Brittany Do_mixdown.mp3

Brittany: [00:00:00] No matter who you are, no matter where you are, you do leave an invisible. So, like a physical, but also a more mental footprint everywhere you go. That is something that's really powerful.

Harpreet: [00:00:30] What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Artists of Data Science Podcast, the only self development podcast for data scientists you're going to learn from and be inspired by the people, ideas and conversations that will encourage creativity and innovation in yourself so that you can do the same for others. I also host Open Office Hours. You can register to attend by going to Bitly.com/adsoh forward slash a. Ds0h. I look forward to seeing you all there. Let's ride this beat out into another awesome episode and don't forget to subscribe to the show and leave a five star review. Our guest today believes that the Art of Human Connection is one of the truly fascinating joys that we can experience. And she's here to lead us on a voyage to explore what it means to be an intentional, everyday leader. Because you see, to her, the leadership is more than just an idea. It is intertwined with life, even in those small, often mundane moments. It is synonymous with practicing intentional influence every day and inspiring others. And she's on a mission to prove leadership is not exclusive to people of a certain age, class or talent. She's here to help us see that through leadership, we inherently [00:02:00] have influence on our world and the people around us. So please help me. Welcoming our guest today, author of Bigger than Leadership Stories of Influence, Intention and Inspiration. Brittany Doe. Brittany, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be on the show today. I really appreciate having you here.

Brittany: [00:02:20] Of course. Thank so much for having me here. I'm really excited to talk about bigger than leadership, of course, and just also get to know you better.

Harpreet: [00:02:28] Yeah, absolutely. Same here. So speaking of getting to know each other better, let's get to know you. So where did you grow up and what was it like there?

Brittany: [00:02:36] Yeah. So I grew up in Seattle, Washington, and overall it was what you would expect. The weather was pretty rainy, but summers are always very nice. And aside from weather, I thought that there were a lot of different people from various backgrounds, which is always great because then you get to learn about different perspectives, different cultures, different upbringings, honestly. And because of this, I feel like I've gotten to meet a lot of different, really awesome people who are my friends and get to learn from them every day and every week, especially since I go to school in Seattle. Now it makes it easier to meet a lot of different people from different places because of how many people who come to Seattle might not be from Seattle.

Harpreet: [00:03:31] Yes. Yeah, it was a cool place, man. I really like it there. I remember I had like some family there, distant family. So we'd go there growing up quite often we'd make that drive from Sacramento, California, up to Seattle.

Brittany: [00:03:41] Oh, whoa.

Harpreet: [00:03:42] That's a huge drive, man. There's a long, long drive. But it was one of the most beautiful drives cutting through like the mountains and Oregon and all that stuff, and then eventually going up to Vancouver. But that's cool, man. So, okay, so Seattle grew up and I asked this question to all my [00:04:00] guests, but I realize for you it wasn't that long ago, but when you were in high school, what did you think your future would look like?

Brittany: [00:04:09] Yeah. So in high school, I initially thought I would be a veterinarian. I really love animals, especially dogs, and I wanted to work with them. But then I realized that that probably wouldn't be the best path for me and decided that business would be something that was also really interesting and something that I wanted to pursue. So now I am studying business, but I still do feel tempted to work a lot with animals, which is why I volunteered with cats for a couple of years. But I still am happy that I chose business rather than going the vet route because that definitely would not have been the right place for me.

Harpreet: [00:04:57] Yeah. So and then somehow along this path, you wrote a book about leadership. So let's, let's talk about this one of the kind of getting to the genesis of the book. So it talk to us about the leadership bug and how you first caught the leadership bug.

Brittany: [00:05:17] Yes. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with the leadership bug, it's basically that first moment of you figuring out, okay, this is kind of what leadership is like. This is what it's like to be a leader. And I talk about in the book about how you can be a leader wherever you are, whenever. And the first time I felt like I really caught the leadership bug and felt really hooked to it and wanted to continue leading and being a person of influence for as much as I could to as many people as I could was when I attended a camp at in Washington [00:06:00] called Mount Adams. And I also referenced this a lot in the book. But prior to that experience, I would say that I didn't really think that I was much of a leader. I was pretty shy in high school or like the early. Years of high school and didn't really branch out of my shell until after and because of Mount Adams, I realized that even if I'm a little quieter and would not prefer to be the center of attention, that it still hasn't quite changed it.

Brittany: [00:06:31] I'm happy with where I am. I realized, okay, this is who I am and this is who I'm totally okay with being. But no matter what, no matter where I am in life, I am a leader already. So because of the people that I'm able to influence right now, that enables me that enables me to be a leader. And I do want to be the best leader I can be. So focusing on what the best version of myself looks like, what the people around me look like, and how I can hopefully make their lives a little bit better. I think that that overall is just so important. And even though I feel like I have grown a lot since high school, at the core, I am a pretty similar person, but I don't know how much change there is overall in terms of just going through the years of life, because there are events that impact our lives and we grow from those experiences and take them with us. So if you like high school, especially since I was still pretty young, that was a pretty influential moment for me.

Harpreet: [00:07:44] So talk to us about your personal definition of what leadership is, what it means to you, and then why write about leadership?

Brittany: [00:07:55] Yeah, definitely. So my definition of leadership with [00:08:00] the first of the assumption that everyone can have a different definition of leadership and this is just my own personal definition is anyone who is able to influence people with intention and in that way inspire people around them. And I do talk about this in the book also. Why write about leadership? Yes, thank you. I feel like a lot of people had the same mindset or a similar mindset to me prior to attending Mount Adams when I realized, like, I can be a leader no matter where I am. And I didn't want to limit the audience of my book honestly, because at first I was going to write specifically about younger, younger adults. But as I continued interviewing people more and more, and especially people who are more established in their careers, I wanted to open it up to everyone because that's what I believe leadership is about. It's limitless, and it doesn't have to require the fact that you're young or anything. You just have to require that you're in a certain position. And hopefully with this perspective and showing people like these interviewees that I mentioned, the book, there are everyday people just like you and me. We are leaders. They are leaders that this would inspire other people to maybe continue thinking and to shift their thinking to how they can be the best version of themselves in their own lives and hopefully impact others to the degree that they want and to hopefully also inspire them to be the best versions of themselves. I like to think of it as a nice waterfall effect where it just touches [00:10:00] more people as you go and that just the fact just ripples out drastically.

