This episode features an interview with Sandy Gould, Chief People Officer at Pinwheel. Sandy has nearly three decades of experience in human resources and talent acquisition. He has worked for companies like Disney and Yahoo where he led recruitment and diversity efforts. Sandy’s mission in life is to help people unleash their super powers and lead with authenticity. In this episode, Shawn sits down with Sandy to discuss strategies for building company culture, insights into building trust and fostering psychological safety, and injecting humanity into HR.
This episode features an interview with Sandy Gould, Chief People Officer at Pinwheel. Sandy has nearly three decades of experience in human resources and talent acquisition. He has worked for companies like Disney and Yahoo where he led recruitment and diversity efforts. Sandy’s mission in life is to help people unleash their super powers and lead with authenticity.
In this episode, Shawn sits down with Sandy to discuss strategies for building company culture, insights into building trust and fostering psychological safety, and injecting humanity into HR.
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“There is one mission for HR, and I can state it in three words. Amplify everything human. That's our job. If it's helping the CEO understand and have empathy with their employees, if it's helping the employees decode the CEO and executives, yes, we should do that. Helping to amplify and enhance your relationship skills, your communication skills, your connection, your problem solving, anything. How you think, training, learning, resources, strategy, you name it, we should be amplifying every part of it that's human. But, we are not there to be a substitute. There is no substitute for direct relationships and direct communication and direct feedback.” – Sandy Gould
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Episode Timestamps:
*(02:32): Getting to know Sandy
*(09:02): Building company culture
*(14:41): Sandy’s take on superpowers
*(26:55): Creating trust and authenticity
*(34:10): The challenges of authenticity
*(47:23): How to scale authenticity in an organization
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Links:
Connect with Sandy on LinkedIn
Connect with Shawn on LinkedIn
Shawn Pfunder: Welcome back to the Cohesion Podcast. Today I'm joined by Sandy Gould, Chief People Officer at Pinwheel. Sandy's mission in life is to help people achieve their creative destiny.
Shawn Pfunder: Creative destiny. Dun, dun, dun. And unleash their superpowers, support companies and leveraging great talent. And supporting leaders and leading from authenticity. He has extensive experience in human resources and talent acquisition, serving companies like Coastal Media, Yahoo, and Disney. Sandy, I'm super excited about this.
Shawn Pfunder: Welcome to the show.
Sandy Gould: Thank you, I'm really excited to be here too. And I, I love whenever I can get together with someone who is inspired and inspires and we can learn, connect, and grow together. So I'm looking forward to the adventure.
Shawn Pfunder: Oh, fantastic. Well, I hope I, I hope I can live up to that as we go through.
Shawn Pfunder: Well, so at the beginning, we have rapid fire questions that oftentimes don't end up being rapid fire questions. An opportunity for our listeners to get to know you a little bit better. Surface level, of course, but I'm sure we'll get into deep questions as we get moving. So the first question is, what are the top five most opened apps on your phone?
Sandy Gould: The top five apps. Okay, so let me think about this. Yahoo. That's where I get my daily everything.
Shawn Pfunder: Oh, that's fantastic. I mean, I know you worked there, but there's going to be people saying, is Yahoo still a thing?
Sandy Gould: I get made fun of at work every day for being one of the few people who's still using Yahoo for news, sports, finance, and also for email, because I used Yahoo mail as well as Gmail, but Yahoo mail is my primary and it has been since it was my first email ever in my life, many years ago.
Sandy Gould: So I love it. I think it's always been more personal than everything else, including Gmail. And in the last several years and in the time I was there as well, a lot of innovation allowed Yahoo mail to become the container and the home base for everything else you do. It makes everything super simple to integrate.
Sandy Gould: So and I think Yahoo continues to both modernize and evolve and transform. And I think that's awesome. So. That's there. Apple Music, Spotify, the Marvel Unlimited app, and Instagram. Wait, what's the Marvel Unlimited app? Just what it sounds like. It's basically, you can read comments online. You can also have all the news about what's going on and what's next.
Sandy Gould: And as you probably know and remember, I read about 40 to 50 comics a week, and I have ever since I was eight years old. So, I am one of those nerds on the planet who has read every Marvel comic since 1974. And, you know, I credit that to be part of why I continue to search for superpowers, but also continue to think differently, try to innovate, look at things differently, reimagine, keeps your imagination really dynamic.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fun when they've got, they've got storytelling dialed in, they do like so well and everything. Wait, so were you one of those? That makes it sound bad. Were you one of those kids? Well, there's the local comic store and I had friends that when they would show up at the local comic store They had like boxes underneath the counter that had my friend's names on them and like the comics would come in and they would hand them to him.
Shawn Pfunder: Like here's your latest Doctor Strange or here's your latest -
Sandy Gould: I was one of the earliest subscribers. In fact, I moved to Seattle when I was like, 10 from Florida and we discovered the Pike Place Market and this great store, greatest comic book store in the country, Golden Age Collectibles, started going there from when I was 10 till I was 18.
Sandy Gould: Then I went to college in New York and when I came back from New York, my first job in Seattle was at that comic book store. And so Rod and Colleen, the great owners of that store had seen me grow up since I was 10 and then employed me when I was 22. And that was epic. It was one of the Just most fun jobs ever.
Shawn Pfunder: You went to college and then you worked in a comic book store.
Sandy Gould: I think, wait, what did you study at college? I trained as a rabbinical student. And so I studied rabbinical studies, philosophy, psychology, psychoanalysis. Judaic law, history, the Talmud, you name it. Biblical analysis all over, you know, everything.
Sandy Gould: I was just hungry and thirsty for all information and knowledge about how people live and create and connect.
Shawn Pfunder: I hope that we're friends after this.
Sandy Gould: Already, Shawn, already.
Shawn Pfunder: I love it. And then one follow up question. You have both Apple Music and Spotify. What's the play on this?
Sandy Gould: It's interesting, right? Cause everyone has like a different thing.
Sandy Gould: And so I got into Spotify first and I really love Spotify. I think Apple music has its own attributes. It's simpler in certain ways, but I feel like Spotify as an interface just allows you to go more places faster and easier. However, I will add that. In the last year, Spotify started doing this thing where, I guess I was on the free app, they started sort of limiting your access and saying, like, you should move to a subscription.
