by Gay Gaddis
I arrived at my first meeting of the executive committee exactly on time—at 7:30 a.m. When I walked in, the likes of Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines, and other Texas business luminaries were seated around the table. I was surprised the meeting had obviously already started. Herb hollered at me and said, “If you aren’t at least ten minutes early, little lady, you are LATE.” When I was elected chairman of the group several years later, my first act was moving the meetings from 7:30 to 8:30, which meant that we all had to be there by 8:20. Crazy Texans.
Texas has one of the hottest economies in the world, and I give my colleagues on the Business Leadership Council a lot of credit for helping to make that happen. They have made the state a better place to do business. And they have created amazing opportunities for the people of Texas.
It has been great for me to stay on top of key topics and listen to experts from all over the country talk about potential solutions for challenging issues facing Texas. Learning more and more about how politics works has helped me negotiate and influence for T3. Being part of this group has given me a unique platform to give back to the great state of Texas with my time and commitment to excellence.
Bulls. Bears. Boston.
A few years ago I got a call from one of my C200 colleagues, Kim Bishop. She does executive search and board of director placements. Kim said, “Gay, I have an opportunity you are going to be interested in at Monotype.” Monotype is a global company and owns over 20,000 typefaces that they license for everything from the printed page to all of our digital devices, even the displays in our cars. After I met the board members and key members of the Monotype staff in Boston, I knew I would enjoy working with them, collaborating and solving problems. I respected them and the operations of the company. And I was thrilled to learn that all of the pre-meeting documents that I used to struggle with when I was on the LCRA board are now automatically loaded on my iPad. How cool is that?
Today my focus at Monotype is to help the company align with the creative communities and to champion innovation. Life comes full circle. I have always loved typefaces. From the time I was a little girl, I would sit at my desk with pen and ink and practice calligraphy and typefaces. Later, as I studied art direction as part of my art schooling at the University of Texas, I would spend hours learning to draw and “noodle” every popular typeface—including Helvetica and Times Roman.
I have learned more about executive compensation, acquisitions, and the SEC guidelines than I ever dreamed of! The due diligence around the governance of the company and challenges we face as board members has made me a better CEO at T3. It is exciting to be actively involved in growing a dynamic, publicly traded global company.
The Most Exhilarating Experience of My Life
I had another opportunity to say yes. I had the privilege to be invited by then secretary of defense Ashton Carter in 2015 to attend a weeklong behind-the-scenes look at our United States military. Along with a group of about twenty-five other notable leaders from all walks of life, we spent six days from way before dawn until late into the night learning about each branch of the military. It was one of the most awesome, inspiring experiences of my life.
I had the opportunity to fly up and down the East Coast in an Air Force C-17 cargo jet. I toured nuclear submarines, drove a coast guard cutter, dined on an aircraft carrier with the crew, and shot targets with the Army Rangers at Fort Bragg in North Carolina—one of the largest US Army installations in the world. The ranger shooting instructors teased me, saying, “I hope you can at least hit one of the targets with that pistol.” What they didn’t know is that as a cowgirl, I can handle a gun. I nailed six shots in a row, dead center! Talk about fun! They invited me to come back and shoot with them anytime. Sometimes putting yourself out there just means saying yes.
I came out alive and a much better person.
The Board of Directors Meeting in the Hot Tub
For many years I have traveled at least a third of the time. Long flights, often delayed. Endless meetings. Hotel after hotel. But when I come home, usually on a Friday night, I almost always drive out to the Double Heart Ranch for our weekly board of directors meeting. My husband and I fix a cocktail and climb into the hot tub and call the meeting to order. We catch each other up, talk about our kids and the challenges and opportunities facing the business, and laugh at all of the funny stuff that happened during the week. And we have made many, many decisions during those meetings. One good thing about the venue is that it has kept our board of directors small—just the two of us, and that has been a good thing.
I tell you a few of these stories to give you some of my perspective so you know where I’m coming from. I’ve had lots of life experiences both good and bad. Mostly good, I’m glad to say. And I have learned some lessons that may be valuable to you. I learned from my mom to make the most in life with the hand you are dealt. I learned from my first job that I have to collaborate with people. I learned what I was capable of when I stepped into that huge role at Baylor at twenty-two years old. I learned to act on the power of my convictions when I had my business plan rejected and started my own company. I learned to access my true grit when we lost our largest account. And I learned that we each have the power to make things better. I want you to have buckets and buckets of goodwill that translate directly into your personal power.
I invite you all to climb on. Let’s ride, cowgirls!
Lessons Learned: The Advertising Business
I found my place and joy in the creative, collaborative environment of the advertising business. Later, when the time was right, I took a huge leap of faith and risked it all to start my own advertising agency. Find your place. Follow your gut, and when risk is staring you in the face, embrace it. Know that if you don’t fail occasionally, you are not trying hard enough.
