Kirstine Stewart: Our Turn

Debbie Travis  0:01  
Hi, I'm Debbie Travis,

Tommy Smythe  0:02  
and I'm Tommy Smythe,

Debbie Travis  0:03  
and this is, trust me, I'm a decorator. Hi,

Tommy Smythe  0:07  
Debbie. I hear we have pal of yours on the podcast today.

Debbie Travis  0:12  
We do and a very clever pal, and I've got her bio here, which I thought I'd read. Half the words are too big for me to even say, but this is just going to blow you away. This is the bio reduced down, or we'd be here all year by my friend Kirsten Stewart. Kirsten was VP of media for Twitter in New York, and was key to bringing Twitter to Canada. She was head of the CBC. She ran many lifestyle channels, as I know, head of programming for the Hallmark Channel. She headed the future of media, entertainment and sport for the World Economic Forum in Geneva. Kirsten is the author of our turn, an award winning Best Selling focused on leadership. She's won, oh my gosh, I can't even read them out countless awards and accolades and many, many years ago, at the beginning of her career. Kirsten was my distributor from my first series, The Painted house. Hi, Kirsten.

Unknown Speaker  1:08  
Hi Debbie. Hi Tommy,

Tommy Smythe  1:10  
welcome. So happy to have you here. And it's funny because I should add Debbie, that at some point Kirsten has been both of our bosses, yes, yeah.

Debbie Travis  1:19  
So you know, people ask us all the time about careers and how to move on ahead. And then I heard about what you were doing, connected with Artur and your best selling book. So I thought, first, we're just going a little history. So many, many, many, many years ago, you were working for a company that was a distributor of television programming. And I remember walking into your office and you said, Oh, well, we'll put money into the show, which was great, because we didn't have any money. So that doesn't happen anymore, but in those days, that was really, for me, the biggest kickstart ever. You gave us investment. And then we went to Cannes, to the film festival and Television Festival, where you started selling the show. Long story short, you disappeared to America. You did all kinds of other stuff. Then you came whizzing back and took over all the lifestyle programming, the main networks for lifestyle. And then you pitched me every year for many years to come onto HGTV, and finally I said yes, and it was fabulous and a great success your career. I mean, for most people, it's overwhelming. It's so brilliant. But when you wrote our turn, it was really, I guess, about women, it's our turn to rise. And I think there's a lot of powerful women out there. And wherever we see powerful women, we see less war, less trauma, less commotion in the world. So when

Speaker 1  2:46  
you say years and years and years ago, and here I'll age myself, I was like 19 or 20 when we met, oh my god, yeah, because it was when I was in my very first job. I just graduated out of school. And I think you know when you talk about jumping from job to job, one thing that I learned, and was kind of the core to the book, our turn was not to kind of be set on any kind of plan that you may have in your head about what you should be, or what people tell you you should be and don't, kind of live by other people's aspirations for You. Because when I was in school, I really thought I was going to graduate and be a publisher. Now I didn't think I'd be writing a book, but I definitely thought, because I had this background in, you know, kind of arts and literature, and I had a mind for business, I thought the place to be intersected for that would be working and publishing. And then I came out of school at 1819, years old, the publishing world was just in that middle of that huge first kind of transformation, and there just wasn't a place for me. So I took literally a Girl Friday job. If you remember girl Fridays work?

Tommy Smythe  3:54  
Yeah, I'm old enough to know what that is, yeah. So I

Speaker 1  3:57  
was doing everything. I was changing the water cooler. I was filing paper back when we had papers in offices, and, yeah, I was working for a wonderful woman and a distribution company, and we saw this fantastic little show called Debbie Travis's painted house, and kind of saw that it was at the beginning of something. It was at the beginning of a movement where people wanted to kind of take control of their lives and kind of make their spaces beautiful. And instead of someone kind of talking down to someone finding a personality that really kind of opened up her own home, to this kind of experiment of what it was like to you could just with a little bit of paint, as you used to say, you know, transform things. And you know, for me, it was such a kind of first calling card to understanding that, you know, life is something that you can actually participate in, because that's what you taught people. You can actually do this yourself, and it doesn't take a lot, but your own kind of ingenuity and your. Own talents and and a little bit of bravery and a little bit of paint. And I just love that show like that. To me. I know that was the basis of our very long, long term friendship, but that was, you know, a very kind of pivotal moment of my career. Was to be involved in any way on that kind of a show, which I think was really kind of transformative at a time when people were looking for new ways of looking at their home. And then fast forward a few years later, to when I was at HGTV and Sarah Richardson's show, and that's when I thought Tommy's amazing talents as that dynamic duo on all the Sarah Richardson shows. And as I watched television down in LA constantly, you know those shows are still on the air because people still connect with them. So to me, it goes back to kind of understanding what moved you that I found it very early. What moved me, and what moved me was connecting with content that people in their homes, their however they were consuming content. Back then it was very simple. Now it's very complicated, but however people wanted to hear stories, and hear their stories, kind of told I wanted to kind of be there, and publishing wasn't going to be it for me. Television and screen content was and so, so happy that, you know, you were there at the very beginning with me. And I've kind of grown up, you know, we've grown up together,