Sandy Gould: Unfortunately, when you try to do that on your phone, you can't. And so I am the classic dumb user because I preceded the technology era. I came up in the TV era. So my thing is all technology must work in one app, one touch, and be super simple. And the moment you try to make me do something that's not easy for the consumer, I'm out.
Sandy Gould: So when Spotify did that, I was like, and I couldn't just solve it by saying, Great, I'll sign up. Try to sign up. It says you can't sign up from the phone. Sorry about that. And I'm like, no, I'm sorry about that. And that's what they did. That's how it goes. They need to make it better and then I'll come back.
Shawn Pfunder: No, I'm sorry about that. What, what is a common myth? about your field of expertise?
Sandy Gould: You know, I think there are two big myths. One is that HR is responsible for helping everyone have the relationships they need to have. and solving the problems of saying the things unsaid and fixing people, including the CEO.
Sandy Gould: It is a huge myth. I think people look at HR as this proxy for management and a proxy for relationships. And there is no substitute for direct relationships. So now to debunk the myth, my belief is that there are, there is one mission for HR and I can state it in three words. Amplify everything human.
Sandy Gould: That's our job. So if it's helping the CEO understand and have empathy with their employees, if it's helping the employees decode the CEO and executives, yes, we should do that. Helping to amplify and enhance your relationship skills, your communication skills, your connection, your problem solving, anything.
Sandy Gould: How you think, training, learning, resources, strategy, you name it, we should be amplifying every part of it that's human, but we are not there to be a substitute. And there is no substitute. for direct relationships and direct communication and direct feedback. And so, as you can imagine based on how you see me answering this question, I have communicated and guided on this for many, many years.
Sandy Gould: I've been also deliberate to take jobs where I thought people understood that, about what HR can really be as this amplification, and avoid jobs where it was the babysitter proxy for management job.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. Well, that's it. I'd love that. Mostly because you've run, I mean, I'm sure you've run into this even when you took the job you thought was something else when, when they ask you to create
Shawn Pfunder: a culture. Hey, Sandy, make a culture. And you're like, listen, culture already exists. This amplification of what makes us human or what's working or everything else, that's more about what it is. At least that's been, that's been my experience where if you want it to be successful instead of, okay, we've decided we're a startup culture or, okay.
Shawn Pfunder: We've, and what does that even mean? You're going to sleep under your desks now. That's fantastic. So that amplification I'd love. I love that. I love that.
Sandy Gould: You know, I was lucky because I was naive. That was one of the luckiest things that happened to me as a kid. I was sheltered. I, you know, was very tied to my family early and then just my friends in a private little Jewish school and then I went to rabbinicals.
Sandy Gould: So I mean, when I took my comic book job, I did not know how the world worked. I didn't even know that many people. There was a lot of things I didn't know, but I was curious. I grew up in a culture and studied in a scholastic culture that was all about asking questions and learning. And I had parents that taught me to be open minded and non judgmental.
Sandy Gould: So the reason that was lucky is when I got into the business world, I mentioned my dad was an M&A banker. He just taught me like, you should ask questions, you should learn, and then you should solve a problem and take an action within 20 minutes. So that was my training, my orientation. And, but I came in with no prior bias.
Sandy Gould: I didn't know what HR was. I didn't know what recruiting was. I didn't know what an agency was. I didn't really know how business worked, except my dad taught me all the mechanics. And so I approached everything. Like when the first time someone asked me about culture, I was like, what is culture? Right. And I had to start going on a quest.
Sandy Gould: I asked people, I learned, I did research. And then I came up with this definition eventually, after hearing many people's and many experts definitions, that it's an environment in which a group of people have figured out how to successfully create together. I was like, okay, there's a start, right? The next question was, who creates culture?
Sandy Gould: The answer, as you implied, is obvious. Everybody does, right? So, so like you said, when people would say to me, we want to build a startup culture, we want to create a culture of excellence or high performance or a culture of learning or a culture of it's good to fail fast and learn, I would always start asking questions and I would say, well, what is the culture already?
Sandy Gould: And if you want to create one of these things, Have you gathered everyone together because they all own part of the culture and said, how are we going to do that and ingrain the behavior? And I, you know, I eventually came up with a system of accountability, a six point system for how do you build culture?
Sandy Gould: And I'll tell you what that is because otherwise I feel like I'm teasing it and not introducing it. So it's, and this is something I've just learned. It's you say it, do it, reward it, which is the single biggest part, build process to sustain it. And let it grow, hire and fire against it and promote to it.
Sandy Gould: So those are the six things you do to drive and build a culture and ingrain that behavior. If you do it, it sticks. And if you don't do one of those, especially reward, it does not stick. But like you said, it is, everybody's doing it together. And so you have to involve people. You have to recognize two things.
Sandy Gould: What is the existing culture and then what is the aspirational culture? And then how do we build to that? But again, gotta be everybody. And you know, when I go interview at jobs. When I'm looking for a role or I've been recruited, I sit in the lobby. I arrive like an hour early and I learn everything I need to know about the company, just by whether people are smiling or not, how they talk to each other, what goes on.
Sandy Gould: And when I, you know, in between interviews during the process, I just start talking to employees that are there. And you get everything, right? And that's, you know, when I was in college, I had this moment where I got promoted from one level class to the next higher level class, probably the highest level class in that program.
Sandy Gould: And I was very excited, but I was also very insecure about it. And so I remember I had this moment where my behavior, I did something that I don't normally do. I was kind of arrogant. Someone asked me a question and I was acting like, Oh, I know the answer. And somebody close to me called me on it. They're like, you're being arrogant, which is weird because you usually don't do that.
Sandy Gould: And I was like, oh my gosh, you're right. Why did I do that? And I reflected and I was like, oh, it's because I'm insecure because now I'm in this class of these smarter, smarter people and I'm at the bottom. And I thought, yeah, but so what? Like, I'm always a learner. I'm never the smartest one in the room. So why is this suddenly, you know, triggering me like that?
Sandy Gould: And then I came up with a guiding principle, which was learning is always right. Knowing is always wrong. Because learning, you're asking questions, you're curious, you're looking. Knowing. which we want to do because we're insecure and we like to feel in control, which we never are. Knowing is like, okay, I know this works this way.
Sandy Gould: Well, it's going to change because life is all about change. And then you're not going to see it because you'd rather believe you know, right? So learning is always right. Knowing will inevitably always be wrong. And anytime I ever get in a new situation where I think I know what to do or I know how this works, I know how the culture is working, right?
