Discover the powerful parallels between poker and leadership as Tim Sweet engages with Erin Lydon, President of Poker Power. Erin, with a Wall Street background, shares insights into teaching poker for leadership excellence. The discussion explores vital skills like courage, risk-taking, and resilience, drawing parallels between poker strategy and effective decision-making in various contexts. Erin highlights poker as a confidence and negotiation tool, especially for women in business. 

The conversation delves into key poker strategies, emphasizing their practical applications. Erin also discusses Poker Power's impact on corporate programs and its mission to empower young women early in their careers. The episode concludes with Erin's advice for leaders: embrace change, say "yes" more than "no," and recognize the transformative power of taking risks.

About Erin Lydon

Erin Lydon, President of Poker Power, is a finance industry veteran and advocate for workplace equity. Fueled by her early challenges on Wall Street, Erin founded Poker Power to empower women through poker-based leadership training. With a background at JPMorgan and as a strategic advisor to Evil Geniuses, a global e-sports organization, Erin brings extensive experience to her mission. 

Recognized with the Global Gaming Women “Women of Inspiration–Woman to Watch” award, she holds an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and a BA from Bates College. Erin is a sought-after speaker, having graced prestigious stages like TEDx and Money 20/20 RiseUp. Erin's dynamic leadership journey, commitment to workplace equity, and pioneering efforts at Poker Power showcase her as a trailblazer, inspiring women globally to harness the strategic prowess of poker for personal and professional success.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Inventures: Inventurescanada.com
• Duncan Wardle: duncanwardle.com
• Don't Just Do Something, Stand There
• JPMorgan: jpmorganchase.com

Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: 

• Website
• LinkedIn: Tim Sweet
• Instagram
• Linkedin: Team Work Excellence

Contact Erin Lydon | Poker Power: 

• Website: pokerpower.com
• Instagram: @joinpokerpower
• Twitter: @joinpokerpower
• Facebook: Poker Power
• TikTok: @joinpokerpower
• Linkedin: Erin Lydon

Transcript:

Erin 00:00

So often at a poker table, nobody has a made hand, you know. So, it really is going to come down to the person who's going to play their chips most aggressively and get the other players to fold. That person is going to win the hand. That is something you have to practice, shoving your chips all in, when you have imperfect information, you don't know the cards still to come. And you certainly don't know what the other players have. That's a learned skill. Because it's scary.

Tim 00:30

I'd like to ask you some questions. Do you consider yourself the kind of person that gets things done? Are you able to take a vision and transform that into action? Are you able to align others towards that vision and get them moving to create something truly remarkable? If any of these describe you, then you my friend are a leader, and this show is all about and all for you. Welcome to the 24th episode of the Sweet on Leadership podcast. 

Tim 01:03

Welcome back, everybody. Thanks again for joining us for Sweet on Leadership. My name is Tim Sweet and this is my special guest Erin Lydon. Erin, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Erin 01:11

Delighted to be here, Tim. 

Tim 01:13

Well, you and I had a chance to meet last summer here in Calgary as we were both presenting at Inventures, which was a tech and startup conference here in the city. And that sure was a lot of fun. I remember we first met sitting at a table on the very first day during the keynote.

Erin 01:29

We did and actually, I thought you were one brilliant, two really funny, and three really easy to talk to. So, it was a great first experience for me at Inventures.

Tim 01:39

Well, I thought you were absolutely welcoming. You were game for anything. And we just took the challenges of the speaker and it was Duncan Wardle, I remember. And he was giving us games to play. And we just jumped right in. And it was so much fun. So, I knew right away that I had a person next to me who loved to play games. And what you might not know about me is that I actually have a long history and a love for Dungeons and Dragons of all things. Because it teaches people, well, a. it's role-playing. So, you're allowed to go and have a different experience and get out of your own head. And at the same time, it's like improv. So it's several people sitting around, and I played with my kids now. And it's like you're writing a story together. So, you learn to pick out people who are game, who are ready to just, you know, drop all the pretense. 

Erin 02:33

Yeah, I take that as a huge compliment. Because during that session, we really did have to put down our barriers and get very vulnerable. And remember, we had to draw, you are much better at illustration than I was, but there was just there's a lot of connection that happened quickly through that session. So, I'm thrilled we're back together for another conversation.

