Lisa Lutoff-Perlo - CEO, Celebrity Cruises | Running a 24/7, Billion Dollar Brand

The quote or the mantra is watch me prove you wrong. Not just the first time, but how many times have you proved people wrong over your career? I don't know if I've kept count, but what I will tell you is many times. For so many different reasons, I have been proving people wrong for decades. When people look at your career, what you've achieved, phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal, and people would look at you and they would say she's shattered the glass ceiling. She's done the thing. You basically epitomized the entry level to CEO. That's the goal, right? That's what everybody wants to do. So what would you say that you did right? Did wrong. Composing business goals through heart is, I believe, one of the best ways to do that. These crew members catapulted me as a main part of the success I was able to achieve. And this amazing brand I was able to build. When I entered operations in 2005, over a dozen shifts with 1500 to 2000 crew members. And I said, we're going to invert the pyramid. Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. HubSpot has been a huge supporter of the show for over three years now. And I'm a big fan of HubSpot because not only do they support the show, but they support entrepreneurs, they support founders. And obviously, building businesses, working with entrepreneurs has been a huge part of my career. And building is never easy. HubSpot is not only tools and technology that supports entrepreneurs, but they also offer tons of resources and discounts. But first, what is HubSpot if you've never used it before? It is the platform that unites your entire front office, from marketing to sales to support. It's the platform that streamlines your support tickets, it generates more leads, it increases your sales. It is the platform that scales right alongside you. Don't even get me started on the educational articles, industry reports, the videos, tips, templates, literally everything startup founders need to help scale. HubSpot for startups has it all. Building a business is tough. Maybe make it a little bit easier on yourself. Visit hubspot.com slash startups to see how much you can save and see how much you can learn. Music Lisa, thank you for joining. I really appreciate you coming on. I want to start off with a quote or a mantra that you subscribe to. So the quote or the mantra is, watch me prove you wrong. That's Tom Brady. And I want to know, not just the first time, but how many times have you proved people wrong over your career? Well, first of all, Scott, it's so terrific being with you here today. And I don't know if I kept count, but what I will tell you is many times. You know, I have chosen to put quotes in interspersed in my story from famous people. And yeah, I have continually felt like I had to prove people wrong my entire career. Whether it was people responsible for promoting me and helping me achieve my career aspirations, or even the people I've ended up leading because I've been put in positions where either I was the first woman or I had never done those jobs before where there were so many skeptics that why are you my leader? Why did they choose you? Why are you here? What can you do for me? And so for so many different reasons, I have been proving people wrong for decades. You know, when people look at your career, incredible career, you've, I mean, what you've achieved, phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. And people would look at you and they would say, well, she's, she's shattered the glass ceiling. She's, she's done the thing. But what you just said to me was actually very interesting. So even when you're in those roles and you're leading people, you've, you've had senior roles, not just with as CEO right now, but with past, with past organizations as well. So you still get pushed back. You still get people that question your leadership, even though how many years have you been in this industry? I think you said 39, 39 years. Yeah, yeah. So you still get people that push back and question why you are in the role that you're in. Not anymore. Thankfully, and I guess 39 years of proving people were all or maybe 30 by the time. No, I even think 39. I'm going to say 39. And what's interesting to me and, you know, I'm hoping at some point in time, either now or in another in a future conversation is, as I've decided to exit this industry after 39 years. What I'm finding is the body of work and all the time I've spent proving people wrong is serving me really well in my future. And I still am trying to figure out why throughout my entire career in the company that I lived. I had to do it so many times. It's actually, it's, it's sad and it's disheartening. Like, so when you look at celebrity, obviously, you've made massive changes to who they are as an organization. Do you think celebrity is very similar to the rest of the cruise industry? Do you think it's like an outlier in terms of the type of like cultural and organizational changes that you had to implement over your career? Do you think it's like if you're going to, if you're going to rank it in terms of like experience, would it be positive, negative middle of the road like when you were coming up? Well, what I will say is that I had an amazing career. I've accomplished more than I ever would have imagined or actually more than I ever did imagine. So as that is the backdrop, what I will say about leading celebrity is it was probably harder to lead celebrity than it would be to lead any other of, especially the larger cruise lines that have been around for a much longer period of time, more established brands, more differentiated brands. Celebrity I always looked at as the challenger brand trying to find its place. And when, you know, when I came into the role as president and CEO of that was what I was charged with celebrity needs to find its place. It needs to solidify its position, pick the position and solidify it in the market and significantly improve the financial performance of the brand. And that was a heavy lift. And when I was invited to the role, one of the other things I say all the time is be careful what you wish for because once you get to see, you know, it's great getting the seat, but it's not easy being in the