Harpreet: [00:10:07] So speaking about audience, who is this this book for bigger than leadership? I do include a lot of stories from from peoples of of all walks of life, all different age groups everywhere kind of on that spectrum. When you think about who you're writing for, right. When you kind of have like the the, you know, a lot of writing advice says write to somebody in mind like, who is this book for?

Brittany: [00:10:33] Yeah, definitely. When I was writing it, the kind of person I had in mind was someone not necessarily of a certain demographic, but someone with a certain perspective, which was that they weren't able to be a leader. They weren't able to be the best leader that they could be because of where they were in life. And I although I do agree that certain things do make being a leader and leaving an impact on others easier. Like, for example, if you're famous, then you have that huge following already. So it is easier. I still believe that people who are not. Famous and instead would prefer a life of being anonymous, which is totally okay. Me too. I still think that no matter what, you're still both leaders, so. Yeah. I wasn't really necessarily writing to a certain demographic or like a certain age range. It was more so just people who thought in a different perspective prior to reading the book. And then hopefully my book has at least made them think, Oh, I hadn't thought about it that way.

Harpreet: [00:11:46] Yeah, I think it's a really good book. I recommend anyone who's written herself is also still in her undergrad and I feel like this would have been a great book for me to read personally. When I was an undergrad myself, I somehow managed to get [00:12:00] myself elected as president of my pledge class. I was in a business fraternity called Delta Sigma Pi. I went to the bathroom, mother voting and I came back and I was president of the class of the pledge class and I was like, What the hell? How am I supposed to handle all this? It was crazy. But I feel like, you know, having a book like this would have would have been incredibly inspiring for me to have around then. And I guess, you know, a lot of people, me included, don't really view myself as a leader. Right? Or maybe I don't see how much of a leader I actually am. Right. Do you think a lot of people tend to feel that way, like they don't see themselves as leaders or they don't realize that they have this leadership ability. Would you agree with that? Why? Why not?

Brittany: [00:12:47] Yeah, I would agree with that overall, because I feel like when we're growing up, especially the people that we think of, leaders are people who are famous because of what they've done, like Mother Teresa, all of the famous people in history. I'm notoriously bad at history, so no one else is coming to mind right now.

Harpreet: [00:13:07] Nelson Mandela, so on.

Brittany: [00:13:08] So yes.

Harpreet: [00:13:09] Thank TRUMP.

Brittany: [00:13:11] Yeah, basically anyone who has made a very big impact on the world or on a country and that's just not the case because if we're if we're growing up thinking like, okay, I can't be a leader unless I'm like this famous basketball player. I'm Michael Jordan. I'm also notoriously great at sports, as you can tell. And that's just. A specific perspective that's not really the best towards realizing that we are also leaders just as much as they are. Maybe we don't have the same amount of following, but do we still have impact on the people around us and our communities? Yes. Do we still have the potential to have an impact on a stranger walking by across from us? And if we smile [00:14:00] away, then maybe they'll smile as well, and it will just make their day a little brighter. Yes, definitely. Because we all, no matter what our humans and we're living on this earth together, we have the potential to impact each other. And even when we don't realize it then, especially if we don't realize it, then we probably won't make the impact or as much of an impact as we have the potential to make.

Harpreet: [00:14:26] Thank you very much. We definitely want to get into more of your book, but before we do that, I'm really curious about your writing process and kind of how you managed all this. So what was the process like? Like how did you manage your knowledge? How did you manage the notes? And then finally, how did all that come together in a book?

Brittany: [00:14:43] Yes, definitely. So I started writing the book, not this past June, but the June before. That was when I was overall brainstorming what I want to write about, because I knew. Pretty much since the beginning. I wanted to write about leadership, but I wasn't sure what kind of element of leadership, because leadership as a whole is very broad. You can talk about so many different things within that umbrella, and I had notes about what I want to write, and once I decided on my topic, that's when I started writing certain stories. So the way that the process looked like for me was first brainstorming, second writing those stories, and then third, putting those stories together into full fledged chapters. And of course, there was a lot of editing along the way, a lot of editing towards the end before submitting my manuscript and everything. But within three these three different categories, I feel like each stage allowed me to reflect on how I best wanted to form my writing and be able to present this in a way that was once again very inclusive and hopefully would be able to make an impact on [00:16:00] other people and especially the readers, because that is the goal of everything to again be able to impact them and shift their perspective and make them think about leadership in a different way. So overall, just writing the stories was pretty. It was a good introduction to writing the chapters because sometimes when I feel like I'm trying to write a chapter, it is difficult because you don't really know where to start, you don't really know what you want to put in that chapter. But then if you're writing the stories that you can later edit and put into chapters and just sort through that, it makes it so much easier and a lot faster too, usually.

Harpreet: [00:16:46] So a couple of points to follow up there. First, I love that you included so many stories in the book. Talk to us about the importance of story and and why they serve as such kind of useful reminders for us.

