Ikigai Leadership Podcast: Dhru and Marcus Britt Talk Technology & People

Dr. Dhru: [00:00:02] Hey, everybody. This is Dr. Dhru Bee and I’m here to welcome you to my podcast, Ikigai Leadership. We’re going to be talking to leaders in all different industries from all different backgrounds and demographics from all over the world. And we’ll be discussing topics like leadership development, culture, DEI, content creation and marketing and all things business and entrepreneurship.

Dr. Dhru: [00:00:26] Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another edition of Ikigai Leadership. I want to thank you guys for joining us today. I’m here joined by my good friend Marcus Britt. We just met recently. We kicked it off pretty hard at the Blackstone Technology Conference in Charlotte because we’re both apparently nerds, which is awesome.

Marcus Britt: [00:00:41] Absolutely. Yeah, I claim it. I own it, man. Nerds forever, man. That’s what I love.

Dr. Dhru: [00:00:45] Absolutely. It’s the only way to be, man. So. So, yeah. Marcus, thank you so much for joining us today. We’ll talk a little bit about the Blackstone Technology Conference, talk about our conversation there. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about yourself, man. You know what kind of work you’re doing right now. What do you like to focus on? And what brought you to the Blackstone Technology Conference?

Marcus Britt: [00:01:01] Awesome. So a little bit about me. Currently, I have the pleasure of working at Under Armor and I am the senior manager of Digital Teammate Experience. It’s a technology role, but it doesn’t sound like a technology role. It’s pretty cool, right? But our focus is really on kind of aligning technology and making sure that the experience for our teammates is good. Right? I mean I think that’s where I can consider us to be an experience economy now, it really drives everything, right? So making sure that the processes, the systems, data, all of that stuff is good and it provides a good experience for our teammates. That’s really what matters. I’ve been in technology now for around 20 years. I’m a little bit of a weird bird in that I’ve had a chance to spend time in tech and HR about equal times, equal parts of my career in both, so I have a unique perspective on really kind of understanding how people, you know, what people’s needs are in the organization, how they move around an organization, how people feel in certain spaces, and then also having technology and how to enable that, right, to make that go. Because I’m a firm believer you don’t do technology for the sake of technology. You do technology to enable and help people, right? If it’s not a tool to make things better, it’s really useless. So being in that space for a while I had an opportunity to work at some great companies and really focusing on that. And like we talked about, I’m a super nerd, I love Marvel movies, anime, Legos, I got my Lego back there, my motorcycle back there. So just enjoying being able to really understand technology in a deep way and then helping people and understanding people and helping merge those two together. That’s really what my DNA is.

Dr. Dhru: [00:02:36] I love that, man. And there’s a lot of opportunity to talk about that kind of stuff just in general. I mean, especially nowadays with the AI and everything, people talking about this stuff. But I love that you also work in Under Armor because Under Armor, one, was founded in Maryland, I’m a Maryland guy, but I actually had the chance to hear Kevin Plank speak live at VeeCon when I was there. And it was really cool hearing his story and how he started Under Armor and how that whole genesis happened. And one of the things I really appreciate about him and his vision and where kind of Under Armor came from is the innovation piece, right? It’s that innovative spirit. And it doesn’t sound like that’s left, it’s like that’s very much alive in today. And a lot of companies, I feel like they tend to kind of, I mean, I’m not going to point any fingers, Apple, but, you know, they kind of they start out on this innovative journey and then they just kind of just like, oh, you know what? We’re good now. Let’s just coast, right? Let’s just rest on our laurels and do what we want to do. And Under Armor hasn’t really done that. What’s been your experience there? What’s drawn you there?

Marcus Britt: [00:03:31] Yeah, that’s so true. I think one of the things, it took me a while to get used to how innovative we are because I’ve experienced other organizations that are much more bureaucratic, right? More slow moving. Under Armor is definitely not that. And really, you know – KP is what we call him – you know, Kevin kind of really established Under Armor and said hey, you know, we have this problem where athletes have this you know, not so great fabric that you get sweaty in and it weighs you down. So you kind of slows you down. So he wanted to have a situation where, you know, this is our Under Armor. We have our fabrics that are breathable and there’s a lot of technology that goes into it, and it’s really mind-blowing how much our team has done with that. But that is really in the ethos of all of the Under Armor. You know, even me being a technical role, being an experienced person, right? I mean, that’s really revolutionary to think about technology as an experience front, more so than just bits and bytes, ones and zeros, you know, servers, things of that nature, all that’s there. But really, it’s like, how does it impact the teammate? And really the fabric of Under Armor is like, we want to make athletes better, right? So it’s really focusing on the athlete. And the way we do that is performance apparel so they can train longer, they can feel good, they can engage their craft and do what they want to do. You know, striving for more is what we always talk about. So yeah, it took me a while to say, Wow, this is really fast-paced. This is a lot of innovation and I love it. But I’m like, okay, are we really like, can I just go right now and do this right now? Are you giving me the keys? And they’re like, Yeah. I’ve only been here six months, but yeah, go for it, Marcus, that’s what you know, go for it and make us proud. So it’s been really a cool experience to work there.

Dr. Dhru: [00:05:07] That’s awesome. Like you said, a lot of companies get weighed down by that whole bureaucracy and like, Oh, we got to check with this person and get these 16 approvals. And then, you know, a year later, it’s like, oh, well, that technology is already obsolete.

Marcus Britt: [00:05:18] It’s already obsolete, right? Absolutely right.