chair. That's for sure. And no, no, no kidding at all. So, you know, the other point is you mentioned all the the traditional metrics that a president CEO should focus on. But you are very outspoken about and this is where I want to challenge a bit. You are a heart centered leader. You're a heart focused leader. And if somebody just sort of glosses over that, it's like, I wish you watch you. It's like, it's whatever. Yes, everyone's a good person, right? It's a girly, it's a girly thing. Is that what they say? I'm not saying that. No, I know you're not, but you're saying what other people say? Sometimes that people say, oh, that's a girly thing. Anyway, got it? No, no, the point is the point is, okay, so you're not an idiot. You're a very smart person. When you put that out into the world, how do you reconcile that against business KPIs? Because we're going to, we're going to paint a picture of like what leadership should be. That's what I want to get to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, I think leading work heart, what I learned, here's what I learned by leading with heart because it was really important to me to lead with heart, especially when I entered operations in 2005. I saw, you know, over a dozen ships with 1500 to 2000 crew members from all over the world, these lovely, beautiful people who left their homes and their families to make a better life, like for themselves. And I saw a hierarchy, somewhat militaristic type of an environment where it was led by stripes. However many stripes you had, you thought you, you got respect for that. I came from sales and marketing, a gentle culture. And I, you know, I called BS. And I said, no, this is not what this culture should be. We're going to invert the pyramid. And the leader is more important than the captain, and we're going to get respect because we give respect. And we're going to lead with heart. And we're going to value, show these crew members how much they're valued and how much we appreciate them. And you know what I learned through that, Scott? And I really built that muscle when I went into operations. I, I really, you know, I've always had a big heart, maybe some would say a bleeding heart, but I learned how to lead with heart when I went into operations. And I feel like it got me so much discretionary effort. And these crew members had appointed me as a main part of the success I was able to achieve. And this amazing brand I was able to build. And I think the leaders over time realized it was a great formula as well. So accomplishing business goals through heart is, I believe, one of the best ways to do that. How do you, so how do you actually translate empathy into action? Like, so you said, yes, everybody is respecting each other. We got rid of, and by the way, it's so interesting because even like traditional corporate culture is very, it's derived from military to a degree. I mean, even like chief executive this, like it's a, it's a very, but I was assuming like a nautical environment is probably even further because there's literally ranks. Like, and it's so, it's so closely tied to like military ranks. And so it's not even that removed, right? No, it's not right. So, okay, so how do you? Okay, so if you're saying lead lead with heart, someone's listening, they're like, yes, I understand. Everybody wants to treat everybody. Well, what do you actually do in the organization? How do you get that capped in? Or, or is it, this could be a hard conversation to do? Is it like, you get rid of the people that aren't on board, pardon the pun, with that. That's so bad. That jokes. Yeah, but there's so many. I look, they're sorry. It's okay. I use them all the time. But yeah, so okay. So we want people to respect, we want people to respect the, you know, the cleaners and the the the weight staff and the people that are running the entertainment on board to the same degree as they respect the cap and easier said than done, especially when people are entrenched in an industry and they're entrenched in their idea of what a role is. And I think that's probably what most people come up against. It's nice to say, but then you're dealing with people. You're dealing with egos and you're dealing with tenure and you're dealing with experience. So what do you do? How do you actually execute? Culture, culture, culture, right? First of all, it starts at the top. No doubt, no question. But I believe in trickle-down culture. And so what happens is it might start with me, but it certainly can't end with me. And the team that and and lead by a set of values, I hold a team accountable. They hold me accountable. We hold each other accountable. They very much revolve around nurturing people, playing as a team, communicating, doing the right thing. Because we have our business metrics. Every day you're looking at traffic lights. So they read green or yellow. Are you doing well? Are you are you not? What's your opinion? How much is it increased? What's your yield? How many cruises are you selling? How many need to sell? We do that all day long. But then there's got to you have to overlay some set of values that transcends the numbers to figure out how are you achieving these numbers? So are you doing it the right way? Your question was, you know, what if people aren't on board, you know, your pun, your bad pun, then they ultimately aren't going to stay. They're either going to self-select out because the environment isn't for them anymore. Or we're going to have to tell them this isn't the right place for you because what I learned is your culture is only as strong as your weakest link. And if you as a leader say, this is what we stand for. And this is what we believe in. And then you put up with it at some, in some, you know, on some link of the chain, then my credibility is shot. I've got nothing. And, and so believe me, I have to make some tough decisions regarding the culture that that we were needing to create and live by for people that were highly confident in what they did. At the end of the day, every decision you make either validates or invalidates who you're saying harmly, Tim. You think people have a hard time with that? I mean, you work with probably tons of business leaders now after 39 years in the industry and people probably come to you for advice. Do you feel that people have a hard