Tim 02:51

Oh, that's wonderful. I think for everybody listening here, it would be remiss of me to not give you a chance to just explain who you are. I mean, I know. And the really exciting thing that you bring and that you brought to Inventures and that you're bringing here today.

Erin 03:07

I am Erin Lydon, and I'm the president of Poker Power. I've been in this role for almost four years. We are a startup, I say we're a long-standing startup at this point. So, we have made it we're over those initial barriers of startups. But that's really not who I am, you know, deep down or for most of my life. I was not a poker player. And I'm sure we'll get into that. But I have been in startups since 2012. I love the chaos. I love the energy. I love the success and the failure that comes with being in startups. But prior to that, I was on Wall Street. So, I had a very serious corporate job at JPMorgan. I worked with many clients, I traveled three or four days a week. And the only reason I left that job truly was because I had a young daughter, I was getting into my late 30s. And I really struggled on how to be on that very fast track career, and also have a newborn at home. And for listeners who are much younger than I am. This is in the 2000s. And we really didn't have the programs and the policies and the opportunities that now so many firms are making available to working parents and new parents. But before all that I grew up in Maine, so a long way from Calgary, but somewhat similar weather I think. Truly, I just had a terrific childhood. You know, I spent most of my summers on the ocean, on the main coast, on a sailboat, and went to college in Maine at Vates and then moved to Chicago, and shortly thereafter went to business school at Northwestern, and everything started from there. 

Tim 04:29

That’s excellent. And when you think about an industry and a location to cut your teeth, in the professional world, I can think of few examples that are more aggressive than Wall Street. So, I mean, you were in with both feet. This is not for the faint of heart.

Erin 04:48

No, and I didn't go into it with eyes wide open. I'll be honest, I had been in healthcare previously before going to business school and actually expected to go into healthcare management. I loved, I was a fundraiser primarily raising money for cancer and women's health programs. And really saw that as my career path forward when I was in my mid-20s. What happened in Business School is one, I figured out that I was very bad at consulting interviews, because that's the direction I was heading down. So, when I failed at those, I had to pivot pretty quickly. And it was actually one of my dear friends, he said to me, one evening, early in September of our second year, he said, Erin, you should go into banking. And no one had ever said that to me. And my dad's the CFO, you know, he'd worked with nurses his whole career, but I literally had not had a math class in years. And so in order to really make that change, for a career pivot, I had to get a lot of classes, I took a lot of finance classes, in my first semester, and I got very good at interviewing for the banks, and interviewing for the banks is a whole different experience than interviewing for consulting. And it turned out that I was very, very good at solving the questions that they were asking. And so when I, you know, hit Christmas time of my second year, I had eight banking offers. And I really had my choice of where to go next. And I always say I picked JPMorgan because, during my holiday break, my future boss called me one time over the holidays. And he wished me a Merry Christmas and said he hoped my family was well. And the competing firm called me every single day of my holiday break and started to badger me about why I had not accepted the offer. And what that taught me, this was an early tell that I picked up on, is that I am not the type of person who's going to call you every single day and try to make a sale, that would never have been me. So, I realized pretty quickly that I'm not going to fit there. And I fit very, very well at JPMorgan.

Tim 06:34

There's two things I love about that scene that you've painted for us. The first is that you're not going to be the one that's going to be pushing rope, you want to be pulled into something and you want others to be pulled into something. The other thing is you dropped the word tell. That was an early tell that they gave you which I think pulls us right towards the knowledge that a game like poker can begin to give us. You're in Wall Street, you start your career there. How then does that take you to now? Can you give us a bit of a sense of what the travels were at that point?

