Episode 43: How Authenticity Can Lead to Success with Ravyn Miller, Senior Marketing Director at Medtroni
“Success does not come without hardship.” - Ravyn Miller
Where are you in your career journey? Does imposter syndrome stop you from being your best professional self? Does showing up authentically in your career scare you out of your (most comfortable) work from home pants?
If so, today’s episode is going to hit home. Failed it! Fam, grab your notebooks, and give a warm welcome to the most selfless, and authentic gal we’ve seen on LinkedIn, Ravyn Miller. She is a Senior Marketing Director at Medtronic with an impressive and unique background that spans from the boardroom to the pulpit. Listen in as she shares her own realization of how failing is part of the process, authenticity is her super power, and how you can lean into both. You’ll leave wanting to become a truer, more real version of YOU.
In today’s episode, Ravyn talks to us about:
How success is not linear
Why failing is a part of success, and why sharing those fails matters
The importance of being real and humble in your career journey
How failure drives innovation
Links from show discussions:
About the guest: As the Sr. Marketing Director for Medtronic’s High Power Global Growth team, Ravyn Miller is responsible for creating and executing strategies that accelerate access for patients appropriate for CRT and ICD indications. Upon graduating with a dual Master’s in Business and Divinity from Vanderbilt University, she joined the company through their Leadership Development Rotation Program (LDRP). In her previous roles at Medtronic, Ravyn worked as the Commercial Marketing Director for Venous, led a cardiac and vascular group wide market development effort focused on reducing cardiac health care disparities for women and people of color, worked as a Health Policy Fellow in DC and was the National Implementation Leader for the Cardiac and Vascular Group (CVG) Strategic Solutions Organization.
During her tenure at Medtronic, she has earned several company recognitions, such as the Marketing Excellence Award, the Champion of Change and the Star of Excellence. In 2107, she was recognized by Diversity Inc. as one of the Top 100 Emerging Leaders Under 50 and in 2019, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal named her as a Women in Business Honoree, which annually recognizes 50 of the region’s most influential women in business and community. Prior to Medtronic, Ravyn was a Sales Representative with Johnson and Johnson DePuy in Houston, TX and Nashville, TN.
A selfless leader, Ravyn seeks opportunities to advocate on behalf of other people. As a member of Medtronic’s African Descent Network (ADN) Leadership Team, she helps shape strategies aimed at creating a diverse and inclusive work environment for all employees. She also serves as an advisory for the company’s Campus Leads for Vanderbilt University’s Owen School of Management. Outside of work, Ravyn serves on the Board of Directors for Be the Match and sits on the Advisory Board of the following organizations: Odonata Health, National Minority Quality Forum (NMQF), the University of Minnesota’s Venture Center Business Advisory Group and the Minnesota Orchestra’s Young People’s Symphony Concert Association. She is also a former member of the State of MN’s Health Equity Board.
Ravyn is an ordained minister, a sought after speaker on topics ranging from leadership to health equity and proudly embraces her self-proclamation of being a “brunch enthusiast.”
About the Host: Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the failed it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram here. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
Erin (00:00):
Raven on a, on a side note here, I'm gonna stop this recording. I'm having an issue of seeing your audio like you see on Zencaster how it shows my, my vocals right now? Do you see, or you're looking at that when I'm not seeing yours go. So let me stop this and I'm going to piece it together. We won't stop that. I'm just going to stop this recording. All right. We're back.
Erin (00:20):
Hey there. My name is Erin Diehl and I'm a half Southern half Midwestern mama. Some call this voice a nasal twang who took $5,000 to build and scale a one of a kind experiential organization that improves the lives of corporate professionals through personal development, humanity, and humor, along the way. I've built client relationships with some of the most notable companies in the country all while attracting a rockstar team of experts and hilarious facilitators. Sounds pretty awesome. Right? Well, what I didn't tell you is that my resume also includes a long list of comedy shows. I bombed improv teams. I didn't make companies who told me no and many heartache. When it came to becoming a mother, I want to show you the real deal of the grit, creativity, and determination. It takes to overcome your disappointments, embrace the suck and design the career you could only dream about. I believe we all have our own unique gifts that we bring to the world and it is our mistakes that help to unwrap them. Welcome to failed it!
