One of the world’s most powerful women in business, Beth Comstock, recently left a 27 year career at GE as their Chief Marketing Officer and Vice Chair to go in a completely different direction – to a new life beyond the enterprise-exec world where her new areas of focus include writing, art, exploration and discovery. Rarely do we see or hear of these evolutions – where someone like Beth who is so accomplished in big business reveals very publicly and vulnerably that she’s just excited to “do something new” and figure it all out along the way. It’s simultaneously brilliant, empowering, and refreshing all at the same time. And that’s in part what makes this episode of the podcast so extraordinary. We talk about this journey she’s been on and this is among her very first interviews where she share’s key insights from her new book Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and The Power of Change.
If you are interested in transformation, leadership, overcoming fear or the intersection of creativity and business you’ll love this episode. Beth’s mission and our show aim to stand for the same things- imagination, courage, creativity, and the power of change. Beth shares stories and tactics alike around how she’s taking a renewed control over her future and next career, and how you can too. Whether you’re and artist, or you work as a middle manager, or you’re putting an idea into a niche market for the first time – there’s something great in here for you.
You’ll also be inspired to know that:
- If you are like so many of us creators out there, you probably have a bit of a perfectionist mentality. You want your ideas and art to be perfect before releasing it to the world. However, if you don’t release anything (be it a song, a painting, or a business idea) until it’s perfect, you’ll very rarely release anything at all. Get your ideas out into the world and let the feedback that you get help shape it into perfection.
- Who are you waiting for to give you permission to make decisions, to speak up, and to take action? Write yourself a permission slip to do what needs to be done.
- If you want to make something, you have to learn the skills necessary to build it. In order to learn something, you’ve got to be inspired enough to put in the amount of work required to learn it. If you aren’t inspired by anything, start with your own curiosity. Ask questions that you’d like to know the answer to until you find inspiration. Then start learning… which will lead to making.
Enjoy!
FOLLOW BETH:
instagram | twitter | website
Listen to the Podcast
Subscribe
Watch the Episode
Some Questions I Asked:
- How did you come up with the title of your new book, “Imagine It Forward”? [2:00]
- How do you drive change? [4:00]
- How have you applied discipline to yourself and when managing big teams and projects? [6:40]
- What are some of the steps required to actually break through and get your ideas out there? [11:40]
- What do you see is missing from storytelling in pop culture marketing? [14:40]
- Talk to me about the section of your book on rewriting your story. [18:00]
- How do you think about your own personal story and what story are you writing or rewriting? [20:20]
- What is the imagination gap and what is the goal of it? [28:18]
- How do you think about discovery? [39:20]
- How does fear manifest itself and what can you do about it? [46:00]
- Talk to me about a time where you were afraid and you were successful and a time where you weren’t successful. [51:00]
- What characteristics do you see while working at Nike that you don’t see in other companies? [55:55]
- What are the characteristics of companies that make them great at innovating? [59:00]
- Give advice to an organization the size of GE? [66:10]
- Give advice to a middle manager in a mid size company? [67:45]
- What’s your advice to an entrepreneur? [69:44]
- What’s next for you? [70:35]
- Where can people find you online? [71:12]
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
- Check out Twyla Tharp’s book, The Creative Habit. [5:15]
- How Beth challenged herself to overcome her shyness and speak up. [7:06]
- Being told “no” sometimes means “not yet”. Fight for your ideas. [9:43]
- How the artist Christo chose to think of navigating the bureaucratic process as part of his own creative process. [10:30]
- A common sense way to fight perfectionist mentality and get your ideas out there. [12:02]
- How stories help us make personal connections with each other… and also with brands. [15:30]
- How Beth helped GE by telling it’s story. [18:20]
- Figuring out your thing, your calling, your niche.. It’s a process. Give yourself time and grace through the process. [24:45]
- Seth Godin’s advice when your work isn’t good? Keep making. [26:00]
- Why we need to start learning and teaching imagination and creativity. [31:13]
- Check out Charlie Hoehn’s book, Play It Away. [34:35]
- When you are bored you have a choice to either be cynical or take action. (choose option B) [37:00]
- How Beth uses “going on three’s” to spot trends. [40:00]
- Check out Today At Apple events, where a bunch of creators get together and make things together. [42:45]
- There’s data that suggest that by 2020, half of the American population will have a side hustle. [44:15]
- Fight fear by asking yourself “when have I been here before?” [50:00]
- Check out Scott Belsky’s book, The Messy Middle. [55:24]
- Check out Shoe Dog, the autobiography by Nike co-founder Phil Knight. [57:30]
- Never forget to make it personal. [59:30]
- Why you should start writing yourself permission slips. [62:00]
- The pace of change is never going to be slower than it is today. [64:54]
- Being an entrepreneur and self starter is hard work and it rarely works out as you want it to. You’ve got to keep working at it [70:00]
- Check out Scott Belsky’s book, The Messy Middle. [55:24]
- Check out Shoe Dog, the autobiography by Nike co-founder Phil Knight. [57:30]
- Never forget to make it personal. [59:30]
- Why you should start writing yourself permission slips. [62:00]
- The pace of change is never going to be slower than it is today. [64:54]
- Being an entrepreneur and self starter is hard work and it rarely works out as you want it to. You’ve got to keep working at it. [70:00]
This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world’s largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker, money/life and the ability to make a living in any of those disciplines. They are high quality, highly curated classes taught by the world’s top experts — Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy Award winners, New York Times best selling authors and the best entrepreneurs of our times.