Erin 07:08

It was not at all a linear progression. And truly when I say I would still be at JPMorgan, I would still be at JPMorgan if I had been able to solve for the early motherhood challenges that I experienced. But it ended up being you know, as so many times in life, you know, when the door closes, the window opens. And I think you know, several windows opened for me. The first is that I was able to move into startups. And then secondly, one of my original, very early clients at JPMorgan, I had stayed in touch with all those years. And she had this idea around teaching teenagers how to play poker, particularly teenage girls. And she shared it with me over the holidays in 2019. And I said that's a really stupid idea. And I really meant it. Because my whole time on Wall Street, there was always a poker game going on. And I never felt included. But worse, I never felt like I could ask to sit at that table. I just didn't see myself there. And so poker was always on the periphery. But I was never a part of that game. So, once you have this idea, and what the reason I said it was stupid is because I couldn't fathom outside of you know, James Bond, Hollywood movies, and basement really gross places where men play poker. I couldn't fathom what this could become. Fortunately, she laughed too. And she came back a few weeks later. And she said, No, I really think you need to get involved with this. And that was three weeks before the pandemic. And if you can remember in February, and going into March, none of us thought this pandemic thing was going to last very long. And at that time, when you think about poker, you think about real humans, real chips, real cards, it's very hard to imagine this game in a virtual world, especially when you don't know how to play it. But that's exactly what we had to figure out. And the pandemic was our perfect storm. Because while the teenagers went the wayside because they were so overwhelmed by their new virtual lives, suddenly, every single company around the globe was looking for a way to get us to turn our cameras on, and to engage with each other. And just at that moment, we had created a virtual curriculum. We had a poker app to play on. And we were able to really break down the barriers of bringing the game into companies first in America, and now globally. 

Tim 09:17

When you think about breaking down barriers, that really is one of the key parts of this, and I thought you'd been in Wall Street, there was a poker game going on all the time, but you were never at the table. And women and even men, often the challenge that they come to me with is I want to go up in the organization, I want to be in with the senior team, how do I get invited to these tables? How do I position myself so that I can, you know, get behind those closed doors so that I can be part of things and that's a huge progression that when leaders are wanting to really accelerate their career up into senior leadership and executive leadership. That's a skill that many people have to stumble upon, and not necessarily learn. So at this point, you've got this, this app, perfect storm, things are rolling. I mean, I remember that wasn't that long ago. But I remember myself getting involved in virtual social activities, just so that we didn't feel like we were going crazy. When we were in the middle of lockdown up here in Canada. You were positioned there. And so what was the initial reaction? Were businesses clamoring to get on this? Was it individuals? Were you originally marketed as this way to get women involved?

Erin 10:39

We were as soon as we pivoted to corporates. And we actually started with Morningstar. So, a very well-known financial firm headquartered in Chicago. I think back to 2020 and them being willing to take a risk with us because we were clunky. Like every other business that was now a virtual business and trying to figure out how to, you know, engage across the screen. What we figured out pretty quickly though, is 1. Poker has to be fun, doesn't matter who the players are, you have to think this theme is fun in order to want to come back. And then 2. because poker is such an intimidating game, for so many people. It's the jargon, it's the rules, it's the math, all these things prevent people from wanting to engage with the game. We knew very early on, we had to make it highly accessible, and very bite-sized. And if we could get those two things, right, make it fun, so you want to come back, make it approachable and quick to learn, so you only have to remember two or three things in every one of our classes, then you're going to start to engage with us. And that was the secret sauce is exactly as you described him. During that first year, the pandemic, people were looking for regular touch points with other humans. And we were a little tired of talking to the ones that were living in our homes at that point. And so the opportunity to be in a classroom setting, playing a game, getting better at the game. And best of all, in a competitive game, there is something that brings you back. And you have to understand what Poker Power, there's no money transacting. So, there's no gambling, there's no money put into the app, it is truly competing for bragging rights and a leaderboard. And that was enough, it's still enough that you know, you want to see your name at the top of that leaderboard. And that's what we figured out. And then we were able to package it up as leadership development, professional development, and started first with financial firms because that's where we have so many good relationships. And now we have 230 corporate partners. So, we have expanded across industries, all sizes of firms, and women at every level. You know, as much as I love having interns and associates. I also love having the C-suite learn to play this game. 

Tim 12:37

Yeah, for sure. Okay, so let's get a little bit into, there's two things that I want to know when I'm trying to decide what order to hit them in. I want to understand why this speaks to you. And when you were going out for funding, what was the personal skin you had in the game? Right? Why was this particular venture so compelling for you to get involved in? And then I want to get into a little bit about the mechanics and what a person can actually learn in poker that they can't learn otherwise.

