work in the field of ai, is it a little bit surreal that we now have these devices like Alexa that sit in our kitchens that sort of mimic what we saw on Star Trek where you could speak to the Yes. The computer or board, the enterprise. Is this a bit weird for you that some of what you were reading about as a child has now come to pass?
Noelle Russell:
Absolutely. I mean I get goosebumps just thinking about it as you were talking, how that was not part of the plan when I was dreaming and I used to watch the Jetsons and I used to watch really any robotic, all the Star Treks and Battlestar Galactical, like anything, even quantum leap, right back in the day, gosh, I might be aging myself, but
Brendan Jarvis:
No, I remember Quantum leap, you're all good.
Noelle Russell:
Oh, such good show. But all of these, it's just interesting to then find myself in a position where I'm working on the technology that makes that now possible and it's starting to become mainstream where hundreds of, there's a hundred million households that have a voice enabled device in their house. That's something I could never have imagined. And how interesting it is. I actually do believe, I kind of set myself up for that. I was completely willing and open to believe in this technology in a way that maybe some of my peers,
Brendan Jarvis:
You mentioned devices in the household, how we've now got a hundred million plus households that do have these voice-enabled devices. Is it true that you've got over 130 of them in your house alone?
Noelle Russell:
Yes but there's a reason. So most people don't know this if you haven't gone all smart home, but every light bulb in your house can be smart, can be connected to an Alexa device. And because I have a special needs son and my dad who has some cognitive issues we've enabled every light bulb. So in the kitchen you can just turn the light bulb that's over the sink on or just the one that's over the refrigerator. And we also have invested in some of the latest voice enabled technologies like a voice enabled stove, a voice enabled. So I wanna be able to talk to my stove if I'm not there and I'm like, did I turn it off? I'm not sure if I turn it off [laugh], just talk to it right through my Alexa device. So we have, yes, more than the average bear but we also, I have more needs in my house. I like to say that gives me a reason to invest. I think it might be the same even if I didn't have those, but at least I have an excuse. It's kind of like Disney movies. Once I had kids, I had a reason to watch them even though I was watching them crazy before I had them.
Brendan Jarvis:
Yeah, a hundred percent. You mentioned your dad and you also mentioned that you had a special needs son and I want to definitely come to that part of your story because it's instrumental in how you came to be involved in the field of ai. But just before we do that, I wanted to speak a little bit about your dad, ask you a few questions about him because he seems to me to be quite a special person and your life. Yes. And it wasn't just science fiction that he introduced you to. He also, at least from the outside looking in, appears to have played an important role in shaping the mindset that you've brought to your work and your life. And you've had some challenges, not insignificant challenges to overcome. Now I've heard you suggest that he was one of the people or he was the person that taught you that other people don't get to choose what you are successful in. Why did he feel the need to teach you that?
Noelle Russell:
I think it's interesting because he was in a biracial relationship in the sixties, which was not a great time to be doing that. He was also a chaplain in the military in Vietnam. Also a really an interesting environment and dynamic in the world where there was these weird biases that showed up that the people that were kind of subjected to it were not really expecting. My dad never expected to be battled against when he got back from Vietnam. Certainly didn't really think through what it would be like to have an African-American, well my mom is, but she looks black, she has dark skin, Afro hair. But it was just very interesting in the sixties how hard that was for them as a couple. It's interesting cuz his experience actually came from, I mean of course most of the people he went to Vietnam with were white, but he felt very much discriminated against when he got back being a veteran.
And I thought that lens that he had was unique. Not many people have it where, what discrimination feels like even if you are a white male. And so he kind of had that lens as I started growing up and going to school, he realized very quickly that we were in a, we weren't poor, we were in middle, what do they call it? Middle class, middle class schools, public schools. But he recognized very quickly that I had different hair [laugh], that I had different skin and that the stories I would tell and the sadness that I would feel was the same exact feelings he had. And so I think he used a lot of those lessons. He learned to be like what they say doesn't matter and actually it's what you think that matters and you should take maybe what they say does have a bit of truth in it, become better for it.
Use all the haters to with a very fine tooth comb, look at who you are and what you're doing. He always used to say, take the log out of your own eye when you're looking at you and making criticisms. Make sure there truly is nothing to criticize. And of course there always is. So it shifts the focus away from me being worried about what they think too. How do I become a better person? And I've, I've used that philosophy throughout my entire life. Just keep working on yourself, keep developing yourself because eventually they'll run outta things to say because you will have developed further than they have. And that's been my experience actually.
Brendan Jarvis:
I wondered about what you were saying about your father coming back from Vietnam. It sounded like he experienced some form of social ostracization as a result of the relationship that he had with your mother
Noelle Russell:
And he actually ended up befriending her via letter, right? Handwritten letter. I think he asked her to marry him via that letter while he was gone. They met when he got back and I think he, he asked her 17 times before she, I mean she was a Latina, so I get that sometimes we're stubborn but they said yes, they were married for 17 years, which is a long time. So I, I'm of course and I'm a product of that. So I'm super excited about that They were able to survive those really troubling times. But I just never really thought of for decades. He never talked about his experience in Vietnam. But as I became an adult and as he got older, he started sharing some of those stories and I put the pieces together. I was like, that's why you said that to me. I get it now.
And you don't in the moment you're like, that's okay, sure, you're a dad of course, what else are you going to say? But it was from a different level of wisdom. And so I'm really glad before he suffered this horrible car accident, I'm really glad that I was able to hear some of these stories because today he has good long-term memories but it's really hard for him to communicate in the same way he used to. So yeah, I feel kind of lucky that I was able to put those dots together and I hope to one day write about it and give his story. Cuz I think there's a lot to that, especially in the baby boomers. There's a lot of repetitive systemic yuckiness that's not exactly the same but it's human. And I think a lot of us could learn from some of those mistakes.
Brendan Jarvis:
It's still very much beneath the surface. I was speaking with Kevin Bethune a couple of weeks ago. He's written a really great book called Reimagining Design. And I asked him a question cuz he's a father around the topic of what are the sort of things that you tell your son growing up in this world that is still essentially systemically racist for many people in the United States and how does he talk to his son about what to expect and how to respond and how to be in a world where your father and yourself and your mother likely experienced where the deck is stacked against you. And some people, for whatever reason, no good reason, I just not willing to let other people be happy and live their lives. Yes. And he said it's hard, it's hard having these conversations as a father and your father being a military man, was he incredibly strict at home? How was he outside of this particular conversation as a dad?
Noelle Russell:
Yeah. No, actually he was the one who taught me initially, I think I was six years old when we began. We didn't call it meditation, it was just sitting in the silence is what he called it. And we would sit in the silence. Me and I have a twin brother, so myself and my twin brother, we'd sit in the silence with my dad and he would take us to the beach and he would take us to these places. But that was a core, it was part of him. He took us to a church where they practiced meditation. It was a Christian Church but it was still very eastern in its methods and different things that they did. But yeah, but he was also a chaplain. So there is a bit of kind of philosophical balance that comes with a marine who's a chaplain because I kind of think of him fer the bull or if you know that story, just someone that is doing a role, maybe even the role of Jesus be in this RO world but not of it. Where he took on this really interesting role at that time he didn't get drafted, he volunteered to go, but he wanted to serve in that capacity. So yeah, he wasn't strict, he wasn't a typical military guy. He was the opposite of that. He was the dreamer, a visionary [laugh]. Like we read books all the time. I think it's probably one of the reasons why my mom was like, come on, let's grow up now.