Erin (01:31):
Hey, failed it! Fam it's Erin here, and I want to read our failed it! Fam member of the week review. This one is from scmesk. I want to say SCMesk. That's that's what I'm going with here. But scmesk writes passion and playfulness at work. Erin does an amazing job of engaging a listening audience. Scmesk first of all, thank you so much for taking the time to write this review because of you more failed it! Fam members are getting added to this podcast every single day. So in order to say, thank you, I'm going to give you an improve you e-learning course of your choice. This is a DIY e-learning course. You can find them on our website at learntoimproveit.com/onlinetrainings. And here we have 10 different offerings. They are three week DIY e-learning courses.
Erin (02:31):
You can pick any one of our 10 offerings to come to you. They are a $50 value that we're going to give to you absolutely free. So scmesk, thank you so much for leaving this review failed it! Fam. Just a reminder to you. If you could, I would kiss your babies. I will hug your necks. I will do all the things because these reviews mean so much to us. We literally read every single one. And what it does is it helps us climb in the rankings of iTunes. It helps us bring more people to the show, and I love creating this content for you, absolutely free to you every single week. So if you could pay it forward and leave ya sis a review, we would love you. So that is on iTunes. We, I know a lot of people use Spotify. Itunes is really where we start seeing results.
Erin (03:26):
So if you go on iTunes, just scroll to the bottom of this show, hit five stars, hit read review. You can leave one, two, and then you will be entered into win and improve your e-learning course of choice. Thank you again, scmesk, give me an email info@learntoimproveit.com and we will get you all set up with your improved you e-learning course, let's get to failin' it my friends. Hey failed it! Fam welcome. I am so pumped and I know I say that a lot, but I'm jazzed. I got jazz hands to have a woman here today that you are going to love. Welcome to the show, Ravyn Miller.
Erin (04:07):
I love you. Okay. We will tell the failed it! Fam the story of our relationship, which is very long-winded. No, we will tell them the story in just a minute, but before we do, normally I read a guest bio, I thought it would be so fun for you to, in a minute or less give us your highlight reel of your career because your career is fascinating. So I'm gonna set the timer. Can you tell us in one minute who you are, what you do and the highlight reel of your career trajectory. Okay. You ready? Ravyn? Sounds good. Here we go. Minute on the clock go.
Ravyn (04:42):
All right. So, Hey, my name is Ravyn Miller. I'm currently a senior marketing director at Medtronic in just a really quick snapshot. My first job was actually a sales rep in training at Johnson and Johnson. I got that rep job after failing 10 interviews prior to that did pretty good as a rep and decided that I needed to have a pivot in my career. Went back to school to be a pastor, said, no, not really, then went to the business school and actually graduated with both degrees. And in that process got introduced to Medtronic. So started out in Medtronic marketing with our structural heart team, focused on disparities of care, moved to DC to work on healthcare policy then went into a role that looked at how do you leverage the new affordable care act to have value-based conversations with hospital administrators, went on to do commercial product marketing for our Venus business. And now sit back in our cardiac rhythm management team where I am leading global growth strategy. So in one minute or less, I think I got it.
Erin (05:56):
You nailed it! Oh my god, it was a minute and 15, but I gave it to you. Cause I was like, this is fascinating. I'm going to let her keep going, but okay. You've been at Medtronic for 12 years, almost, almost 12 years. That is amazing. Okay. I want to also ask this what's one fun fact about Ravyn Miller that we couldn't tell from your resume or your LinkedIn profile.
Ravyn (06:21):
I am a brunch queen. I do brunch every Sunday, even in the virtual environment. I actually have two establish brunch chapters, one in DC, one in Minneapolis, where we literally go around the city and do brunch. Now of course we have to do everything virtually, which is not as much fun, but listen, if you say brunch I'm all the way in.
Erin (06:48):
Oh my God. You're making me want a mimosa. What is your brunch fave? Like if you could have any one item at brunch, what would it be?