Dr. Dhru: [00:05:21] Technology, right? Like you can’t move that slow with technology. I always point to the government. That’s the other extreme, right, of the innovation side of things. It’s like you have computers in government that are Windows 7, right?

Marcus Britt: [00:05:31] It’s still, right? It’s like, what’s going on, guys? Yeah. And think that’s the thing that I enjoy so much about being in a space that I’m in right now because I don’t lead with technology, I lead with people, processes, then we apply technology. So I’m always focused on, Hey, are the people here, do they have the right skill set? Are they trained up? Are they engaged? If that’s good, then you move on to okay, what are our processes? Because I’ve had the opportunity to be in situations through where, you know, the thought process, we got to go buy this new shiny technology, we got to go get this new thing. And I’m like, Well, wait a minute, what are our processes? And then actually understanding what the processes are, Hey, we can make these process modifications and buy nothing and gain 30% efficiency. Is that okay? Yes, that’s great. You know, so a lot of times it’s not trying to run after that shiny thing and really understanding how we do things and how we, you know, add value and have the transactions that we have, then you look at technology to enable all of that and make that go faster, right? Because I always say technology makes things faster. It doesn’t fix problems, it makes things go faster. So I’m making bad widgets, right? In my current process, I’m going to buy technology and make bad widgets faster. That’s not what you want to do. So you want to be in a situation where, hey, we’re making things great, I got a great process, now how do I scale it, right, versus, Hey, I got a crappy process. Our open enrollment experience is trash. Let’s buy the software solution to fix it all. No, it’s never going to happen.

Dr. Dhru: [00:06:57] Right? No. 100%. And I love that you said that, you know, technology is only as good as your processes and your people. Right? If you hire trash people, you have trash processes, like you said, just make it faster, more efficient to be trash. Right. You know, it’s just going to make the trash smell bad faster. And that’s a nice segue into kind of one of things I want to talk about, which is AI, right? AI has become a big buzzword, right? It’s just like everyone was oh, we’re using AI, we’re using AI, we’re using AI, and it’s just like, okay, why? What do you want to use AI for? Why do you need to use AI? Well, because it’s AI. It’s the future. The future of what? Right? I mean, AI is like this, again it’s a shiny thing you talked about where everybody’s like, Let’s talk about AI, let’s use AI, and in reality, what are you going to use it for? It’s like, have the process and people in mind first. What are you, what are you trying to build towards? And then use that right? Then use that solution. What’s been your perspective on that in terms of like how you know, hey, how AI may or may not fit into society right now?

Marcus Britt: [00:07:54] Yeah, I think most companies and most leaders that I’ve spoken with were a little bit behind the curve on AI. Dhru, I’m probably going to get this timing of the numbers wrong here, but I was doing a lot of research on this. And to put it in context, right, let’s take, for example, Netflix. I believe Netflix took about maybe 5 or 7 years to get to a million subscribers. And then AI or ChatGPT, for example, took days to get to a million subscribers, right? And so we have this concept in technology where it’s almost like a bad word, but like shadow IT, won’t have the business, like HR for example, going out and buying their own solutions and then bringing them in-house and, you know, messing with the IT architecture and infrastructure. Well, that has now shifted and being kind of diluted down to individual teammates. And I’ve had conversations with leaders and say, Hey, what’s our policy again, that people function, what’s our policy around AI? We really don’t. You know, we’re building it out right now. And I’m like, okay, people are using it. I’m telling you that right now. And we have to really get ahead of that.

Marcus Britt: [00:08:58] So I will say that AI is a wonderful tool, but again, a tool that used incorrectly can become a weapon. So we’ve had several situations where, not Under Armor, but kind of experiencing in some of the circles that I’m in, some of my peers where we’re having conversations around, hey, information is being leaked out into the AI sphere because people don’t understand that, hey, we’re crowdsourcing this, you’re putting this out there for the entire Internet. So certain aspects and usage of AI is permissible, but some of it’s not, right? Nothing, trade secrets, no actual data. It’s much like, you know, putting your information on the Internet. My profile is on LinkedIn, but none of my PI is out there. Right? So that’s kind of where we have this dynamic shift to where it’s this new era where you now have to think about shadow IT is not just on a business unit, it’s actually individuals and an organization. And we have to teach them, Hey, you can use these tools, but you have to understand the framework around it and what you’re actually signing up for.

Dr. Dhru: [00:10:01] 100%, dude, I think, I think that’s also another concept where people just like they like, like you said, shiny things, but they don’t look at the concepts around that. Right? What are the implications of using this or thinking about this? And I go back to, you know, a great example of like 2020, right, with Zoom. It was a necessity. Everyone moved to Zoom. Everyone’s talking about online stuff, Zoom and teams and whatever else. But Zoom wasn’t built for that yet at that point. They hadn’t scaled it up to the point where the security was enough to sustain that. And so as a result of that, you had all the data breaches, all the issues with people breaking into rooms and showing porn on these in the middle of these meetings and whatnot. Right? Because they hadn’t prepared themselves for those kind of things for where it was like on a large enough corporate, you know, kind of enterprise scale. And they fixed it, obviously, they went back and fixed a lot of that stuff. But that’s the kind of the thing you’re thinking about, where you’re planning ahead or you’re not planning ahead, I should say. And you’re using technology you don’t fully understand.