time pulling the trigger on, on letting people go that are highly technically proficient? But do not support the company culture? Is this something that you see at, I don't know, at the level that you play at and fortune 500, fortune 1000? Yeah, I do. I think that's, I think it's hard war. It's hard to make those decisions. I struggle with them. And I even struggled with people sitting with me, telling me what a situation was and and presenting pros and cons. But at the end of the day, as hard as it was, I had to make that decision because it was related to culture. But I do just see that. I've seen that numerous times either throughout like rear and certainly in other companies. Even when you see what you see and you know about different companies, you think, why do they do that or how do they do that? Because you know, the bottom line is really important. We'll go back into this in a second because I think that I want to speak about like hiring for culture. I want to speak about cultural fit versus competence and sort of how you solve for that problem. I think that you've been very outspoken on all of these issues and all these ways to build a business and obviously it's worked out and that's where I want to pull a lot of learnings from. But let's even like go back into your origin story because for people that don't know you, you do have an incredible story and you've committed to one company for such a long period of time and you sort of worked your way through the ranks, so to speak. So going back to when you started, what are some learnings that you've now uncovered over your entire career that you would have done differently and how you've sort of advanced in your career, done things differently, done things quicker, anything because I actually don't think that it's actually that normal to spend this this much time in a company anymore. I think that actually people, my goodness, I was with a jump ship much quicker. But it's quite true. I feel like people have a two-year time span, three-year time span at a company and they look for something different. So you basically epitomized the entry level to CEO. That's the goal. That's what everybody wants to do. I think people have a lot of trouble doing that. So what would you say that you did right? Did wrong. Hopefully I did a lot of things, right? But you know this, I did a lot. You did end up in the right spot to solve that. Yeah, you know, when I did a lot of things wrong, I mean, if you look, if I look back, all right, so 39 years. So let's start with that. I don't know if we're going to see that and honestly, I don't and I can't even say that you will. I know I did it my way and this way, but that's not the only way, certainly. I happened to start in an industry in 1985 that was growing by leaps and bounds and really pretty much back then, even though it was established, it was still in its infancy. So when you start like that, then you're, you know, you're always in a growing mode, multiple brands under the corporate own relic. You had a lot of different opportunities. You kept your career at fighting and different. You kept yourself challenged. I think that those opportunities might be fewer and further between from the perspective of certain companies, but I also think it's different because of people's mindsets now. Nobody, I'm not sure anybody wants to sustain a company for 39 years. There are a lot of people in the company that, you know, I've been in for this long, whose career is planted near a line? Was it 39 years? No, some are even longer than mine and some are shorter, but still they're there for decades. What I think I could have done better in earlier in my career and differently is that I only had one ambition once I joined the cruise industry and decided, hey, this is where I want to stay because up until that time, I changed jobs every year and it was, it became a real joke in my family and people who knew me, oh, were you working this year, Lisa? And I started thinking about that like, I've got to find my place and I ended up finding my place, but when I found my place, I only then wanted to be the head of sales. So for 17 years, I worked all around sales every position, I was kept getting promoted with the one goal of becoming the head of sales and somebody took me out of sales, senior vice president of sales and marketing, new to the company. Interestingly, enough, he moved me out of sales because he thought more potential in me than I did. And that's my first mistake. So I should, I thought that's not a mistake person. I mean, well, there wasn't a mistake that you made. I guess I know I kind of just pitched in my old by felt, right? I literally, I limited what I wanted to do and what I thought I could do. And then this guy said, you know, I think you're a pretty high potential person. I'm going to, I'm going to get you more experience and move you around. And he put me into marketing and I thought my career was over, but yet it was the beginning of like a pretty cool journey that I never imagined. And that's like you just on that point in particular, because I know that you did sales marketing and then you move to ops, which are sales and marketing, I guess kind of adjacent business units, ops, probably a little bit more different. But how do you understand as we'll take it for somebody earlier on in their career, like where you should end up, but what are the signals that this is something that you should be doing for the rest of your life? What did you see like worked in sales versus marketing versus ops that was like, oh, yeah, this is where I'm supposed to be. Is it a personality thing? Is it a, what is it? I don't, you know, I think I, I just challenge myself all the time. Sometimes I don't even know why. Why are you doing this to yourself? It's just, it's just in me, I guess, you know, even now when I'm thinking of leaving and going to do something else, I'm like, why are you doing that? You know, why don't you just relax? You've done something for 39 years. Why, why are you still like thinking of the next thing you can do that's going to completely take you out of your comfort zone again? And I think that's key, right? Move out of your comfort zone. Be comfortable doing that. Not a lot of people are comfortable going out of their comfort zone. It's hard. It takes