Ravyn (06:57):
Okay. So when I think about brunch, I think probably one of my favorite items to get in addition to the endless mimosas. So let's just start with that. It's probably a really savory French toast. It's it's still my friend and hugs me from the inside and then a close second, which is on the other end of the health spectrum is avocado toast. So between those two, I'm usually a pretty happy camper.
Erin (07:25):
The sweet and the savory I love. Okay. You can do both on that. I you're really making me want a mimosa right now, but we're not going to do it. We're going to say we're going to stay true failed it! Fam for you. And I'm Ravyn, to have you here is a true gift. I want to share with our failed it! Family, how we became friends. Okay. Because I'm calling you my friend, because I just think you're awesome. So we met you guys. This is a long story. No, it's not. We literally met through LinkedIn and I found you because someone, we both mutually know, liked one of your posts. And so I was kind of just scrolling, doing the scroll. And I saw a post that a friend of mine liked and it was about failure. So automatically I stopped in my tracks and I said, yes, yes, yes.
Erin (08:14):
And then I was like, who is this chick went to your page and I read a few of your posts back. And I, I started to just say, Oh my God, like she, this is it. This is what failed it is about. And what I loved and what I saw on those posts was that you have found your voice to lift others. And I want to start here because I think, you know, we, we got your high level success resume, and you are successful. You are crushing it okay. In your career. But I know you talk a lot about the fails that you even, you know, alluded to at the beginning of the show, how did you get to this place of authenticity? And then from that, what inspired you to start posting and using your voice on LinkedIn?
Ravyn (09:05):
I think that's a really great question Erin, and thank you for that. For me, I could not believe how hard of a time I felt like I was having in order to try to get to the next level. So here I am, in my role, performing what I think is on par or exceeding expectations, and still just not able to quite move up the way I thought I would. I thought success when you see people talk about it, it's like this smooth road, very linear. And so I'm like, man, why, why am I, why am I not having that experience? But something must be wrong with me. And then long story short found out that there are others who are also having similar challenges, similar aha moments where they're just like, no success is not this linear road. It's actually very jagged. But I think oftentimes when I look at like social media posts specifically on LinkedIn, all they do is talk about the wins that they have, the things that they're able to accomplish.
Ravyn (10:06):
And for me, that's not a reality of life. So for me, I felt like the best thing I could do by way of adding value is to tell people the truth about what this journey looks like. So you're saying that I'm successful. I appreciate that. But success does not come without hardship. And what I did not want is for people to feel like they're out here on this Island, having this imposter syndrome, struggling through that, for me, it was like, how do I create this village? And give people comfort in knowing that failure is part of the journey it is to be expected. No one is perfect. So no matter how perfect they make their life look on social media behind that is the truth where we all are feeling along this journey. And so for me, that is what I wanted to highlight and to give people comfort that they're not in this failure ship alone.
Erin (11:05):
Girl. Oh, okay. Raven, I am first and foremost, that is why this show exists. You just highlighted the things that I was feeling when creating failed it. Okay. When I hear you say those things, and when I hear the, the challenges that I know, the people who listen to this show have it's those things it's, we are sick of this highlight reel. We're sick of hearing the success because we know that there are ways there are a hundred different paths to achieve success. And the way that everybody goes about it is completely different, right? For you finding this voice and allowing others to hear your journey, and also for your authentic voice to be a source of light and be a resource for others is something I think that is so valuable. Do you feel, and I know you have this, you are an ordained minister, which I just found out today, just so cool. Do you feel like this is your calling? Do you feel like this is something you were meant to do?
Ravyn (12:05):
That's an interesting question. I did not think that at first and now I do. I think part of my calling is just to bring light to places where people feel like they're in the shadows by themselves. I do that. Of course, through a pulpit, but the pulpit for me now feels much more fluid. And so it's not just in a church setting where you have pews in front of you. It is wherever there is a heart that is down ahead that needs to be lifted or an ear, that just needs an opportunity to be listened to. So for me, that then said, this is not limited to the four walls of anybody's church. This is wherever people are ministry could take place. And I don't do it in a way where I'm trying to point people in a particular direction, but I am trying to at least keep people's heads in the game and let them know that they have a friend who understands where they've been and potentially even where they want to go and where I can offer advice or offer a verbal hug. That's essentially what I'm trying to do. So yeah, I do think there's a lot of purpose behind it. And I'm actually hoping that what I do to encourage others can then be potentially multiplied by giving people an empowered spirit to also share their stories as well.