Erin 13:06

During my time in banking, during that first year, at the end of the first year, you all get a bonus. The firms done well, your team has done well, you've done well, you get a bonus, and it's a large number, it's usually more than just your salary. And when I received my first bonus, it was a really big number for me, because I was coming from a nonprofit background. And I received it, I shook my boss's hand, and I adored him. I learned so much from him over the last year. And I just said thank you very much. And I walked out of the room. This is at a time when there were paced secrecy rules. So, you were not allowed to share your numbers. Some of that has gone away, a lot of it truly hasn't. But as often happens, you know, it gets late at night and all the new cohort gets together and you share. And in that moment of sharing, I learned that I was paid significantly less than a male colleague to the point that it was 1000’s of dollars, not hundreds of dollars. And my response to that was, how did you get that? It was a genuine question. How did you get so much more? And his answer was that he had asked. And for me, it had never crossed my mind. I was supposed to ask for more. And that sounds crazy to me now because now I know how to negotiate and so many people know how to you have to ask in order to receive. But I truly was just in a position of being grateful. I went on with my career, things got better. I'm glad I learned that lesson early on. However, it always stuck with me as why didn't I already know how to ask? Why wasn't comfortable? I didn't have the confidence, the courage, the background, and what was holding me back? And if it's holding me back, it's probably holding back a lot of other people, especially a lot of other women. And so fast forward almost 20 years later, I do a TED Talk and the TED talk is all about equal pay. Because truly from that day of not receiving the bonus I wish I had I got on to the Equal Pay bandwagon. And in that talk, I have five really great solutions for equal pay, none of which are poker because I didn't know about poker yet. But I say if I were to do that same talk today, I would only say the answer is poker. And the reason for that is through learning poker and playing poker, you are honing the skills that you need for negotiation in a really critical way. And you're building confidence and you're building confidence certainly in the game, which then translates to more confidence. All of those things will be done at the poker table. So, it is very personal to me because while I missed out on an opportunity, you know, early in my career, I don't want other women to miss out on it. 

Tim 15:29

What are some of the key skills that poker teaches? Could you give us some of the highlights?

Erin 15:35

Our curriculum has 12 leadership lessons. So, each one of our weekly lessons has one of the skills as the theme. The first lesson is courage, it takes a lot of courage to sit at a poker table. The second one is bold, and the word bold really is slash aggression. So, the word playing aggressively the word aggression in a poker game is a really strong positive. And the reason I say that is and you’ve played poker Tim, so you understand, is so often at a poker table, nobody has a made hand, you know, so it really is going to come down to the person who's going to play their chips most aggressively, and get the other players to fold, that person's gonna win the hand. That is something you have to practice, shoving your chips all in, when you have imperfect information, you don't know the cards still to come. And you certainly don't know what the other players have. That's a learned skill. Because it's scary. Like the first time I ever did it, I had butterflies and I wasn't even playing for real money, and I still had butterflies. So, lesson number two is being bold and aggressive. And then we go on with risk-taking. With every hand that you play in poker, it's a risk because you don't know the outcome. One of the great things about playing a poker game over and over is you get immediate feedback on your risk-making decisions. There aren't a lot of areas in life where you get that immediate feedback, like that was the right decision, you won the pot, that could have been a better decision had you made some different decisions along the way. We continue with resilience, perseverance. We do teach poker math, it's a really important part of the game. A quick story about poker math is that it used to be lesson three and it was our most skipped lesson during the pandemic. And we couldn't figure out why. We're like, Why is no one showing up for poker math, until of course, a marketing person said, Well, you're calling it poker math. 

Tim 17:16

Poker math. You said the “M” word. 

Erin 17:18

So, we moved it to Lesson Seven, because I know once you've already taken six lessons, you're probably gonna come back for lesson seven. And we now call it calculating. It's really about the calculations and the equity and the probability of the game that we want to teach.

Tim 17:34

The thing that really resonates with me is this idea of aggressiveness and boldness. And, you know, when we think about… I think I can't remember what the number was. But when when we have a reaction to men, or women being aggressive in the same situation, 76% of the time, women will be seen as too aggressive. When they're right at the same level, when only 26% of men will be accused of being too aggressive. And there's all sorts of labels. And there's all sorts of mechanisms in place, cultural mechanisms, and whatnot, that really work against women in the boardroom, where they're written off, or they're talked about as being too emotional, or they're talking about, you know, all sorts of manner of degrading assumptions can be made. You know what I mean? This is very common. I've seen this happen firsthand, where women are made to feel not enough in the situation when they push their chips all in. So, focusing on that for a minute, when we think about the kinds of lessons that you teach in that first or second segment, what would be one of the key messages that you draw out of that?