Marcus Britt: [00:10:51] Absolutely. That’s the number one. And that’s the biggest challenge, I feel, in the industry that I experience myself, is that working with my teammates and not having a full appreciation, understanding of the technology, one, and then also to the environment and the impacts, upstream and downstream impacts, of said solution and how it affects everything else. And I use the analogy all the time, Hey, we’re all in the same swimming pool, right? So be mindful, like, you know, if you’re splashing, I’m going to feel it downstream or, you know, make sure you don’t pee in the pool like that type of thing. Like, don’t do those things. The interconnection, especially in the HR space, is so tight now. Long gone are the days where you have a business that’s in a silo. There’s no such thing as silos anymore. It’s all connected. Now we people may still operate mentally in that frame of mind, Dhru, but there are no silos. Everything’s interconnected. Data flows from system to system, and you have to be mindful of that at all times.

Dr. Dhru: [00:11:47] Yeah, because that’s kind of the Internet of things, right? And that’s a term we haven’t really used that term in a while, but it really is kind of that connectivity piece of it where you’re talking about, you know, your fridge is talking to your Google home or your Alexa or whatever, and that’s talking to Microsoft or Amazon or Google or whatever. And data’s going back and forth, right? We have to make sure you have to understand that there’s an implication of using that technology. There’s a cost of convenience, right?

Marcus Britt: [00:12:10] Absolutely. Yep. Yep. Data mining is happening all the time, brother.

Dr. Dhru: [00:12:13] Oh, yeah. I mean, I was talking to somebody about this the other day and he was shocked to hear the way Amazon’s using data, right? Because he didn’t realize, and some people might not realize this, so when you do a search on Amazon, right, and you probably already know this, Marcus, but when you do a search on Amazon, let’s say you’re searching for prenatal pills for your significant other, your wife, whatever. Right? And that search goes through, you know, now that data is out there that you search for that on your account. Fast forward 6 to 7 months, right, Amazon is going to start showing you ads or things for diapers because their algorithms have put together, oh, you know, when people search for this about seven, six, seven months later, maybe eight months later, you’re going to have to start buying diapers. Right? And so they know that that’s what you need. So they’re going to start showing you that stuff. And people don’t realize this guy, this client of mine didn’t realize that that that was a level of detail Amazon had gone into in terms of saying like, they’re putting things together in ways that we haven’t really thought about yet to try to predict the behaviors we’re going to go through. And as a result, you know, it makes them a lot more profitable, obviously. Right? But it is that data, everything you search for in Google and whatever, there’s a reason that you get these ads. If you talk about stuff, if your phone hears you talking about certain things, right, you’ll get ads for these things. And people wonder why the heck that happens. But it’s fascinating. I mean, it’s brilliant. It really is. But it’s also you know, it is that privacy question, is like, how safe are we really in privacy, right?

Marcus Britt: [00:13:40] Yeah. You know, you kind of, it kind of like makes you raise an eyebrow or kind of feel a little weird because, yes, it is happening. I mean, whether it’s, you know, I have Amazon devices in my home and, you know, it’s probably people around me that have Amazon devices. And there’s been, you know, I don’t know how true this is, but there’s been talk about, you know, Amazon has its own network where they use my internet connection and connect to other devices around to kind of create this mesh network where even on my ring system, I know I can have a situation where I can kind of have a neighborhood watch and connect with other neighbors and other ring devices if I so choose to. I don’t. But, you know, it’s there. And I think that’s something that we have to be mindful of as consumers. Right? And again, to your point is with AI, we have to be mindful of what you’re doing. And that’s, again, like I go back to my mantra: people, processes, tech. If I have my people understanding that and I know my processes, I know what I’m doing. I get it where it’s like, Hey, we’re not secure enough to use AI in our organization because we got some processes that aren’t tight or our processes and procedures are really tight, we can definitely engage AI. And I think that’s the work that I’m working with my business partners to kind of say, Hey, I need you to do that.

Marcus Britt: [00:14:47] Let me handle the technology geek speak stuff, but you need to make sure that your business is fortified, your processes are fortified, and we can engage it. I use this analogy all the time, Dhru. You have to have pressure in a system. So you think about pipes in a home, right? Without pressure, the system is no good, right? But if you don’t have a good fortification of the joints and the valves and things like that, you apply pressure, it’s going to burst and create a lot of damage, right? So you have to have that balance between structure and pressure. So people want to talk about the pressure or the passion. Let’s go for it. Let’s use AI, let’s do all these great, you know, creative things. That’s great. But if you don’t have a system that can handle that, you’re going to create a lot of collateral damage. So I think that’s kind of where we are in technology is it’s so ingrained in everything we do. Everyone’s a technologist now. It’s not just people like me. Everyone is. It’s just kind of navigating through that. And how much of that your role requires you to know about technology.

Dr. Dhru: [00:15:38] Yeah, no, I love that. And I think that that’s accurate too. I mean, I think everyone is, you’re right, everyone is a technologist to a certain extent. Some just tend to be bad technologists versus good ones, you know?

Marcus Britt: [00:15:49] Yeah, true. Yeah, that’s that’s so true.

Dr. Dhru: [00:15:52] Yeah but I love that analogy of, the pressure pipe system because it’s accurate. I mean, any organization has their own pipes that they don’t spend time and energy to fortify those things, those weak points. So let’s shift gears for a second real quick. As you’re talking about this, you know, Ikigai Leadership is another podcast. So about leadership, right, in terms of for an organization like Under Armor to run the way it runs and to enable someone like you to empower you to actually do what you want to do in such an agile form, there has to be strong leadership, right? What role have you seen leadership be in your work at Under Armor and before?