Evaluate risk and opportunities as a potential investment. Say no to things with poor potential. But when an amazing opportunity comes along that could change your life and create a huge upside for you and your family, raise your hand. Say YES! Throw yourself into it 100 percent, even if the timing sucks.
Fox Hastings with steer
(National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, Fort Worth, Texas)
Chapter 4
Cowgirls Are Responsible for Themselves
This is probably my favorite photo of a true cowgirl. Fox Hastings is smiling at the camera while lying in the mud holding the horns of a steer she has just thrown. She is completely owning this moment.
Her family thought she was a little wild and sent her off to a boarding school when she was fourteen. By sixteen, she had run away from the school to join the Irwin Brothers Wild West Show doing trick riding events. She had an uncanny way of knowing who she was and what she was good at in life. She was enthusiastic, strong, and an expert horsewoman. She often competed with men and thrived doing so.
In 1924 in Houston, Texas, Fox made her first appearance as a bulldogger, something women had never done before. It was and is about as dangerous as it gets in rodeo—jumping off of a horse onto the back of a five-hundred-pound steer running as fast as he can, then wrestling the steer to the ground by twisting its horns. She was a huge hit. The crowds loved her. Foghorn Clancy, a flamboyant rodeo announcer, made her the most photographed and interviewed cowgirl of the late twenties. She was a superstar.
She was tough and a true professional. She once suffered a broken rib the day before a show opened, but she went ahead and bulldogged her steer for the next three days of the performance. She had a contract to fulfill and never even thought about letting management down. She took full responsibility because the show had to go on.
“If I can just get my fanny out of the saddle and my feet planted, there’s not a steer that can last against me,”5 she said. She became the inspiration to many young women who previously thought a woman’s place was strictly in the home.
Cowgirls are raised to be responsible for themselves. At an early age their parents teach them to be self-reliant a
nd self-assured. They learn to not only take care of themselves, but they also learn the responsibility of taking care of their pets and horses. They don’t hesitate to muck a horse stall, or to exercise a horse. They learn how capable they are and approach life with a “can-do” attitude.
Saddle Your Own Horse
Connie Reeves taught generations of Texas women how to ride. She was a riding instructor at Camp Waldemar, a girls’ summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, for sixty-seven years. She helped over 30,000 girls gain confidence in their riding abilities. Connie told every one of them to “saddle your own horse.” That phrase has become legendary Texas lore. It means being able to take care of yourself and survive out on the range or in the corporate boardroom. It speaks of the need for independence, not relying on someone else to do your basic tasks. A cowgirl who saddles her own horse does not leave herself open to criticism from the hired hands. She does what needs to be done. She does it because she is self-reliant and capable. She is competent.
Cowgirls Can See Themselves Clearly
When a cowgirl thinks about what she wants to do with her life, she must be realistic and honest with herself about who she is. She is confident, adventurous, bold, steadfast, and dauntless. She is fearless because she knows what she is good at, and where she needs to improve. She is comfortable in her own skin because she is authentic. Because she is not self-absorbed, she is humble. She is not defensive. She can easily laugh at her shortcomings.
Her ability to stand back and look at herself objectively makes her powerful because it helps her set her course and focus on both strengths and weaknesses. Carl Jung wrote, “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
The ability to see yourself from afar is profound. Cowgirls can do it because they take time to listen to themselves, but with a critical ear. They are unafraid of criticism and, in fact, welcome it. They appreciate criticism because they believe their trainer’s only goal is to help improve their skills every day. If a cowgirl is holding the reins too tight, she wants to know it so she can learn how to do it correctly.
The ability to see yourself can be challenging. I had a wonderful creative director who was extremely talented. He pursued a career with T3 and we promoted him and built teams around him. But he struggled with it. One day, he came into my office and resigned. I asked him why, and he said that he loved doing creative work, but managing people was extremely difficult for him. The stress and drama of dealing with people was not what he was good at, and he understood it. He went on to build a small, focused business that has been very successful.
Apple has learned this lesson well. They measure many of their employees based on what they produce, not how many people work for them. One engineer who is super talented at code may be more valuable than one hundred other employees. They have fine-tuned their compensation policies to deal with this important reality. Finding the right ways to help people focus on what they are really good at is something that we work on every day at T3. We try not to impose traditional organization constructs on people but instead enable them to thrive with their own unique truth. If you can see yourself objectively, you can take control of yourself and methodically build your own power.
Think about helping your kids. You have the ability to step back and take a critical view of their strengths, teaching them to build on them, get stronger in and more focused on their natural abilities. Teach them to see themselves. Teach them to be quiet and listen sometimes. Send them off to sit by themselves in a deer blind for the afternoon. As my mother always said when I was confused or in the dumps, “Gay, go have a good talk with yourself.”