Erin (13:40):
Amen. Okay that's all I have to say. AMEN! I just think you're so fantastic. Okay. I wanted to read a post of yours and it actually may be the post that led me to you. Okay. So this is a post from Ravyn and this is, I saw this on LinkedIn. And when I read this, after I read this Ravyn, I want you to tell me how many likes I got. Cause it was something like upwards of 800, I want to say, okay. So it says, I failed. I learned, I got stronger. I failed years ago, I met with a large customer to make a presentation. I pitched it several times. So I knew the material well so well that I did not do much preparation. Within 10 minutes of our discussion, I realized the air of my ways. I was unable to answer questions related to how our solution would meet their specific needs, insecurities crept in. And I focused more on those than I did on the conversation.
Erin (14:41):
We still got the deal later, but I left that meeting, knowing I had performed poorly. I learned. Now I rehearse every presentation. Every one. I know where to pause for responses. I identify emotions I want to elicit. I practice speed, tone. And if applicable my physical moves. I play out scenarios as if I'm in the audience. What questions would I ask? Is that joke corny, offensive or funny? Does the presenter know why this is important to me? Three. Failures may still occur no matter how prepared I am. That does not mean, or that does not give me permission to check out. When my insecurities kicked in, I made that moment about me instead of my customer. Now I stay focused and recover in the moment versus days later, I get stronger. Failures do not define us. They make us stronger, cheers to failures, making us fabulous, fearless, and a force of nature. And then you asked, when did you realize that failing was a part of the process? So Ravyn, you just heard me list or read this amazing post. What do you feel when you hear those words that you wrote?
Ravyn (15:52):
You know, it's a, it's an interesting question. It makes me go back to why I wrote it in the first place. So a couple of reasons why. One is, I was talking to some of my mentees and they would often come to the conversation, especially new people coming to the conversation saying, you know, Ravyn, you know, I'm just watching your journey and it's so amazing. And I want to be just like you when I you know, go throughout my career. And I'm like do you? Because if you do that means you're about to mess up a lot, that might not be on my resume, but I can guarantee you that this career journey has not been linear. And in fact that it has had many zigzags, left turns you know, felt like it derailed at some points. And so be careful what you ask for now.
Ravyn (16:46):
I do think those failures may be better, but don't look at my life and feel like it was super easy. So I was trying to like tell them that. So they, one had a dose of reality. And then I think the second thing is, is I was wondering, how did they get there? Why would they think that? And a lot of it came from what they saw on LinkedIn, or even what I saw on LinkedIn and other social media posts where people kind of post whatever is perfect happening in their lives, which we all know is not a true reflection of what actually happens in life. And so I started feeling like I was living in imposter syndrome in a different kind of way. An Imposter where I wasn't telling my full story of what was happening along my career journey. And I didn't want people to look at me and feel like everything was perfect because that is not who I am.
Ravyn (17:43):
So with a little bit of fear and trembling, I posted that particular testament of what happened in my career and low and behold, it was over 800 people that seem to like it or get some level of liberation from it. I mean, the comments were, I'm so glad to finally hear the truth about somebody's career or, Oh my goodness. It's so good to know that I'm not the only one. And those are just the public comments. The things that we saw or that I saw in my direct message were full stories of people telling me where they had failed, where they felt like a failure, where they did not think they would be able to bounce back, but to see somebody at my level, be willing to share where they messed up and still bounce back from it gave them hope that they could come back from whatever mistake or failure they had.
Ravyn (18:37):
And that to me held more weight than any of the other posts or types of posts that I have made before then. And so that, to me said, a couple of things, one people are craving to hear the truth, and then secondly, that people can be liberated based on that truth. And I've used that as my North star since then, and I've been pleased that people are now feeling as if they're not the only one.