And I'm like, wait, this is fun. So he had a lot of the fun parts of our childhood.
Brendan Jarvis:
You mentioned that he had suffered a traumatic brain injury and from memory he was hit by a car in Seattle when he was crossing the street. Yes,
Noelle Russell:
That's
Brendan Jarvis:
Right. It was around about the time that you had started on the Alexa team and
Noelle Russell:
It was actually within a couple months I was brand new to the Alexa team at the time.
Brendan Jarvis:
So tell me a little bit about that circumstance with your father being injured in the way that he was and at coinciding with Alexa, I understand that there was some positive light, if I can paint it that way, that day. I know from you being involved in Alexa.
Noelle Russell:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean certainly anytime I, I've been my entire life and I certainly feel like I was raised to think that even in the winters of our life when these bad things happen that there's something, some lesson to be learned, some opportunity to be gained. So I was at Alexa, I was in the process of building skills, that was Jeff Bezos's mandate, build as many skills as you can. Most of my peers were just building a couple, I was building dozens
Brendan Jarvis:
At this time. At one point you'd bought, you'd built 10% I think of all of it skills, like you over a hundred, right? You'd really taken that on board
Noelle Russell:
When it was. Yeah. And there was a few of us vying for that position because we were under a thousand, right? So we were like off, we could get to a hundred [laugh], we don't have 10% of Alexa. So yeah, it was super fun times. But my dad ended up getting in, hit by a car, get putting we didn't actually know all of the details at first, but he was in I C U and he was in one of those C collars and he was on his back staring at the ceiling. And I had a beta device for Alexa and I brought it into the room cuz he was there for six months, which is a long time to be staring at the ceiling. And so I brought him in this device and I was like, dad, guess what? You can ask this device anything with your voice, talk to it, star Trek, literally this is the dream.
And he was like, I don't understand [laugh] what you're asking me to do. Which makes sense, right? Because it seems bizarre that would be a reality for someone who in the forties was just dreaming about this. Anyway. So I told him, just think of any radio station that you wanna play and ask this device to play that radio station. And so he is looking up and he thought to himself and he is like, all right, play. And I always say W K R P, I don't remember what he said, but it was [laugh] some radio station in New York City and it was a classical radio station and it was a classical radio station when he was in high school. And it started playing and it was playing classical music and he was looking up the ceiling and he, a tear came down his face. I try not to get emotional and he breathed side, he was like, I know this station, that's all he said, I know this station.
And I was like, that's what it was magical because he didn't have to, if he had to figure that out on his phone, well if he didn't have a computer, there was no other mechanism that could bring him back to a peaceful childhood memory like this device. And it was just the beginning obviously that happened to be an invocation I could confirm would work. So it was great in those early days, not everything did work, but it gave me this, to your point on the light, it sparked this idea that this is going to be game changing and not just for the 1% of the 1%, the kitchens we were building this device for, but for people in the hospital who can't move for paraplegics, for people with cerebral palsy, people who have physical ailments and just can't physically control the devices we're asking them to use right now.
So yeah, my eyes brightened up classrooms, my son has speech difficulties and I was like, oh, my speech pathologist Alexa has changed his life. He now talks to Alexa every morning. And actually sometimes in the middle of the day he just says he sends an announcement to every device in our house, which is a lot not, it's not 133 cuz not all those devices have speakers, but we have a lot of devices. And he'll say Good morning and an announcement and it's like birds chirp and a rooster crows. But every morning he does it and then when he gets upset or something bothers him, he'll go into his room and he'll make an announcement. He'll be like, I'd to be alone [laugh] as an announcement. He has to say, Alex, oh, I'm afraid to do it. But he has to say [laugh] device, make an announcement. And then it's so much cognitive activity that has to happen that it's changed his life. He is much more independent as a result of having to work with the device over and over and over again to encourage it to do what he wants. I've just like, it's an amazing time. Who knew 20 years ago even that we would be able to do something like this.
Brendan Jarvis:
And both in your father's case and also in your believe your son's called Max?
Noelle Russell:
Yes.
Brendan Jarvis:
Max is and Max's case, this has enabled them to experience the world more completely than they otherwise would've been if it didn't exist. I wanna come to Max now because you, you've got a busy home from what I understand, you've got four kids and Max is your eldest. Yes. He's now a teenager and he is also one of the inspirations that you've had in your quest to bring more understanding of and more ethical application of AI to the world. How did he inspire you to do that?
Noelle Russell:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean he was born with a condition, a chromosomal abnormality called Down Syndrome. It's pretty common. It's actually the most common birth defect that happens in the world. And it was one of those things that he actually doesn't have a lot of physical characteristics of it, so we couldn't tell before he was born and even after he was born, everyone's like, something's going on, we're not really sure. So it took a while, but him having that diagnosis, of course I was already in technology, I wasn't necessarily intended, but all of us who have children, and especially those of us who have children who have special needs or have specific ailments, our focus becomes a hundred hundred percent on, okay, what can I do to help this person? So I started really being focused on accessible technology and there really wasn't any or if it was at a ridiculous premium.
So he's of course getting older, he's doing well, I've got him in an early intervention. But similarly, I get on the Alexa team, and it was right at the time where voice in general was starting to take hold. So YouTube just added their microphone to their search app. Google added their microphone to the search app. The challenge though is with those models train, they're not trained on slurred speech, they're not trained on those who have speech pathology issues. So I immediately was like, okay, well we should do something about that. And I raised my hand, I remember at Amazon Alexa, I remember being told We're not here to build for the classroom or for active adults, or we're building for a very specific demographic and in user experience and in marketing, we build these personas and we kind of hold pretty tightly to that persona intentionally.
So we know we build something that will sell to a group of people. And that was very much the message that I heard. But the entire time I'm thinking to myself, okay, what can I do? How can I continue to build? Now luckily Alexa's a great platform that allowed us, all of us to work independently and build independent skills. So I got to build a bunch of fun skills that Max ended up using. But the best thing, and I use this, my dad gets the benefit of this as well, is that Alexa's never frustrated with him. No matter how many times it takes him to ask a question, how many times it takes him to get it right. Same with my dad. No matter how many times he asks what day it is or what county we live in, it never gets frustrated. Unlike a mom who's busy with a lot of things going on in the house who might be like I told you's a huge point, right?