Erin 18:49

You know, it's actually fascinating to watch a total novice play this game, in the early days, because typically, in the beginning, there is a lot of hesitation to push the chips all in to shove. And the reason is, even though there is no monetary value, is that a woman will say during the game, that's so many of my chips, can I just hold back a few of them? 

Tim 19:13

Ah, scarcity mentality? 

Erin 19:14

Yes, and I have now played poker with a lot of men, and I have never, ever seen a man say, can I hold back a few of my chips? And I think it's that pattern of behavior that we are trying to change. And so if I can get you to practice, it's a physically doing the move. It's physically feeling what this feels like to have something at risk. And it's also getting that, you know, did you win the chips, or did you not win the chips? It's often good that you don't win the chips and you lose, because then we pause, and we talk through what happened. And so there's this learning element to decision-making that is so critical to making better decisions. And so one of the things that you will see with professional poker players is they write down their hand histories so they're, you know, if they're on their phone, they might be surfing but they're probably write down their hand histories, so they can go back and study points in the game where they made a misstep. It's a very analytical game from the sense of you can improve game after game, day after day, week after week. And you can see that improvement. Yeah, I've now been playing almost four years, and I play a lot of poker now both do in our app, and I also play in Vegas. And I know I have better. Am I great at this game? Absolutely not. But has it given me a new framework and a new method of problem-solving, and thinking through situations where there's a number of different outcomes that could occur? Absolutely. It's changed my perspective.

Tim 20:34

It's funny to talk about hand history because often one of the coaching techniques that I'll use is to have people even write down and observe, what are they feeling in the moment. How are they playing this situation with a staff member, or with a boss, or with a partner, or a customer? At one point, you have to be there, you have to be present, you have to be authentic, you have to be building trust, but at the same time, you have to be fluent in how do I typically react in this situation? And what is that like? And is this, am I feeling the pressure or the tension with a belief of what I'm capable of or not capable of? And is that pulling me towards a certain behavior? And can I resolve that tension? So, I can act in the manner that's needed in the moment? And you know, hearing you speak about poker and I remember, I believe it was when we were in Inventures, or maybe it was your presentation. But it was the notion of, yes, I feel this way. Yes, I feel nervous or whatnot. But now I can shelve that. And I can make the right move. And I can essentially, observe my own behavior and get out of my own head and say, What is the situation require? And how am I going to behave in this situation? Right, so that it can become somewhat, not careless, but in fact, very, very intentional. And it's like I'm about to make this move. And it may not be comfortable. And that's not the issue, the issue is, what's the right thing to do in the moment? 

Erin 22:06

Right, and it's the repetition because one of the great things about poker is it's a very fast-moving game. And so yes, you lose a hand, you give up some of your chips, but the cards are already getting redelt for the next hand. And it is because of that practice, you get to do, you know, in an hour playing poker, you can play 10, 15, 20 different hands. And so you're getting to make a number of decisions, with all these different inputs that are always evolving, you know, as the cards come out in the center of the board on the other table, your decision-making is going to change based off of new information, and based off of what you're observing from the other players. So, it's a very dynamic game from that standpoint. And you have to keep rethinking, what do I do next? You know, how big is my chip stack? How big is your chip stack? What are the patterns that I've observed with you over the last half hour and what do I think you're going to do next? And all of those characteristics make it such a fascinating game, to practice because it is the boardroom, it is the interview room, often it is the classroom. And so if you can get better in a simulated scenario, you're going to be able to translate the gameplay from the table to the gameplay in your real life.

Tim 23:14

Yes, and I think and you'll be able to carry that metaphor back into your real life. Whereas when you're learning it in that metaphoric sense, in this arena that's taken away from the regular work world, you're able to approach things with a lot less fear. And I think what's important here for people to realize, too, is that it's not just an app, yes, you're training people on the app, but you're also running live events. And you're working with corporations, and you're working with higher education institutions. And you're able to bring this into a very real situation where you have colleagues playing together, and they're able to pull out of that. And if I go back to that D&D thing, we have a program called Budgets and Boardrooms, which is based on it's a D&D module that we play in a business sense, and it's pretty–

Erin 24:00

Oh, I love this. 