Tommy Smythe  6:19  
you know, I think my experience in in the television business, and particularly in the Canadian realm of television, has always been that it's very difficult, like what you've said is basically two parts. You somehow instinctively recognize something that was different, that was Maverick, that was groundbreaking, that was heretofore unseen, and that's the first component. But the second component is how to convince everyone that this should actually come to fruition, which is the harder part. So as an aspect of your you know, really, I mean, you can, in this context, actually use the word illustrious career in content creation and also in stewarding content forward through all the of these changes. How did you find ways to get past that? Second part, which is, we know that this is different, but here's why it's good,

Speaker 1  7:13  
yeah. Well, because you know what the audience tells you, that it's good, right? Like, I think ultimately, if we keep thinking, and I used to do this back in the days of when I first started the hdcv Food Network and that kind of those lifestyle channels, things were getting a bit posh. And I think, you know, producers or commissioners, you know, people have actual networks and all that were getting a bit kind of ahead of themselves. And, you know, it was great to be aspirational. It was great to kind of set up these kind of lofty goals, but we were getting really far away from what people could do. And so we were getting, you know, wine pairing shows were being pitched and, you know, and you know, days that you traveled to these amazing spas, and these were all great shows, but we were skewing so far away from the every person's life that I really kind of took the people who were the responsible for each of those channels, and I said, Look, we're getting on the go train. So for those of you who don't know, the commuter train in southern Ontario is called the GO train. And so we went as far east and as far west as you could go, and we were going to go look at house like because we didn't have a big travel budget, it wasn't much I could take, you know, around the country or anything, but I thought we will do this. So we took a day going east and a day going west, and we went into homes, and we saw, you know, what they did in their homes, how they cooked, what utensils they had, what facilities they had, what ingredients they had, how were they decorating their homes? And it kind of brought back to reality. I

Debbie Travis  8:38  
think they weren't wine pairing, yeah, they

Speaker 1  8:42  
weren't wine pairing, right? They were drinking wine. They're enjoying wine, but it needed to be approachable. It needed to be something that people could definitely like, aspire to have the best of, but like the best of in their world,

Tommy Smythe  8:54  
the best of what you could afford. Mantra, when we were trying to deliver content for you, yeah, was buy the best that you can afford. And here's how to incorporate that yes

Speaker 1  9:05  
and that you love. You know, whether it was that kind of home decorating and and lifestyle type programming, or whether it was dramatic shows, comedy shows, you know, scripted type shows, if people could see themselves in it, then they understood the stories being told differently, and I think they brought color to it themselves. And so the when you talk about the challenge of actually getting these shows made and the funding of them, it was kind of in a way, building a business model backwards by saying, Okay, well, what did the audiences want? Not that they, you know, like, as Henry Ford always used to say, if I asked people what they wanted, that they just would have built a better course and buggy. You still need people who can think about, you know, the ahead and give people what they don't even know they want yet, but it has to be rooted in something. And so there was. In that case, kind of a literal business case being built. And so, yeah, you know, people doubt you there is no magic formula to content. And if there was everybody making great content, and everybody making lots of money at it, but at least you get a bit of a when you try something and it works, right? And you do that more often than it doesn't work, you're proving a model right. And so I think that was where I was, you know, lucky to kind of build a career in choosing right more often than I chose incorrectly, because I always went back to what audiences wanted. It wasn't always what I wanted. I might not have even watched a lot of the shows that I said yes to because it wasn't I'm not building it for me. I'm building it for an audience, and then that justifies the money you're spending. And sometimes, when I was spending public money, because it's the CBC, or public money because it was a publicly traded company, because you have shareholders and all that, there's always somebody to answer to. And you know, I think it's, it's how you build success. Is thinking about who your who your audience is, whether it's your audience as a client or your audience is not a liberal audience, it's that connection I

Tommy Smythe  11:05  
am. I'm so impressed like it so blows my mind that you actually went into the world to like as literally on the go train east and west to go and see how people regionally were actually living before building the programming, which I don't think is done now, to be honest, it

Speaker 1  11:23  
took, like, 10 bucks and, you know, a day, you know, like, ultimately, it's not hard. No, it's not hard. And, you know, I think if I had to go out to somebody that's for real budget, I wouldn't be able to get it. But you have to be inventive in those moments, right? And it's just a good reminder be with the people to understand, and that's why we talk about things like representation and all that, because it's not just like a checking a box. It is about like, well, what does your audience look like? You better have them on whatever you're creating, and they better be responsible for building whatever you're creating. It's not just like, you know, on camera, it's behind camera, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's all of that, yeah.