Yeah, it's huge. Just having a compassionate robotic, even assistant say for the 50th time that day, oh, it's 8:30 PM Oh, it's 8 32, it's 8 34 every time he asks what time it is. That's one of the biggest values I've gotten from it because it's allowed both my son and my dad to find independence in our household. And that independence changes their personality, it makes them feel better and be happier. And I think sometimes we lose that connection between what a technology, even in the simplest of applications, what it could do to someone's persona, what it could do to the energy that they have every day by just being a listening ear. There's a lot of jokes about Alexa, but around being a good listener and there's a snl, a Saturday Night Live skit about it. But it's true though and I see it firsthand how impactful it is. I mean, the first thing my son does is he talks to Alexa in the morning. The first thing he does before he goes to bed is he talks to this device. And I think that's pretty powerful and we don't take enough advantage of it, honestly. There's a lot to be done in this space.
Brendan Jarvis:
Did you foresee, as a mother of Max who has down syndrome, did you foresee your work in tech and a AI in particular with Alexa having the outcomes that you've just spoken of, how close to what you intended when you first started on the team to Oh, the reality?
Noelle Russell:
No, there is zero intention, zero real. I think I'm a believer that I do a, I do a lot of things, massive action. I'm always going and trying a bunch of things. I have lots of people say irons in the fire, I am lots of plates spinning. But the benefit of doing that, and of course I try to be as excellent as I can in all of those things that I'm trying to do. But what I have found in my career over the last 20 years is that over time some of those plates tend to align. So for example, I could have never guessed that there would be an opportunity first. I never would've imagined I'd work at Amazon. I wasn't go right from outside Amazon onto Alexa. I was on an a w s team before I got there. So I would never have guessed that a product like Alexa would've gotten built.
But if I didn't already have a really keen understanding of the needs of my son and his peers, I couldn't have done the things that I did. Same with mindfulness and some of these things that my dad uses every day. The only reason I was able to build them for Alexa is because I was spinning that plate, just waiting for an opportunity for it to show up. And I feel like because I was spinning that plate, I kind of became, these opportunities became visible to me. I was able to see them. There's a lot to that. But no, I had no direct intention. I wasn't like, I'm going to get on the Alexa team and I'm going to change the world. Right? It just so happened, and I actually think when I joined Alexa, I had no idea what it would do for my family, but I immediately saw opportunity because my eyes were wide open to how do I use this for
Brendan Jarvis:
Good? You spoke about spinning plates, spinning many plates, and over time some of those start to align. And I just happened to think it's such a wonderful bringing together of what your father instilled in you as a child with meditation to you then later in your life, creating one minute mindfulness for Alexa that he now uses. Yes. And what a wonderful circle. If we're going to take this plate analogy, another step, what a Yes. Wonderful circle to close. And you've gotta have a over a million monthly users across your skills. Yeah,
Noelle Russell:
We just passed 2 million, actually. 2 million. Wow. Yes, yes. We were at 1 million for a year and a half. And I went in and I'm always afraid to look at that data [laugh] cuz I'm like, will it go down? But that skill specifically, that one and daily affirmation, both skills my dad uses are continue to be popular. And yeah, I think it's really fascinating to see and actually very rewarding to see the seeds planted when I was six years old, turn into something like that that could impact so many people. I'm always shocked when I look at, I'm like 8:00 AM 75,000 people called this skill. That's crazy. But it's so cool. And my dad doesn't understand in his current kind of cognitive state what that means. But I try to tell him, we're changing. A lot of people are impacted by the lesson that you taught me so long ago.
And so insignificantly, it was never like, we're going to learn meditation now and this is going to change your life. He was just breathe, just sit down and breathe and don't do anything. And as a six year old, 10 year old, 15 year old, that becomes harder and harder. And we both know as adults, it's extremely hard to just stop and breathe. But a practice I've really come to of course, adore in my own life, but then really thought it was cool that I got to build an Alexa skill. And now that hundreds of thousands of people use it,
Brendan Jarvis:
He really has planted some seeds. This is about a father planting some seeds and you over time developing those seeds into some wonderful things that you've brought to the world. And one of the seeds that he planted, or at least from, again from my outside looking in, we spoke about the challenges that he experienced. You experienced and your mother no doubt experienced being in a biracial relationship and having to be more resilient and see people's negativity for what it was and to push past that. Now you are someone who I was looking at the things that have happened to you in your life and the way in which you've risen to the occasion and the value and the positivity and the energy that you've brought to the world. It would be very easy for someone to have experience what you have. And I'll go into some details here in a minute and shrink away from that. Yes. You know, mentioned Max being born with Down syndrome, if people probably don't have any idea just how much love you have for him, but also just what that has meant for your day-to-day life. And you have three other children as well. Yes. And I understand that when Max was born, a geneticist said something to you that was quite a defining moment in your life. What was it that they said to you?
Noelle Russell:
Yeah, I remember it was three days after he was born and he was huge. I mean, he was a normal baby. I actually carried him one week past term. He was super healthy, but something was wrong. And so they kept him in the nicu. And on day three this geneticist and I remember I could see her face, I'm sure she's gone from this planet now, but I remember she was old. In my mind I'm like, she's so old. And she had these Bo big bottle glasses and she sat us down and she said, the tests have come back and we've identified that your son has this abnormality. And she didn't even name it down syndrome at the time. She said it's Trisomy 21 and it affects all data. Some of us data scientists tend to do all data, no compassion, just like, and here are your options as a new mom, as a your first child, I do not recommend that you go down the path of rearing this child on your own.
Instead you should. And she gave me two options. I could put him into an institution which were very common and actually are still common to this day, or I could put him up for adoption. And there are actual adoption agencies full of kids with Down syndrome that said parents that said yes to this option. But I always joke that I'm a Latina, but it didn't have much to do with that. I think just my personality. I mean, I just couldn't imagine that that was the only option. And he was my first born and I'm just not a quitter. I take on challenges. But the other thing also was that another woman actually approached me that not that day, but I think a couple days later when I was in the hospital, he was there seven days. I'm reeling from this idea of I'm going to put him up for adoption.
And she came in and she was the head of the Down syndrome awareness group. She had a daughter with Down syndrome who was like six. And she said something that stuck with me and I've shared with lots of Down syndrome moms since then was that he was 99% max or this child and only 1% of him is this down syndrome thing. And that there's nothing he can't do. And of course when they give you this book and it says all the horrible things, he'll never speak, he won't walk, he won't all the things. And of course he's defied those since then. But in that moment it's just so interesting when people present you with something that sometimes as evidenced by the orphanages and adoption agencies and institutions, sometimes we believe them without really thinking through where is she even coming from Now since then, I've realized she came from was in her prime in her career 30 years before that [laugh] like things are much different now.
Technology, I'm a technologist, things are going to be different for my son. So I think it was kind of two things that happened. One, I realized again that I can't trust what people tell me, even if they seem experts in their fields, I need to really think about it. I will take it, I will research it, but I won't take it. Just first glance and agree and just blindly say yes. And then the second part was that I have to realize that I'm resourcefulness is the best characteristic you can have. The one thing that I try to teach my kids and that if I could find the resources to help him, maybe his outcomes will be different. And Alexa wasn't in the picture, this was 17 years ago, but we found a way, iPads became a huge thing. They weren't that, I mean this was 2006 and iPads were just becoming, there were all these technologies that were just coming of age where accessibility wasn't their focus, but it's how I saw them and how I used them. So yeah, I think it's interesting what happens when people tell you something. It's a moment of truth for all of us. We will either look at that moment and say, it's okay, I heard you and I'm going to go do my own thing. Or we'll look back at that moment and be like, gosh, I wish I hadn't listened to that person. They were wrong. They didn't know me, they didn't know Max. And I'm so glad I didn't listen to her advice.