Erin (19:04):
Oh my gosh. What's funny is I might keep it real for the failed it! Fam. I've heard you explain this now twice because we're recording again. I feel like now in, in hearing this again, Ravyn, I mean, it is so true and, and almost just apparent in what you just said, what you're feeling, what you've heard from the response to your post, what we're seeing in 2021 and what we saw in 2020 is that people are craving authenticity. People are craving it. And I feel like you showing up as a senior leader, almost gave permission to those who are rising to be in your shoes, to see failure as something that we celebrate.
Erin (19:49):
Overachiever, perfectionist, career-minded, focused. Did those words resonate with you? It's Erin, your recovering perfectionist turn failfluencer here. And I want to give a shout out to all my type a leaders out there who are failing it left and right, and this quote, unquote, new normal. Those words are gross, but they are unfortunately true. So that's why myself and team have decided to celebrate F words at work. That's right. We at improve It! Are throwing a word party that's F as in Frank, and we can bring that party to you and your team. Now our newest virtual offering F words at work is a virtual keynote delivered by yours truly. You need a way to engage 50 plus or even hundreds of your team via zoom? Our one hour F words at work know we'll do just that. Now, unlike our workshops where we are in and out of breakout rooms, this keynote is a way to appeal to the masses. I don't want you to worry because it is still uber interactive and the F words may not be what you think. So with the notion that failure, plus the frequency of failure equals the fundamentals of success. I'll take you and all of the other recovering perfectionists of your organization on a virtual journey filled with laughs, learning. Reach out to us at learntoimproveit.com on our contact us page to learn more. And I cannot wait to drop some F-bombs with you.
Erin (21:39):
I want to ask you this. Why do you think it's so important? Especially people in leadership roles like yourself to talk about failure with their teams to talk about it, not only with their teams, but with their organizations and people they mentee or mentor, I should say. Why did, why do you think that's so important?
Ravyn (21:56):
Yeah. So that's a good question. Maybe a couple of things I would, I would say to answer it. The first thing is I do think failure is good. I think we have inadvertently made failure like this vile character. And it's actually not because I would say anything that is disruptive in our markets. If we're going to do anything that is new and cutting edge, just by nature of it being new and different means, we don't know what's going to happen so there's inherent risk that comes with that.
Ravyn (22:30):
Oftentimes there is failure when you make some of those first moves, but you are still falling forward and getting in a place that might be more positive than you were beforehand. And then it allows us to make sure that we aren't going along just with group think or doing things that we always know are going to be this predictable outcome, but it allows us to be more innovative in our thinking and innovative in our action. So in some ways I think we view failure as something that is good. I think the second thing, especially for someone who is a people manager or mentoring people, is we need to tell the real story. We need to tell people the real story about what they are encountering, what they could encounter based on the encounters that we've had, because what it does is one, it makes us human.
Ravyn (23:27):
And it gives people hope that they're not the only one that has gone through things like this. In some ways I think it makes us more authentic because it also allows us through these failures to give people real examples on how we've been able bounce back, because oftentimes our mentees are coming to you or teammates are coming to you. They're coming to you because they've been crushed, because they've had an experience that they don't think that they can overcome. And we can share our real testimony, not this theoretical, just fail fast, ain't nobody trying to hear that. We want to hear the truth about what you mean when you say fail fast, what situation were you in where you could have made a better decision? What situation were you in, where you did not evaluate all of the data? What situation were you in where, you know, you did not show up your best, but you were able to still recover from that because that is the truth that is going to set people free. By doing that, not only are we setting people up for better success, we also remain humble as leaders and not drinking our own Koolaid, because what we also don't want to do is be so arrogrant-like and, and this and this leader that has his accomplishments that nobody else can achieve, because that also is not true, right? If I lose my job today, somebody will replace me tomorrow. I'm very clear about that. So the humility that comes with also admitting your failures, I think keeps our egos in check.