Brittany: [00:17:00] Definitely. So to give you a little bit of back story, I have always really enjoyed stories. I feel like that's a big part of why I like reading so much and have always liked reading so much because honestly, a lot of things don't really stick in my brain super well. I do try to remember things, but as you saw earlier with like my poor recollection of history, I sometimes struggle with remembering certain facts, dates, a lot of history included. And I feel like whenever. Anyone hears a story that is really interesting, that tends to stick a lot easier for my brain, but also a lot of other people's. And one of the reasons for that is that we really focus on the entire process of the story, like what the person, the main character perhaps is feeling, what they're going through, [00:18:00] and just what happens at the end. I also think that that's why movies, books, TV shows are also interesting because they all have this specific plot that we follow with the characters. And no matter what we even, we try not to usually grow attached to them. And we want to know how they're doing. We want to know how they end up, especially if they have this immense struggle or challenge that they're going through. So being able to share my point and talk to them about different stories really just showcase what I'm trying to get across through the book in the form of stories was something that I was hoping would make it easier to stick in people's people's minds because they can point to a specific instance where this one person did this because of that, and they have that example rather than just a concept. Not that concepts are bad or anything, but sometimes stories will stick better than concepts.

Harpreet: [00:19:06] Yeah, I definitely agree with that point because there are some stories that definitely stuck with me, especially there's that one that was there's also somebody who was a class president of a business fraternity similar to me, and they just reminding their pledge class, what are your pins? Where are your pins? And I was like, I remember how much trouble would get in for not wearing our pins. So talk to us real quick before we jump into the actual meat of the book. How do you balance all their activities and full time course load writing a book? Middle of pandemic. Like how did you manage all that?

Brittany: [00:19:38] Yeah, it was tough for sure. I think that because YouTube does do a quarter system, so our fall quarter doesn't start until usually the end of September. That made it a lot easier because I had all of the summer. So basically from June to the end of September where [00:20:00] it was technically summer still. And of course I was still doing a couple other things on the side, but I had a lot of free time and I didn't have classes to worry about, so I could schedule a lot of interviews with my interviewees. And after school started, I had a decent amount of writing already done. But my first draft of the manuscript, not the full fledged thing, but the first. But to say 20 some thousand words was due pretty early on. And in order to meet that deadline, I made sure to still be on top of my school things, but also really prioritize my writing and make sure that I was still getting in those writing sessions. I personally am more of an impromptu writer. Sometimes I'll write. I'll sit down to write for a good few hours. But that doesn't that's not something that happens at this time every single day. As much as I tried to make that happen, it wasn't the best writing style for me. So just figuring out when inspiration struck and trying to stay ahead of my coursework. So then that way I could allow for that time to be spent writing rather than doing homework or studying for an exam.

Brittany: [00:21:23] I'd say that closer to winter quarter. So like January, that was when things got a little harder because I remember, I believe the first week of March that was when my full main group was due and I pulled my first all nighter of the book. I am pretty sure it was my first all nighter of college too. And the funny thing is, I wasn't technically for anything college related. It was for the book because I need to double check that everything looked good. I had finished writing, so at this point I was mostly just editing, [00:22:00] reading over everything, trying to get it all perfect, which like no book is ever perfect, mine is not perfect and just get it all polished. So that was that was tough because I wasn't getting enough sleep. So I was very sleep deprived and we thankfully weren't in the middle of midterms or finals or anything other that otherwise that would have been a lot more rough. But we were prepping for finals, so I think they were a week or two weeks away. And at this point I really wanted to prioritize my book because I knew that I still had a little bit of time to study for finals. And that way after I submitted my manuscript, I focused entirely on school to catch up and get everything situated before finals.

Harpreet: [00:22:51] There are a couple of really interesting questions coming in from LinkedIn. Christine Seagrave wants to know, can you tell us more about the role of introspection in your writing work and the role of introspection in stories of leadership? I think it's a really, really good question, but yeah, let's go into that.

Brittany: [00:23:08] Yeah, definitely. I think that introspection is one of the coolest things in the world, just overall thinking and reflecting on what has led you to where you are in life today and thinking about where you want to go from now into the future. Overall, it's a very powerful concept and tool. I think that using this as a resource, especially in the book, and I don't know if you've already read the book or not, but I do talk a lot about how. Oh, no, you're good. Yeah. I don't know if the person who asked the question has read the book yet or not, but overall I do talk a lot about the different elements and traits of people who that make it easier to be a certain kind of leader in their life. And [00:24:00] one of this is intentionality. I think that intentionality and introspection play they fit pretty well together because whenever you're being introspective, you're usually thinking a lot and that thinking is very purposeful. So in a way, that core that correlates to intentionality and just overall wondering about the world and wondering about you and your life. I also talk a lot about failure, and I think that's one of the biggest ways that introspection plays into the book, because when regardless of where you are, regardless of what you're doing, you will fail at some point.

Brittany: [00:24:43] It's not really a matter of if, it's just a matter of when. And I've definitely been there. It's tough. Rejection is hard, and it doesn't necessarily always get easier with time or easier with the number of times you get rejected. But at the same time, no matter what, you're learning something from that experience and you can take that with you moving forward, even if it doesn't feel like it in the moment. Maybe it's for the best. Maybe you'll learn something from that experience that you won't learn from any other experience. And I know that usually whenever I fail, I learn a lot about myself because of because I'm being introspective and I'm thinking, What? What led me here? How am I feeling? Why am I feeling this way? What is next? So just allowing yourself to take that time for yourself and just think. I think once again, it's really powerful and just introspection is great. Definitely one of the more not talked about things. I feel like.

Harpreet: [00:25:50] You have like a I don't know if this question sounds will sound strange or not, but do you have like an introspection practice that you undertake? [00:26:00] Like, is it just kind of sitting and thinking, is it sitting in journaling? Is it going for a walk and thinking, how do you how do you get your introspection on?