Debbie Travis  11:58  
Do you think it's also a pivotal time of an industry. So let's say the media industry, which was pretty much all men. And you know, I produced all my own shows. I had my own company. Women excelled in this. I mean, those networks, it was mostly women working there. And then, of course, people like you who burst through the glass ceiling, because television is a multi faceted, you know, typical woman ironing while she's making dinner while she's, you know, working on a computer, you know, and women are so, so good at that. And I hope that I have a feeling that might be changing a little bit, but, but I think this was an era where opportunity opened up for women very, very quickly, because you were talking to women who probably had a baby at home, who was saying, No, I just want to flop down on the front of the television and listen to somebody like Jamie Oliver, you know, yeah, have a break naked chef was a groundbreaking show in a loft. When you look at that show today, I think he was 19 or 20. There are so many mistakes in it, and so many, you know, the mics didn't work and and then they were he, they would have him talking off camera to somebody else that you never saw, which was obviously somebody's great idea, but didn't really work. He was like, What's wrong with him? Why is he not looking at me, you know? And he would go out into the market and buy stuff, and he would make food that anybody could make, you know, spaghetti bolognese type of thing. And so it was the reality of it. And I think, you know, men were not watching these type of shows, and men were running networks. Suddenly, women were watching these kind of shows because it was their chill out time. And somehow I see not changing back. But, you know, I work with a lot of women, obviously, and I see they're starting to put walls around them again. You know, whereas before it was like, No, I'll do it. I'll do it. Yeah, I'll do it at nine o'clock at night. Now all computers go down at five o'clock.

Speaker 1  13:59  
Boundaries, yeah, you're an algorithm world, too. Yeah, I've

Debbie Travis  14:02  
got a friend here who is, you know, ex television. And we were talking about this this morning, and how we all helped each other to this day and age. And I remember getting some award and saying, you know, there's maybe 1000 people in the room saying, you know, these are my friends, because I didn't have time to make other friends, you know, I was working and building relationships and friendships with people in the industry, because I was working all the time. And when I wasn't working, I was raising a family, and I remember standing on this podium and looking out, at least see your faces going, you're my friends. And people burst into tears, you know? And they were like, Oh my God, she's exhausted as I am, and everything. But now, and we all scratched each other's back, we helped each other constantly. Yeah, I'll do that for you, Sure, no problem. And I've still got loads of those friends today, and I find maybe now people aren't as open as that. They're not seeing the big picture, because it's. Not in the formula of today. Are people moving too much? I mean, you say you started as a Girl Friday or a runner, or, you know, doing the photocopy machine, and this, a lot of them don't want to do that. They want to come in and doubt. I mean, I remember 10 years ago, somebody, we had some interns from design school, and one of them came up to me, I'm sure I've told Tommy this story before, and said, Excuse me, Miss Travis, but it's 10 o'clock. I said, Yeah. She says, Well, I've been here since seven. I said, Yeah. She said, But when do I start directing? Yeah, I'm like, maybe in 10 years time and 2000 coffees later, that was funny. Then now I find that's becoming kind of the norm, and companies I work with are changing. You know, like you build a relationship over a couple of months on something you're doing, and the next minute, you get that standard email back going, it's very nice working with you. I'm no longer with you know, and I find that speeding up. So are they in the job for two months, three months, six months, whereas I think we gave it a whack, didn't we, we