Sandy Gould: Remind myself of that moment. And I got learning, go back to learning. Don't go to knowing cause you're going to make a mistake. Right? So that kind of helped.
Shawn Pfunder: That's super wise. Like the way to think about things. Is this something other than that experience that you had in college? Is that something you noticed about yourself even before that?
Shawn Pfunder: Or have you always been, I want to say, have you read Super Communicators? Have you read that book yet? Yeah, actually, yeah. Oh, fantastic, fantastic book. And it talks about that specifically, it goes over these things. Were you always like that growing up? Or were there other moments where you I guess gathered the information or gathered the knowledge or gathered the experience in order to be able to make a statement like that and become the person that you are.
Sandy Gould: Okay, so I have to answer that question with my origin story, I think.
Shawn Pfunder: Fantastic, yeah, yeah.
Sandy Gould: Because you know, it's all about superpowers and origin stories. So, here it is in five points, hopefully. So, I was born sick, mom got sick in pregnancy, I was sick until I was about nine or 10. When I was nine, doctors, you know, at an appointment told me I was gonna be sick forever.
Sandy Gould: Struggle to be healthy, be tired all the time, not have a lot of energy, not be able to play sports. When you were nine, they told you that? Yeah, yeah, they, they, they laid it on. Not be able to play sports like the other kids. Just bleak outlook. Freaked out. Parents took me home and said, told me two things that would become guiding principles.
Sandy Gould: One, you can do anything if you're willing to work hard enough. Which they had done. And two, don't believe anything anyone tells you is true. It's only true for them. So those two principles would become guardrails in my life. The third thing that happened was my, I had three siblings who argued all the time.
Sandy Gould: So I realized, they still do, by the way, I realized that every two people have a different worldview. And so that was this very enlightening moment for me. If there's all these distinct universes out there and you have to connect them by being able to show them each other's worldview, right? Create those bridges.
Sandy Gould: So while I was sick, there's only two things I could do. One, watch and observe people deeply. And I, you know, I wanted to have a life like everyone else had that I wasn't having or may not be able to have. So I was really looking deeply. I was trying to decode it. How are these people having this life? How are they living?
Sandy Gould: What are they doing? What do I need to do? And what I discovered quickly was each person was different, which I marveled at, I thought was amazing. And then I saw that their creativity came from their difference. So that meant that each person in a world of, at that time, 7 billion, now 8 billion people, created in a way no one else did.
Sandy Gould: So that was obviously a superpower. At the same time, and I fell in love with difference, at the same time, my brother and my uncle had these great comic book collections, so I was reading every comic I could get my hands on. And, it made me realize, that not only were superpowers real, but when we share stories through media, of our origin and our superpowers, we unlock each other and together we can change the world.
Sandy Gould: So I started working really hard. And by the time I was 16 I was all pro football, basketball, and track. I was one of the fastest kids around and I was competing. And I remember when I was 16 we had these finals competition that we competed in and I won every race by a landslide. And so after I won every race, I remember thinking I never thought I would be a person who would win every race in a competition.
Sandy Gould: Right? Right. And, I remember that moment because, and I'll never forget it, I remember thinking my parents were right. If you work hard enough, and you're operating from this place of authenticity, who you are, anything is really possible. So that was the day my mission in life was born, right, which was to help people discover and unleash their superpowers and achieve their creative destiny.
Sandy Gould: And so I was like, okay, now I've got to figure out how am I going to do that? And at that time I was in this rabbinical high school in Seattle, Washington, and they had these amazing rabbis who were teaching me how to think, Rabbi Moskowitz, Rabbi Fox, they were brilliant. And they were just teaching me how to think and decode the world.
Sandy Gould: And emotions and, you know, rational logical principles as well as human nature and psychology. And so that was it. You know, it just opened my mind. It was the unlock. And I just absorbed it and, you know, dove into it. And so it's always been about that learning and that decoding and that understanding and taking that forward.
Sandy Gould: And one other thing I'll mention is that I was just actually, before this call, I was on an interview with a really interesting guy and we were talking about our mutual belief in the fluidity of identity. Because people really want to think identity is fixed and locked, and I think as we all know, we're changing all the time and identity is always evolving.
Sandy Gould: And so, and I mentioned to him, I said, psychologists, modern and historic psychology really struggle with identity, and it's probably because we'd like to lock it into a fixed, stable concept, but it's not. Right? It's something we're creating continuously, which I think is one of the most amazing things about human nature, is that we are continuously creating and I believe that can, that creativity is completely open and free.
Sandy Gould: I do not think it's as limited as people think it is.
Shawn Pfunder: On the fluidity that you mentioned, do you think I guess our superpower, if it's, or somebody's superpower, or the thing that they have, the icky guy, the local therapy, man search for meaning type of stuff, like, is that, if it's broad enough, does that stick with you, regardless of your fluidity as an identity?
Shawn Pfunder: I mean, I know you're referring to something more, you know, Beautiful and complicated. Then I used to listen to punk music and now I'm super into alt country or something like that. I know that's bigger than that, but does, does your superpower stay with you? Or are you suggesting that your superpowers change over time?
Sandy Gould: Great question.
Sandy Gould: I believe. So this is another concept I've been working on that I call SOM, Superpower Operating Model. And I started introducing it at work. I'm sure they're all like, oh my gosh, you won't stop talking about superpowers. I had this great friend, counsel at Yahoo named Ron Johnstone, who used to say to me when I was about to give a presentation, he would review it.
Sandy Gould: He'd say, Sandy, please don't say superpowers more than 10 times. And I'll be like, all right, I'm going to try to keep it under 10. So And you count every time you say it. I count everything. So I'm always tracking stuff. So the super high operating model works like this. We all have primary, secondary, and then development or tertiary superpowers.
Sandy Gould: And in life, as soon as we start growing into those and realizing we have them, we will lean into the primaries and overuse them. A sprinter, I'll use me as an example. I'm a sprinter and a talker and a connector. I will just rely on those three all the time. And there's a good to that. Of course, it's a superpower, right?
Sandy Gould: Get things done fast, connect to people, communicate. And then there are challenges and sometimes you'll overuse them. And sometimes situations don't call for them. They call for something else. And so one, we have to learn that we have to become aware of our primaries, our secondaries and our development, and then assess situations and decide when to use a primary, secondary or develop a tertiary and get stronger at it.