Brittany: [00:26:06] Yeah, that's a great question. Overall, it depends on the person for sure. Personally, for me, I like a mix of both physical and mental activities, so usually I will go on a walk. Over the summer I went on a few hour long walks just so just walking around thinking about things. And at the same time I do like journaling. I don't journal as much as I used to, but I feel like that's also very helpful in getting your thoughts organized and especially just allowing them to flow. Whether you prefer typing, whether you prefer writing. I also talk about this in the book. It just really is helpful to also see your growth along the way and see what you are, what your thoughts look like maybe a week before, a month before. Because sometimes when I look back at my earlier entries in my own journal and I personally type because it's faster and I know that some people like they really like the act of writing something out. For me personally, it doesn't really matter too much, so I do type. It's really interesting to see what I was struggling with, what I was going through in previous journal entries, because sometimes honestly, I forget that that even happened and it just having that idea in mind, knowing that right now I might be facing this really intense battle, this intense challenge, this huge obstacle that I don't know if and how I'm going to overcome this. You definitely will. And maybe in the future you'll even forget that that was such a big part of your life, just because of how in life everything is so relative. And we're usually living in a midst or in a mix of something from the past, [00:28:00] something from right now. So the present is something in the future. So just balancing everything out and being able to see your growth and see how far you've come, it's also really rewarding.

Harpreet: [00:28:10] Yeah, I love that because it's like you can be in the middle of something or you just middle of some type of path or journey and it just feels so long and so like, like you're not making any movement when you're in the middle of it. But then if you stop and pause like, Oh man, in the last year and a half, like, look at all this stuff that that happened as a result of these perpetual like what I felt like was just stillness every day, like no motion. But you look back and like, Oh man, that was actually a lot of motion that happened. Another question from Christine. Christine says she has not yet read the book that's looking forward to reading it. It's called Bigger Than Leadership. You can get it on Amazon. She's got another question. Then we'll jump into some of the frameworks that you talk about in your book, The Three Eyes and then the Heart Framework. But I think this is a great question from Christine. I should also like to know, how were you able to keep a narrow focus while exploring so much data in your writing?

Brittany: [00:29:05] That is a great question. Also also, sorry if you can hear my heater in the background, it just turned on in terms of keeping a narrow focus, i. Originally when I was brainstorming, I had this mind map. And if you're not familiar with my map with what am I? Map is no worries. Basically, you write this one concept in the middle and you kind of draft it like a spiderweb almost, where you draw like a line from this one word or one phrase, and you connect it to other words and phrases and you connect those to even more so. Again, similar to the ripple effect, it allows you to think about how you want to approach certain certain aspects of leadership. And I felt like that was a very helpful beginning to my own writing journey. While writing the book, I definitely wrote more about certain topics. I [00:30:00] changed the mind map, of course, because that was meant to be a rough draft and wasn't I wasn't necessarily a stickler in terms of saying like, Oh, I just had this really good idea for writing a book this, but I didn't mention it earlier. Maybe I shouldn't write about it. I just went for it because no matter what I feel like, if you allow yourself to write about whatever you want to write about, then all the the entire thing comes a lot easier, the process is faster and everything just flows better. If you decide later on, I really liked this, but I don't think it's going to make the final cut for the book. Totally. Okay. That did happen when I was editing.

Brittany: [00:30:46] I this is kind of funny, actually. So when I was writing the book, I added like 10,000 words worth of content just to cut away 8000 words, not of the same content, but of previous content I had written earlier. I thought that that was at that time I thought it was going to be helpful for the book and I was going to really include that in certain chapters, but they just didn't really fit well. I was repeating myself. I wasn't being concise. Things like that where. No matter what. Just allowing yourself to. Develop naturally and figure out where your writing takes you. I think it's really helpful. And for my book specifically, it definitely underwent a lot of different changes in my time during editing, but I feel like it was very helpful in allowing me to stay, to stick with that narrow perspective that I wanted to take. And I definitely didn't talk about everything and anything that I necessarily wanted to about leadership because once again, it is so broad and so many things fit under [00:32:00] that umbrella of a term. But at the same time, if I didn't finish the book then like that, it probably wouldn't be published now. And I, if I want, could always write a second book about all the other topics that I was thinking about, but didn't necessarily have time or have the resources at that time to fit in the book. So it was tough to summarize everything. It was tough to keep a narrow focus, but I knew I needed to.

Harpreet: [00:32:34] Well, you definitely did an excellent job of it. And speaking of narrow focus, let's get into some of the stuff that you talk about in your book. So you talk about the Three Eyes framework and just walk us through that. You touched a little bit on the intentionality aspect of it, but talk to us about how these three, I guess what these three eyes are and how they relate to leadership.

Brittany: [00:32:56] Yes, definitely. So the three I's, so starting with intention or influence. The second was intention and the third one is inspiration. I'll walk through each one and how they all relate to leadership. So for the first one, just knowing that you have the ability to influence people around you. I talked about this earlier in the interview, but no matter who you are, no matter where you are, you do leave in a visible so like a physical, but also a more mental footprint everywhere you go. That is something that's really powerful, and especially because when you're talking about leadership, it really is all about influence. And I have that in one of the quotes in the book, and no matter what, you can't really go wrong with knowing that you have an influence on other people. Because sometimes, for example, in my own life, sometimes it can be easy to forget [00:34:00] that in this one situation and this one scenario, you have an influence, maybe that is causing you to act differently than you usually would. But once you take a step back from that situation and you remember like, Hey, wait a minute, I'm leaving an influence on the people around me. There are people here. I want to make sure that I'm being the best version of myself. Then maybe that will change that trajectory. So just keeping that in mind is really important as well as just realizing that, again, you don't have to be famous, you don't have to be the president of anything.