Speaker 1  16:11  
also had the luxury of doing that. I think, like, like you said, the pace was a bit, you know, it was different back then, I wouldn't say slower, because, of course, the time that we're in it, we were working really hard. And so things were moving quickly, and we were, like, it was a really transformative time, so we were keeping up with a channel, with being on daily or, you know, suddenly we have digital cable, and suddenly you have POV, like you have, like, all these kind of, like ways of accessing content that just didn't exist before. Like, we used to have things in contracts that said any form of transmission here ever to be invented, you know, because it was being it was being invented as we went. So we were like, living in exciting, moving time. So maybe we didn't move as much because the times were moving around us. But I do think that there's something in and I think it was even in our own generations, like in our own time, that people maybe had expectations of ways that work would happen. I also think when I talk about this in the book our turn, and just, you know, in talking about it in general, it's that sense of you're getting caught up in the expectations of somebody else. So there are times when you're told in school, and I think all of us were told this, this is what you want to be president of the company someday, or do like you'll have a definite goal, and in our minds, we think, okay, so I want to do this before I'm 30. I want to do this before if I'm not a success, unless you know, you start putting these markers up, and if I don't reach that goal, then I'm a failure. So I think, you know, what we're seeing when people do that is also kind of a reflection of what they've been told success looks like. And so they have these it might not be kind of a selfish expectation, and some people it is because they just think that they're that talented. They deserve it, for sure, that's sometimes that's ambition, and that can be a good thing, but sometimes it's that kind of society telling them all the way along, well, you know, maybe the parents were putting them through school and saying, You better be doing something with that degree by the time you get out. You know, like, I think there's a lot of pressures that get put on people to hit markers. And so they're sitting there, maybe not at 10 o'clock in the morning, saying, I need to direct now. But, you know, like, there's, there's a time, there's a clock ticking in the back, right? And so I think sometimes we have to take ourselves away from the clock and realize, you know, our turn was not just about how to succeed and maybe how to, you know, live life successfully, but it was living successfully meant living it on your terms. And our turn wasn't about you have to be president, you had to be CEO, and just because I had the, you know, opportunity to do those things, you know that doesn't always make you the happiest either. Sometimes you find success and happiness at different levels. And I believe that you can be successful and you can lead wherever you are in a company. And so I think sometimes teaching people you don't need the brass ring right away, you see your brass ring might actually be in a different spot, if you'd stop looking for one that someone else put up for you, and realize that you might have your own version of a brass ring that might not even be at that top, top, top level. And you can have a really lovely, fulfilling, satisfying, you know, career life wherever you find it. So I think there's, there's expectations, I guess I'm trying to say they get put on people that they end up trying to meet, and they get pressured, and they jump jobs and they, you know, and sometimes you know, it's not even, you know, the systems today aren't even allowing people to sit in jobs very long, because companies change their minds and they're algorithmic based. And when I moved from television to Twitter, and I moved to the tech side of things. You know, that was a real kind of revolution to understand that I thought I was going to this kind of green space, that people would be much more adventurous and nurturing, but they were just trying to reinvent stuff all the time too. They didn't know what success looked like. And then, when they started getting investors in, that started. Saying every quarter, I want to see what I invested, you know, X million, billions of dollars in you. And I need to see these returns. And how do you prove returns on things like content? When you have to experiment, it's, it's really tough. We're

Tommy Smythe  20:14  
just going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. You.

In your career, you have grabbed the brass ring so many times. What is it that takes you to the next chapter? We talk a lot about next chapters on this podcast, once you do grab the brass ring. Do you get anxious to, like, leave that behind and move on to something else? And how do you find the courage to be able to say, Okay, I've done that. I've achieved that goal, and now I'm going on to the next thing. It

Speaker 1  20:50  
was like a really interesting phenomenon that was happening when I became the head of the CBC. It was a time when there were a lot of women who were reaching these like CEO, President, type jobs and resigning. And so it was a bit of, okay, I got there. I've done it checkbox, but it's also I got there checkbox. I look around, maybe this isn't the brass ring, you know, for me. And so I think there is. And I again, this is something that I believe, that I learned, and I think can be helpful to others as they kind of navigate their careers, no matter what world they're kind of living in. You kind of know in yourself what makes you tick. So it's a combination of what makes you happy, but also what makes you happy is also the use of your skills in a way that's impactful, right? Like you don't want to just do a job. You want to do a job that means something. And meaning something is something to everybody different. That kind of doesn't change throughout your career. And even if you change industries, even if you change you know, jobs, titles, that kind of core of who you are is something that can actually help guide you sometimes, like I got offered some amazing positions down in LA that I could have taken a lot earlier in my career, but life and family and all that kept me back in Canada, and I had to check in with that. It teaches you also when to say no, because what you say no to is probably more important than what you say yes to sometimes. So it's, it's, you know, grabbing that brass ring. You know, sometimes that brass ring is too hot to hold, you know, like it's, it's great. You have to decide what your brass ring is and your brass ring is what's true to you. And that's so individual, and it's so dependent on what you value and where you feel valued as well. And so that's you want to be successful. Because you want to feel successful, you want to have impact, and you want you know, whatever that means to you.