Brendan Jarvis:
And you've actually got a history of not listening to [laugh] bad advice. I understand that you didn't graduate high school and you had an economics teacher who told you that you should probably take up food service or retail. Yes. Now again, you didn't listen to that advice. What did you end up doing instead of taking that advice?
Noelle Russell:
Yes, so that I was supposed to graduate. I even have a picture of me in a cap and gown with this little book that you walk across the stage with mine was just empty. And I remember that economics teacher pulling me aside and being like, yeah, you're not going to graduate. And it wasn't even go to summer school. It was like, it's not happening. Which is interesting power I guess, that teachers had back then. I've also since then found out people who did graduate on exactly the opposite. They were Caucasian men and they're talking, it kind of ingest like, oh my gosh, I barely finished high school. Thank goodness I had this guy that was really nice and he just gave me a C instead of an F. And I was like, huh, that's interesting.
Brendan Jarvis:
That would be nice. Yeah.
Noelle Russell:
But I did end up, when people tell you something, like I said, there is some truth, usually something in there that I can learn from. And so yeah, he was right. I am good at customer service. I am good being a people person, but wasn't not going to go to college. So I literally took out a book of Florida schools, closed my eyes and point pointed to a school and landed on Emery Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. There were two campuses, but of course I chose the Daytona Beach one. Well, because is the beach I ended up as, I'm a bit of a nerd. And so I hardly ever went to the beach when I was there. But that was one of the compelling features of the school. I was, in hindsight, I should have done a little bit more of that. But so I ended up leaving.
Granted there is a catch, right? I didn't just drop outta high school and go to college. I had to, which is what I tell younger people today. I had to do something. I had to prove that I could do the work. So I did take the standardized tests here, the A C T and the S E T S A T. And I did very well on those standardized tests. And so it made it easy for that school to be like, all right, we don't really need your paper. Just start paying tuition and you can come. And that lasted for a few years before I felt the exact same, that kind of pull, what are you doing here? This isn't valuable. You're not delivering any results being in school. And I just didn't like the learning pattern that I had to use there. So I ended up leaving college too without getting that fancy piece of paper. I did pay for it though. I think I'm still paying for it actually.
Brendan Jarvis:
Yeah, I've heard that college tuition and the states as quite the investment and can be quite the burden for people.
Noelle Russell:
It's crazy. It's, it's crazy. But hopefully, who knows that what the future holds there. But I did do much of that was because I wanted to be able to say I went to college. I didn't necessarily care that much about finishing just high school. I went to high school, I almost finished, but it gave me enough so that I could put on LinkedIn or on my resume that I went to Embry Riddle. And the funny thing is, is that in some companies, a lot of people don't finish school. They see something or they get an opportunity or they start a business and they leave school prematurely. So it wasn't really bad that I didn't finish. It didn't keep me from getting a job. The only thing it kept me from was certain opportunities where the leader or the hiring manager was very narrowly focused on, do you have all these bullets? And one of them is bachelor's degree required. I never lied. So I would tell them I don't have a bachelor's degree. They're like, yeah, you can't work here. It's funny though. It all comes around.
Brendan Jarvis:
Well, irrespective of college degrees though, people can take away from other people their abilities or say that they need certain things that they don't possess. And I understand that your manager, yes. At Amazon again, your economics teacher and the geneticists with Max didn't think that you had the chops. Right? They said to you that you didn't have the technical skills to join the Alexa team.
Noelle Russell:
Yes.
Brendan Jarvis:
And again, you said with
Noelle Russell:
All of them, with all of them, I always give them credit, right? Well, I'm like, I'm sure they meant good. I'm sure he honestly thought I couldn't do the thing and didn't wanna set me up for failure. This is what I do say in my mind to not create any kind of ill will where I'm like, you are trying to hold me back cuz that doesn't serve anybody. So I'm always thinking to myself, you must, I'm sure out of good intention, he's like, you're a training manager at a w s. We hired you to manage trainers. You're not even really that close to the technology that we train on. Although in that role, I did get certified twice. I got the first certification, I got certified solutions architect because I wanted to make sure everyone knew I knew what I was doing. I wasn't just a manager.
It's something I do in a lot of the roles that I take on. I just get certified just to prove to the ranks. I know what I'm doing here. I'm not just a people manager. But in that specific role, I was surprised to hear him not just say that he didn't think I could do it, but that he wouldn't actually support my candidacy for the role. And that was surprising to me. And since then, of course people kind of came out of the woodwork after and would say he wasn't very supportive of you in general joining the Alexa team. But all that was fuel for the fire. So I did end up, as I usually do, I accepted what he said. I thanked him for his feedback and I sat on it. I always say feel the feels and then make a plan when you hear someone diminish your skills or diminish the vision you have for yourself.
And they're like, yeah, I don't think you could do, I used to call 'em dream squashes. They just come in and with a very pleasant tone would tell you you're not capable of the thing that you think you can do. And I'm just, and no what? So there's a moment that that's painful. And I tell people, I'm like, feel the feels. Be upset about it. You can even spend the day in bed. I try to limit, feel the feels part to 90 seconds. That's my goal. But some of these disasters and rejections are much bigger than others. So you take the time you need, but then know that the very next step is to make a plan to figure out what you're going to do anyway. And so in my case, my plan was I'm just going to go talk to the hiring manager, let them know the reality of the situation, what my actual skillset is.
And it turned out they needed, not necessarily, they didn't know the term, we hadn't created the role yet, but they wanted an evangelist. They wanted someone who was going to do the work and then talk about it everywhere. And that, I'm good at that. That's exactly what I, I'm born for that. So luckily I did that. And of course I didn't get the support of my manager. I went anyway. There was a little bit of bad blood. I don't think I ever talked to that guy again. Which is kind of sad. I mean, it's a small world. I never talked to him again. But it was changed the trajectory of my career. And again, I always think, what if I listen to him? What if I let his little dream squashing that he didn't mean to necessarily do turn into me being like, you're right.
I'm a training manager. Let me see if I can get a bigger region next year. I've heard so many women specifically in tech run through that in their mind of like, oh, but I just got a promotion. Or Oh yeah, they said that maybe I should just stick it out and learn as much as I can in the role as opposed to take this opportunity. And I just tell 'em, either way is good. Either way you're going to learn massively, but you'll feel better if you follow your intuition. And that's the benefit of the silence is that I'm much more in tune to the sound of that intuition cuz I spend a lot of time quieting my mind and thinking, feeling the feelings. So I have a lot of self-awareness there. So if you don't have that, you might just believe the nonsense that people project onto you that really is more about their own limitations and very, very rarely about your own.