Brittany: [00:34:39] And even though that helps a lot is not in any way is a prerequisite for the second eye intention no matter what. I think that for the most part, everyone's actions are intentional and sometimes we do do things out of spontaneity and that's really okay. But especially in regards to being a leader and leaving the kind of influence that you want to leave, making sure that you are being intentional about what kind of purpose you're aiming towards, what kind of values you hold and what kind of impact. At the end of the day, you want to leave on other people for the third eye, which is intention or sorry, which is inspiration. You do also want to think about, okay, so I'm leaving this kind of influence and I'm being intentional about it in this way. What kind of inspiration am I having on the people around me? Like, how am I inspiring those who maybe will be in a in a similar path as to where I am right now? And maybe this usually happens quite a bit, actually. You're inspiring people, but you don't actually realize it at the time. I'm also going to take [00:36:00] a quick sip of water because my mouth is getting dry.

Harpreet: [00:36:03] Yeah, no problem. You got some great comments coming in on LinkedIn. People are really loving your responses, Brittany. So when you get a chance, definitely go through and see all these amazing insights that or rather these amazing reactions to your insights that that you're getting.

Brittany: [00:36:19] Awesome. Thank you. I definitely will have to. Yes. Okay. So inspiration, just really making sure that where you are today and where you want to be in the future. A lot of the times, again, you are able to inspire people, but you're just not realizing at the time because honestly, it's pretty hard to realize unless you unless someone tells you directly and no matter if that's happening or not, no matter if people are telling you like, hey, you inspired me because of this thing that you did because of X, Y, Z, you probably are inspiring other people and maybe I have no idea what the statistics look like for this, but maybe say one in ten people who you have inspired actually tell you that one person is going to make it so worth it. But also, remember the other nine who simply haven't told you? Maybe they'll tell you in the future. I think that happens a lot with teachers, honestly, where students come back and they'll tell you or tell them, hey, when you did this one thing in class or when you mentioned this or when you acted this way, you really inspired me because of that. I am a teacher today. It's really, really powerful how much inspiration plays into leadership. And it, although not everyone who is inspired, will let the person who inspired them know. I think that is part of the magic with it because you know that it's there, but you're just not seeing it always, which is totally okay to. [00:38:00]

Harpreet: [00:38:00] Definitely relate to that because you know, as a podcast creator, like consider myself extremely prolific as a podcast creator, got hundreds of hours of content out there and it kind of goes it kind of goes out there and and every now and then I get messages from people either on LinkedIn or through email, just telling me that they've been inspired listening to an episode with, you know, people like yourself or other authors that have that have had on the show. And it just makes it so much it just a little bit of a little bit of a reward, I would say. It feels it feels good hearing that. So.

Brittany: [00:38:34] Oh, yeah, I totally agree.

Harpreet: [00:38:37] I think kind of implicit in that that in the Three Eyes framework, it's just like the sum of the three. At least the way I was thinking of it is impact and the kind of alluded to it when you're talking about leaving footprints and stuff like that. So I felt that, you know, you take all these all those three together, the influence, inspiration, intention, and then you get to leave an impact. So you lay out this framework called the Hart Framework in the book. So talk to us about that. Walk us through the Hart framework and maybe if you can share a story with our audience to kind of see what that framework looks like in action.

Brittany: [00:39:17] Yeah, definitely. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with the Hart framework, I talk about it in, I believe, the second chapter of the book and. Each stands for hands. They all describe attributes of a leader. So H is hands on. E is emotional intelligence. A is accountable and whole and can hold others accountable. So just like accountability as a whole number or the fourth one. So the R is relatable and then five is transformational. So overall, I think that these are really good attributes of leaders who are leaving the impact that they want to lead, that they want to leave [00:40:00] on others. And I think that the fourth one, so the ah being relatable is one of, I mean they're all really important, but the R is one of the more common ones. It's a lot easier to find people who are relatable in your life. And one example of this is honestly your any friend that you have because you're probably friends for a reason, maybe. Hypothetically, let's say that you and your friend are taking a class together, or maybe you're working on a project together of any kind. And because you're going through the same experience, you're able to influence each other more. You're able to be hopefully a little more intentional about that project and also inspire each other maybe through the creativity of your ideas and just the overall learning process of that and how it's been going. So because of that, you're leading each other and usually with group projects, sometimes you'll have a group leader.

Brittany: [00:41:14] But that doesn't mean that everyone else in that group can't be a leader in their own way, because the leader isn't always going to be, and it's usually not always going to be the person who's the loudest in the room, the person who's at the front of the room. That's not the case, because, again, they might have that platform because they're at the front and they are the loudest, but they're definitely not the only leader in that room, and they shouldn't be, honestly. So I think that being able to relate to others and because you and your friend in this continued hypothetical situation, have this shared experience of working on this project together, you're able to relate to each other and really share those experience, [00:42:00] share the experiences of working together and hopefully lead each other and both be leaders within the group. So I think that's one of the that's an example I can give you guys. But overall, just remembering that, again, leadership is one thing that's very personal to everyone and it's not necessarily a one size fits all kind of idea because everyone does have very different ideas on what they look like. So everything in the in the heart framework, it doesn't have to look exactly like what I mentioned in the book. It can look like whatever your definition will look like. And I'm also going to take another sip of water.

Harpreet: [00:42:45] Yeah. So just to to recap, so the effective leaders lead with the heart. And again, heart is h for hands on e for emotionally intelligent a for accountable and holds others accountable are for relatable and T for transformational. So Brittany, let's talk about the difference between leadership and mentorship. Ah, what is the difference between these two, these two kind of steps, I guess.