Tim 24:01

Oh, yeah, it's a lot of fun. But, you know, when we think about these opportunities that leaders have to build teams, or to impart skills, or to really challenge limiting beliefs, you know, Poker Power gives us an example of that, in that there are some characteristics that leaders should be looking for, and you've spoken to a lot of them already, where they're able to be in this sandbox. They're able to experience the consequences of their decisions very quickly, far more quickly than you would get in normal life. So, that they can practice, and they can see themselves, and they can have this iterative type of development experience. And those are very important. What would be some of the other things that just generally you think that a good off-site or development session has, naturally I appreciate that Poker Power would be demonstrating that but on a wider contextual basis, what should leaders be looking for? 

Erin 25:00

Stay with poker for just a moment, but then I will go from there is the poker table of being a meritocracy. And I think that is a critical factor when you gather people together of all different levels. And the reason it's meritocracy is if no one really knows how to play this game, then it doesn't matter where you went to school, doesn't matter what your title is, doesn't matter how big, or strong, or tall you are, all of those things typically designate winners in our culture, in our businesses. And all of that goes away. Because at the poker table, the only thing that matters is how you play your cards. And that's all up here, that is inside your head. And for women in particular, it levels the playing field immediately. And in fact, one of the best things about poker is you actually don't ever have to speak. And the reason I highlight that is so often in a boardroom setting, in a meeting setting, a woman will contribute an idea or plan, and she will be overtalked, or the idea will be taken and put into the mouth of someone else. And this is a real pet peeve of mine and something that I care a lot about women being able to reclaim their words and their ideas. So, they do own them. That happens at a poker table because you don't have to speak all of your decisions, all the way that you show value is through how you maneuver your chips. And it's like a light bulb, you know. And so I like to take the scenarios that happen within a poker game, and then translate them to the real-world scenarios that you know, all of us are experiencing in our business lives. I think another thing that is really important, is enabling women to feel that they can take a risk. And it is, okay, if it fails. You know, so often like you think about when women apply for jobs or promotions, will only do it if we literally tick every single requirement that's been put into the job description, and then men only need five or six, if that and they're going to apply. So, women are more hesitant in many scenarios to take that risk. When you are playing poker, unless you literally plan to fold every single one of your hands at some point, you're gonna have to put chips into that pot. And that's a risk. And so I want you to know that even if you lose the hand, there's a lesson and a learning that's going to come to that, that as you start to piece together these different learnings from the poker table, they're going to start to make sense and how you interact and behave within a business setting.

Tim 27:21

That I think is such a great takeaway from this in the sense of, you know, it is two things there. One is what do we do in the face of risk? And are we able to translate that risk into opportunity? Is it the risk itself that creates the differentiator that allows one person to move forward or not? And how we handled I think that's a great part. The other thing is, and I know this as a coach, and learning and development specialist that facilitates a lot of these team sessions. Primarily, the tools we give people are verbal in nature. And so, you know, you've really got me thinking what a bias that immediately imposes that we talk our way out of situations, or we do these kinds of things. Whereas the physical, and the ability to let you know, even for myself when I'm say facilitating a strategic session, or if it's a conflict resolution or something, silence is such an important skill for me. There was a great book back in the day that was for facilitators called, Don't Just Say Something, Stand There. And it was like, just let the room breathe and see what they're going to do. And that silence is a very real power. And sometimes the person who speaks first truly does lose, wow, that's not entirely true. But it's like, you know what I mean that you need to you need to use it, and you need to use your physical presence as well.

Erin 28:47

There are certain moves in poker, in the actual gameplay that we talk a lot about, just as you have said. So, the move that you just described that pause, and call it the power of the pause, that's the check move. So, when you're playing a hand of poker, it's your turn, and you're the first to act. And so you have a decision to make, you can put chips into the pot, you can raise the amount of chips in the pot, or you can literally tap on the table or verbally say the word check. And what that does, is it gives you that breathing space so that the gameplay moves to the person who is to your left, and they will then make their decision. If they decide to put chips in, it's going to come back around to you. But in that moment of checking, you're saying, I'm just going to observe what's going on here. I'm going to step back for, it could be seconds, it could be you know, 30 seconds, and really think through my next move here. That's huge. That's huge that you can play a game where you get to actually control the tempo of the game and how you play your moves. Because that's what you want to do in a negotiation. You don't always want to be the first to speak, you want to state you know what you want. You want to give the breathing space for someone to respond to you. 

Tim 29:50

You don't want to set an anchor. 