Marcus Britt: [00:16:24] Yeah, I’ll say definitely for me, a huge role, right, in initially coming to Under Armor I have a leader that I’m working with now that is super supportive and empowering. It took a little while getting used to that too, because I’m kind of more so of used to working with individuals that still want to have some level of control.

Dr. Dhru: [00:16:44] Micro-managers.

Marcus Britt: [00:16:44] You know, micro managers, right?

Dr. Dhru: [00:16:47] Let’s call them what they are.

Marcus Britt: [00:16:48] It’s called, yeah. Micro-Manager. Right. It’s like, okay, let me make sure. Let me check behind you on everything you do. And you know, the amount of trust that I have with my leader now is really refreshing. And, you know, she says, I work for you. You know, I’m here to knock down obstacles and help you be the best version of yourself. And I’m like, Oh, that’s great. So really a servant leadership perspective and at Under Armor, it’s definitely an athlete-driven culture, right? Because it’s more so our leaders want to be more like coaches and help the athletes achieve, right, from that perspective, for internally, as far as teammates, as well as our athletes that wear our gear. So I think leadership is definitely a major factor in it, but it’s more so situational. Like I’ll subscribe to situational leadership in all that I do because it’s so key to where, in certain situations, even though I’m very, very, I’ve got 21 years of experience in the industry, my leader doesn’t help me with the technology, but it may be something as far as navigating a political situation or working on some of the financial components of my job where I may need a little bit more engagement. So I think that’s what’s really helped me at Under Armor, where leaders are understanding of that situational engagement model and understand well, hey, Marcus has never done this before at Under Armor. So let me really kind of be a micromanager here to say, okay, let me help you through all these steps versus, hey, he just needs me to give him the direction, the budget, knock down a couple of barriers and let him run. Right? Because, you know, micromanaging someone who’s very capable is extremely frustrating for that person. And in those situations, people like that leave. Right? It’s like, I don’t need you to tell, I’ve been doing this 20 years, I don’t need you to tell me what to do. You know, I need you to get out my way or help me, you know, break down some of these walls. So that’s kind of the experiences I’ve had with leadership at Under Armor from this perspective.

Dr. Dhru: [00:18:29] That’s awesome. And I do want to clarify, I don’t mean that every person who takes an active role in their employees is a micromanager. Right? But there is that line, right? There’s certain, like you alluded to, that there’s a certain level of support that you need sometimes when you’re new in a role, if you’re new to a certain action or a certain process, that makes sense. Right? But like you said, to your point, if you’re micromanaging someone, if you’re sitting there involved in the day-to-day of someone who’s been doing this thing for 20 years or any period of time that’s significant, right, that is micromanaging. And that’s where that line comes up. So.

Marcus Britt: [00:19:00] Yeah, Dhru, I think the big part of that is it’s a lack of trust. I think that’s the key element. If you trust me and we trust each other, we can quickly understand, like, let’s say, for example, I have the pleasure of working with you and you’re my leader. We have a relationship that’s full of trust. And you’ll say, Oh, I may think that I don’t really know how to do this, I don’t know how to do this podcast thing. And you’re like, No, Marcus, you’ll be fine. And then I trust you, you trust me, and we’ll be able to quickly align because that needle can move very quickly, right? And good leaders know when to say, Oh, well, Marcus doesn’t really need this level of involvement. He just needs to be coached or, you know, encouraged and pushed along. And I think that’s the key for leaders to understand where is my person in this situation? Not, hey, Marcus is great. He’s been working on this for 20 years. And you give assignments and some people may not be as vocal as I am, but say, hey, no, I need help. I don’t know what this is. Right? And then they get in these situations where they get frustrated. So I think leaders need to kind of really take count of where their people are given the situations that they have and know huh, has Marcus done this before? Where is he? Or even ask a question. Hey, where are you? Are you good? Or do you want me to kind of really, you know, ride shotgun with you? Do you want me to drive? Help me understand. I think that’s really key. And that’s what I do with my people all the time. I’m like, okay, you tell me what support level you need. I can be daddy bear and then just, you know, cover the whole thing and you watch me and I lead the way or I can back completely off and to stand back and be your coach and say, up your swing’s off. Try that again, buddy. You know, and whichever one you need and I think that’s the key. And it’s really helped me in my leadership growth and engagement. And a lot of my teammates have thanked me for giving them the space to learn, right? You know, so that’s kind of where I think micromanaging robs you of that, right? That’s why so many people hate it because, like, I need to learn how to make mistakes. Like I don’t need you on top of me all the time, you know?

Dr. Dhru: [00:20:44] Yeah. And I think that comes back to a couple things. Trust is definitely one of those number one things. But I think also insecurity, right, on both sides. Like you said, some people are not necessarily vocal enough, on both sides, right? On the employee side and on the manager side, because some people on the employee side are not as vocal and not, they’re like, oh, well, I’m supposed to know this, so I’m afraid to ask for help. Right? On the flip side, on the manager side, some people are just insecure and just like, I don’t want to be challenged, I don’t want my people to think that I don’t know what I’m doing. So I’m going to keep making sure that I’m visibly involved on everything so no one questions my value. And they don’t understand that being a leader is value in and of itself, right? Empowering people is value in and of itself. Whether you’re doing the work actively or not, you’re not being paid to do the work anymore. You’re a manager, right? You’re being paid to manage your team, help them to do what they need to do, remove obstacles when needed and that kind of thing.