Sandy Gould: That's first. And then it's good for managers to be aware of that because they can help coach us on that too. Two, I also happen to think, by the way, that's one of the systems of constructive feedback I created, because who's going to be depressed to hear that they have primary, secondary and tertiary?
Sandy Gould: Nobody, right? So it's like kind of you want to empower people when they're developing. And so doing it that way, I think it's more positive than like, you know, you're terrible at this, you need to change it. So that's first. Second, they're going to change cause you're going to change and you're going to go into different situations and you're going to need different superpowers.
Sandy Gould: So I actually tell people whenever we're doing onboarding, I used to do this at Yahoo and I'm doing it now too. When we bring someone into the company, I'll say things like, if you have four primary superpowers, you're going to find that two will be amplified here, two may not work at all, or as well, and you're going to have to build at least two new ones.
Sandy Gould: So let yourself discover versus just trying to do everything a certain way. And I think we need that freedom. But I also, a big part of my whole ethos and what I'm trying to do for the world is get people to direct the creating of their superpowers, to deliberately build it like they would build a product, a plan, a budget, or anything.
Sandy Gould: And think about that throughout your life. Like, You know, like for instance, when a leader is about to get promoted and take on a new leadership level and responsibility, I ask them to think, what's going to change? How are you going to change? What new kinds of leadership do you want to become proficient in?
Sandy Gould: And where do you need to change the way you do things now? How have you changed in the past? And how will you use that to change here? So I think we're always building new ones. But you're also, you are going to use, you know, I'm always going to use speed and communication and connection, but I've got to evolve them all the time too.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. Do you, I wonder if those conversations about tertiary or outside of your primary, cause a lot of people know, I take a personality test to know in general, Oh yeah, look, I'm an Enneagram four, I'm moody and creative, or I'm ENFP. I think those probably identify, Perhaps the two or the things that you work on because they strengthen you as a human being.
Shawn Pfunder: But if you sit down with a manager or you meet with Sandy and Sandy's like, okay, what's going to change? Here's a tertiary superpower that I see based on my conversations with you. That could be really motivating, but also very, very valuable. really surprising for somebody that's used to you're promoted because this and this.
Shawn Pfunder: And you're like, yeah, of course I am. Cause I'm brilliant at this and this. Right. What's been your experience? Have you had those conversations where somebody is just totally surprised when you have that conversation with them and say, Hey, how are you going to grow? How are you going to fail? What are you going to do to make sure that doesn't happen?
Sandy Gould: Yeah, I think there's a lot of surprise and in part I actually take that as a good sign, right? Discovery I think is really key. As we all know, we can never really see ourselves super clearly, and so we, we see ourselves by an amalgam of all the people around us. And by the way, we're created by all the people around us, as we're influenced by them, and so, and those experiences.
Sandy Gould: And so, I've seen a lot of surprise for the good, when you're having a conversation with somebody and you say, Hey, what are you good at and why? And they tell you, and then you add to their list. and reveal some things to them about why the impact they're having is happening and what they're tapping into.
Sandy Gould: I certainly did not know, you know, I knew I was social when I got out of high school and in college, I didn't think I was creative. Until much later, I thought I was a learner and a student. I didn't see myself as creative. And I remember a super brilliant close childhood friend of mine and I were talking and he's literally, you know, like Harvard professor, brilliant.
Sandy Gould: And he, one day we were talking and he's like, you're super creative. And I'm like, no, you're super creative. And so then I started to realize like, Oh, there's different ways of looking at this. And you don't realize things about yourself until people point it out to you. I've also seen surprise when Some, when you're talking with someone and they have a certain impact on people that may not always be positive and they don't know it and they don't know why.
Sandy Gould: And then you're able to say like, it might be this let's, but you know, usually you want to coach them into sort of why might someone be reacting to you that way? Because, you know, principle number one in coaching, if you can get someone to come to the answer themselves, then they see that they have the ability to figure it out within them and then they can do something about it.
Sandy Gould: And I always want learning to be a power instead of a blow, right? It shouldn't be like, I'm afraid to learn about one of my weaknesses or development areas, but you know, we all go to work and we're paid more money if we're successful. So we are all incentivized. to defend against taking feedback, internalizing it, owning it, and saying, Oh, I have areas that are limits and areas to grow.
Sandy Gould: But you can look at a limit, not as an inability. You can look at it as the shape of who you are. You can look at learning as a power instead of a gap, even though it's both, right? And this is one of the reasons, by the way, when we do performance reviews, I wanted to decouple compensation from the review.
Sandy Gould: Because if you have them together, you have to defend to get more money. If you have them apart, you at least have freedom in part one where you're just focused on learning and growing. But that gets back to what you said earlier. We also have to establish a culture of learning, make it safe, reward people who learn and fail, not just people who learn and succeed.
Sandy Gould: Right? And so there's just things you have to do going back to that system of accountability to change that.
Shawn Pfunder: You know, it sounds like In order to do that, in order to find out, so if I'm, if I'm meeting with you and I'm going to point out or talk about the areas of growth, but in order to see that in somebody else, or even to see that in yourself, you have to use the word reveal.
Shawn Pfunder: And that's a really powerful word. And what people think about it, just when you just say, Revealing something. I guess, tell me a little bit more about how, how can you create, and I'm not even going to say create culture. How do you develop a relationship, professional relationship or otherwise, where they're, that revealing is happening both ways.
Shawn Pfunder: Cause I think somebody probably won't reveal how they're feeling about something or even give you the, the monologue for you to listen, actively listen and hear what they're saying and be able to, how do you create that space? I guess I'm talking about trust.
Sandy Gould: It's the ultimate eternal question, right?
Sandy Gould: Everyone will talk about great leadership, servant leadership, creating psychological safety, and the idea that trust is the gateway to everything, right? Successful teams, unleashing superpowers. And it's true. It's at the center, it's the nexus of all of it. And it's tricky because you can't just make it.
Sandy Gould: You can't just say it. And so I think I'll tell you there's probably three things that create trust. The first is authenticity. The second is giving, and the third is inherent. Unconditional support. I probably add a fourth, which is need. Humans are need based. So generally people, when they're determining if they trust you or not, will need to understand what your needs are and why trust would fit into your need system.
Shawn Pfunder: That's really powerful. That's different, even though what I thought you might say, or what the expectation would be, the need would be the other way. I need this from you.
Shawn Pfunder: To try to create that feeling, but it's the other way around what they need. I love that. I know you probably have more commentary on that, but backing up really quick.