Brendan Jarvis:
So true. And if you are finding that you need a little bit more self-awareness, perhaps download one minute. Yes. By mindfulness onto your
Noelle Russell:
Alexa devices, you say, Alexa, open mindfulness. No, we're good. [laugh]
Brendan Jarvis:
What you're saying. Well, what I'm hearing is that all feedback is a gift. The challenge is whether or not you can see negative feedback as such and then choose to do something with it.
Noelle Russell:
Yes. And sometimes I do believe that negative feed, I've gotten negative feedback before actually. I just recently got negative feedback. As a leader, I always want, I used to call it the crap sandwich. There's something meaningful to saying something nice then saying the thing you want to correct and then ending with something nice. It's simple, but it works. Leaders don't do this with me. I've never had a leader who is insightful enough to be like, maybe I shouldn't just yell at this person or tell them how bad they are or tell them how disappointing their performances or whatever it is. But yeah, I think being able to take all feedback, whether it's criticism positive or negative, take all of it, write it all down. And oftentimes in a journaling exercise, I will ask myself, let's say for example, it's doesn't come to meetings on time, which I am known to do. And sorry for all the people that always wait for me. It's like a thing. I'm a Latina and it's terrible. I don't wanna be late, but I'm always late. Anyway,
Brendan Jarvis:
You were on time for me though, so I feel like I'm unverified company here,
Noelle Russell:
Right? Well actually I should say I'm never late for the stuff I'm passionate about [laugh]. But imagine an internal corporate meeting. I might be late, I might be like, hmm, I need to make coffee right now. But in those moments, I still write it all down, even though immediately I dismiss it as like, ugh. I mean it wasn't that important anyway. It wasn't that meeting. But I write it down and then I ask myself, I literally will write down the question, how does it feel when you're late? And then I'll answer it and then I'll say, how does it feel when people are late? I'll reverse it. What happens? And it creates empathy. It's like practicing empathy on my own feedback, which is super valuable because then I end up realizing, okay, I could see how that's kind of crappy. Nobody wants to be sitting around for, I get it, I don't think it's worth you making a performance issue out of it, but I understand it and I wanna correct it.
And now I'm motivated to be better. And that's the name of the game is all, especially for people working in the corporate America. You're going to get nonsense told to you in these performance reviews, but there's always something you can use to become a better person. And that better, you might end up building a company or writing an Alexa skill or building a mobile app and you will build that thing because of this feedback. No matter how crazy it may seem at the time, it'll change you because you'll search for how to become a better person because of
Brendan Jarvis:
It. Helping people to see different types of feedback for what they are and what might sit behind them, I feel is quite an important area to go into. And you've mentioned a couple of times women in tech specifically and can encounter situations in their performance reviews. And even just in the day-to-day where this feedback is leveled at them, what is wing clipping and how can people determine whether or not they're receiving signal or noise when they're getting feedback from someone?
Noelle Russell:
Yeah, absolutely. This is a term, it's similar to my dream squashers term that I noticed in my performance reviews. And actually as I started mentoring other women in tech, I started seeing this same pattern of behavior. And what would happen is, just to give you an example, and some listeners might be like, oh my gosh, that's happened to me. And it's the sad news. It's not gender specific or ethnic specific, any symphony of characteristics. It's really a leadership, a lack of leadership maybe of the person. But when somebody says to you, and sometimes it's even our parents that do this, but when someone says to you or you say, oh my gosh, I have this idea for a business, or Oh my gosh, I have this idea for us how we could improve this process in our team meetings or how we can improve this process for this customer.
And they look at you and they say, something sounds nice. And they're like, yeah, I mean, thank you for that, but I'm not really sure this Amazon person, I'm not really sure you have the skillset to really do that work. I'm not, oh, one was a performance review where they say they don't say anything about your performance numbers. They're just like, there's something about Noelle, I'm not sure what it is, but there's something about her. And literally, I'm not there to defend myself, of course, but this person, by just saying that to someone else, has clipped my wings in the eyes of that person, that person is now going to see me as less, even though nothing specific was said. It's very slippery and it's super frustrating. It's
Brendan Jarvis:
Like the whole, it's the hole. I'm just asking questions. Yes, you can live, you can level accusations at someone without actually having to accuse them of anything. Yes,
Noelle Russell:
Exactly. And I mean, I think the term has come around gaslighting, right? Where mm-hmm. People say things and it makes you feel like they're saying something without saying it. And then you become reactive to that and all of a sudden it looks like you're guilty because you're reacting to a thing that was never actually said. And it's so, it's a messed up situation, psychological phenomenon. It is not fun. But the best thing we can do is, like I said, recognize it. Right? That's why I'm always super absorbent in these conversations, even when someone's wing clipping me. Even when someone's saying, for example, I had a young woman I was mentoring and she wanted to get a different role in the same company. And just in general, women tend to, if something's wrong in their team, rather than look for another role in the company, they just leave the company.
And sometimes they leave the whole industry, they go all the way out. We jump too far. And it's unfortunate, it shows in our numbers. But this woman said, I don't wanna leave the company and I wanna keep, I just know that I can do more. And I see this opportunity where I meet 70, 80% of the requirements. I'd like to go after it. And she's saying this to her mentor, coach and direct supervisor and her direct supervisor who is a woman, says to her, yeah, I'm not really sure that's a great move for you. I mean, I don't see how that maybe, I mean maybe, but I'm not sure. That's a great idea. You should maybe talk to some other people about that. First or worse, let me talk to that hiring manager. And for some reason you find out that role is no longer available to you, [laugh], right?
These weird, crazy things that happen. But this woman was super disappointed to find out that her leader was not supportive of a growth opportunity for her. But then I tried to remind her that, imagine it again, this is empathy speaking. Imagine it from her, the person's side who is not wanting her to leave. She's probably a valuable asset. This is classic management, bad management maybe, but where we're like, if you leave, my life gets harder, so I'm going to inadvertently encourage you to stay. And it's those moments that that's like wing clipping at its finest, where you then start to second guess your ability to do the thing you originally thought you could do because of these subtle hints that are thrown by these leaders that you respect that are like, oh no, you. That's not really for you. I had somebody say, oh, you know what? Actually, I don't want you to go do this thing. I'm going to do it instead, had a manager literally take, I should do this for you. You don't need to be burdened by it. And you're like,
Brendan Jarvis:
Huh. Well, just because someone's higher up in the hierarchy doesn't necessarily mean that they got there, cuz they were a great leader. And fortunately, this is so symptomatic, the lack of training and coaching that leaders themselves receive to be able to understand what great leadership looks like and therefore how to actually deliver that to the people around them. Now I was thinking when you were talking there about that mentees boss who was a female as well, I was thinking of, I think you'd actually mentioned this in a previous talk, the Pixar short film called Pearl. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. Tell us a little bit about Pearl and what that illustrates, because I feel like it's quite closely connected to what you were just saying.