courage. It's, it's a little intimidating. It's overwhelming. People see one path and it's hard to see a jiffy path. It's hard. That's hard. You know what? I think that what you've done very well and you're probably very aware of this is like you've built these proof points that you can trust yourself. Like you, you've built these, these, these data points in your head that like listen, I can jump into this. I'm going to be okay. And I think that's probably something that allows you to do those moves or make those moves. Well, you know, I, I agree. And I want to be clear that it's not because I wasn't a little fearful. You know, I didn't, I didn't have so much confidence that I'm like, oh, I nailed but what I did do is I learned to accept being vulnerable and admitting I didn't know everything and that I was going to surround myself with smarter people than me. And I was going to ask for help. And those are another things that some leaders are really reluctant to do. Ask for help because they think it's a sign of weakness. I think it's a sign of strength. And also be okay with not being the smartest person in the room. Why do you need to be the smartest person in the room? You bring things other people don't bring. Be okay with the fact that they bring things you don't bring and use that and the synergies of that and the complimentary nature of all those things to achieve things. You otherwise wouldn't have been able to do if you had to count on what you knew, only what you knew. You know, when I really respect about you, a lot of things, but in this, in this, in this particular context, I respect your ability to be okay starting over. I think that a lot of people have this sunk cost fallacy that, oh, I've done this for so long, I don't want to start even a new type of role within an existing company. And I think that that courage is so powerful because people really underestimate how long life is and how long they can build and create and do something different. But even when you, in case of what, how many years into your career did you move into operations? One. A significant. Yeah, no, I started in sales and marketing and I started in 1985 and in 2005, I moved into operations for the first time. That's significant. Yeah. 20 years because you basically, you completely flipped your career on a set and it worked out. So as you grow in this organization, I mean, you've done a lot for other women. Do you find that enough was done for you? Or did you not need it to happen? Did you not need stuff to be done for you? You sort of made headwinds yourself. You took, you know, you took the career by the horns and you obviously killed it. But do you feel like in this industry in particular, in most companies, like not enough is done? What else could we do differently, basically, to help support up-and-coming women professionals leaders? Well, interestingly enough, as I was growing in my career and I was given the opportunities that I was given, I never felt like gender was a barrier. Now, when I, when I went into those positions and I was leading mostly men because that's just the way it was, I felt like I did bump into some barriers and skepticism that I had to overcome and I had to figure out. And what I learned during that time was that I needed to make the road easier for other people. I needed to make the road easier for other women that were going to continue to advance in our industry and come into the same types of environments where it was mostly men, even at the corporate level. And I really needed to change how women were treated and the careers they were able to achieve at sea, especially on our bridges where not only was it pretty much all men, 97 percent men, but also it was a culturally diverse either. So, when I looked at improving diversity, it was along a couple or a couple of very important dimensions. One was cultural to bring more nationalities onto the bridge and clearly more women. So, when I started in my president and CEO role, 3 percent of the crew on the bridge were women when I stepped down, 33 percent were women in the maritime industry, only 2 percent of mariners are women. So, what we were able to do at celebrity was truly phenomenal because if you also think about it, there aren't that many available women in these choosing these types of careers in lives at sea. Because they don't have role models to look up to too, which is major. Sure. And their lifestyle is different, you know, what women do and what men do are usually different. But what was really interesting when I was, what we did this big international women's day, just a quick story. I was Captain Kate, you know, maybe we'll get to talk about her, but she's, I can't even say enough about Captain Kate, but she was the captain on our international women's day crews where all 100 percent of the bridge was manned by women. And she not on stage one of the nights. I was on that cruise for a few nights. It was an experience I'll never forget. But when she was on stage, she had all of the crew around the theater. And she asked all the moms that were on in our crew to come up on stage. And Scott, I blew my mind. Hundreds of women walked up to that stage and what I realized was these women have left their families behind your children behind for months at a time so that they could make a living and support their families in the countries that they were from. And so many people don't realize that even I did, it wasn't a surprise to me. And anyway, it was just, so I feel like I need, I needed to help pave the way for them in an easier way. So they could accomplish everything they were capable of accomplished. I just want to take a second and give a shout out to HubSpot and the HubSpot podcast network. That's who brings you this show every single week. If you love success story, you'll love some other great podcasts in the HubSpot podcast network like creator science. It's one of my personal favorites. It's hosted by Jay Klaus. Creator science goes behind the scenes of today's top creators. They do interviews and Jay explores how creators like Tim Urban, James Clear, Tory Dunlap, Cody Sanchez are building their audiences today. And honestly, by learning how these creators make a living with their art and their creativity, creator science really helps you gain the tools and confidence to do the