Erin (25:05):
I hope every leader in the entire world is listening to this podcast right now. Listen up people. Oh my God. It's so true. It is exactly. I'm again, sitting here nodding. Yes, yes, yes. And one of the things that I really like that you alluded to is that failure can be seen as a gift. You said, it's a good thing, right? We don't need to make it a villain. It's actually the biggest lesson. The lessons we learned that we can carry forward, not only for ourselves, but for our teams that can make us better human beings and make our team stronger. One of the things too, it, you know, we've used them. We're a professional development company. We use improv comedy. One of the biggest fundamentals is there are no mistakes, only gifts on stage. And that's where this podcast is born out of that mentality, that the things that happen to us, they happen to us for a reason because we're supposed to take that lesson and apply it. And then if we can learn it ourselves, then we can teach it. And I think that's what you are saying is, is by not sharing these things with the workforce that is coming after us, that we're raising to take our jobs essentially, we are doing them a disservice by not being authentic.
Ravyn (26:25):
That's right. And I will say from a learning perspective, I feel like I have my deepest lessons, my deepest learning lessons when I failed. So for instance, you know, there was a product launch that we were looking to drive was going to be like, one of the largest product that our industry has seen in 10 years and long story short, we botched it. And we botched it because of misalignment amongst the leadership team. And we had to learn how to make some quick tidbits to put that launch back on track. And we did. And, you know, we were able to still meet our revenue targets and actually exceed them. But I would never have known how to pivot and become more agile and become a better problem solver and critical thinker on a multi-dimensional problem had that not occurred. Now again, I think the leadership team at the time would have wanted us to get it right the first time, but you know, things happen.
Ravyn (27:30):
They will always happen. We could have broken down and completely missed our revenue targets and been in a different scenario, but we didn't, it allowed us to come back together. It allowed us to put better accountability checks in place, and it allowed us to accelerate faster on the back end of it. Then what would have happene had we stuck with what we had initially had in place? So it is a gift in that way and that you deepen your critical thinking skills. You can really think through the accountability checks that you need to put in place. How do you drive cross functional alignment through not just direct reporting, but through influence management? All of those things are lessons that I would not have deeply learned had I not had that failure.
Erin (28:20):
I love that. And I know so many of us listening, some of us on this call, okay. Have gone through some deep, deep failures coming out of 2020, out of a year of change, of necessary pivot, not wanting to change, having to change. And I know you talk about failures as being something that we need to normalize. And that's essentially what you're saying is as an organization, if we can see these things as innovation, right? Like I, in my own business, look at things that I had to do coming out of 2020, we were completely in person business and then had to pivot and make everything virtual. And through that, we created a new service offering that is completely virtual. And as much as it sucked Ravyn going through it, I mean, I literally, it's like sixth grade. I don't want to relive it.
Erin (29:16):
You know what I mean at all. But now I'll have some things that I can carry into 2021 and moving forward, we will have all these things to serve us. So I'm hearing you say that this failure drives innovation. I'm hearing you say, you know, this is something you're trying to normalize, not only for yourself, but for teams, for organizations you talked about on your LinkedIn, your failure, which is something we talk a lot about on this show. I want to know if you could pick one thing from your failure resume to highlight, what would it be?
Ravyn (29:51):
Oh, from my failure resume, good gracious.
Erin (29:54):
We know the big we know the success one, you gave us the success. We need the fail one failure resume item.
Ravyn (30:00):
Okay. So here is a major failure resume item. So we were in the same product launch, right? This major one, I'll just continue to build off of that one. We were looking to put in a pricing strategy that would allow us to meet the needs of our customers, meet the needs of our patients and still be economically beneficial for the company. So we're trying to do a win win win and pricing is one of the most sensitive topics you can put in front of a sales team, a sales and a marketing team. So we had some free meetings set up ahead of time and thought we had gotten full alignment. And five minutes before we walked into the meeting, one of the sales leaders walks up to me face to face he's taller than me. So he looks down at me and he says, we're not aligned with you on this pricing strategy. And we're going to let you know, in the middle of this meeting,
Erin (30:57):
What?! Oh my God, okay. Keep going, keep going.