Shawn Pfunder: Authenticity, that word is getting, well, it gets [bleep] on a lot these days.
Shawn Pfunder: But tell me what you mean, like what we talk about when we talk about authenticity. What do you mean when you talk about authenticity?
Sandy Gould: Yeah. So I have four points to what authenticity is, but before I say them, let me just comment on your comment about like authenticity being, you know, a word that It's being mocked now.
Sandy Gould: Not only is it overused and you know, as a society, we overuse everything. So, cause we're individuals and we're collective. We want to be both. We want to be unique and different. We're born broke and we also want to fix it by conforming and connecting to the world and fitting in. And they struggle and they'll struggle forever.
Sandy Gould: That's a way of motion. That's a fluidity thing. It will never be resolved. It's why we create and live. So there's good to it. But obviously we can get consumed with it. And this sense of conformity is an overwhelming power instinctually against individuality.
Sandy Gould: So people are mocking authenticity because not only is everyone out talking about it as a buzzword, but it's probably the worst buzzword.
Sandy Gould: Like there's lots of buzzwords like the power of now, et cetera. This buzzword is bad because the very nature of the word is this thing that you can't actually produce. So the idea that everyone's trying to mass produce it is kind of offensive, right? So. You know, it's almost like me saying, you know, when people say in a statement like that, to be honest…
Shawn Pfunder: To tell you the truth, right?
Sandy Gould: All those comments. So my first CEO was hilarious. If someone would say, well, if I'm being honest, he'd be like, Oh, you weren't exactly. Thought is so ridiculous. And I agree. So here are my four things to authenticity. What does authenticity mean to me? Number one, living as who you really are. So living based on who you really feel you are, and that means, number two, expressing everything within you.
Sandy Gould: So I'll use me as an example, I love comics, I love sports, I love Dungeons and Dragons, I love being gay. I love being Jewish. I love poker. I played poker last night with a bunch of friends. I could go on. Yeah, I love sequins and I love people and I love discovering things about every person I meet. So I express every single part of myself and I love expressing every part of myself and I love when other people do too.
Sandy Gould: And I didn't know this mattered until one day we were doing a diversity presentation at Yahoo with the mayor of San Jose and who I believe was the first Latin mayor in the United States. And an employee came up afterwards, Alison, an engineering leader, and she thanked us for the presentation. And I said, yeah, this was really great.
Sandy Gould: The learning was amazing. Right. And she said, yeah, but that's not what I'm thinking for. And I said, what are you thanking me for? And she said, I'm thanking you for how you dressed for today's event. I was wearing all gold sequins. And I said, why are you thanking me for that? And our CEO was standing next to us, by the way.
Sandy Gould: So I thought it was like fun and Allison's very honest, brilliant person. I was like, why are you thanking me for that? And she said, because it tells all of us, we can show up as exactly who we are every day. And I just never thought about that before, that that mattered to the, in the way she expressed it.
Sandy Gould: And I was like, Oh, and that was sort of my first inkling about authenticity as an unlock. So being, living as who you really are and feel expressing all those parts of you. Part three is saying what you really believe. And that leads to part four, which is something I recently came up with in the last year in discussions with this, this guy, Ryan Nair, who's just a brilliant, empathic, insightful leader.
Sandy Gould: We were talking and we've been playing this game. We're not really strangers. And we used it as a, as an opener at executive offsites, because it asks you all these really important It's in questions. It's a great game.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. it's so, it's really powerful. It started like a social media account, which was just moving and wonderful.
Sandy Gould: So after we, I brought this to one of our onsites and then Nair actually took it and programmed it into our weekly meetings so that it would, it's how we open our meetings. And so one of the questions prompted me to come up with a question because when I saw that game, I'm like, well, I've been doing this game as like a profession my whole life.
Sandy Gould: Cause I'm trying to come up with questions all the time to learn about people. So I came up with this. Question, which was say something you've always never said, which means you've always been thinking it, but never said it. And so that's my fourth thing about authenticity. Authenticity, you'll achieve authenticity.
Sandy Gould: I believe when the things you've never said to someone that are always in your mind. You say, and it could be trivial. Like for instance, I get very impatient at meetings, especially if we talk about something too much, I'm just too impatient. I'm like, we talked about it twice, make a decision. Let's move on.
Sandy Gould: So that would be me saying like, Hey everybody. And I, you know, back at Yahoo, I had a boss who made fun of me. He's like, if we don't wrap this up quick, Sandy's going to check out and just start like looking at his phone or whatever. I can't over deliberate on something. Yeah. I want to dig into it. I want to resolve it and I want to move on.
Sandy Gould: So, but also if you have a relationship, like let's say you and I've been friends forever and there's something that I do that you don't like, but you've always just let go. It's the thing of that. And that is scary, but really powerful. Those are the four dimensions to me, at least lately, that I've thought about a lot on authenticity.
Shawn Pfunder: I wonder whether two and three. of your list. I have the assumption this could be way off and way wrong. You've been doing this for a long time. I have the assumption that those two are extremely difficult for most people. So even uncovering the ability to be who you really are, I think people probably go Till 80 and then decide, wait a second, like, this is who I am.
Shawn Pfunder: Yep. This is who I want to be. I guess, how do you address that? Especially in a company, maybe this gets to even just this uncovering your origin story and uncovering your superpower. But how do you facilitate, I don't even want to say in an organization, even just with the people that you know, or your friends or your nephew or your niece, like you see it and you see that there's this potential, you see that there's the super, or you can just feel like, okay, they're caged up.
Shawn Pfunder: Like they're afraid to be who they really are in some way. How do you uncover that? Or even better, I'm making it sound like we're both gurus and we're capable of doing this and we know exactly who we are. How do you do it in yourself? I guess both of those.
Sandy Gould: Okay, so it does happen to take the span of a human lifetime to figure this out.
Sandy Gould: No big deal. No big deal. Two, it's only unlocked through experience. You cannot conceptually get there. We are experiential beings as much as that frustrates our idealistic mind. Yeah. And it happens through courage and support and the building of trust. And it happens, you know, 95 percent of epiphany is trauma.
Sandy Gould: So 95 percent of discovery and transformation is trauma. Revelation, 95 percent of revelation is trauma. 5 percent is epiphany. It's like you figure it out. You wake up one day and go like, Oh, I just figured something out with no pain and no positive experience. So most is going to happen because we go through challenges, pain, we hit walls, something's not working anymore.