same. This is where I go from my playbook on how to learn from the best creators. Listen to creator science wherever you get your podcasts. Even like the the story with with uh uh it was which captain sorry there was a captain captain was it Kate who spent nine years trying to get a captain position and and it was only when you actually became I guess president CEO that you you put her into that role. So obviously there's a massive issue in the industry but if we we have to fix it sort of you know one one step at a time when you look at all the work that you've done to increase diversity to increase the ratio of women on the bridge and just I guess you know 33% versus a 2% industry wide is a huge improvement. What you probably get individuals that will push back and they'll say insert insert reason here why we don't do this or maybe they maybe they don't even say it to you maybe they maybe you know they're thinking it they're not going to say it verbally because they don't want to put it out there but there's reasons why people don't focus on diversity or don't focus on putting more women on the bridge probably misconceptions about okay we focus on competence or performance or whatever it is what are some of those sort of like main misconceptions that would stop someone from emulating you in what the in their organization. Listen I hear as much of that as you do these days you know that's so it's not it's not a stretch to have people say why but here's the thing why are those two things mutually exclusive you know why is why are you just because you decide that some groups are underrepresented probably because they haven't been given the opportunity does that imply you're not looking for competence and skill and the best people possible to do the job and I just I have a hard time with and so you know it's almost like it's almost like what's the word I'm thinking of they're like looking for an excuse perhaps but I'm like do you really think about a man the bridge with incompetent women I mean seriously safety is the number one thing we're worried about I had someone say when I when we did the international women's day cruise it was history-making and barrier-breaking and no other brand to this day can do it because we manned the bridge with a hundred percent women for that cruise in celebration of international women's day and all we had accomplished at celebrity for you know improving gender balance on not equality it's not equal but there's much more balance and I get a note from a very well-intentioned man that I really respect and have a great amount of affection for and he was up slotting what I did and and said that took courage and I thought why did he say that does is it because people are going to think that an all-woman bridge is not a safe bridge or all of I mean I don't know why he told me that took courage well great because that's one of the things I say that leading with smart start and courage and I think actually courage is number one but I I found that a really interesting comment and I'm thinking that if I put out a press release that said it's a bridge manned by all men he would never say that took courage probably not no probably would not say it's interesting it is very interesting because yeah I think that you hear all the same you sort of hear all the same tropes when you hear individuals sort of speak up against and it seems to be in like the the the airline or the aviation industry you hear quite often actually cruise industry and you I mean like you go on Twitter and it's like this rabbit hole of negativity which is why Twitter is not great sometimes or accent whatever but I actually so I've never really so from a corporate perspective obviously I've never run companies where people's lives are you know under my care which is a whole other level that you have to do it here too but even in terms of diversity when it comes to decision making it's actually a very healthy it's a very healthy strategy to have a diverse set of thoughts and if I'm not mistaken I think I think and if I might stats are wrong maybe you know some stats on this I'm pretty sure like women led companies actually outperform men led companies and simultaneously like diverse boards in my experience are actually some of the strongest boards because they provide the most diverse set of insights which really just expands your ability of your your data set when making decisions however there's still like obviously not at the level where we have to be I don't know if you have any insider or or thoughts on that I'm sure you do this is what you worked your whole career on but I just want to sort of validate my my feelings about the both women led companies diverse organizations with maybe like real world experience that you've seen in what you've built that celebrity there are so many statistics now that just talk that talk about diversity in general including gender diversity and how it makes stronger companies and it focuses on the financial performance of those companies because at the end of the day you know there there are future share responsibilities we all have I had my role was to improve shareholder value and transform the financial performance of celebrity my methodology to get that done was to create a culture and an environment where there was an opportunity for anyone who wanted it and we had we had an opportunity to improve diversity whether it was gender or or other diversity or cultural and what's interesting is is as I did that I mean I only have I have my own my own sort of case study if you will we perform we transform the financial performance of celebrity we improved how our employees felt about working at celebrity even during the worst times of COVID and coming out of COVID celebrity at the highest employee engagement ship and shore and that you know and so listen if if the metrics that you are judging your success by are all going in the right direction and you have at the same time focused on creating a strong culture of inverse pyramid culture and more gender balance so that all leaders were you know thinking differently and challenging each other differently then how do you argue you know how do you how do you say that's not working or you're focused on the wrong thing no very good and I and I mean like like I was looking at like how celebrities