Marcus Britt: [00:21:32] And I think one thing we talked about before, Dhru, that I’m so, you know, appreciative of this time with you and what you are doing with your leadership development programs, is really kind of helping people be aware, like, where am I, right? And awareness. I think that’s the number one thing for myself in my career when I became self-aware and confident in that, that, hey, I’m really good in these areas, I’m not so good in these other areas, and I play to my strengths, I go on offense. You know, I’m not going to sit here and waste a lot of my energy on trying to, you know, I’m not a detail-oriented person. I’m more of a visionary, big-picture person. Show me the field of dreams. Okay. Now I can start to work on building it versus starting from the detailed step one, like, that doesn’t energize me. And I know that, right? And so I think that comes with a lot of security for me. And it’s enabled me, like you said, to be able to lead in that space. But I think that’s one thing that everyone who listens to this podcast should take away from this. It’s like, Hey, where am I? And be honest with yourself, right? So that you can grow. I think that’s the first step in being a leader because the number one leadership role is leading yourself, right? You have to do that first, right? Then you can lead others or you can aspire to whatever career paths that you want to go into. You’re not properly leading yourself, you’re never going to get there.

Dr. Dhru: [00:22:42] 100%. I love that. And self-awareness is absolutely, absolutely the key, right? The first step is self-awareness and owning it, right? You can be aware and then just be in denial, but you can also own it and because you’re being aware. And I don’t know if I told you this when we talked, when we talked in Charlotte, but the reason I named my company, Nayan Leadership, there’s two reasons. One, my nephew’s name is Nayan. I named him, which is I’m proud of. But two, Nayan is Hindi for eyes, it means eyes. And the whole idea is self-awareness, right? You can’t change or affect any change around something you’re not aware of. So the first step is seeing something and then you change it. Right?

Marcus Britt: [00:23:13] That’s it. I love it. Yeah, love it. I think that’s the key. And it’s also I had to understand that perspective of seeing myself and then how do I see myself, right? How do I value myself? Do I value myself based on what other people have said about me? Or how do I see myself? And that’s really been kind of supercharged me in my career. Once I got that, seeing myself, honoring myself, understanding myself, now it’s like, okay, now I’m ready to go because I know what my deficiencies are and I know what my strengths are and I can go and attack what I think, honestly, that if I can like put that in a message in a bottle and give it to every person on the world, I mean, that’s the key. That’s the spice of life. Once you do that, the rest, whatever you want to do in your, whatever your dreams are, you can make those happen. But until you do that, nothing’s going to happen because you can’t see yourself. So I love that. I love that you did that from that perspective. That’s why we’re cool, man. That’s why I like you. Because you’re a deep, brother, man.

Dr. Dhru: [00:24:05] I appreciate it, man. Yeah, sometimes a little too deep. But, you know.

Marcus Britt: [00:24:10] I hear you.

Dr. Dhru: [00:24:11] So going back to Charlotte for a second, right? That was a fun session. That was actually a whole lot of fun. I mean, I knew was going to be fun. I didn’t know it would be that much fun because I’m glad that you and I clicked as well as we did. For you, what was it, what was the best question you got in that session? I have my answer, but I want to, I’m curious what your answer was. If you can remember, I only remember that one question really, honestly, that’s why I said it.

Marcus Britt: [00:24:30] Yeah, no, I’m thinking back. Um. I think the best question I got was a young lady who was just real. She was like, Listen, I hear all of this stuff, but she kind of asked us, Hey, well, how do I still make the change? Even though I’m trying to get into the industry in technology, right, and, you know, I don’t have the experience and, you know, I’m just trying and I hear all what you guys are saying, but… So she was very brave to ask us this question, right? To say like, listen, I hear you, but how do we do this? And I think that was the rawness that you have to really have, to really be, you know, successful. Somebody like that is somebody I want. I want that raw hunger to where I think we were able to really kind of help her because she was one of the young ladies who came up to us afterwards and kind of helped her see the vision and see like, okay, it’s how you see yourself, how you see yourself is your issue right now. It’s not that, okay, you got turned down by a couple employers because you don’t have experience, yada, yada, yada. So what? Right? Don’t let that define yourself. If you want this, you will get it. You’re going to get some no’s.

Marcus Britt: [00:25:32] But a lot of times it’s like, I look at no’s as like I got to get to a certain number of no’s before I hit yes. So I flip it. It’s like, okay, what did I learn from this no? Why did they give me a no? What’s that learn? And each one of those lessons that get, I think we talked about this, Dhru, at the conference, Formula 409. I love that, people get sick of me talking about them. But like my kids roll their eyes every time I talk about it. It’s like, keep trying, don’t quit, if they would have quit at 300, they would have gotten there. So for those who don’t know the story, I think it’s two scientists in Detroit, Michigan, were building out this solution where they’re trying to get this degreaser, you know, cleaning solution. And it took them 409 attempts. And once they got there, they were like, what’s the name of this thing, Formula 409, because it took us 409 times to get there. So that’s kind of my mantra is like, if I keep moving forward, I’m going to be successful. I’ve just keep, I think we talked about failing forward, too, or falling forward too, you know, while we were there. So that was my favorite question. What was yours?