Ravyn (31:00):
Mind you, this is soap opera type stuff. So mind you, there are 30 plus people in this meeting who are there simply to talk about pricing. And so we get into the conversation around pricing and 10 minutes into the conversation, the sales leader stands up and says, this thing is a joke. We're not aligned with this. We didn't see this piece coming. This is after we had these three meetings, we didn't, we didn't feel like we had enough time to voice our opinion on what this is. The next sales leader stands up and says the same thing, but says it in a more robust voice. Someone on the pricing team tries to stand up and say, well, you know, this is how we do it. And the other team says, this is not how we want to do it. And so 30 seconds later, there is all types of conversation. Heated exchange going across the table, voices are being raised. This is my meeting where I'm supposed to be in control. I'm deer in the headlights. My phone is now blowing up because my manager is asking me what the heck is going on. Get control of your meeting. My direct report, who was reporting out on what the pricing strategy was, looks at me. She is speechless, but now she's crying and I'm just like, I'm done. I'm about to get fired right here.
Ravyn (32:31):
I can't believe I'm about to get fired on this day. And my managers stands up and says, this is a complete mess. Everybody take 10 minutes. We are going to take a break. And so I go and talk to my manager in a room and it is a pretty heated exchange as well. And at the end we just kind of laugh because I'm like, listen, I thought I had all this handled beforehand. He was like, just take a deep breath, think about what you want to do. Come back. So we go back to the meeting and I said, listen, what we're gonna do is we're gonna, we're gonna promise, we're gonna bring back this conversation tomorrow. This is a two day meeting. We're gonna bring back this conversation tomorrow. And instead of us presenting the data, we are going to break up into teams and we're going to actually have the teams go and come back with what you think a solution is.
Ravyn (33:22):
So day two, we break up into the teams. We go off into our rooms to make whatever solutions we're going to. I go to a separate meeting with the sales leader and expressed the need to one show demonstration of alignment at our senior levels because everybody else in the room is watching us and will take their cues from us. And secondly, these are two other scenarios that we can go down. This one is going to be more advantageous for both of us in the business, or we can go down this other way. We have more oversight and we lose control of the business. Which one do you want? So having that very direct and frank conversation with a little bit of umph in my voice, I think made the difference. And so we walked out more aligned. The crazy part was when we got to the meeting where all of the teams were reporting out all of the teams came within a 5% differential from what my team had originally presented.
Erin (34:20):
Oh my gosh.
Ravyn (34:25):
All of them. And they all had their own kind of take on it. But when we looked at all of the takes, so let's say it was four different takes all four of them fail within 5% up or down of each other. So very, very close, and then putting the strategy in place after that was super easy. We kept the write off. And then when we presented it to the full sales team, low and behold, we got a standing ovation from that audience.
Erin (34:52):
Oh my God.
Ravyn (34:57):
Right? If I would have taken the events of what happened on day one as the full definition of what was going to be successful in that moment, then I would have, I would have been defeated. I would have walked away from that job. I would have lost all the respect and credibility from my team, I would have, but it is those moments where you can look, say where is there the opportunity for me to do better, and comeback more resilient than I was the day before, where there's a day one, there's always a day to go hard and day two.
Erin (35:33):
I love this story so much. Can I tell you something? I just posted, I just wrote a post-it note. And then I posted about the post it and it said it doesn't get easier. You get better. Well, that's what this reminds me of. That's it it's like, you just told that story at that point. Like it's, it's truly, you could have quit on day one, but you didn't and you came back and you're stronger because of it. And that's, I think what a failure resume is is you're highlighting something that's a low light of your career. But because of that moment, you have grown stronger. Your team has, you personally have grown stronger. Your career has grown stronger. You know how to handle situations like that in the future. And that's what normalizing failure and imposter syndrome is all about. I mean, you, that story in itself is why talking about this is so important.
Erin (36:31):
Think about, you know, if there's an emerging leader, listening from the failed it! Fam right now. I mean, if that was me at 25 I would've quit for real, like that was, I would have quit. But imagine what you've just taught someone who is 25 year old twenty-five years old listening, you said your direct report was sitting there crying. I would have been crying, you know, but it's that strength to persevere to get back up and do it again and say, here's what I learned and recalibrate. The recalibrating, I think is another big lesson learned in that you took time to be still, you took the 10 minutes, you came back the next day and there's so many valuable things within that story. So I'm so grateful you shared that, Ravyn. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Well, I have to, I have to ask you, what would you do even if you knew you might fail, what would you do? So, you know, the question, what would you do even if you knew you couldn't fail, what would you do? Even if you knew you would fail?