Brittany: [00:43:08] Yeah, definitely. So I think that with leadership it's a little bit more broad for mentorship. There is usually a specific purpose that ties into it, because when you're a mentor, you want to offer guidance, advice, resources, opportunities, tips to your mentee. But then for leadership you're able to offer that, but also different things depending on what what the purpose is like, what the other person is looking for. One thing that I really do believe in, though, for leadership and mentorship, is that it is a two way street. And both parties, both people, both groups of people are benefiting from [00:44:00] each other because I think that for mentorship, usually people think of it as I'm this mentor for this mentee and I'm providing all of the value to this mentee. But that's not always the case because usually the mentor can learn so much from the mentee. And maybe this isn't things like professional resources, professional opportunities, career advice, because they're both. Just in so such different places of their life. But maybe the mentee is offering the mentor a different perspective, the ability to be creative and just hopefully. Friendship is definitely a two way street. So I think that with leadership, it always very much is a two way street, but at the same time it's not necessarily something that's official and it doesn't have to always be official because usually when people are leaving an impact on us and having that form of influence, it's not always going to be something that is that has a specific process. And you're probably not getting unless you are, but you're probably not getting career advice from from that form of relationship or professional opportunities just because that is something that is more tied to mentorship as opposed to leadership, just because leadership is so broad too, but it doesn't mean that you can't is just a little less common. I think.

Harpreet: [00:45:36] So. Can you share some tips with the audience for how we can maybe go about finding a mentor for ourselves?

Brittany: [00:45:43] Yeah, definitely. Depending on what you're looking for and where you are in life right now. For example, if you're a college student like me, finding someone who is in the working world doing something that you're interested in, [00:46:00] I think is always very helpful because that way you can ask about what their day to day looks like, what resources they what resources they utilized to get to where they are and what kind of challenges they faced along the way. If you're in the working world already, maybe someone who is a manager like one or two steps above you, just so that you can see if what their perception is of their role is similar to what your perception is. Because I know it's hard to know exactly what someone does in their job unless you're the one who's doing them, those things and really just focusing on what your goal is. If you want to ask them for advice, for maybe getting promoted, then you could talk about ways that they really maximized their value to the company and to the position that they have right now. Maybe ask them anything that they would do differently. And maybe one more thing is figuring out who they are in this role. Do they have any advice for me if they could tell themselves if like when they were in your role, you should definitely do this or definitely take this one step, maybe talk to more people, get to know everyone better, and just figure things out as you go, because it's not always going to be a cut and dry thing or something. That's concrete. Things are going to change and that's also totally normal. And being able to be able being able to be able being able to be adaptive, that is definitely important as well because in life things move quickly and sometimes you aren't always ready for everything. [00:48:00] But that's also okay. Just realizing that things will always work out in the end. And if it hasn't yet, then that probably isn't the end.

Harpreet: [00:48:12] So I'm wondering if you can share some advice for people who may have accidentally found themselves as a mentor to someone. So just kind of from my own personal experience. So I joined this course back in 2018 called Data Science Dream Job. And it's just a course for aspiring data scientists. And this course also had an active Slack community that, you know, you get to be a part of when you buy the course. And I just sort of been really helpful around the Slack community. People were just asking questions and and I'll be like, oh, well, that's that sounds like an interesting question. I don't have the answer right offhand. I'll do some research and I'll dig up like an answer for them and some resources and kept doing that. And then the founder of the program brought me on as as a mentor. And, you know, first I was just a mentor, then became head mentor and principal mentor. And like, I don't know how this happened. It wasn't like I ever set out and said, I'm going to be mentored, I'm mentoring people. That's what I want to do. It just kind of accidentally happened to me and I guess. Yeah. Would you what tips would you have for someone who finds themselves in a position similar to mine where all of a sudden maybe people have started following them on on LinkedIn and or other social media and have started to view them as mentors. What what advice would you share?

Brittany: [00:49:34] Yeah, definitely. The as cliche as it sounds, the first like my first piece of advice is to just be yourself and remember who you are. At the end of the day, regardless of how many people are watching or are listening or refreshing their page to make to see if there's [00:50:00] any extra or recent post from you. Because the kind of influence that you want to leave on others is hopefully one that is genuine to you, but first being true to yourself. That's definitely the first step in the midst of everything, because when you're when you're a mentor to other people and maybe you weren't asking to be a mentor, that can be hard sometimes because maybe you don't have the right resources or don't know what exactly they should do. You don't have any personal experience going through maybe the path that they're trying to take and remembering that mentorship, no matter what is going to be a two way relationship, maybe focusing on what you know versus what they know and what they want to know as well as where you are versus where they are. Even if it doesn't turn out to be the kind of mentor mentee relationship that the mentee was looking for, that's also okay because it can turn into something that potentially is even better.

Brittany: [00:51:16] And sometimes the best things in life are the things that we weren't necessarily expecting or anticipating. So if you don't have the kind of resources that they are looking for, though, maybe on a more professional level, then definitely finding someone who could help them and who might also be able to serve as a mentor is helpful because that way they'll be able to go to them for questions. But I do believe that you're also fulfilling your mentor duties, your your unplanned mentor duties, because you're helping them find someone who does have the answers. And it's not like they're going to expect that you have all the answers right off the [00:52:00] bat, because that's also not always going to be something that is realistic. For example, one of my mentees, they are interested in real estate, and I have a friend who graduated last year and they were also very interested in real estate. So I ended up connecting them. And I think that that is so valuable to because one of the best parts about having a mentor is that you also have their network of people because if. They're hopefully not going to expect to have all the answers. But if you are able to lead them and guide them in a way that allows them to find the resources, and maybe you don't actually have a friend who who can help, but you can always provide your mentee with a list of suggestions on what they should do.

Brittany: [00:52:53] Maybe they can find someone on their own, because that's always very beneficial to if they personally go through the process. But overall it is very helpful and no matter what, because you do have a second brain, a second person to help you and to walk you through everything, usually it will be someone who's older. So then they have either been in your shoes before or can have an idea of what you're going through. So that way they can also better help you. But overall, just knowing what your mentee is hoping for, knowing where their mind is at, and walking them through whatever they need help on, I think that that's always something that you honestly can't go wrong with in terms of a mentor mentee relationship and even beyond that, just in any friendship with any person, any kind of relationship, because you do have two different people and being able to connect with each other, that's always something [00:54:00] that is really, really fulfilling to go through.