Sandy Gould: So that's point number one. Point number two, you know, there's all these things we all do. We do the Enneagram and we do personality tests, a million of them. They're two dimensional. So while they're great, they only show a snapshot, right? But it's more of it is discovered through your friends and your colleagues and your family and your relationships.
Sandy Gould: And you're creating, I think when you, and we're going to go back to talking about building trust, but when you build trust and you feel safe with a set of people, leaders, relationships, colleagues, advisors, therapists, et cetera. You're going to come to these moments of discovery and then you're going to make real choice about who you want to be or continue to be or how you want to change.
Sandy Gould: And so a lot of times what I try and do is realize that and then for myself and other people say, since we're going to hit some wall of trauma at some point, it would be better if we discovered this before we hit those walls. So if it's coming anyway, just tell me now, right? If you see a pattern in my behavior or I realize a pattern, like let's try and discover and be looking for it and learn about it.
Sandy Gould: It will still take multiple iterations, but those, those moments are really powerful. And I will say that as a friend, this is sort of an interesting thing about my upbringing. I think I got it from, I've always known that a fundamental part of Friendship and relationship is loyalty. And in that loyalty is this demand to be honest.
Sandy Gould: And I didn't realize that was so fundamental in me. And then there was this moment where I had this very close friend who was in a relationship that wasn't good. And I had to tell them it wasn't good. And I knew that was going to potentially put the relationship at risk. And it did for a while, but we recovered from it.
Sandy Gould: And so, but I had to do it. There was no, I'm not going to tell them this is a bad situation for them. I have to do that. So that's number one. Number two, where I started to realize that it was a quality in me was when I was interviewing for this job a few years ago. I'd been recruited to this company as a chief people officer, really interesting company.
Sandy Gould: And close to the end, I was giving them an all day presentation on, you know, a roadmap of like, The next year, two years for the people's strategy for the company. And they were very excited about me and I liked them. And so they said like, we want to learn more, you know, we can check references, but what's like a better way to go beyond references to learn more about you.
Sandy Gould: And I said, Oh, I have an idea. It should totally spontaneous. I said, why don't I just ask three or four people that work with me and for me to join the presentation so that after I walk you through the people's strategy, they're there. You can talk to them about me and I can step out if you want, but I don't think I need to because I think they'll be honest with you.
Sandy Gould: And they were like, you're comfortable doing that. I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Like, of course you're going to, you should know who I am. You shouldn't hire me because I'm creating some like image that isn't true. I'm going to be super, super honest about what I'm good at, what I'm not, et cetera. So will they.
Sandy Gould: Cause they're all, a few of them work for me and I'm like, and then two were peers. I said they have the strengths I don't have. And that's why we work well together. And they know that I'm like, I know what I am and I know what I'm not. So they came on. One of my friends, one of my best friends, Jason Hawkins said, when they asked him something about like what's hardest about Sandy, they said, well, you just need to know he's going to tell you the truth.
Sandy Gould: Always. Even if it's hard and even if you're not ready for it. And he's going to do his best to make it as palatable for you as possible. But he is going to tell you, because he just will feel like being in a relationship with you, he's got to give you that information. And as soon as he said it, I'm like, yeah, that's, I just hadn't thought about the way he phrased it, but I was like, that's true.
Sandy Gould: I've probably done it to him a bunch and people do it to me too. And they need to. Right? Because that's what helps us get where we need to go.
Shawn Pfunder: We each have our, our view of the world. You experienced this during your origin story that you talked about. And in order to work really well together, in order to be friends, in order to be close, not only do I need it in order to stay close, but I'm going to want to know what your view of reality is.
Shawn Pfunder: I'm going to want you to be honest based off of that. And it seems like that's always the kindest thing anyways. Then trying to hide something or trying to pretend to be something different or trying to salvage something based off of dishonesty or not being open about how you feel.
Sandy Gould: It really is. But there are two things I have to say about that.
Sandy Gould: So people always said to me growing up, and this is going to sound like I'm a cynic, but I'm not. But I do reckon, I'm a realist about people's nature. People would always say to me, like, tell me the truth, I can handle it. No, you can't. Like, handling the truth is knowing that you actually can't handle it.
Sandy Gould: It's gonna be painful, you're gonna deny it, and you're gonna fight it for a long time. And then maybe one day you'll handle it, maybe you won't ever. Right? Yeah. So it became this funny thing to me early on because there were a few times where friends would press me or colleagues and say, tell me the truth.
Sandy Gould: And then I would, and then they couldn't handle it. The relationship was over, but it did not change my behavior. It just extended my awareness, which was to know that if that's what happens, that's what happens. But that's how I define, you know, loyalty and friendship. And so that's what I'm gonna do. So that kind of leads to this thing where, let's say you and I were talking to a bunch of people at a company at work.
Sandy Gould: Sure. And we were coaching these people to like be honest with their manager, be honest with a peer who they've been like, Oh, the person was doing something or be honest with their girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or wife or partners. We can't tell them like, it's going to work out better. People are going to handle it.
Sandy Gould: They admit those relationships may in fact break and at work. People's big reason, to not be honest, at work and in life, is, but wait, they won't handle it. Yeah, that's true. But if you stay in a relationship, no matter what kind it is, where you are contingent upon and relying upon avoiding truth, It's going to blow up, it's going to limit, and it's going to happen anyway.
Sandy Gould: So you can decide if it happens sooner and maybe perhaps a better moment or worse in a breaking moment, right? And so, and it kind of gets to the other point about the building of trust at work. You have to, people just have to know that you're invested from the beginning and you're invested for their good and you explain why that meets one of your needs.
Sandy Gould: Cause that's what they'll really trust, right? Like there's a metaphor that comes to my mind that's kind of funny, which is A zebra feels safe around a lion that just ate, more than a zebra feels safe around anything else, right? Because the lion's needs have been met. So, you know, we can tell people, Oh, trust me, right?
Sandy Gould: Tell me whatever. You know, at work, we are rewarding people for strength and we are, you know, dealing with people's limits. And so. We just always have to be aware of that. And so I think, you know, one time I was talking to this great vice president at Second Life that I'd hired, this guy named Howard Loke, and we were talking and Howard said, I trust you.
Sandy Gould: And I said, why? And we've been working together a while. We got along really well, but I could tell he was also very cautious in who he trusted and who he didn't. And I said, why? And he said, well, a few reasons. He goes, first, just the way you're listening and looking at me intently while I'm talking to you.