Erin 29:52

Yeah, you've gotten them to speak first and then you can take that moment of pause and I think so often we are, and partly, it's just, you know, having spent so much of our time now in a virtual world and we have so many digital inputs that come to us, is we feel this need to respond immediately, to a slack, to an email, to that text message. And in fact, I use the power of the pause, that check move in just my day-to-day interactions with my team, with other people within the firm. Like, I actually don't have to answer this right now, I can pause and I can think through what I want to say, that's empowering to know that you can do that. Yeah, and then I think the other move that's so important that follows that that check is the power to raise. So, to really put a lot of value into a poker game, and say that you're dominant, to tell the story because so much of poker is telling a narrative of strength or weakness. And so you put a lot of chips into the pot, and you are telling everybody else that you'd like your hand. Now, you might be bluffing. And bluffing is a really important skill in poker. Or you might actually have, you know, those two kings are those two aces and a really strong hand. But you're able to decide how you're going to maneuver and push around other people at the table. And I always say that when women get a big chip stack, so they have a lot of chips in front of them more than anyone else at the table. We always say you're now you're the bully. And that's a real like, you will see women actually sort of recoil at that word or like pause, like, why are you calling me the bully. And I'm saying in a really positive way, you're the bully at this table because you have the most value in front of you. And you can push other people around. And so infrequently do we get into those positions of power that we can make in the workplace, doing it at the poker table is incredibly enlightening. And it also helps you understand being on the other side of that when you don't have the big chip stack and you're being bullied around, what does that feel like?

Tim 31:42

We're talking about bullies, and we're talking about the ability to force people's hands or anything along those lines. Poker is naturally an adversarial game. And so I mean, it is really us against the table. But I think it's important for the listeners to realize that even though we're testing it, we're testing ourselves in that form. It doesn't preclude us from being collaborative, it doesn't preclude us from coming together and accomplishing something. However, when it comes to getting your thoughts across, or being as influential as you need, or having that confidence, or being able to articulate and represent an idea, without softening or stepping back on important issues, and the rest of it, that's when these skills come in. So, they're not absent in a collaborative sense. I mean, obviously, we're not going to bring a bully methodology into a team environment. But they do exist. And it's not about always seeking a win-lose. It's about making sure that you advocate for yourself and advocate for your ideas. And, you know, sport teaches us so many good things about this, but not everybody has had the experience of having to be in an aggressive competitive environment, be it sport, or dance or gymnastics, or Taekwondo or whatever they're doing. Fencing, you know?

Erin 33:01

Yeah, no, so many young women drop out of sports once they hit high school, you know, 13-14 years old, and they and they stop. And one of the surprising things that has happened in our games is that, yes, it's a zero-sum game, just as you describe, one person is going to win the pot, everyone else is going to lose, and you don't want to play again. But in that moment of someone winning, what is happening at the table is very fascinating to me, because the person who wins is, she feels like a rock star, like literally feels like a rock star. And she's often you know, taking pictures and selfies of herself, scooping those chips in. But the other thing that's happening at the table is those eight or nine other women that she's seated with, they're celebrating her, and that I do think is a very uniquely female characteristic is you just took all my chips, but I am so incredibly proud of you, I am so happy for you. And the reason this is so important at our poker table is our tables feel good. So, even if you lose all your tips, you're doing it in a setting that feels very collaborative, very supportive. And one that you want to be back in again, like women tend to like those types of environments, we're willing to play the game. But we also want to make sure that we're all feeling really positive about the game. And I think that then lends itself to the poker table being a place where networks are formed, relationships are built, deals get made, we know that's what happens, you know, at or at real poker tables. And we want to give women those same spaces and environments to experience them.

Tim 34:28

It's got me thinking back to, you know, when you see these caricatures of people, when you watch professional poker on TV, oh, and by the way, I mean, there's a reason it's on a sporting network and not on something else, right, because it really does have this competitive edge that you don't find in a lot of cerebral games. You know, but you see these caricatures and these archetypes of like the Phil Hellmuth where he's just, you know, the biggest whiner when he's losing and so arrogant when he's not versus other players that come to the table. And at least they're controlling it that way. But they want to have fun. And they're trying to encourage, you know, they're wanting to make it jovial. And notice the others that sit there and say absolutely nothing. What a way to be able to explore who we are, and really test ourselves and become fluent in how we're going to approach certain situations and gain some awareness and face up to some potentially challenging facts about ourselves, and maybe how we were raised or what beliefs and identities we hold. And we have accessible to us so that we can fill our toolbox with other options. So, I mean, this is really exciting stuff. Erin, I hope we get another chance to talk and see how this goes. I think it's absolutely fascinating. And I can't wait to hear a little bit more. But in the meantime, let me ask you a couple of questions. When it comes to Poker Power or your life in general, what's the most exciting thing that's happening for you right now? What do you have going on?