Noelle Russell:
Oh, absolutely. I reference it all the time. It's sad. [laugh] a little bit for those of us who have been in this situation, but Pixar made this short to address what happens to underrepresented groups when they go into a workplace. And so in this case, it's a ball of yarn and going into a bunch of, it's like, bro, what do they call it? Silicon bro
Brendan Jarvis:
Capital
Noelle Russell:
Or something? Or bro capital, yeah. But it's basically Silicon Valley, so, or maybe it's New York, right? Agency world. But anyway, this ball of yarn who's different and colorful goes in and tries to be themselves and is shut down wind clipped at every turn. No, that's not funny. People don't laugh at their jokes, walk out of the room when you walk in. It just overt painful rejection. And so what ends up happening, and a lot of us do this as a matter of fact, it's so, so common that N P R created a podcast called code switching, which is we start to basically take on the persona of the people that don't like us in order to become more likable to those people. And you watch this ball of yarn turn into a bro, right? And wearing pants. And I remember thinking when I was younger, early in my career, I did the same thing.
I would look at, I was at I B M for my first 12 years and looking around everyone, no one looked like me. I would wear, I remember I'd wear these black suit pants, I'd wear a white button down shirt and like a blazer. I looked like a guy in hindsight, a lot like this pearl person actually. And I remember putting my hair in a bun for two years. I never took it out. People had no idea how long my hair was. All these little things that you do to just try to blend in. I remember wearing glasses that had no prescription. Now we've got these blue ray glass things, what are they called? The blue light glasses. So I could get away with it, but back then there were no such thing. So you just go and you buy these cosmetic, aesthetically pleasing glasses.
But I wanted people to think I was smart and it worked. That's the problem with it, is that systemically it, I bought credibility with changing my appearance and accommodating. And that's exactly what this cute little short demonstrates is that it works. But then as the human who's switched and code switched and accommodated, you realize how far from your true self you are at some point. And in this case, it's when someone new and bubbly, a new ball of yarn comes in and you find yourself doing. Exactly. It's kind of like women in tech. I see a lot of older women in tech do this where they're very aggressive towards younger women in tech trying to climb the ladder. They'll literally hold, they'll be the ones doing the wind clipping. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, we're, we're together. We're on the same team. Poor we're really not.
Because they're like, no, no, no, I'm a bro. Now [laugh] like I, I'm on the other side. And some of them make that realization. They see someone like Noelle and they're like, gosh, I used to be just, I've heard older VPs say, I used to be just like you. I used to smile all the time. I used to be excited and vulnerable. I used to be just like that. And they had no excuse for not being like that anymore other than that was their intention and that they had no, it was who they were. But that Pearl movie shows somewhere inside of us were, when we realize how we're code switching in the world, it's disheartening cuz you basically kind of sold yourself out in order to be liked. And that's kind of like a Gary Vanerchuk message. Just stop doing that. Not worth
Brendan Jarvis:
It. It's a hard thing to do though, right? Because we are social animals and like you say, exactly, it's almost like in social adaptation to the circumstance. And then the oppressor become, the oppress becomes the oppressor, the bullied becomes the bully, and it actually further entrenches the behavior that we seek to get rid of. So it's a really, really tricky one to unravel. Noellele, you are a woman, you are a Latina woman, you are someone that does bring a huge amount of energy to what you do and undoubtedly to the environments in which you work in. And just speaking about Pearl there and reflecting on your own career, you know, talked about initially being a bit of a bro when you started at I B M and that you were able over time it sounds like, to become that ball of yarn again and [laugh] just be who you are. When you go to work in different big tech organizations, you've worked at Microsoft, you've worked at Amazon, and you're now at I B M amongst others. Is this worlds colliding for people around you? Do they just fall off their chairs and not know what to do when you join the team? How transparent are you about who you are and what you bring when you're in those hiring conversations?
Noelle Russell:
Yeah, it's interesting. So in hiring, I am extremely transparent. It's why I do what I do on LinkedIn. I go LinkedIn live, I have no script. I just like it's raw Noellele, sometimes I cry. It's Noelle perfectly, exactly what I care about, what I'm passionate about. And actually encourage people to do that so that when a company hires me, there's no surprises. No, I didn't know you talked like that. I didn't know you were passionate about this. I didn't know you were going to go to do these talks. It's very well known what I do. And actually I remember getting hired at Red Hat and they were like, your reputation precedes you. And we want that. We want that. That's what we want. So that's the best case scenario where you promote yourself and the right company with the right culture comes in and says, we want exactly who you are.
Come and do what you do for us. And that's happened to me a few times. Alexa was one of them. They literally were, it doesn't matter that you're not a data scientist, you're not classically trained. We want someone that's going to do the work really hard, but then talk about it and talk about it with enthusiasm and of course perfect fit. However, that's not always the case. So I will, and multiple cases I will be very transparent ahead of time. This is who I am, this is what I do, this is what I care about, this is the job that I want. And I have on multiple occasions, been baited and switched. And it doesn't make sense to me when that happens because it doesn't serve anyone. I got baited into a role and then switched into a PM role and I'm like, I'm not a pm. It's cool and I get it and it's awesome. But that's not my skillset. I'm not like, I don't like monday.com. I barely excel, so
Brendan Jarvis:
I can't turn up to meetings on time.
Noelle Russell:
Exactly the opposite of a pm. The PM is the one calling me. You can imagine how that went. But the funny thing about that was that that's not why they hired me. But in many cases, companies tend to devalue or tend to over time, especially in crunch time when financials, now we're in an economic downturn, their desire for evangelism, which is completely opposite of what they should do, but their desire for someone like me shifts and they're like, oh no, we need a person who's going to go to the keyboard, put their head down, stay in a room and just build solutions. I'm like, that's awesome. I could do that, but I have to also do this other thing. That's what I'm good at. And they lose their appetite for evangelism or for advocacy. And it's funny though because in economic downturns, that's the time to be an advocate.
People are looking for energy, excitement, especially at certain companies that need that as part of their brand. But so it's been very interesting to watch. I've never been in a situation where I felt like I took a job that they didn't know exactly what they were getting, but I watched as one, my leadership would change. So the person that hired me moved on and then my new leader didn't know who I was, which I find shocking cause I'm like, just Google me, but they don't Google me, so they don't know who I am. They don't know what I can do. And then I end up not getting leveraged in the way that I am passionate about. And as soon as that happens, I get disengaged. So as soon as someone starts saying, your job is to go build PowerPoint decks, your job is to go, do you know these other activities that are not an alignment with talking to customers, building solutions and changing the world?
Those are kind of where I like to spend my time. But it's just so fascinating that I know in my mind, I immediately am like, okay, my time is coming to an end. There's a timestamp on my ability to deliver well here because I'm no longer in my wheelhouse. The other signal which I'd like to share, which is really interesting, is that I'm very clear on why I do what I do and what I do. And almost always I'm energetic and excited, but I can tell when I'm not living on my purpose or doing something that is aligned with what I do well, I start to get very tired very quickly. And I have a busy life, right? Four kids, but I'm not really exhausted if I'm living in the direction of the things that I'm trying to do in this world, advocate for ethical AI and get more women in tech.