Debbie Travis  22:54  
It's funny, you never forget those opportunities that you don't take because the values are somewhere else. Yes,

Unknown Speaker  23:02  
I'm sure you had tons of those. Debbie,

Debbie Travis  23:03  
oh my god, well, you know. And I remember standing in the kitchen once with, you know, screaming at children to do homework and stuff. And CAA, the big agency in LA calling and saying, we've got you a show and whatever. And they said, you start Monday. And I'm like, get down here. No, the maths questions on the other page, turn the page, you know, whatever the screws burning and, you know, it's just not possible. You know, yes, it's very flattering. And this awful feeling of saying, No, I can't. And I remember when I started to do these spots on Oprah, and I mean, it was so thrilling, you know, you get on a plane. You fly to Chicago, you know, you sit with her, they show all your footage. Come in again three weeks time. So you go again, and then by the fourth and fifth time, you like, I've got my own stuff, you know, I'm filming my stuff. I can't just at a drop of a hat, you know? And to say, No, I mean, I think that when I turned it down the last time and I never got asked again, I said, I just can't I'm really sorry, and sobbed myself to sleep, you know, and regretted having a family and everything.

Tommy Smythe  24:15  
We're gonna cut that part out for the kids.

Speaker 1  24:19  
They're fully grown now, they can handle it, but do you regret it now? Debbie, like, that's the thing is, like, what do you? Like, you regret it in the moment, but do you really regret it long term? Like, I don't, absolutely

Debbie Travis  24:29  
not. And I think sometimes it's this bridge when you do something different, because, you know, like Tommy said, we talk a lot about next chapters, because both of us are doing different things. And that bridge of the security whether you've been working for a bank for 20 years, and then you decide, no, I want to be a baker, you know, and have a coffee shop. You know, that bridge is extremely difficult, you know, because it's one step forward, two steps back. Should I? Shouldn't. I should. And then, of course, friends and family will. Throw things in that make it more difficult. Will say things like, well, you know, you can't do that. And when I personally said, and you were my boss again, then at CBC, and I said, I can't do anymore. I literally could not I came it was like a wall came down. I was done. I mean, I was literally done. And I but I had this idea of this place in Italy, and so for me, it wasn't so bad anything going over that bridge. But then people are calling you and say, Well, what about this? And you're standing in the mud, and you say, you know, and you're like, Am I crazy? Is this stupid? But one thing I've always said to myself is everything comes to an end. Everything comes to an end at some point. So maybe you do it a couple of years earlier and you did lose a few opportunities, or maybe you drag it on and you be, you know, and everybody's bored of you, and a few years later, when you wrote our turn. Because I know people are listening to this, either for themselves, or they're dealing with their own kids who are in this different world of employment, entering the workforce and setting their own Yes, yeah. And I think what you're doing this is why I wanted to talk to you. So you have taken the book art and you've created something where people can be invited in. Is that how you'd put it? Yes, yeah, to strip you of everything, you know, type of thing, and help people. And you know, you're not an 80 year old woman sitting there, because we talk about the past, but as you said, you were 19 when we when we started on this road. So you're still a chicken, and you're dealing with young people all over the world. And so tell us about how it works. If somebody's saying, God, my daughter would love this, or I would love it. Well, what I'm trying to

Speaker 1  26:41  
do is live the book a bit, I guess is the best way to say it. So the idea of the lessons behind our turn and things have moved since then, right? The book was published, you know, six or seven years ago at this point. And I do talk about things in the book that I would revisit now in a new world, and say, you know, things have moved on a bit. And let's, you know, look at it through a different lens. But essentially, I was still getting kids coming up to me at events or at things that I was at, like, literal, like, kids just out of school saying, I just read your book. Like, how did you find it? And I found it really helpful, and it's very inspirational. And they would quote best stuff. Back to me, and I thought, you know, it does still help. It does still matter. When we talk about, like, how we all want to continue to be helpful and impactful in the world, I thought, well, this is something that people do find. And I've got a ton of experience, because I have worked at everything from, you know, I've ran all the Hallmark channels globally. I've run Twitter North America. I've, you know, I run, I've run, I've run, so I've seen a lot, and I've sat at these big tables, and I've sat at tables and mountain tops of Davos, and I've sat at boardroom tables, and I've sat at, you know, craft tables. And so I think it's, it's my kind of turn to take. What I've learned is the lessons in our turn, and turn those into, first of all, a course. So I've got a course that I'm launching in the next few weeks that will kind of take you through the steps of what you understand about yourself in order to kind of build and make the choices you should be making for yourself through your career and kind of navigation wise, and there'll be other courses that will release as they move along. And also I'm going to, I'm going to kind of allow the community to say what they want to learn next. I think that's going to be important to us. What you learn, very much in the tech side of things is let the let the users decide where you go. So the course will develop as I get that kind of input. But just a community, just a space to, you know, posted something on LinkedIn the other day that was about what we just talked about, Tommy around the kind of, okay, you've got there now, what? And sometimes now what is we talk about it being a drive, because I think we celebrate in people that sense of going after the next thing, going after the next thing going after the next thing. But at some point it's kind of a cycle, and you have to wonder, is there an end to it? And Debbie, when you said, you kind of hit that wall of, okay, this is my end of this cycle. I'm going to now start the next cycle. I think it's important for people to get a framework that they can use as a guide, but that framework has to be built by them. So what I don't like in my world? So when I wrote the book, our turn in the first place, there was a response to the book, Lean in. You remember the book, Lean In? And great book, and, you know, lots of learnings in there, but from a certain perspective. And certainly wasn't my perspective, and it wasn't my experience as someone who didn't come from a house full of money, and, you know, had to try these things and maybe be a bit risky in a world where I didn't have something to fall back on except for myself. And I just thought there's ways that I'm learning how to navigate through my career that can be applicable to anybody if the if you build it right. Recognizing the pieces that matter, and that allows somebody, instead of sending someone a list of these the 10 things to do, it's building up their own kind of virtual platform, their own way of living, so that they can navigate their career, their lives, in a way that respects their values, their talents and their ideas, and so our turn is about that. It's about how do we take our turn? You're your own best career coach, is what I like to say. Like, ultimately, it's great to have people who are experts to give you that advice along the way, but what I want to do is help people help themselves. And there's a few things I've learned at those big tables along the way that I think are resonant no matter what table you're at. And if that's helpful to people, and they can build their own kind of playbook to how to navigate, negotiate work their way through a career that is helpful to them in life as well as at work, then that's what I really want to get out of it with them. So I think that's what our turn is. All about, the community that I'll be building the course, in any way that we can kind of extend that learning and