Erin 36:03

Well, I'm in a state of transition personally, in just that my children are grown, life is going to probably take me in a different direction. Certainly where I live is changing. I actually live in North Idaho of all places. And so I think, you know, there's a personal transition that will happen in my life, and I'm really excited about that. I love change, I thrive on change, so it doesn't scare me. And when people say, Well, what's next, I'm like, I don't know, it's gonna get figured out, you know, the cards aren't all dealt yet. So, we'll just wait and see. I think for Poker Power, we're also in a state of transition, you know, we've been a startup, successful startups are very good at trying a lot of experiments or pilots, things that you fail at, you know, that's what makes a really good start, because you've failed a lot. And you've learned from it. And you've been able to pivot and really focus on what is working for the business. We're at that stage now. So, our corporate program is fantastic. You know, we have inbounds from corporates all over the globe. And we work in 40 countries virtually. And so we feel that's a really strong part of the program. What's coming next, though, is I need that teenager, and I need that young woman who's in college, because if we can get her to start to think and strategize and negotiate like a winning poker player today, you know, when she's 20 years old, not 40 years old, she is going to enter the workforce on a more level playing field, at our origin, at our most important mission at Northstar, that's what we're trying to do is get the skills and strategies into the hands of young women as early as we can, because we really do think it's going to have a generational impact on leadership and success. And then I think, what's next, I'm hoping to get to the beach in a couple of weeks. You know, it’s been a long year. So, I'm not heading back to Canada, as much as I like to ski and as much as I love Calgary. I'm heading to the beach, here in a few weeks. 

Tim 37:53

That’s great. If people want to get in touch with you, where can they reach out? 

Erin 37:56

Yeah, so pokerpower.com is our website, you can access our app there. And you can also get it from any of the app stores. It's called Poker Power Play. And that's how you can start your poker journey with us, you can also register for virtual lessons that we offer every week, you can do that on the website. And if you just want to reach out to me personally, please do so on LinkedIn, I'd be happy to DM with you and learn more about, you know, any of the interests that you may have. 

Tim 38:20

We'll put all of those links down in the show notes. Last question here. If you were to have a wish, for one of the leaders listening today, what would it be?

Erin 38:31

I would say to say yes, more than no. And the reason I say that is for about 25 years that has really been my life motto is that I say yes to everything. And that gets me in trouble, absolutely. I get myself into situations that I don't know how to solve, necessarily. But I figured them out, you know, with a lot of effort. And you know, a lot of us sort of self-awareness, I figure things out. I think leaders have to fail too, they have to say those yes’s, and then they have to have mistakes that are made and lessons that are learned you can't ever stop, you know, those experimentations and taking the risk. And I love being around people who say yes, instead of no, in all parts of my life, I find that very energizing.

Tim 39:11

You can't lead from the room that you've closed the door on yourself. Right? But you can certainly lead when you've said yes and you're on the other side of the door and then we'll take it as it comes. Right? But anyway, Erin, this has been absolutely fascinating. I am just tickled that you and I had a chance to talk again, and I can't wait for the next opportunity. So, thank you so much.

Erin 39:32

All right. Great to see you, stay warm up there.

Tim 39:35

Will do. Okay, see you soon. 

Tim 39:38

Thank you so much for listening to Sweet on Leadership. If you found today's podcast valuable, consider visiting our website and signing up for the companion newsletter. You can find the link in the show notes. If like us you think it's important to bring new ideas and skills into the practice of leadership. Please give us a positive rate rating and review on Apple Podcasts. This helps us spread the word to other committed leaders. And you can spread the word too, by sharing this with your friends, teams, and colleagues. Thanks again for listening and be sure to tune in in two weeks' time for another episode of Sweet on Leadership. In the meantime, I'm your host, Tim Sweet, encouraging you to keep on leading.