grown it like even like like not many companies did as well during COVID so it's actually very impressive it's very very impressive now you had I want to talk about you I want to talk about leadership for a second I want to talk about some of the struggles that you've sort of overcome in your life because again crews the crews industry is like 24 7 365 so you don't shut off there's no there's no weekends there's no okay we're done at five let's deal with whatever in the morning it's literally non-stop you had you had your own I guess personal issue with your sister during COVID obviously very very difficult to do that while running you know an enormous company what are leadership lessons that and you can tell the story as well whatever you feel comfortable sharing but what are some leadership lessons and some I don't know some strategy that you used during like a really traumatic period to still to still operate to still to still show up to work um because I would say that at most most types of jobs this is like in terms of like stress and people's lives like this is like right up there right so like this is not like money stressful to but like lives when you make a wrong decision could really impact them to you know the health wellness like that's not a that's not a light job right that's not a a light thing to do every single day so maybe walk me through how you how you dealt with all of that well the first thing I talk about chapter one is called sailing through the storm and it started yeah I know I did I did chapters all our puns you know there I was like I wanted to have a little fun with it and um and it was yeah I talked about international women staying captain Kate and a hundred percent of the bridge manned by women and that was March 8th of 2020 that cruise happened on international women's day I got off mid cruise probably around the 11th I flew back to my after a huge celebration and I remember standing in the grand plaza of the ship after um designing building and introducing this transformational series of ships that was critically acclaimed making more money than we ever thought we would possibly ever imagine making the the the crew and the team on board were so proud and excited of what we had accomplished in gender equality and as a brand and the guests were partying and celebrating and I remember standing there thinking this is a light drop moment if I walked away right now and that was 2020 I could not have asked for war I could not have left a better legacy and I was you for is the right word I left the ship I got back to the office on a Thursday went home for the weekend on Friday and we shut down that weekend Sunday we ceased operations and we were going to be back for 15 months little did we know then I would be 15 months imagine going from the highest to high to the lowest of low in your career within like I don't know 72 96 hours I just couldn't imagine it one month later April of 2020 my sister was diagnosed with terminal cancer um she had she had 12 to 18 months to live and she only lived for 12 but here's what I learned during that horrible time I learned that 20,000 crew members were counting on me and my family was counting on me to get us all through as best we could silver lining of the COVID-19 cloud is that my sister lived with me and I got to spend every day of the last year of her life had COVID not happened that would have happened and I wouldn't have been able to do that unless I left the company and and it made such a difference to her and it made such a difference to me and as I was thinking of how I was going to get 20,000 people around the world through this horrible time we were living through I needed to show up for them every day and I needed to flex different leadership muscles which I learned leaders really need to be flexible because you need to dial up and dial down certain things depending on the situation of what people need so I needed to go away from that hard-driving results performance driven up being come profitability return on investing capital CEO to empathetic hopeful building confidence letting people know it's going to be okay you're going to get back to work you're going to be able to provide for your families again even if I didn't know that on any given day because we thought we'd be back in business three months later not 15 months later so I learned a lot during that time and I probably learned the most about being a leader during that time than in any other time of my career and I also learned you have to you have to focus on the things you can control and put aside the things you can't control and look in the windshield and not in the rear view mirror and try to stay as positive as you can and keep people focused on positive things and the future to the best of your ability how to because you know adaptability is one thing but the shift that you had to make in your life probably required you to to unlearn some things some preconceived notions and I think unlearning allows room for learning and growth do you did you feel like that was something that you you struggled with when everything was to a degree smooth sailing up until this point and you had to like sort of change the way that you lead change the way that you understand maybe priorities in life obviously when there's a terminal illness in the family that really shakes you up I guess I want I want any advice that you have on unlearning to sort of spur personal growth how do you sort of shed things that you've known for the past 30 years successfully and not let that baggage burden you or hurt your decision making capabilities because obviously it didn't you navigated successfully but you also shed a lot of what you knew and who you were to be able to do that or I don't think you would have been successful at navigating COVID plus sisters illness that that is is not just normal run of the mill adaptability that's radical shift well the good thing is I think I had some of that behind me already and I and I had done that so many times in my career right I had I had unlearned a lot and I had to relearn a lot and I had to evolve a lot and I had to get better you know I have I was in the Galapagos with my other sister and her two daughters my nieces who you know I dedicated the book to because they're they're they're so special to