Harpreet: [00:54:05] Thank you so much for that. That's very helpful for me as well. You know, my mentorship position that I'm in, I'll definitely be using some of that advice. Thank you so much. Let's go into a last question before we jump into what I call the random round. So it is 100 years in the future. What do you want to be remembered for?

Brittany: [00:54:26] Yeah, so I have thought about this quite a bit actually. And the one thing that sticks to me for what I want to be remembered for is hopefully leaving behind a legacy of kindness, being genuine. So authenticity and also just the impact of inspiring people to change their perspective a little bit. And no matter what this looks like, because hopefully you do know yourself pretty well, no matter where you are, other people might not see you for who you are and they might see you in a different light. Because I do believe that there are different facets to every person and not everyone's going to see all of those different facets because sometimes they come out in certain situations, sometimes they come out with certain people. But being the best version of yourself, regardless of the facets, is something that I also want to hopefully inspire people to do. I think that overall. Legacy is one thing that is partially controllable but partially uncontrollable. Because as much as you can. Hope that this one thing got through to people. It might not, and that just might be the case. But I'm really hoping that that will be my legacy.

Harpreet: [00:55:57] Definitely think you are well on your way to achieving [00:56:00] that. I mean, writing a book in undergrad years, bigger than leadership, a stories of influence, intention and inspiration, that that's huge. I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with your career as a as a writer, maybe as a speaker and whatever else you got planned for the future, I'm sure you'll be able to to knock all that down. So let's go ahead and go into a random round. All right. So first question, when do you think the first video to hit 1 trillion views on YouTube will happen? And what do you think that video will be about?

Brittany: [00:56:39] Yes, that is a great question. I think that right now it's 2021. I think that will happen in year. 2800. So in the future, of course, but not pretty far in the future, but not immensely far in the future. And I think it will be a video about animals.

Harpreet: [00:57:03] All right. That seems to be the most common answer. People I probably would be some cavity or some video about some animals or some baby with the cat. So in your opinion, what do most people think within the first few seconds of meeting you for the first time?

Brittany: [00:57:18] I think a lot of people think, wow, Britney, you're really short whenever you meet me, especially right now, because a lot of a lot of my friends and a lot of people who I work with because of clubs and everything, I met them and got to know them a lot better, virtually because of the pandemic. And now that we're back on campus, everyone like we're all meeting each other for the first time and everyone's like, Whoa, Britney, you're kind of short. So I do think that I mean, I'm pretty sure, like, in terms of the average person anyway, but it's something that [00:58:00] I find very funny, very interesting. But aside from height, I also think that a lot of people. Like if you've been watching this interview, I am naturally a pretty smiley person. So I think that's another thing that people tend to notice about me right off the bat, just because it's one of the first things that I usually do. And if one more thing comes to mind, if people are around at the right time, they'll also realize that I am a big fan of puns and dad jokes.

Harpreet: [00:58:38] And dad jokes.

Brittany: [00:58:39] Puns, and.

Harpreet: [00:58:41] That's awesome. So, okay, so people think you're short, but the book title, Bigger than leadership, though. So talk to us about what the book title means to you. Why bigger than leadership.

Brittany: [00:58:53] So I wanted the title to be bigger than leadership, and I honestly was thinking about the title for such a long time. It was a very hard to come up with title, but I wanted to make sure that people knew that the concepts, ideas overall, what I was talking about in the book is bigger than leadership, literally bigger than leadership, because all the leadership can have such a big impact on our lives and can include a lot of different topics. You can always talk about intentionality, vulnerability, just failures outside of a leadership perspective. It doesn't have to be about leadership all the time. And no matter what you think about leadership, those are like these topics are going to be constants in our lives and everything is literally bigger than leadership. So I think that's the first reason why I wanted it to be that title. And the second reason is that I wanted the overall concepts in the stories to be something [01:00:00] that is memorable and hopefully again, bigger than leadership. Because what I want to leave in terms of an impact from writing the book is that regardless of where you are in your life and regardless of who you are, regardless of your background, like you're capable of so many big things. And part of that is why I wanted the cover to be this guy. Just something that is limitless in how you're bigger than what you think you might be able to do. You're bigger than what you think your potential is, is just, I guess, in a way, a very. Relative idea about everything just being bigger than leadership.

Harpreet: [01:00:52] I love it. Thank you for that. What are you currently reading?

Brittany: [01:00:55] Oof! Okay. So currently I am reading textbooks for class. I'm not reading any books at the moment, but over the summer I read quite a few books. I read 30 audiobooks and I think a handful of physical books. But overall, what? 100% recommend reading to anyone and everyone? I got through a good amount of books on my to read lists and I took quite a few notes from some books like Yeah Principles was by Ray Dalio. It was a really good book I read. I also read Atomic Habits. I do like the more personal growth entrepreneurial books because that aligns with what my where my interests lie. But also I am a fan of fantasy. And I think that this summer I also got really into the the mystery [01:02:00] thriller books. Not necessarily scary, but just like very mysterious and suspenseful books. So like a thriller in that sense, rather than going into horror.

Harpreet: [01:02:13] You have like a system for managing the notes that you take from books. Is it just all like kind of in journals or do you have like a personal knowledge management type of thing?

Brittany: [01:02:22] Yeah, everything's just so I have an iPhone, so I use Apple Notes a lot. And I just have one big note of notes from probably five or so books I read. I also read. Let's see if I can remember the title. It is a book about happiness. I think it's it's by the by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. So I'm also very bad at remembering book titles, but it was really, really good. I have quite a few notes from that book as well, and I remember exactly what the title looks or what the cover looks like, but I cannot recall the title of the book right now, but super, super good book two would recommend.