Understand we can’t all be great at everything. I am a big note taker. I write lots of notes in meetings and when I hear someone give a really good speech. But I have never figured out what to do with them. They end up in piles and piles. When I get too many piles I put them in sacks. Then I put the sacks in my car, where they stay too long. And, finally, when I drag them into our ranch house, my husband howls with laughter. One of the reasons is that I do not use a computer. I used to do everything, EVERYTHING, on my BlackBerry. Now I am totally addicted to my iPad and do EVERYTHING on it. So transcribing all of those handwritten notes is just too much trouble. I type so much that I just had carpal tunnel surgery on both of my hands!
I have never been able to remember my passwords either. They are probably on one of those little notes in a sack in the closet at the ranch.
Be Authentically You
Penry Price, a Google executive, once told us he had one word to describe T3: authentic. I was amazed and humbled by his comment. There is nothing more important than being who you are and walking the walk.
Cowgirls are authentic. They don’t try to be something they are not. They know who they are and how to stand tall. They don’t pretend. Around the barn she wears rubber muck boots most of the time, riding pants, and a work shirt. She is comfortable because it is a practical outfit. When she gallops into the rodeo arena wearing her show costume, with glitter and sparkles flashing from the spotlights, and a big white hat, she is just as comfortable.
Cowgirls have a sense of where they fit into the world. They make choices about what to do based on that sense, which is based on long-standing values and ethics that are learned at an early age. Cowgirls do not conform to peer pressure. They only conform to their own gut instincts.
What if you have not had parents or role models cheering you on? What if you have not had a chance to develop cowgirl instincts and values? If you put forth the effort in the classroom or in an early job—you can develop teachers or bosses who will “pump up your tires.” This was an old saying my mom brought to Texas from Missouri, and it always rings true.
I have a longtime client who is authentically a real rascal. He has hired me five times as he went from company to company. He is a guy who takes chances. He never plays by the rules. He asks for more out of people and gets more out of you than you thought you had. He loves fast cars and racing. He is fiercely competitive and has an unyielding desire to win. That is why people hire him and why I love him. He is an authentic rascal.
Being authentic means that there are some things you have to do yourself. I have flown across the country to have a private one-on-one conversation with a client about a personnel issue that needed to be handled delicately. I was the only one who could have been as candid about an abusive person on his team who needed to go. We dealt with it over lunch and I was back home for dinner that evening. He resolved the issue the next morning, and we both gained more respect for each other.
No job is too small or too big. Recently, I found myself “shoveling” mouse poop out of some shelves at our ranch. A cowgirl doesn’t flinch; she just does what needs to be done because she is authentic.
It Is about Both Dreams and Reality
Cowgirls learn a lot about life. They are taught about the power of dreams. Dreams give you the power to escape the restraints of reality. With dreams you are free to imagine, roam the earth, fly by the stars. Dreams are about what can be. They are powerful things.
Reality is something entirely different. Reality is understanding who and where you are. It requires you to be totally honest with yourself—to confront the good and bad head-on, with no hesitation or apology. Reality is about the simple facts. It is where you are. You have to look at yourself objectively to do this. It is almost an out-of-body experience, like looking at yourself from afar.
After my dad died and I began to understand how tenuous our financial situation was, I was forced to deal with my mom’s aspirational dreams for me and the stark reality of how few resources we really had. My mom never really dealt with it, so I had to. I had no choice; I garnered up the strength and did it. And I kept doing it and it has served me well. I have achieved so many dreams and found real financial success. But the lessons have been tough.
Cowgirls understand. They know how to make magic. They know that when you go through the mental process of combining dreams wi
th reality, you begin to see a road map of what you need to do to achieve your dreams. Dream big, and then be realistic, tenacious, and steadfast in taking the steps to make them come true. Cowgirls are well grounded. They understand how to make dreams come true.
Meet People Where They Are
My dad always taught me to meet people “where they are.” What he meant is that it is an art to size people up quickly and be able to almost instinctively greet and interact with them in a way that is meaningful to them and puts them at ease.
My dad worked with some of the most powerful, richest men in the Texas oil business. He also worked with poor, uneducated day laborers who helped him pull surveying measuring lines through the steamy East Texas thickets. He was totally comfortable with people on either end of the spectrum because he respected them all. He always felt it was his responsibility to find a way to actually connect with each person he met. My dad taught me as a little girl how to relate to people. He was the master at it. He told me whether you are serving homeless people at the Salvation Army or attending a state dinner at the White House, you need to make people comfortable—to meet them where they are.
One of the characters in Liberty, Texas, was Dewitt Curtis. This was in the early 1970s when Dewitt would put on his wool World War I uniform (in the beastly East Texas summer heat) and walk to the courthouse lawn. He would climb halfway up the front steps and would pull an imaginary violin out of an imaginary case and begin to play it. He would sway with the music, closing his eyes as he heard the sounds that only he could hear.