me and I've always you know I've always conducted myself in a way that I wanted them to be proud of me and and we were in the Galapagos and you know Darwin was in the Galapagos so whether you believe in his theory of evolution or not this isn't about that but I bought it a Darwin t-shirt when I was in the Galapagos and here's how I'm hoping to answer that question on the front of the t-shirt it says evolve and on the back of the t-shirt it says or become extinct and I I had practiced that so many times throughout my career in adaptability unlearning what I knew learning new things learning how to be a better leader learning how to focus on different leadership qualities some of that was through feedback some of it was through self reflection self evaluation some of it was being open to conversations and I'm learning and learning to be vulnerable because I didn't know everything like I did when I was in sales and marketing and so when I when I saw myself and was in this situation was being confronted in a way I never would have imagined certainly all of those things had to go on steroids because who could imagine being closed down for 15 months due to a global pandemic but I had already done those things and so I think I was it helped me I think that's what leaders need to understand I don't think you could go for one the only one thing to being successful during COVID if you weren't willing and able and had the experience of doing that along your way I I fully agree I think that's what probably stopped you from breaking like I think that I think that would break most people honestly I look back and don't not know I did I don't I still to this day don't know how I did it but I did I did good at the end of the day that's all there it's all the really matters yeah it's like sometimes sometimes you know like it shit happens and you just figure it out and that's like you know all the all the all the anecdotes and the tropes and the life lessons later just like you know what you just figure it out which is easier said than done obviously um do you have yeah go ahead it's so money I put that in my in one of the chapters I can't even remember but I was like I had to I was in a situation I'm like I just have to figure it out and the and the editor the the publisher editor came back and said you know what do you mean by that no you shouldn't save me it's not like no I'm not gonna say that because what I said is exactly the truth you just have to figure it out yeah is there any is there any practices that you including your life to be able to uh whether or not it was something that you you turned on during COVID and and when you're when you're helping your sister or it could have just been something you learned over your entire career I like practices you include into your own life for you to be able to operate in like a 24 seven 365 high stress environment that's really helped you I mean whether or not it's your routine diet like I don't know meditate pick something what really helps you like stay on point it's interesting that for someone who has such a public persona and who has lived such a public life and whether it's on the ships with their 20,000 crew members or speaking or you know having conversations like this which are so inspiring and wonderful I'm really a person of self-reflection and I I choose to disconnect in a way that allows me to process and I believe it has truly helped me cope with the stress figure out you know it's I've been with my husband since 1983 and that's a really long time and maybe longer than some many people listening to this podcast have been on planet Earth but what's funny is that you know he knows that when I go quiet it's because I'm I need that space and I need that time to process it and be introspective and come up with my solution and I am a person who does that that's that's the way I do it some people want to talk about it some people need a lot of input I really need to just go into myself for a little while and I do that every day because every day even still there's something right that we're all dealing with and that's my that's like hoping mechanism and that's how I you know get clarity and that's how I figure out how I'm going to what's my way forward do you do that like on a walk do you do that is there a special practice of routine that's like sort of because I think that that's something that a lot of people will do and they try and introspect in different ways but the world so noisy and so busy is it unapologetically shutting off notifications is there a thing that you do that really helps with that or is it just anytime any place everybody can f off I'm not answering with that it's it's I never I never shut anything off that's probably a good idea but I never do I just for some reason that's a bridge too far Scott just can't do that but it's usually in the evening I just shut out it was like you know Andre is always you know he jokes with me in the end at grand early morning those are my two times yeah it's usually in bed with my puppy and my I bad and doing some you know just fun easy thing yeah and just being quiet it's your it's your zen it's your happy it's my zen it's my zen and yeah and I just you can't talk to me I don't want to be on the phone I don't want to talk to anyone I just need that time and you'd really need some of that understand that English and I'm on the treadmill and you know I'm doing I'm drawing or I'm driving but mostly it's just like it's like I just climb into bed I you know sleep is so important to me and yeah that's just my happy place under the covers of my little puppy snuggles up beside me I love that and I think it's important to create space for that too in your day because I think that it's easy to go go go and especially because now post covid we can be always connected working from home whatever always on so yeah even worse yeah yeah um I want to I have a couple more questions but I want to listen the like your book is is it's it's it's fresh on your mind obviously it's just come out now so um what would be one other major lesson that was really important this is why I like I like talking to authors right when they release a book because there's things there's a lot of stuff that's good in the book but there's always these things that are like the most top of minds like this