Sandy Gould: And like, you can't manufacture that. I'm super interested in a person's worldview and who they are and what they are doing, what they need. They can tell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the second thing. He's like, I know you love people. I can tell. And I hadn't really heard that before. I was like, Oh, that's interesting.
Sandy Gould: I still had a job to do. Right. And then as third one was, he's like, yeah. You're committed and it shows in your actions. And that's the biggest one, right? So when we're coaching people, they can tell whether it's, I'm coaching you cause I'm supposed to, I'm coaching you cause I need your performance to hit the goals I want to hit, or I'm coaching you and I really care about you and want you to be successful.
Sandy Gould: So that's the difference. And then it's the, it's saying stuff. You know, I tell people like, Hey, I want to help you be successful, but if you're not being successful at some point, I will make sure you know. Yeah. I'll make sure you're not surprised. Right. Yeah. And I think those things matter. And then single biggest thing I just have to mention for trust.
Sandy Gould: I learned this from a bunch of people in my career, but especially like a bunch of the ERGs. So the diversity resource groups that we had at Yahoo. When we were talking about building trust between them and leadership, they would say, it's about people who have our back in a battle mode. And as soon as they said that to me, I went back in time and thought of every manager who came to me in a situation where I had created a fire, rightfully or wrongfully.
Sandy Gould: And said, don't worry, Sandy, I got you. And they did. You know what I mean? Steve at Disney, Jackie, Yahoo. Like I can point to the people who had my back in best and worst moments. And I knew it was unconditional, even though if I failed and failed and failed and failed, they'd both have to fire me. Right. But I knew that wasn't their intention.
Sandy Gould: They didn't want that to happen. They weren't going to let it. And even though the pressure was on and it would have been easier for them to dodge politically, they didn't. And nothing takes the place of that.
Shawn Pfunder: You know, imagine that. I think, you know, I've experienced it a few times. So to imagine that from the C suite at a company that when things are going south, or there's a really big issue, or they're losing favor in the marketplace, like whatever it is, the, they just got.
Shawn Pfunder: You know, they just got reamed by the board or something that then that doesn't translate into them sort of regressing into their, their, I don't know, base selves and coming after people and that, like, you feel like they've got your back.
Sandy Gould: You're hitting on the idea of fear, right? So fear is at the center of all of us.
Sandy Gould: Because again, we're born broken. So we feel like we have to fix something, be perfect. Human condition, two very different ways we deal with it. We take the fear and we fight it by creating, connecting, loving, and learning. Then we discover that we have superpowers based on our difference. So we start to turn from shame about our difference to pride.
Sandy Gould: And then once we love that as a strength in ourselves, we can love it in others. Because it's not threatening, it's actually fortifying, right, and connective. And then there's the other way people deal with fear, which is They're, they feel weak from it and their difference, they can't find strength and self love for it.
Sandy Gould: So they go from fear to anger about that, then hate in others who can be different, which is where I think racism comes from.
Sandy Gould: And then that unfortunately leads to bad things, bad outcomes. And so it's, you know, those people you and I are talking about who in that tough moment have your back instead of being afraid and just protecting themselves.
Sandy Gould: That just tells you they're going to be there no matter what. Yeah.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. They'll hopefully be a part of your life regardless of where you're at and where you're working and everything else. Cause you build that trust with them. Yeah. That makes sense. All right. One more question. We've got to wrap things up, but it's because I love this.
Shawn Pfunder: We've talked about the superpowers, authenticity, being honest, and all of those things have to be in play for employees to grow. How do we, you know, our listeners, people that are like, yeah, that sounds really great. I'm on the people team, I make communications, I don't know, I'm doing employment, brand. How do I encourage something like that or develop something like that at scale?
Shawn Pfunder: Like, how do I do? It's like, for me, I'm like, oh yeah, you can do that with 50 people. Like, I'll do it with 50 people even if they don't work for me, you know? But how do you do something like that or create a space for that at a company? Any recommendations for everybody? So things I know that, that they'll be interested, this all makes sense.
Shawn Pfunder: How do you do that?
Sandy Gould: So I think there's four things you do. One is, it goes back to my system of accountability, right? Those six points about how you build. So in scaling. You have to build across those categories, right? The say it, do it, reward it, process, hire, fire, promo. So, let's start with onboarding. So that's where you bring people in the door.
Sandy Gould: And a lot of companies maybe miss the opportunity with great onboarding to accelerate their time to impact, ensure they're integrated to the community, map success. But that's where you bind them to the mission. You make sure that the CEO talks to everybody. I meet everybody. Like, you really create connection.
Sandy Gould: And you say, this is who we are. And this is what will drive success, and what we want from you. So at Yahoo, for instance, we used to say, I would meet with employees every week, in New Hire Orientation, and I would say, we want you to change at least half of what you find. We hired you because we want you to imprint the company with your personality.
Sandy Gould: You're different, and we want that difference. That's going to lead to our success.
Sandy Gould: So if they hear us saying it and Marissa would show up and do the same thing, say the same things, say it, do it, reward it, then they start to see truth, right? Consistency. So onboarding, the hiring, hire people that you think are, have radical candor.
Sandy Gould: Right? Are going to challenge, are going to speak up, raise their voice. Then I think the third thing is you create psychological safety and trust by a few different things. By having managers you've trained to do that and make sure they know that's the way they're going to be successful. Yeah. So what does that look like?
Sandy Gould: That looks like managers hire people that they know would speak up. And challenge them. And when those people speak up in meetings, they reward them. So like when I got to Yahoo, one of the things I did is I really pushed people to speak up and it had been a very political, tumultuous time before I got there.
Sandy Gould: So people were afraid to, they're like heads down, that's the safe way to go. And they told me that. Be quiet. Yeah. Just be quiet. Get through the storm. And I said, well, I need something different. I want you all to speak up and say what you really think. I want you to challenge me because that's how we're going to come up with great ideas.
Sandy Gould: Like, I remember I got there and they said, when are you going to tell us our strategy? And I said, I'm not telling you your strategy. We're going to build the strategy together. I don't know what it is. I just got here. You're the ones who know it, right? So when we started building it, as people started speaking up and challenging, I started giving them promotions and responsibility in front of the whole team.
Sandy Gould: And very quickly, the reason I knew this is one day I was working with this group. We had six people that were doing communications across the whole company. And I was asked to sort of unite them and align them. And I called them the Avengers, of course. So one day they said they were arguing about something and I had one point of view, somebody else had a different point of view and we agreed with the other person's point of view.