Debbie Travis  31:06  
is it online

Tommy Smythe  31:08  
like it's such a timely conversation to have, I think Kirsten, because now, with the advent of social media, the explosion of social media on many, many different platforms, everyone, like you know, everyone from your barista that you see every day to the CEO that you work under has a personal brand. And I'm hearing in what you're saying, maybe a sequel to our turn called Your turn, which is more about navigating those spaces with an eye to maybe a more journalistic approach, or a more educate, a self education approach. There's so many people doing it and trying to do it and not understanding why they're failing, but maybe it's because they don't have those foundations that you speak of.

Speaker 1  31:48  
It is foundational. And yeah, Debbie, it would be online. So ultimately, I think the best way to kind of have this conversation and to make sure that it is something that's collectively, you know, shared, but also something that I hope people get individually when they have the opportunity to sit with material, to do it online. So if the course is available online, it's literally our turn. Dot VIP. And you know, VIP is, you know, I think there's also that sense of we can all when you talk about personal brand, Tommy, like this is about we are all VIP at this point, like, so treat yourself. Like it like. I think there is a point at which even I, you know, I think we've all had to learn as I had to learn it myself. You tend to do things again in effort of others, and sometimes you do have to take a moment to invest in yourself as that take the oxygen before you pass it to someone else that they would tell you on the airplane. This is a moment to invest in yourself, because once you get the framework right, once you get the foundations right, I do think that it's it's movable, and it's and it's something that can support you as you move through life and career and anything that comes your way. Because ultimately, again, that sense of, I'm going to plot my career ladder and I'm going to plot what's going to happen to me for the next five years. I did that when I was in university, and I came out and God laughed, you know, they took away. You know, it was it, you know, there was no there, there was no career that I'd gone to school for, that I'd done my internship for, that they literally said, I'm sorry, Kirsten, the job is not here anymore. And so I went this way and thinking, What the hell am I going to do with this now and learn this whole other world I didn't even know? I think that's the thing too. Is keeping your head up and keeping aware of opportunities while you have this foundational strength of knowing what you are good at and what you feel good at doing that skills translatable like, look what you did. Debbie. You're, you're, if you want to call it a pivot, your next cycle is totally taking all the talents you've always had and just leaning into them in a different way because they're applicable somewhere else. Tommy, I'm thinking, you know, we've all, we all do this, right? It's about reinvention, but it's reinvention that still, you can still see, do you in it?

Debbie Travis  33:55  
And I think the core of it is what you love. I mean, you know, we sit here at these retreats, listening to people who are either broken or quite sad or bored rigid. And the first question is, you know, what is it you like? Go back to the sandbox. You know? What do you like doing? But

Speaker 1  34:17  
they also, I can't do it right. Then they get then they stop themselves, right? But I can't. But why not? Yeah, and

Debbie Travis  34:23  
you don't have to be great at something. You can hire people who were great better at you but, but, you know, like when I was painting on television, I never wanted to be on TV, you know, I wanted to produce shows. I still, you know, somebody said TV host. I will go and producer, you know, because that's what I wanted to do. I mean, if it's something as simple as, you know, taking some paint in a feather and going, Oh my God, look at it. It looks like marble, you know, look, you know, I can make a marble table. I think it's the same with anything, you know, I was listening to something with Drew Barrymore the other day, who's got a talk show, and she said, I just love talking to people, and she's good at it. She. She's not the old fashioned talk show. She's really, you know, curled up on the sofa getting in on the conversation and chatting. So sometimes it has to be slammed around. You have to do other stuff. Is jumping on opportunity, like cover