Dr. Dhru: [00:26:24] Yeah, actually mine was similar, but I remember that lady, she was, that one was phenomenal. She was great. We actually connected afterwards. But my favorite question was actually after the session, a young man came up to me with a similar question, actually, and he was saying he went to break into IT. He’s studying, he’s studying hardcore. He’s certified in a couple of different things, but his day-to-day job is not IT related at all. And so he was asking, you know, what he needs to do to kind of break into the thing. And I asked him, my question to him was, when you introduce yourself to somebody, what do you tell them you do? And he was like – because he wants to get into cyber security, he’s certified in a bunch of different things in cyber security – and he’s like, Well, I tell them that I work at this other place and then I’m studying. So I’m like, I’m like, okay, cut that out right away. I mean, that’s that’s, first it’s too long. Second of all, people lose interest. If you tell somebody you study this thing on the side, then they’re thinking that that’s what you are on the side. I’m like, market yourself as that thing because you are that thing, right? You got to believe it first and then everybody else is going to believe it. If I just met this guy for the first time and I don’t know who he is, I’m going to pretty much trust whatever he says is true.

Dr. Dhru: [00:27:23] You know, trust but verify. That’s kind of the way it works, right? So if I tell you, Hey, Marcus, we just met, I’m actually an IT consultant, but I also want to do this and I also want to do that. And I also want to do that. I’m going to seem like I’m kind of scattered and don’t know what the hell I’m doing, right? But if I tell you, Hey, Marcus, yeah, I’m a business coach, this is what I do. Executive coach. You’re like, oh, cool. Okay, cool, you know, and let’s talk about that or whatever, you know, whatever makes sense around that because that’s the way, the context in which you’re seeing me now. Right? And that was, I think, a cool question to answer for people, because I think a lot of people don’t go through that right now. Like you said, especially people at that conference are trying to break into technology to try to get into that world. And there are so many certifications to get. You can get certified up the ass if you want to for literally years and then still never do anything with it. But the point is to make that shift in your head first and then let people know that.

Marcus Britt: [00:28:09] Yeah, that’s so true. Again, it kind of, the theme I think we keep hitting on here, Dhru, is that, you know, it’s being self-aware. I had a young man who came to me actually who sat down before the conference started. He said, You mind to look at my resume. I was like, sure. And so I looked over his resume and then he kind of had some imposter syndrome I felt going on as far as like, Well, I’m just in college and, well, I’m like, Dude, no, first of all, no, you’re in college, number one. Not everybody’s in college. And I think he had some experience working and doing some research. I’m like, This is phenomenal. That’s what you do in college. You do research. So this is great. Like, you’re not, you know, you’re not expecting, I said don’t expect to be where I am in my career. But I started where you were. I was in college doing research. And again, a lot of times, again, like I said, and this is one of the things I love technology, but I don’t like, I don’t want to know if this is the mantra of technology, but it’s like this aura of technology is if you don’t understand tech, you’re not smart. I hate that. Right? And so people say, well, I don’t, I’m not a smart guy like you. Yes, you are. You just know a different discipline. You know, a different solution. Technology is, it’s a lot of jargon, a lot of stuff, right, we can talk about. But I mean, Dhru, you can hit me with some jargon right now if you still choose to.

Marcus Britt: [00:29:15] And every industry is the same. So I think that’s the thing where, again, everyone’s a technologist. We use technology every day. We have cell phones in our pockets, we have internet of things in our house. We’re setting up our home routers and networks and stuff like nobody’s business now. And again, it’s truly just seeing yourself and understanding who you are and then envisioning yourself as that. Because everything that I’ve been successful at, I’ve seen myself doing it before I was there. Nothing was like, never like, oh, wow I just woke up one morning, I’m a technology supervisor. Hey, you know, I had an ideology of I can do this or I can be here. I want that. It was something that birthed in me early and then, you know, I align myself to it versus just falling into it. So I’m great that you had that conversation. I had some similar conversations like that with other people there, and I think we really made an impact on people. That was the coolest thing about being there, is we really made a deep impact. And I was, I wasn’t expecting that. And I was yeah, I was blessed and honored by wow, we really impacted these folks where I was going to be like getting to meet some cool people talk about tech. Yeah, that’s great. Have some coffee and, you know, make some contacts and, you know, beef up my LinkedIn network. But we really connected with people, so that was really cool.

Dr. Dhru: [00:30:24] Yeah, no, I fully agree with you, man. That’s the same feeling I had walking out of there. I was like, Wow, this is actually like a day where I actually got to affect people on a very personal level. You’re prepared for that at a certain level. But I think the conferences I’ve been to and this is something I noticed that was very different about technology in Charlotte at least, I haven’t been to any of the other chapters. But Charlotte, that chapter that day, was very raw, right? In a good way. It was very honest. It was very raw. It was very much like, Hey, this is what we want to do and we’re hungry for information. And I feel like a lot of conferences, I go to, people, whether they actually do know this stuff already or whether they don’t, they just want to act like it. I feel like people have an air of like, I should know this, so I’m going to act like I already know this, you know what I mean? And that was not the case there, which I really appreciated. People were very hungry and like, Hey, I’m going to ask this question. Whereas somewhere else, I feel like people think like this is a dumb question. There’s not a dumb question. It’s just something you’re curious about, which makes it a not dumb question, right?