Sandy Gould: We wanted their perspective. And then they said to me, like, We need leaders to do what you just did. And I'm like, what's that? And they said, you create psychological safety. That was the first time I heard that term, by the way. And I said, what does that mean? And how did I do that? Cause I didn't, I was not aware I had done that.
Sandy Gould: And they're like, you just made it clear to us that you didn't have to be right. That you were after the best answer. And when the best answer wasn't yours, you supported it. And again, for me, my upbringing learning second nature, right? But not to them and not in corporate spaces. And so you've got to facilitate that at the manager level, at the relationship level, but show it at the corporate executive, everybody level and take action on it so that people say, remember, need based people go like, Oh, if I speak up in a meeting and challenge the CEO or Sandy or somebody's idea, I'll get recognized.
Sandy Gould: I'll get supported. I'll be given responsibility. I'll get promoted. So now it's filling their names. Yeah. So then the system's in place. So things like safe space is also super important. Can't underestimate how transformative and terraforming, to use a nerdy sci fi word, changes people's worldview. If you can gather people together and let them say whatever they want within, you know, reason of respectability, but say like, I think the CEO is wrong.
Sandy Gould: I don't like how he handled that situation or she handled that situation or you handled that situation. I had one last year where the people gave tough feedback about something. One of our execs did the next week that exec showed up and said, I own it. Like you're right. That was not me being a good executive.
Sandy Gould: I own it. I could have done better. I'm working on doing better. And then people sent me a bunch of emails saying that was really helpful. Like we really appreciate that. So, and that was, you know, at the senior executive level. So I think you have to do those things as you scale. The key to scale is micro community.
Sandy Gould: So you can't try and monolithically control anything, but empower these values and reward them into the leaders and let them go build their community and their micro culture.
Sandy Gould: But cultures will connect in a cellular way at this, about the systematic set of principles. We all really believe that. And then you have to hold the line to continue to reward it, hire that, promote.
Sandy Gould: So that people know like, yeah, the people getting promoted to the top are the ones being really honest, challenging. And who really support their people, they're themselves.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. You know, I guess in, in Sandy Fashions, I love this, that nearly every answer, like, well, there's three parts to that or four parts to that or seven parts to that.
Shawn Pfunder: I know you know this about yourself, but I love it. So in, in, in your fashion, I have three reasons why I love talking to you so much. Well, I mean, one of them is you, you, you, It's not even that you try to do it, I get that sense, but that you sort of refuse to fit in a simple cliché. Like, honestly, you're, like, yes, you're a nerd.
Shawn Pfunder: You just said terraforming. I feel like we can talk about Firefly and Star Trek now. But there's so much more that just makes you who you are. And that's what's wonderful about having conversations with you, and doesn't allow me. To simply say, okay, let's just talk about nerd stuff. Like there's, you're complex, you're a three dimensional person.
Shawn Pfunder: I think that the second part is that you care. It's evident that you care so much about people and our conversation, this leads into the third point. I think. I want to say it was like Stanislavski or some playwright that then taught actors, whatever, divided theater, movies, or entertainment into these two realms.
Shawn Pfunder: One of them being the, you're part of that. You go to it and you walk out, you're like, Oh my God, that was amazing. You drive a little bit faster in your car because you saw car races during it or whatever. You're just super excited. And then there's some, then there are the movies or films that you chew on.
Shawn Pfunder: For two, three weeks, a month later, you're talking to your friends about I Heart Huckabees and how bizarre that was and wonderful at the same time. Where the movies do both. And it's not, or the play does both and you do both. And that's why it's so much. That's why I enjoy this so much. I'll be thinking about and chewing on all these things moving forward, but I'll also be like, Hey, you guys, I just met this guy and he was wearing multicolor sequin, like, like bomber jacket.
Shawn Pfunder: It's not just a, Hey, look at me. This is like a robe. It's like, Oh, I've, I've taken the skinhead bomber jacket from, you know, like Eastern Europe and now it's all, Sequenced out and everything, which is wonderful. So, but thank you for that. Genuinely, like, I really, really appreciate it. And I love this conversation.
Sandy Gould: I have really loved this conversation. It's super inspiring. It makes me feel really lucky for just Getting, you know, the opportunity and privilege I get to engage the intersection of humanity, and I would never have met someone like you if I hadn't. You know, second, for my superpower thing, I've never met someone like you before.
Sandy Gould: Clearly, you know, many superpowers for you, but an amazing one is how you create this kind of conversation and discovery and exploration and make it personal and meaningful, which I think is really unique and powerful in a sea and a world of, you know, what we were talking about earlier of. Podcasts and LinkedIn and everything else where it's easy to commoditize and standardize and you know, Make it less than authentic less human than it could be.
Sandy Gould: I think this is really you know You have a profound set of gifts for this platform So I've loved the conversation and I'm looking forward to the many more we're gonna have
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah, fantastic. Okay, so where can people find you? Are you open to people connecting with you? Do you have a book in process?
Shawn Pfunder: Like, tell us how our listeners can follow you.
Sandy Gould: Okay, so I'm on LinkedIn. It's Sandy Gould. You can find me there, I think, easiest. And I welcome people reaching out with ideas and perspectives and input. I love that, and I love the learning. I am working on a book, which I'm hoping will be out by the end of the year.
Sandy Gould: It is about superpowers and the fact that they are real. I've interviewed over 50,000 people. I've worked with over 50,000 people. So in talking to just over a hundred thousand people, I think I figured out some of the patterns I learned from people about where the superpowers are and why difference is real.
Sandy Gould: And so, my theory of superpowers is in that story as well as some of the stuff we've talked about. And so hopefully people will read that and engage me on it because my goal in that book, is singularly what my mission has been. I really want to help people discover and unleash their superpowers and see diversity, difference, and authenticity as the unlock to it, right?
Sandy Gould: So that people start creating their superpowers from the time they're whatever, 10, 12, 14, all the way through to forever, because you keep creating and changing them as you do. So, and then, They'll be more, you know, I'll do more stuff soon. And, you know, you can find me on Instagram, TikTok, more stuff coming soon for sure. More creative stuff.
Shawn Pfunder: Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Sandy. Yeah. Keep in touch.
Sandy Gould: Thank you for the amazing experience. I feel transformed and I look forward to more of that.