Speaker 1  35:12  
that in lesson two. Lesson Two is all about opportunity and preparation and making your own luck. Because ultimately, like, I think that's, yeah, we you're pointing out Debbie is something that I believe to be true. There's that sense of, you know, people talk about, do what you love, and that sounds kind of, sometimes, that sounds kind of oppressive to somebody who's like, yeah, sure, I'd love to do what I love to do. But, you know, I have bills to pay. What you have to recognize is you actually love to do something because you're good at it. You know, there's something, there's some element of it that you're you are good at. That's why you love it.

Tommy Smythe  35:44  
Yeah, I can tell you, like, I had so many people say to me, because it's been in two silos, Design and Media, but the media aspect, like, how did you get into television? And I always say to people, you know, all I did was be really good at what I loved to do, yeah. And then when I got on camera, I also knew that I was good at that. I didn't know before I did it that I was good at it, but I always held in my core. You know, when people say, like, how do you get the courage to go in front of, you know, TV crew or interview people on television, I always said I knew that I was good at it, yeah, and, you know, you're doing and I knew what I was doing, you know, the elements that just does come from within. I think Kirsten like, it really is something that you give yourself. It's a gift that you give yourself. Is that element of confidence that I know that I'm good at this, and so when you do fail, you think to yourself, well, I failed for the following reasons. Maybe I didn't prepare myself well enough for this, or maybe I wasn't, you know, ready on that day for for that day to happen. But at the at the end of the end of the day, you move on. Because, you know, in general, overall, I'm good at this, yeah,

Speaker 1  36:44  
oh, yeah. And I do think it's like, it's that sweet spot, right? It's that common, like, sometimes we think, Oh, we just like to do this, but it's you actually like to do it, because the satisfaction you're getting out of doing something good, doing thing, well, well, yeah, absolutely, yeah. And I think you need to recognize that, yeah, it's

Debbie Travis  37:01  
also doing it when things are challenging and hard. So if you were a runner, for instance, and you wanted to go to the next stage, and I don't know, go in the Olympics, of course you love running, of course you're good at it, but how would you get to the next thing? And it's that, it's that work. That's the and when you do it, when you win or you achieve something. I mean, I find that with writing, you know, it's the one thing that I really work hard at, you know, because it's not a natural thing. And I work and I work and I'm, like, making a cake. I'm molding it and and kneading it and loving it and then, and sometimes you sit there sobbing, going, this is just awful, awful. And then suddenly something appears, usually at six o'clock in the morning, and you go, Oh my god, that's amazing. And that gives you me, for me personally, the biggest kick, the biggest kick of all, satisfaction, yeah. But

Tommy Smythe  37:56  
I think you have to refuse to, you have to refuse to turn the dial back too, because what I also hear a lot these days, since I have sort of taken a step back from the media aspect of my two silos of my career, is, why are you not doing television anymore? And the follow up to that is always like you were so good at it. And I always say, I know I was good at it, and I loved doing it while I did it, but I've moved on to another chapter now, and it doesn't involve being on television at the moment. I would never say no to opportunities, and certainly they come regularly. People ask me to be hosts on television programs that they're developing, but I always sort of very politely say, thank you so much for thinking of me for this. I agree that I would be a great fit for it, but it's not a great fit for me right now in vis a vis the other things that I'm doing, yeah, absolutely,

Speaker 1  38:43  
I think again, it's what you say no to, that is kind of, we're defining them what you say yes to, because it's, it's absolutely, it is easy to step backwards, and, and, and, you know, and I think, you know, one of the things that, when I wrote the book our turn, it was a bit of a warning as Well, that particularly for people who maybe wanted to succeed in careers where they didn't, they weren't fitting the norm, and people did think it was a book that I wrote for women, and I am a woman, and so it's my perspective and my experience. So absolutely, there's, you know, it heavily leans that way, but it really was meant for anybody who didn't feel that they could be recognized at work for who they were, and that, you know meant you know, not the average, particularly in corner offices, typical, you know, old, white guy, you know, cis male. Who would you know act a certain way when you saw that business was changing and the way that success was being defined was changing quickly, you knew that leadership needed to be different too. Yeah,

Tommy Smythe  39:38  
I call those guys baked potatoes, the middle aged white guy, a little bit a little bit irrelevant, you know, just kind of a baked potato. You know, fully baked, yeah, ready to go. Not really gonna be made into anything else at this point, and just kind of set in their ways. And they're