is one message that I have to drive home if you read nothing else I want to know what that is for you what is the one thing that you want people to take away from this it could be a lesson it could be an anecdote it could be a story that you think will like let's be let's be let's be let's be you know optimistic and say hopefully change someone's life for the better I think for me when I was ending the book and and writing the final chapter chapter 10 full steam ahead I had to throw that in Scott I know I focused on the three things I wanted people to take away that's actually you know I came up with the subtitle of the book because I written 10 chapters and sometimes you need to end to go back to the beginning and I said okay there are three things that I want people to take away from my my story uh my lessons told through my stories how's that is that if you needed to think about the three things what would they be three takeaways you got to be smart and that smart calls through learning you know asking for help surrounding yourself with smart people hard I really believe in leading with heart and but for me the most important one and the last one but not the least important is courage and if I could just leave you know the one thing I wanted to leave people is it takes courage to do anything and everything it took so much courage for me throughout my career to start over to learn something new to do something new to not take no for an answer to turn nose into yes to prove people wrong and then I needed to change the end of chapter 10 because at that point time I decided it was time to walk away from a company I'd been in for 39 years a position that I loved and a crew that I knew I was really going to miss but I also knew it was time I had done everything I could at celebrity I was leaving behind an amazing legacy I just came out of the three worst years of my life and I knew there was something new for me out there didn't you know what it was I was taking yet another leap of faith with courage by the way that is a wild leap of faith I'm not going to lie I don't think I'd be able to do that I don't know that's a lot that's that's quite that's quite courageous and I was like what am I doing yeah but then I said you know what if I don't do anything it doesn't matter I've done I've done so much more than anyone else but I didn't I'm starting over it I you know got some fun things that are are coming but I left myself open to the universe and I learned if you just have the courage and you've and you've got an amazing body of work behind you take that leap of faith because it's going to work out and you got to trust that and you got to have courage can I ask if you were going to give advice as somebody who was earlier on in their career who does not have a body of work yet because I think a body of work creates courage of course because you've proven again and again to yourself and to the to the to the world what would be one piece of advice for somebody to architect courage if they do not have that body of work well first of all I have to go back 39 years and all right because I've been building up I guess to that big courageous decision 39 years later but it's not the first time that I had to call on my courage and what I would say is that you it's another muscle you have to build it so not easy it's not easy to ask for the things you want it's not easy to make a different career choice when you're on one path it's not easy to accept no and and decide I have the courage that I'm going to turn this into a yes I mean those started from little things all the way from my first job in the company I was told no I I was told no I was second choice and then the guy they hired didn't even make it 90 days there was probationary period and guess what they didn't even call me back I'm like you just told me I was second choice if the guy didn't work out why wouldn't you call me back I had to go I had to go through the whole process and interview all over again most people would say to hell with it I'm not going to do that but so so it started from that first job all the way to 39 years later leaving this amazing job so I love it with those steps maybe steps hindsight is 2020 what is a major blind spot or lesson that you had as a younger younger person that you'd caution yourself your 20 25 year old self about I think what I would say to my 25 year old self is you know believe in yourself more because I think in a kind of like the courage again comes back to courage but it also comes goes to confidence and I think it was as I look back I say why did other people think I was more capable than I thought I was or that could achieve more than even I thought I why did why was that and that's a wonderful thing that people believe in you but I think it's as important to believe in yourself and and dream big push the limits where can people connect with you what's socially want to send them to I mean so we have the book it's it's I'll put in the show notes but I mean it's going to be everywhere on Amazon and and and whatnot yeah other places that you want to send people LinkedIn LinkedIn is the best place to find me and connect with me and then my website Lisa Lutoff furlough dot com no book is is making waves of what's right yeah to the top using smarts heart and courage so that is out now and last question I will and I'll put the I'll put the I'll put all the links in the show notes as well but the last question I have is you've had incredible career outside of career success what does success mean for you at this stage in your life my family my family is everything I've been the primary caregiver for my family for my entire life and at the stage in my life and one of the reasons why I decided to step away after 39 years was that I wanted to spend more quality time and live a life of a different life and more quality and more time to have more time for the people that I care about the most in the world because to your point earlier none of us know how much time we have mm-hmm I appreciate that a lot Lisa thank you so much thank you for being a role model for women and for leaders and for people that just are trying to push the boundaries of their own career I really I really appreciate what you've done so thank you for coming on thank you for for doing the work that you've