Marcus Britt: [00:31:19] Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I mean love that grassroots, because that’s where I come from. I’m hungry. I don’t mind looking stupid. I don’t mind standing up and saying, Hey, I don’t understand. You know, everybody else can hear me understand? I don’t understand. That served me well. Where I had to, again, see myself through like, I don’t care what you people think. I don’t know what this person is saying. Probably half the room doesn’t know. But you guys are too scared to say anything. I’ll stand up. I don’t, I don’t mind. And that’s the part of my personality too, the CEO could be having a conversation, I’ll be like, Hey, Kevin, what are you saying about this now? I don’t get that. Nobody here, I don’t understand. I have no problem doing that. And I’ve leaned into that in my life. And that served me well, Dhru. And I think that’s what I appreciated so much because there was a rawness. It wasn’t like a, oh, I’m posturing, I’m here at the, you know, XYZ conference and, you know, I am just as smart as everybody here, or I’m just here for other things. It was just, we’re hungry and whatever you have for us, because several people even connected with me after the conference, I’m really hungry, I want what you have, help me. I’m honored that you want to help me. It was just such a real and raw and authentic experience. It was just hard to, hard to put into words. But it was really good.

Dr. Dhru: [00:32:21] I agree with you 100%. And I want to go back to something you said just now a little bit ago, about which you didn’t say the word patience, but I want to call it the word patience, right? Patience with yourself. Right? In terms of like where you are in your life. Like you said, you didn’t wake up one day and say, hey, I’m you know, I’m here at Under Armor. I just woke up and here I am. Right? You know, each of us has our own journey. We worked to get where we are. I think a lot of times people are expecting that by a certain age they should be a certain place in their career or in their life or whatever. And it’s just not the case, right? I mean, age is, first of all, arbitrary as fuck, right? Let’s call it what it is, right? There’s nothing that means anything about age other than you have another year under your belt. You don’t have to be a certain place in life or career by a certain age. And I think patience with yourself, especially with, like, the kid in college, right? You’re in college, dude. Like, you’re not supposed to be making $1 million a year in college. No one expects you to do that. Right? And for you to put that on yourself to be like, I should be a director in college. No, that’s crazy. And frankly, you’re not ready to be a director at that age, right? You’re not ready to manage people at that age, and nor should you be. And no one should, no one should fault you for that. So for you, what role has patience played in your career and your journey?

Marcus Britt: [00:33:29] So I got the best advice from one of my, this is when I was working on HR at the electrical utility in South Carolina, and she’s like, Marcus, be gracious with yourself. Because I had an opportunity, it’s a little bit about my career story. I started traditional path of an IT person, you know, started off in the Help desk, worked my way up to network analyst, you know, routing, switching, all the technology, you know, mumbo jumbo, working in the data centers, internet routing, all that good stuff, right? Then I had an opportunity to take a leadership role in what we call the Help desk at that time. Right? Working with people. They said you’re great with people. You’ll be great with this. You’re a great, you know, person. So I’ve led the cyber security awareness program and kind of like this liaison between IT and people in that role. Then I got a chance to do like a massive leap of faith in my career where the CHRO at the time approached me and said, Hey, you know, we got this role here. Think you might be good for it, you know, what are you, you’re interested? It was a HR operations role completely outside of my comfort zone. And I’ll say now with like, career progression, there’s no corporate ladder. That’s a myth, right? And it kind of leads back to talk about being, you know, patient with yourself. It’s more like rock climbing now, right, where you are climbing up sometimes, sometimes you have to go down to go up. Sometimes you have to jump across a space and have no connection to anything and then leap and grab back on to some other space as you’re dropping down. And that’s what I did. And I had to be patient with myself because I kind of reset, because I had all of this equity built up in IT, and now I’m in HR and I don’t know anything about HR. So that’s when I learned and she was like, You’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself. You’re fine, be gracious with yourself. And so I took that in. I was like, yeah, let me take some time because it’s going to take time for me. Basically, the career change, Dhru, in the middle of my career, like ten years in, but it was awesome. So now I’ve taken that with me and I can be in a situation where I’m uncomfortable because I don’t know everything, but I’m not going to stay up all night and try to, you know, kill myself to learn everything because I don’t have to.

Marcus Britt: [00:35:31] That’s when networking comes in the space. And so, like, I think one of the things that I had a chance to share this with one of the teammates that were at the Blacks Technology Conference, I’m like, This is what this is about, network. You don’t have to learn everything. You need to connect with people. So if I have a leadership question, Dhru, I’m gonna come to you and say, Hey, I got this leadership situation. Do you think you can kind of have your company come in and help us with this? That’s what this is all about. It’s about connecting with people. And then I’m in my strength, you’re in your strength, and we can connect and engage each other and I don’t have to sit here and try to do everything. So that’s where patience has really played a role for me in giving myself grace and taking the time, one, in connecting with my peers and asking for help. Big one. And then number two, giving myself time to understand I don’t know everything about this AI phenomenon. I’m going to learn about it, but I’m gonna give myself grace and give myself time to do that perspective. So that’s kind of what I’ve learned, Dhru.

Dr. Dhru: [00:36:24] That’s great, man. So much of what you just said is applicable across the board, right? I mean, and I’m going to highlight just one thing, but there’s so much more you could highlight from what you just said, but that’s just the networking piece and being, having patience with what you know and what you don’t know. I like to say, I like to call it working in your wax, working in your flame, right? You can either work in your wax and burn yourself out or you can work in your flame and then delegate the wax stuff because everybody has a different flame. Right?