These things excite me so much so that I need less sleep than the average bear. But it's fascinating to me that my body or my mind, whatever, it all starts to kind of shut down when I drift away or am forced away from that core understanding of myself. And so I always ask people, if you're tired and run down, what do? Look at what you're doing, figure out. Maybe you're not living on that purpose that would excite you every single day. And if you don't know what that purpose is, maybe that's where you need to spend all your spare time [laugh] figuring
Brendan Jarvis:
That out. Something that you've said, and I'll quote you now, you've said that I encourage women to spend time honing their voice so they can be strong in it. Now clearly that's something that you've done and even you are not immune to organizations doing the bait and switch and changing what roles they put you into, but at least you've been able to define your value and be open and transparent about what that is. If people can take the time to Google you, they'll find that immediately. Yes. But if someone's listening, whether they're a woman or just someone who's been struggling to find their voice, what's something small that they can do to start changing that situation and the work environment?
Noelle Russell:
Yeah, I always say it's one of my core principles is be the most positive person in the room. It's interesting what happens because even in a bad work environment, being the most positive person in the room becomes a brand. Because there are so few people that are like this. And the good news is positivity is learned. You don't have to, you're not born with it. I'm not born with it. I've had plenty of bad times, seasons in my life where I was not at my core, my Noelle, I wasn't recognizable really to myself. But when I am in, I'm positive and happy one, people are attracted to that. So everyone loves someone that's happy and positive and encouraging. The, it's the number one thing that people compliment me on is the energy I bring to the room. And I think that way that they say it is very important.
I bring it, I literally prep it. Tony Robbins says, physiologically change your state. This is a choice. In one of the eBooks I wrote, it was mindful leaderships, virtues of mind, mindful leaders. And one of them was about happiness being a choice, positivity being a choice. And that you have to in every engagement, choose to be positive even if everything else is bad. Because here's watching, I have a lot of eyes on me. I have my children watching, my dad watching. But more importantly, even at work, people know when nonsense is happening. People know that you've been baited and switched, but how are you going to react? Just like you said earlier, so many things have happened that I could have let that be my story. I could have been the special needs mom, I could have been the woman who got fired. All of these things, those could have become my identity, but I chose instead to pick my own identity.
And maybe that's the other thing is if you're in a bad spot, spend some time figuring out what you want. And in just the activity of figuring out what you want, you'll start to attract people and experiences and network opportunities for bringing what you want into reality. My dad gave me this cool plaque. It actually ended up getting burned in a fire, but I kept it anyway, but he gave me this plaque and it says, use every conversation you have, every letter. Back in the days when we wrote letters, every letter you write, every meeting you're in to project the vision of the world you want. And at the end you will see the greatness of your own life. And the only way that happens though is if you actually know what you want and then you start talking about it. And that's why every stage I have, we talk about what we've talked about here. I mean it's nice that you already knew. That means I'm doing my job correctly, the things that I'm passionate about, I want the world to know. I'm passionate about it. But then I also wanna contribute and not just be a talker, but be a doer. And that's a big part of my philosophy as well.
Brendan Jarvis:
You're making me remember a conversation I had with Dr. Susan WK a few months ago on the podcast. And at the beginning of the pandemic, Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer and she received that diagnosis and she had to make a choice about the story that she was going to tell herself. And amongst the whole world burning down or what it seemed like she now had that to contend with. And she had a very simple practice, which was inspired by a book, which I'm now struggling to remember, but I'll put it in the show notes, where what she did is she wrote down the story that she was telling herself in the moment and then she read that story aloud and then asked herself a question, was that story serving me? Is it empowering me? Is it a story I want to be telling myself?
And she decided that no, she was not wanting to tell herself that negative story about the cancer. So she literally wrote down a new story that she wanted to tell and she read that aloud to herself and she decided, she made a decision that is the story that I'm now going to be telling myself about this cancer. And it made a world of difference to how she experienced cancer and recovered from cancer. She doesn't say that it's the thing that cured her of her cancer, she is now cancer free. But it certainly was a big shift in her mindset and helped her to see things that otherwise she wouldn't have seen if she hadn't gone through that exercise and gotten really clear on the story that she was telling herself.
Noelle Russell:
Yes, a hundred percent. And it almost is the fuel for resilience is that knowing that you can choose and that you can stay in that kind of victim mindset as long as you want to, but it's your choice. And the sooner that you recognize and separate the event from the emotion, it's one of the meditation principles I learned a long time ago, is just to sit with something bad and then separate how you feel about it from the thing itself, and then realize that it's just a feeling. And then eventually as you get better at it, realizing you can change the feeling about the thing. And when you can do that, literally many of the struggles that I've gone through, people are like, that would lay me down [laugh]. Like that would be it. And I always encourage people, I'm like, you only say that because the emotion is tied to the thing, it's tied to the experience is tied to the manager.
But when you sit and you actually do a journaling exercise or you think through and separate the emotion you're feeling from that person, you realize the person and the emotion are not the same. They're not one. And the further you can separate them, that's how crazy forgiveness activities that we've seen between horrible murderers and their families, victim families. That's how these things happen. Cuz they're able to get to this level of separation where they realize you're a human, I want you to stay in jail for a long time, but I can forgive you because my emotion has subsided and that is a high level of human understanding, but it's something I achieve in these smaller things. I'm not dealing with anything massive in that sense. Certainly not in any way related to having a medical situation like that. But I have been in those situations where I thought my life was over or I could not see a way out and I had to stop and just do that separation activity and realize that event has nothing to do with the rest of my life.
And it's super empowering. So the better more practice you can get, the better The good news is, I always say we're overcome a hundred percent of our bad days. All of us have bad things that we have gone through and all of us have different ways of seeing those bad things. And so you have a whole little inventory of things you can go back and practice. How do you feel about it? How can you separate that feeling from the thing? And can you actually just see that event without anger or sadness or depression? I mean, it's hard, but it's really valuable personal work.
Brendan Jarvis:
For some reason, I'm thinking about our ability as humans to tell stories and how often our greatest stories they have. For example, a snake or a dragon is the archetypal enemy of humanity. And yes, really we all have to choose to face and slay those dragons because that's where the growth comes from. And I really like the clarity that you have brought to this because you have faced a number of dragons, quite significant ones, and people in their lives if they haven't already, you are bound to face a dragon some point soon. And I really like the empowering nature of the choice that you are painting about how you can separate what you are feeling from what's actually happening and then create space to make a different choice about what you do next. I think that's such an important message.
Noelle Russell:
Yes.
Brendan Jarvis:
I heard you reflecting on your time creating skills for Alexa and something that I was watching, you were talking about the fact that fact-based skills actually blew up into something massive and everyone started creating these skills. If you wanted to know something about hedgehogs, there was a hedgehog skill that would tell you about hedgehogs. And you said something though, not on the hedgehogs of course, but on creating skills that I thought was actually quite profound. And I'll quote you now. You said the world will do what you tell them. So tell them something big. So as we bring the show down to a close now, what's something big that you want our audience to think about?