Harpreet: [01:03:11] So what song do you currently have on repeat?

Brittany: [01:03:14] Ooh. Moments like this by the Afters is definitely one of my favorite songs. And honestly. I really also like one republic. Imagine dragons is also really good. I. I like to and my friends will agree with me honestly. I like to say that I listen to a lot of the old popular music, so not usually the current ones, but the older ones. And I just remember the title of the book, by the way, is called The Book of Joy.

Harpreet: [01:03:51] Okay, I've got one of those Dalai Lama books about happiness. I think I'll have to add that one to the mix as well. So thank you very much for that. I'm going to bump this [01:04:00] moments like this. Let's go ahead and jump into a random question generator. Interestingly enough, this random question generator is actually from your school, University of Washington. So whoever this person is, if you know who this person is, thank them. Because I use this thing very, very often. They probably have the highest traffic clicks coming from my computer, but let's go for it. When people come when people come to you for help, what do they usually want help with?

Brittany: [01:04:28] Oh, man. The first thing that comes to mind is that I am I'm interested in management consulting. So if you're not familiar with management consulting, basically it's like when you're a consultant, you're helping businesses solve problems, execute what they want to execute. And because of this I and because of recruiting and everything, a lot of people come to me for case prep help. There's something called a case interview that you do when you're in the process of recruiting for consulting, and you can think of it as getting a prompt, like a vague ish prompt, and in 30 minutes you have to solve it and figure out what you would recommend to the client. So I've been doing a lot of case interviews, and when people ask me for help, they usually want help with case interviews, like just preparing for them. So I'll usually case them and everything.

Harpreet: [01:05:30] Yeah, I've got a lot of like random interview prep books. One of them that I've got is called Case in Point, which is exactly what you mentioned, prep that. I think that's just a good book to have just to practice problem solving and just thinking through problems. The next question, what is your theme song?

Brittany: [01:05:47] I don't know, quantifies as a song necessarily, but in the movie Finding Nemo and I also talk about this in the book, I'm a big fan of Dory and her mantra, just [01:06:00] keep swimming because I think it's such a good representation of what it is to live life because no matter what, you just got to keep swimming. And I would say that that would have to be my theme song.

Harpreet: [01:06:16] Like they did pick up on the the Nemo. The references in the book. So next question we got is I think we kind of touched on this. We'll skip this one. What issue will you always speak your mind about?

Brittany: [01:06:29] Oh, man. So the first thing that comes to mind is that it's like overall about food. I think that there's a lot of different kinds of food, like different cuisines, of course, from various cultures. And it's just so, so cool to taste a lot of different kinds of food foods. And I personally have a very sad spice tolerance, so I'm not able to handle a lot of spice, unfortunately. But I think that being able to try a lot of new things and like test your spice limit, I think that that's always something that is really fun to do with friends or with family. And just like overall trying new things is something that I like to encourage to people.

Harpreet: [01:07:24] One more from the Random Question generator. Who inspires you to be better?

Brittany: [01:07:30] The people around me because sometimes, for example, if I know that I'm not being the best version of myself, I'll I'll think about what I want to be and what kind of person I want to be and what kinds of things I want to remember in my life. And just remembering the people that I care about in the world like they always inspire me, but also the strangers, like the people who [01:08:00] are trying their best in their lives and who are trying to do the best and the most no matter where they are and no matter how they can.

Harpreet: [01:08:08] Love that. Brittany, thank you so much. So how can people connect with you and where can they find you online?

Brittany: [01:08:14] Yes. So I am on LinkedIn. You can just look me up, Britney Doe. I should hopefully pop out. You can also look up bigger than leadership on Google. And yes, thank you. I do have a book account on Instagram. I'm not super active right now, so I would say that LinkedIn is probably the best way to reach me as of now because I'm not super active on Instagram as a whole. So LinkedIn is definitely the best platform.

Harpreet: [01:08:46] Definitely will be sure to include a link to your LinkedIn profile right there in the show notes when this comes out. For those of you watching on LinkedIn right now live. I've tagged Brittany in this post, so go ahead and connect with her. Follow her. Brittany, thank you so much for taking time out of schedule to be on the show today. I really appreciate having you here.

Brittany: [01:09:06] Of course. Thank you so much for having me here. And a quick note to everyone who would like to connect on LinkedIn. Please add a personalized message, because otherwise I don't know if I'll see it. But yes, it's just that I know that you're coming from this interview and the overall podcast, so then we can connect. And if you have any follow up questions about anything, let me know. I'm always happy to answer them.

Harpreet: [01:09:32] Brittany, thank you so much. My friends remember you've got one life on this planet. Why not try to do something big? Cheers, everyone.

Brittany: [01:09:40] Awesome.

Harpreet: [01:09:41] All right. We are done. Thank you so much, Brittany. Appreciate you coming on. We want a couple of minutes over. Thank you so much. Looking forward to seeing what else you do in the future. Please do stay in touch. You know? Ever need anything? Just shoot me a message. Happy. Happy to help out however I can.

Brittany: [01:09:57] It's awesome. Thank you so much, harpreet. And the same goes to [01:10:00] you. Let me know if I can ever help out with anything. And yeah, I just hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and your weekend.

Harpreet: [01:10:08] Thank you very much. Yeah, I'm taking my take. My son to play with his cousin because his cousin's third birthday. So they're going to be jumping around and having a lot of fun. Oh, he's only like a year and a half. I get to see a bunch of babies bouncing around, so that's going to be a lot of fun.

Brittany: [01:10:23] That's adorable.

Harpreet: [01:10:24] Yeah. Should be good. Good Saturday. Take care of is you awesome.