Marcus Britt: [00:36:48] That is so good, bro. Hey, patent that. Because that is so true. Because that’s the thing, right? That’s what I’m trying to do in my, I’m didn’t mean to cut you off. But that’s so exciting because it’s like, that is it, that that’s a great analogy because working in my wax just exhaust me, right? And I want to work in my flame, what sets me on fire. But go ahead. I mean, I don’t mean to cut you off.

Dr. Dhru: [00:37:06] No, no, no, not at all. I mean, that was pretty much it. But I can’t take credit for that. I didn’t make that up. I forget where I heard it. I heard it from somewhere, I can’t remember where I got it from, but I wish I could take credit for it. I don’t want to steal it. So it’s not mine. But you can have it. I’m giving it to you anyway.

Marcus Britt: [00:37:19] We will give credit. Who, author out there? Have you seen this podcast? Please let us know who you are because that was great. That’s awesome.

Dr. Dhru: [00:37:24] I love it. I love it too. So, um, cool, man. So as we’re wrapping up here, I got one last question for you, which is basically inspiration-wise in your career, you know, and we can talk all day honestly, because we can probably have another follow-up with these later. But for you personally, what was your biggest inspiration? What or who? So either a person, a book, a movie or TV show, anything.

Marcus Britt: [00:37:43] I think it’s a person for me. So it’s a gentleman by the name of Ray Snyder. We just talked about this working in your flame. So I was in the space where I’m in technology about seven years into my career, and I’m trying to make a decision. Do I go into the super tech route or do I go into posturing myself for leadership and management? Because in technology and similar now there’s kind of a pathway where you can go in to be like the, the Smee, the subject matter expert, right? And be that person. Or you can say, well, I want to get into leadership and you kind of get away from the technology and it’s more focused on people, which is hard for some. So I made a decision which was very good, to go back and get my MBA, and it kind of gave me the balance between technology and business so I can actually talk to C-suite folks because I had, I struggled because I was talking tech, when I would talk to the C-suite folks about we need to do this technology, it’s going to save us money. Tech, tech, tech, tech. And they were like glossed over versus talking about ROI, risk factors, things of that nature, and showing how the technology mitigated those risks. It flipped my whole mindset. I’m like, Oh, this is how I’ve talked to C-suite folks.

Marcus Britt: [00:38:51] So getting back to working in your flame, I saw Ray and he’s been a lifetime friend for almost, wow, probably 15 years now. And he was so engaged. He was one of my teachers. He was teaching business, um, business communications. And I saw him and I’m like, Dude, this guy is really like alive in his passion. Like, he’s doing something that he absolutely loves. I don’t have that. What is that about? Like, how do you get there? Because I’m good at my job, but it’s a job. This dude is on fire. And so he was the first person I saw kind of working in his flame. And he kind of helped me connect to where I’m like, Oh, this is what I’m really passionate about. This is what I love. So I need to kind of frame my life and my career around what the things I really am passionate about. And then the rest kind of takes care of itself because I think sometimes, and I’m guarded when people want to get into technology, Dhru, because I’m like, Don’t do it for the money. We talked about this in the conference. It sucks, right? You’re going to work a lot more hours than you think, you’re going to be on call, you’re going to do this. You got to do it because you love it.

Marcus Britt: [00:39:56] If you don’t love it, get out and do something you love. And so seeing him kind of in his space, being a teacher and being so like alive in it, it inspired me to find that for myself. And that’s kind of been that technology and people space because I’m a weird bird in that I’m a technologist that loves people. So not to say people in technology don’t like people, but you get what I’m saying. Like you don’t go into technology, I want to, you know, impact thousands of people so I’m going to just go into tech. It’s not necessarily framed that way. Now I’m hopeful to change that and give people who have a natural connection with people to have more opportunities in technology, because I can do both. I can really be a tech guy and hit you with the jargon all day long, or I can be in front of people all day long. And so I had to kind of carve a pathway for myself because it’s not a direct line to where I’m going to go to college to do this technology and get these certifications to talk to people. Like it’s not really a space for that, but I don’t let it stop me. So that’s kind of my primary inspiration. And he’s still a friend of mine till this day.

Dr. Dhru: [00:40:57] That’s awesome. No, that’s powerful, man. And especially the piece around, you know, really just focusing on what you want to do, right? What really lights you up? What’s your flame, again, going back to that, because I think people don’t take enough time to figure that out. And we ask kids to do this at 20, 21 years old. You know what I mean? Okay. Pick a major and that’s going to be your career for the rest of your life. Good luck, right? Like, no, that’s not the way the world works at all. And it puts so much pressure on anybody. But this is awesome. Marcus, thank you so much for coming out and talking to me today. We definitely got to do another one of these because I feel like we could talk for days about random stuff.

Marcus Britt: [00:41:30] That’s awesome. Well, Dhru, hey, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Love what you’re doing with your company and the podcast. Let’s just keep, you know, helping people, you know, learn and see themselves, right, as the essence of your business does, because I’m all about helping people and I think, you know, once they can see that, then they can be better leaders, better people, and be more fulfilled and enriched. So thanks again for having me, man. It was a pleasure being here.

Dr. Dhru Bee: [00:41:57] Thank you all so much for listening to the Ikigai Leadership podcast today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a five-star review with comments to let me know what you thought. It really helps me keep on delivering valuable and relevant content to you all, and if you want to connect with me directly, please feel free to do so on my socials. That’s at @DhruBee on Twitter, at @DhruvaBee on Instagram and LinkedIn, it’s linkedin.com/in/dhrubee. Thank you all so much. Take care. Stay safe. Talk to you soon.