Noelle Russell:
I think probably the biggest change that happened in my career was when I realized the difference between building something and building something people wanted or needed. A huge shift happened when I started, instead of being like, I think this is cool or I wanna write this book instead I looked to the world which is filled with people asking for help and really focused my energy and my attention and my skills on that. I'd use a technique, this Ike guy diagram, this Venn diagram. It's been very helpful to me because we're in this great resignation where some of us are struggling. Do I wanna work for a big company? Do I wanna start something on my own? And there's a couple things that I'll leave you with. One is that that IQ guy diagram, one of the best parts about it is figuring out not just what you're good at because let's face it, I'm good technically at a lot of things, but I don't love them.
So examining what you're good at and what you love and that cross section. But the other part of that that I really appreciate is, but what you're good at plus what you love, plus what does the world need right now? And the world is constantly changing. I, I call myself an intrapreneur cause I'm always inside companies building smaller companies. And as an intrapreneur, I'm always thinking, how do I build something people want instead of 1980 technology where we built it and then we told our customers to want it [laugh], right? It was a big old mess. And so now whether you're doing this work inside a company which is completely valid, or you're choosing, maybe I'm the one to build this as an entrepreneur, figuring out not just what you're good at, not just what you love to do, but what the world needs. So now I have a meme that I've hung up by my desk and it says, build what people want.
It's another word for maybe customer obsession, being focused on or servant leadership. All of these are different ways of expressing I, oh, I heard recently don't hate me for no ads for quoting a TikTok video, but there was a video that I saw recently and it said, flowers don't bloom for themselves and that trees don't give fruit for themselves to eat and that the sun doesn't shine on itself all nature and the world, the universe is it's what you have within you is meant to be given away. And I do think that that Ike guy diagram helps you identify what your special thing is that you are meant to give to this world. And the closer you can align your work, meaning whether it's a business or whether it's a job, the closer you can align that middle piece to your work, the happier you will be.
And again, we can't stop the world from baiting us in and switching us. We can't stop the world from if we see something bad and we say something and they don't want us to say it, they'll fire us. These are outside of that. But the good news is, if you're doing that magic central piece of something you love, something you're good at, something the world needs, you will always be in demand. And this is what I have found. My career has continually been successful no matter what big roadblocks had, because I'm focused intensely on what I can do to make a difference and what I can do to help. So that's probably maybe the homework [laugh], is go take a look at that diagram and figure out what is that thing. And then the last thing is there's this really great article I always like to mention, it's called a thousand True Fans.
I don't know if you've heard of it before, but yeah, it's a great article. Kevin Kelly? Yes, Kevin Kelly. And he wrote it and then Seth Goden re-quoted it. And so it's very popular. You can Google it. It's actually pivoted a little bit today in our current climate. But a thousand true fans is all really about finding this central piece of this Ike guy diagram and finding just a thousand people in the world of 7 billion that are willing to pay you a hundred dollars a year to deliver value in this space. And that becomes a six figure income. But you could also switch those numbers because today, oh goodness, I can't tell you how many thousand dollars products I see [laugh] that people buy. That's, I don't know how good it is, but a thousand dollars is kind of like what a hundred dollars was maybe 20 or 30 years ago.
Our lives have changed. There's different levels of affluence in the world. There's different levels of impact that you can have. So you could also think of it as maybe you build a thousand dollars program or framework or course or consulting practice and for a thousand dollars now a year you just need a hundred customers and you're in a six figure income. So I encourage people to kind of think outside the box. We now have a chance to really dial in what we're good at, what we care about, what the world needs, what we can get paid for and what we love to do. And that there's never been a time in my entire career that that's been more possible than it is now, which is why I started the AI Leadership Institute. I realized I could do both. They could be mutually exclusive and not have conflicts of interest because one's directly tied to my why and what I wanna do. And the other is the service I'm trying to offer through a company, which is always a shadow of that. So something to think about maybe for the audience to try and to nibble on. Cuz I think it's probably a pretty long exercise. It certainly took me a couple years to figure it out.
Brendan Jarvis:
And one of the ways that people can de-risk that figuring out what the world needs is to do a bit of user research. So yes, I'm sure everyone listening to this will understand what that means. Absolutely. You don't have to guess. You don't have to. That's
Noelle Russell:
Right, that's right. I, and it's even as easy as I always encourage my customers, I'm like, just ask. Literally send a message and ask your customers what they want or ask your social media, right? What are they thinking? Polls are one of the highest engaged pieces of social media available on all platforms, social media on Instagram, on TikTok, on Facebook, because people like sharing their opinion. We all know that. But when you frame the question, you get to control how it's delivered, you get to actually build that value back into the world and it feels great. So I encourage many people to as many people who want to take that adventure.
Brendan Jarvis:
It's funny you should mention polls, because the way in which you came onto my radar was because I had put a question up on LinkedIn to request from the community people that they wanted to hear on the show. Oh, cool. And you were put forward as someone who inspired one of my followers on LinkedIn, and as a consequence, he, here we are. So
Noelle Russell:
Here we are. That's amazing. See, user research works.
Brendan Jarvis:
Hey Noelle, this has been an intense and also hugely enjoyable conversation. We didn't even get to anything about AI specifically, which I think is quite kind of funny. But it speaks to the depth that we did manage to get to on some really important issues surrounding work and what we're all doing and how we live our lives and the choices that we face. So thank you for bringing the energy that you have to the conversation today and also for being so open with the stories and experiences that you've shared.
Noelle Russell:
Thank you so much. I'm super grateful that you have this platform and even more grateful for that special person who bumped you up on the radar.
Brendan Jarvis:
Oh, you're most welcome. It's been an absolute pleasure and hopefully it won't be the last time that we speak. Noelle, for people that do want to follow what you're up to, the wonderful things that you've been doing in your career and get connected, what's the best way for them to do that?
Noelle Russell:
Yeah, I always invite people to connect with me on LinkedIn. It's a real connection. You have access to emailing me, not follow, I mean connect while you can. But for those who just wanna go and check out the types of things that I'm doing, the books that I'm writing, the podcast that I'm on, like this one you can go to just noelleRussell.com and all my info is there.
Brendan Jarvis:
Perfect. Thanks Noelle. And to everyone who's tuned in, it's been great having you here as well. Everything that we've covered will be in the show notes, including where you can find Noelle and all the wonderful things that she's been doing. If you enjoyed the show and you want to hear more great conversations like this with world class leaders in UX, design, product management, and now ai, please don't forget to leave a review on the podcast, subscribe and also tell someone just it could be one person, just someone who you feel would get value from these conversations about design and careers and working in tech and how to live life at depth. If you wanna reach out to me, you can find my link to my profile on LinkedIn at the bottom of the show notes, or you can just search for me on LinkedIn. Brendan Jarvis, I should come up or you can head on over to my website, which is thespaceinbetween.co.nz. That's thespaceinbetween.co.nz. And until next time, keep being brave.

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