Ravyn (37:31):
Interesting. One, it's probably one of the more interesting questions I've been asked in any interviews. So thank you for it. I think you know, if I, if I looked at this on a global scale, I would maybe look to see how can we empower people maybe particularly of an African country. Let's say Donna, to move from kind of this secondary status on the economic scale to becoming like a first world power on the economy scale without having to have a ton of external influence. So using their own resources, their own talent, building them up to really stand up on their own. I think that's what I would do. Yeah.
Erin (38:11):
You're a good person. That is like the most selfless answer I've ever heard, so. Wow. Wow. Okay. Well, I'm coming to the end of our show, even though you and I have had a series of technical fails, we have still won this episode. Okay Ravyn. You, my friend are a light. We end with something we call the failure lightning round. So here's how this works. Okay. It's a little bit of improv, a little bit of thinking quickly on your feet, but it's super easy and super fun. And I've got your back this whole way through. Here's how it works. I'm going to ask you a series of questions and you just have to respond with a one word answer after one. Okay. And then if you do more than one word, I'm going to give you a big fail. Yeah. Just like that. And like that weird voice. Fail yeah! Okay.
Ravyn (38:58):
I'll do my best.
Erin (39:00):
If you want me to do it, I'll do it. Just, you know, throw in two words. Okay. So are you ready for the fail? Yeah. Lightning round Ravyn Miller.
Ravyn (39:10):
I am.
Erin (39:11):
Okay. Here we go. One word to describe your early career,
Ravyn (39:16):
Fun
Erin (39:17):
One word to describe where you're currently at in your career.
Ravyn (39:23):
Complex.
Erin (39:23):
One word to describe your future self.
Ravyn (39:27):
Satisfied.
Erin (39:29):
One word to describe your favorite boss.
Ravyn (39:32):
Good people.
Erin (39:34):
Fail Yeah. I love it. We could've hyphened good people, but I love it. Okay. I'm glad we got to do that. All right. One word to describe your least favorite boss.
Ravyn (39:46):
Demeaning.
Erin (39:49):
One word to describe your writing style.
Ravyn (39:52):
Thoughtful.
Erin (39:53):
One word to describe your work from home fashion style.
Ravyn (40:02):
Eclectic
Erin (40:03):
And one word to describe this interview.
Ravyn (40:06):
Fascinating.
Erin (40:09):
I thought you could have said technical fail, and that would have been two words than I would have given you a failure. But I got to say between you and I, you just failed it! Fam at home. Just so you know, Ravyn and I were on this. What we usually use to record Zencaster we got back on it and we tried again, it didn't work. Then we jumped to zoom. So we have had our series of fails during this recording, but through it all, Ravyn, you are a light of a human being. And I hope you continue to share the words that you so thoughtfully place onto the post position of LinkedIn with the world. You are such a light. We are so grateful to have you, your voice matters. And truly you inspire me and you inspire so many people who are in this corporate world or not, entrepreneurial, corporate, wherever you may be to find their voice, use it and know that it matters.
Erin (41:05):
So thank you so much for sharing your failure journey with us. Tell my failed it! Family where they can find you on any social platform.
Ravyn (41:15):
You're so fun. So thank you failed it! Family for allowing me to be here with you today. Follow me on LinkedIn. My first name is Ravyn Miller. You can follow me there. This is where I post about once a week on a lot of the failures and vulnerabilities that I have. And then for those who are into it, I also preach every other week on YouTube. So you can Google me that way, or I should say, search me on YouTube channel that way.
Erin (41:45):
We're going to link to it in the show notes and we'll link to your LinkedIn profile as well. Ravyn, you are amazing. So thank you so much. And to the failed it! Family - fail yeah Failed it! Fam, fail yeah.
Erin (42:01):
Friends. Thanks for tuning into failed It! I'm so happy you're along for the ride. If you enjoyed today's show, head on over to iTunes to rate and subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. I'll see you next week, but want to leave you with this thought, what will you fail at today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I'm proud of you and you are totally failing it. See you next time.