Speaker 1  39:59  
not. Giving up those jobs, man, like, I think that's the other thing too, holding on with their toenails. And so that means that we make our lives, you know, around that. And I think sometimes when I think about leaving television and maybe Debbie, I always thought maybe this was true for you too, because I think we were expressing the same amount of frustrations at the same time as it's hard when someone says, when, like, when someone says, you told me why you go back to television? Well, I don't think it sit there anymore. Like, I don't think it's there to I don't think it's there to go back to. So we move on and we try different things, and we still create content. It's just and we just still tell stories, we still connect with people and create emotion. And it's just gonna have to be different because, you know, maybe those baked potatoes didn't get other seats fast enough, and the world has moved on without them. So I think it is, you know, we've all moved on. So I think it's how, how do you teach people that, that it's okay again, if you're stuck on, fixated on that, I want to be president of a studio or president of a network. By the time I'm whatever, like, I could have said no to Twitter. I said yes to Twitter when it was 140 characters in an app. It wasn't even a public company yet. Wow, I was the head of the C I don't remember that. Yeah, I was the head of the CBC. Like, people were like, You, what are you? What are you doing? You gave me the biggest media job in Canada for this like, what this app and I was either the genius you saw the future or I was the idiot giving up the biggest job in television. And I'm probably somewhere in between, but I knew that television at that point was broken, so I had to move on to something different. Twitter was examining content a different way. I think we all kind of move on when things, when you hit those barriers enough Create a New River, you know,

Debbie Travis  41:42  
Can I just finish with one little story about Kirsten so many, many years ago, you had you were on the front page of every newspaper because you just got this role at CBC, and I was sitting in an airport, and you know how people leave all the newspapers on the on the chairs and stuff. They get up and go to their flight and I don't know if they still do it today, but there were free newspapers, and there was a guy I didn't know him sitting next to me and and a newspaper with you on the cover, neck on the seat next to me, and he was reading it, and he turned to me, and there was this gorgeous picture, full length picture of you, and he's tutting away this guy, and I'm staring at him. And then he says, Well, look at her shoes. And there you were with, like, 18 shoes. And I said, yeah, they're gorgeous, aren't they? He says, She's the head of the CBC in those shoes. And I remember thinking, white potato, that's what he saw. Not your brain. I can tell

Tommy Smythe  42:48  
you, Debbie, there was not a gay man in Canada who was having that reaction. They were all like, You go, girl.

Speaker 1  42:55  
And I saw it when I walked through the halls of the CBC. And I remember the time when I did an upfront. Used to upfront, Debbie, where you go and you, you present all programming for the upcoming year. Advertisers come, they, they, this is where you do all the deals. And I just did an upfront. I come off the stage with my first one I've done. It was nerve wracking. I was launching all these new shows like dragons den and all that never been seen before on television. Fantastic. The team had done a great work. And then the next day, they wrote about my shoes in the paper, and I was mortified. And I was mortified. I thought, Oh my God. Let all these people down, all these we all work so hard to present all this new stuff. And they've heard about me like I'm not. It's not about me. I always happen to be presenting it, and I have to present it as the lat, the old the asshole guy got on stage and presented it. They didn't talk about his shoes, but mine were talked about. Then I was walking down the hallway, this in my head, and this young woman comes up to me, and it's still very I'm still very new there, and it's a big, big building at the CBC, and I hadn't met everybody. And she came up and said, You Kirsten. I said, Yes, I am. And she said, I just have to say we're so glad that you're here. You look like us, you talk like us, you dress like us. Thank you. And I just went. I needed that

Tommy Smythe  44:04  
amazing, amazing, thank you. Heavens for her.

Debbie Travis  44:07  
It's always about the shoes. Brilliant. So Kirsten, we'll put it up in our notes. So if anybody would like to look into this for themselves, yeah,

Speaker 1  44:16  
yeah, please, yeah. Our turn. Dot VIP and the course is there. But also join the community, absolutely.

Debbie Travis  44:22  
Yeah, I think it's so needed. And any Listen, any help you can get to be who you want to be and do what you want to do.

Tommy Smythe  44:29  
Thank you, Kirsten, thank you for being with us. I hope you'll come back. I feel like there's still so much to talk about. Oh,

Speaker 1  44:36  
we've got me I feel like we've got gossip stories to tell as well. So we will spill some tea Next time, let's

Tommy Smythe  44:41  
do one just on gossa, all right.

Debbie Travis  44:45  
Bye, my love. Chat soon.

Unknown Speaker  44:46  
Okay. Bye, bye.

Debbie Travis  44:51  
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai