Sarah Sylvester - EVP of Marketing at Victoria's Secret: Brand Transformation, Putting the Customer First, and Empowering People

Sarah Sylvester  00:00

I'm always looking to pay it forward a little bit and never assume, oh well, they don't have that experience exactly. They probably can't do it. Push and challenge people. Let people surprise you, and go past what your expectations are, or their expectations of themselves. And a lot of times, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Callan Harrington  00:21

You're listening to That Worked, a show that breaks down the careers of top founders and executives and pulls out those key items that led to their success. I'm your host, Callan Harrington, founder of Flashgrowth, and I couldn't be more excited that you're here. I'm excited for this week's guest. I'm joined by Sarah Sylvester. Sarah is the EVP of Victoria's Secret and PINK Marketing. She's responsible for telling the product and brand story to customers through all marketing channels, including social, app, email, campus events, direct mail, and in-store activations. Sarah has had a tenured career with the company that began in 2005. She joined Victoria's Secret Public Relations team and played an integral role in developing the PINK brand from its initial conception. In 2021, Sarah took on the role of leading both the Victoria's Secret and PINK marketing organization. Sarah worked her way up from intern to executive vice president, all while staying at the same company. This is no small feat. And it was really interesting to get the download on how she did this. I also loved hearing all about the brand transformation that she's worked on with Victoria's Secret. And in particular, how they were able to accomplish this on such a large scale. Victoria's Secret is a very large company, and to make this big of a change, it was really cool to hear the inner workings of that. And she gave great insight into exactly that, how they put the customer first, and how they were really able to stay focused on what mattered. My favorite part of the interview, was learning how Sarah was given a chance to move up in her career, and how she pays that forward for others. They were great lessons on how you can empower your team, and really how you can empower all those around you. So with that, let's jump into the show. Sarah, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have this interview. I know we've been trying to pair schedules, and we made it happen on a Friday afternoon. I'm really excited.

Sarah Sylvester  02:42

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I am just as excited to be here.

Callan Harrington  02:47

So, I want to kick this off. You've had a great career at Victoria's Secret so far. Where did this all start out?

Sarah Sylvester  02:55

Oh, man. Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday. And other days it does feel like it's the almost twenty years it's been. So it all started really with me landing in Columbus, Ohio, going to THE Ohio State University, which I know you're a fellow alumni, so you can appreciate that THE part. So any other Buckeyes out there totally get it. And I'm originally from Cincinnati, Ohio. I knew I didn't want to go too far from home. But I wanted to go to a big school. And the business school was really important to me. I didn't know what I wanted to do in business. I just liked the idea of having a job in business, whatever that meant. And at eighteen, I had no idea. But I will tell you back then-- and so this was the late 90s, early 2000s-- I was a huge shopper. Those traditional mall brands were all the rage, and: Express, Abercrombie, J Crew, Limited, all those names. And it just so happened that the parent company who owned a lot of them, Limited Brands back then, was located in Columbus, Ohio. So I was like, oh my god, could you imagine one day that maybe I could be lucky enough to land a job in business at a brand that I love that I shop at? And you know, didn't think much about that and got caught up in college life. And then years later, a sorority sister who had graduated and was working at Victoria's Secret was looking for an intern. And so I was like, sure, why not. I'll throw my hat in the ring. And I think it was probably a lot of luck, a little skill, and just a lot of grit and determination. Somehow I landed that internship. A little cliche; the rest is history. But that's really how it started out, was starting at the very bottom of the ladder that you possibly can.

Callan Harrington  04:44

One, I remember this. At Ohio State you were- and if you were in the business school... I was a finance major, and which I've done absolutely nothing with whatsoever, and I was- Abercrombie and L Brands, those were the jobs because they were also fun. If you got that job there, you knew a lot of those people had a lot of fun when they went to those places. I was not smart enough to get it. So it worked out, fortunately. But I remember those jobs. And if you got those, those were like the best jobs to get. So what were those first couple of years like when you joined? Was it Victoria's Secret? Or did you join PINK originally? What did that look like?

Sarah Sylvester  05:23

When I joined the company, I started as an intern in the Public Relations Office for Victoria's Secret. So I really was focused on Victoria's Secret. But this was right around the time where Victoria's Secret was one of the biggest brands in the world that everyone knew, you know, it has a huge brand recognition. But at the same time, this little tiny brand called PINK was being born outside of Victoria's Secret, like with under the Victoria's Secret umbrella. So at the beginning, because it was so small, they just added it into everyone's job. So if you worked on Victoria's Secret PR, you would work on PINK , or if you were the merchant for Victoria's Secret, you would just add on PINK . But as they saw that this idea was really gaining momentum, and was slowly becoming a couple hundred million dollars, they started to ring fence it off and say, let's really have people focus on this and see how big big can be. So it was just so crazy, because you have this huge brand that's billions of dollars. And then you get this startup type experience because they really ring fenced PINK off and wanted to make it as separate as you possibly could still being under the Victoria's Secret umbrella, to really let it find its own way a little bit. I was lucky enough to be one of the people that moved over from Victoria's Secret to PINK. We got two mandates. Be as grassroots as possible. Take all the preconceived notions of what Victoria's Secret is off the table and go grassroots as much as possible. And, two, be maniacally focused on the collegiate customer. Live and breathe the collegiate customer. So being not too far out of school, again, I was like, are you kidding me? This is amazing. I'll extend my collegiate experience and try to stay in the mindset. That was how PINK really started out back then

Callan Harrington  07:19

What I would give to extend the collegiate experience.

Sarah Sylvester  07:22

Right? There's good and bad parts of that.

Callan Harrington  07:26

Oh, yeah, no, I'd probably die. So a couple things that you mentioned, you mentioned that you felt really lucky to go along with that and the grass roots. And I'd love to hit on both of these. Why did you feel so lucky to go on to the pink side?

Sarah Sylvester  07:37

Yeah, it is funny, because so many people probably would have thought it would have been maybe more lucky to stay on the big, bold, beautiful Victoria's Secret, I just loved the idea of being chosen as a smaller group, being given the responsibility of helping figure out a brand. You know, it's not often times in your career that you can be a part of creating something. So to really be able to be a part of creating a brand. It's a pretty special experience that not everyone gets to have. So I felt lucky that I was being chosen to be a part of that and given kind of free rein, with only those two prerequisites, if you will. And then the other part about the collegiate customer, it was just so exciting to be just so clear, and focused on who you were wanting to talk to and what to do with them. I think that's always so important in marketing and in retail, truly knowing who your customer is, and servicing them, being there for them, putting what they want, and what they need ahead of what you think, or what you know, the business profile is sometimes. And that was something that I learned at PINK, that it was always always about the customer first.

Callan Harrington  08:53

How do you strike that balance? And what I mean specifically is, what I'm hearing you say is, what made it so successful was that you were really gearing that towards your ideal customer profile. Here's what we're building everything towards, here's who our customer is, versus the balance of, we want to draw in all of these other people, so we can grow this brand. How do you prevent yourself from trying to expand too early, I guess?

Sarah Sylvester  09:23

Yeah, it's really hard. I think that when you are so focused on the customer and being so clear that if you do that, right, the natural halo that you hope to get and just that demand, and I hate to say cool factor, because I'm like what is even cool factor these days anymore. But back then it was that talked about and the buzzworthy brands, you know? If you're just so focused and so clear on what you're doing, the halo and all the other business objectives will come. I truly always believe that, I am believing that at my core, is that that's what success can look like.

Callan Harrington  10:04

So if I'm hearing you, it's if we go laser focus, our marketing message, our brand message, our products, everything that we're doing, is really focused in on this one customer. Then the halo effect is that we're going to pull other customers, other profiles are going to want to be a part of that. And the business results are going to follow that focus. Is that- am I hearing you correctly on that?

Sarah Sylvester  10:33

That's exactly it. Now, I say all of that, saying that that was the key to success fifteen years ago. It has changed a little bit. So much has happened over the past fifteen years. I still think that all of that holds true. You really have to be clear, you have to be intentional, you have to be focused. The only exception is that you can service more than one customer, you can still be very clear and targeted. But we're actually doing some work right now that I'm super excited about, about really farther understanding the multi dimensions of women and how complicated we are, and all the different things we want and need from retailers. And we're actually saying that maybe it's not just one customer anymore, maybe it's four or five different customer profiles that we need to be, because we can be more than one thing to one person. And I think that's the biggest change that I've seen over the industry was that you used to be able to just think about one customer and only worry about that. Now you have to be a little bit more thoughtful and intentional in your approach. Like I said, it's still about being clear, and focused and intentional. But we have to service a few different personas, if you will.

Callan Harrington  11:55

So I'm super interested to dive into this. And I know this is a big initiative, right? The brand transformation that Victoria's Secret has gone under these past few years, for when you think of a very, very, very large brand, a very big company, right six billion dollars a year in revenue, very large company to make a shift like that is pretty astronomical. And I'm interested to dive into that part, in particular. How do you do that? How do you go after multiple- go after is the wrong word- How do you market? How do you make sure that you're serving multiple profiles within the company and making sure that each voice is equally represented and heard?

Sarah Sylvester  12:36

It's definitely the art and science, right? I think that that's one of the biggest parts of our brand transformations. You have to be really honest with yourselves. And really be honest about where you got things right in the past and where you got things wrong. And the biggest conversation we've had is, we were really right at the time, and we were really focused. And when that stopped being the right thing that women wanted, we still did it. And so that wasn't going to work. So where we did was we changed. Instead of saying this is what sexy is, and this is the only thing that sexy is, and it was a one very particular view of sexy, I would say. Our CEO often says, to simplify it, we were about what men wanted instead of what women wanted, and flipping that, just simple as flipping that. And once you become about what a woman wants, and women are complex, sexy can mean a lot of different things in a lot of different ways. It can be maybe what I would say most people think of Victoria's Secret, where it's more of a glamorous, uber sexy type of vibe. But it can also be someone, a mom who's had a hard day, and she still wants to feel sexy, and a really comfortable bra under her sweats as she's chasing her kids around. It's still about- sexy can still be in there, comfortable, confidence, can still be in there. It's just not meaning one thing these days. And that's what a lot of what our brand transformation has been about is about putting women, our core customers, at the center of everything that we do. And really, it's about supporting and uplifting her, and whatever that means for whatever she wants, whether it's date night, or a day at work, or lounging on the couch, we've got her back, we're there for her. That's been a huge shift. And then if you're all committed to that, how every one activates on that throughout the business, it significantly changes our results.

Callan Harrington  14:38

What I'm hearing is, it's not so much that we're going after a specific profile. It's more almost a- honestly, it's almost- feels like almost more like an ethos, more or less, of instead of going after a profile, we're going after this ethos of sexy could mean different things to different people. We're here to support what sexy means to each individual. Looking at that, that's a major shift. What does that process look like internally? What are the questions that you have to ask? What are the exercises that you have to go through in order to say, I just heard you say that right? It was crystal clear. It was very succinct. Someone like me could pick up on that immediately based off of what you just said. How do you get to that point? What needs to happen in order to get there?

Sarah Sylvester  15:23

Lots of lots of conversation and dialogue. And we spent a lot of time talking to women, people who were customers, who used to be customers, who we thought should be customers, really going back to one of the key parts of the transformation was putting the customer at the center of everything that we do, instead of what a bunch of executives think the customer wants. We did a lot of research. I'm really proud of the way that we've amped up our consumer insights and research over the years. Because I think that's so important that you don't lose touch with your customer and what they're telling you. And once you have that, you have to bring everyone on the journey, the CEO, down to the interns, everyone has to hear the same message and see the journey. Our CEO has said that we believe that's about a five year journey to really do it right. And we're maybe almost halfway through. So we still have a long way to go. So lots of learning and evolving and changing still. But I feel really confident with those steps that we've already taken. Because we really started with putting our customer at the center and listening to her.

Callan Harrington  16:36

Yeah, it makes complete sense. Switching gears a little bit here, you ramped up really fast. You were able to stay with the same company, you're the executive vice president of marketing, you don't really have too much higher to be able to go up within the entire company. And just to underline this, you did that by staying at the same company. Most people, especially if you work for a very large company, have to do three to five years, maybe even ten years at one company, they have to jump to another company to hit that next tier, and then a lot of oftentimes you see them coming back. Was there anything in particular do you feel that was significant in your career that led to that success, either, whether that was the way that you went about the day to day, something that how you thought about things? What did that look like for you?

Sarah Sylvester  17:24

I feel like there I would break that into two parts. So I think the first part is a little bit about how I approached it. I'm extremely hardworking, no task is too big or too small. I would never ask something of someone on my team that I haven't done or wouldn't do myself. And so just that grit and determination, I think is really important. I have a ton of passion. I love retail, I love fashion. I love these brands. I love what they stand for. And I love what positive change we could bring by supporting and uplifting women. So it's something that I personally believe in. I might not be as successful at a hamburger joint or something like that, you know, I have to like really be invested in it and find that personal connection. I'm also very curious. I'm always hmm, should we be doing it that way? Is there a better way of doing it? Should we look at it from another angle? I think you have to be constantly curious, in retail, especially in marketing, because marketing is literally changing every single day. Just when you think you have it figured out, there's something new or different coming your way. And you have to be curious about learning about it, or trying, or changing, or evolving, or you'll be left behind. So I think some of those traits have worked really well in my favor of being successful. The other thing that I think was really important was, I was given a chance, I was given a chance that maybe some people might not be given, or they would go a different way. But back when I was at PINK, my boss who had been there for a really long time, she's still a good friend and mentor, she was going on maternity leave. She was the glue of the company. She was overseeing all of marketing and creative back then reporting to the CEO. And she was like, Sarah can do it. Sarah can fill my shoes when I'm out. It's a little bit of a stretch, but you can support her, she won't let you down. And not a lot of people maybe would have done that. But she did that for me. She stretched me a little bit out of my comfort zone. And not saying it wasn't bumpy. There's always bumps along every journey. But I showed up and I showed them that I could I could step in and more or less not miss a beat. And the CEO felt that too. So when my boss was given another opportunity in the company, the CEO had a chance to hire someone else, or again, give me this stretch and challenge me to see if I could do it. And she gave me that chance, and I did. So I think for me, I'm all always looking to pay it forward a little bit and never assume, oh well, l they don't have that experience exactly, they probably can't do it. Push and challenge people, let people surprise you, and go past what your expectations are, or their expectations of themselves. And a lot of times, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Callan Harrington  20:19

I've got probably twenty things I want to dive into on that one in particular. But one of the things that I would love to talk about is, on the end there, you mentioned that you were given this chance, and it was a bit of a stretch to move into this position. What did you need to do to get up to speed to be comfortable in that role?

Sarah Sylvester  20:40

I think there's the skill part, do you know the business? You got to know your stuff, study the business, and I encourage you to do that, not just in your particular space. So I made sure I had a really good understanding of marketing, even the things that were maybe over my normal purview because I was stretching up. And so I really was curious and learned about other parts of marketing, and other parts of the business. I don't need to be a merchant. And I don't need to be a planner, thank God, I have amazing partners, but you have to be curious about what they're doing, and understand their business to a certain degree, because you all need to work together. And so in addition to knowing your stuff, building those relationships. You cannot do anything on your own, ever, whether it's building those- in life and in work, you know, you have to build those relationships with your team. I don't really think that I do marketing at Victoria's Secret. I lead an amazing team, that is stellar at marketing, and I'm there to lead and guide and move roadblocks. I know I can't do anything without my team. And I can't do anything without peers, and having a good relationship and understanding, and working together in good times and in bad times. And that's really life too. I have to give a shameless plug, I have an amazing husband and three young boys. And I couldn't do what I do if I didn't have all of their love and support. So I find that a lot of business lessons and advice can also work in personal life, too.

Callan Harrington  22:12

No question about that. And I guess to that point, do you have specific examples that you did to get up to speed in specific areas where where maybe you didn't feel that you were as strong?

Sarah Sylvester  22:24

Yeah, you can never be too proud to ask questions. I think sometimes people think just because you have a certain title, that that means you know everything. Actually, I think when you get to this level, it's really hard to know everything. And you can't be too proud to be like, hmm, I know, I'm your boss, and I feel like I should know this. But I don't. You're the expert. You live and breathe this every day. Tell me about how you think about that. Or can you go a little bit deeper on this and educate me a little bit? You can't be too proud to ask for help, whether that's someone on your team, or a peer. So I'll ask questions. Sometimes, you know, I might not do it in a room full of fifty people. Sometimes I'll do it one on one, or, if it's appropriate, I also figure that sometimes if I'm not fully understanding or following the train of thought, there might be others too that feel the same way. So sometimes I will speak up and ask, and I'm just not too proud to admit I don't know what I don't know.

Callan Harrington  23:28

Yes, if I'm hearing what you're saying, you almost have to have the humility to say, oh, I- you almost have to drop the, I'm in an executive position, I should know this, and just say, hey, I'm not as familiar with this part. This is not something that I've oversaw in the past. Can you help me just get a download, so I've got an understanding. Is that right? Am I hearing you correctly on that?

Sarah Sylvester  23:48

Yeah, I feel very strongly about that. I also take accountability for my own education too. And especially in marketing, where literally, there's something new or different every day, I have certain marketing podcasts I follow, or certain news sources that I feel like I get really educational articles about, and I try to go to a couple conferences a few times a year too, in areas that I'm curious about, and meeting others in the industry. So I do think that there are- again, I often feel like there's some core things you can do and then there's just a way that you can go about and approach things with your co workers or your team.

Callan Harrington  24:26

If you're looking back at this, and I think that conference- the conference ideas, whether it's the blogs, people on LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever that may be, I agree. Especially in the marketing world, things are changing every, you know, things moved from paid search, to SEO, to networks, to community, to everything moves fast. It's-

Sarah Sylvester  24:47

1. Don't forget about AI.

Callan Harrington  24:50

Can't forget about AI. And I think going to those things to be able to stay on top of it makes a ton of sense, and the people that you meet to be able to ping some of this stuff off of is super invaluable. I think that's great advice. One of the things I'm curious about is, as someone that has been and experienced each level from individual contributor, leader of a team, and then leading leaders or managing managers, which transition was the hardest from individual contributor to manager, manager to managing managers, and then managing managers to executive?

Sarah Sylvester  25:26

Oh, man, it's a tough one, because I feel like all of those stages can be challenging for different reasons, I do think that going from just being an individual contributor to be like, I just have to do my work, and I do my work stellar. And I pass it off. And it's great. And it's amazing. And I just keep powering through. And it's kind of all about me and what I'm accomplishing. That to switching to a manager, and where it doesn't really become about you at all anymore. And it's about your team, and how you build, and connect, and bring people up, and how you service those ideas to the business. And that was a big one for me. Because you're often told, like, you're so amazing, you're a superstar, and you get so used to that. And that transition from being like, this isn't about me at all anymore, which is a really great thing. But it also takes you some time to learn and adjust, you know. 100% Can you think of any of this specific hurdles that you had to get over or maybe even a mistake that you made early on where you were like, okay, this was a big one, but I learned a ton from this? I can't think of one particular mistake, because I know this comes up a lot, and I was thinking about one particular mistake, and I was like, actually, I feel like I make so many mistakes all the time, that I'm constantly learning and changing. And I feel like, again, there's this cliche that, well, if you're leading a team, you don't make mistakes, you know, you've been doing this for a long time, you don't make mistakes. And I think that this admission that I make mistakes, I make a lot of mistakes. And actually, I almost always learn more from my mistakes than my wins. And I think that that's something that's really important. So it's hard for me to just draw on one thing. But I will say that what I try to do now, when I make a mistake, or I feel like I should have handled something a different way, or made a different decision, I really take the time and talk to my team or those people who may be who were a part of it, and talk them through it. Because if I learned something from it, I would hope that they could learn something from it too, you know? There was a situation last week, and this is what happened, this is what I did, and now as I've been revisiting it, I really think I could have done this or that. And I like to share that. Because I would want my team or appear to be able to learn something from it too, that would maybe help them, or also hear their perspective about it too. I always say feedback is a gift because you only know the view of the world from where you're sitting. And it might not of course, how you feel and perceive a situation is so important. But other people might see it a different way. And so it's always good to have those relationships and have those dialogues because you can always be learning whether it was a mistake or not back to being the curious thing. I think you can always be learning from all these situations that you encounter in a day in business.

Callan Harrington  28:42

Here's a question that I have. You mentioned feedback. And in my experience, the higher up that I went, feedback was harder to get for, you know, people are like, oh, I don't want to call this person out, or whatever that may be. Do you have any either whether that's frameworks or exercises that you do in order to make sure people are comfortable for giving feedback to you?

Sarah Sylvester  29:05

You know, it's funny, I don't think there's a one size fits all. Sometimes you hear people advise you on the sandwich approach, start with a compliment, give kind of some of the tough feedback, and then end with a compliment. I've also heard people say, nope, don't do that, you got to start with just get right into it. Don't start with the small talk, because that's not necessarily completely transparent or on it's just go in there and go straight for it. So you can hear all sorts of different types of advice. I really like to try to take the context into play. What's my relationship with the person? What's the situation? And sometimes the compliment sandwich might be the way to go, and other times, it's the direct feedback, and that's whether you're giving it or receiving it. So I like to say it's situational, depending on what feels right to you and what feels right to the person, because something else that I've noticed is the areas in business that maybe I've struggled the most. And where I've seen my biggest wins are, when I'm authentic to myself, I usually come out a little bit more successful than if I tried to put on an act or approach something in a way that doesn't feel natural and authentic to myself, it usually doesn't work out as well for me. So that's why I'm like, it has to be situational for me to make sure that I do it in the way that's most authentic. Because I've seen the greatest path of success with that.

Callan Harrington  30:37

My former team is guaranteed laughing very hard when they hear this and they hear a compliment sandwich because that was my go to. They knew it when it was coming. I love that. And one of the things I'm curious about is, how do you get feedback from the team to you? Do you have any thing where you require almost kind of a 360? Where if I'm giving you feedback, you're also giving me feedback? But how do you do that from your team to make sure that they can give feedback to you?

Sarah Sylvester  31:04

I tried to have a different variants type of touch bases. So like with my direct reports, we have one on ones, and so we can have a little bit more intimate conversation. And I really value their opinion. So I'll ask them point blank what you thought about this. I also with a broader team, sometimes when you're like, quote, unquote, the boss, people, when you say an idea, even if it's awful, even if it's an awful idea, people are like, yeah, that's great. And sometimes they're like, okay, well, we'll just do it, because she said it. And I know that that can be a hard thing. So I always try to put it in a way that I'm challenging them, and be like, okay, is there a reason why we wouldn't do this? Or is there a reason why that might be a bad idea? Give them the prompt, or give them an out, and or to build on the idea, or pivot it away to something better. So I've always liked that approach of getting feedback of also almost forcing it a little bit, I think, especially as you get higher up, it becomes- it can be a little bit more political or sensitive.

Callan Harrington  32:14

Yeah, I think it's really good advice, in particular, on the- use it from the standpoint of, hey, we need to make this idea better. What would make this idea better? So if somebody is afraid of just saying, Sarah, that's not a good idea, they may say, hey, this could make it better. And it's like, it may even take it in a totally different direction, which who cares? At the end of the day, you're just trying to get to the best result.

Sarah Sylvester  32:36

Totally.

Callan Harrington  32:37

 Is that what I'm hearing?

Sarah Sylvester  32:37

Yeah, totally. Building on it, giving that freedom to evolve and change it. I always say a good idea can come from anywhere. So even if my bad idea can take it someplace that clicks off a different idea in someone's head that they can go run with and eventually a good idea comes out of it. I think that's amazing.

Callan Harrington  32:57

Yeah, I love that. And one of the questions I have is, and this is more just kind of a thought exercise, if you took on twenty-five-year-old Sarah as a mentee. And Sarah knew she was planning on staying at this company, didn't want to go to another company, but they wanted to make it to the top just like you have. How would you coach them? What do they need to be doing right now? What's the best thing that they can be doing to put themselves in the position to accomplish that goal?

Sarah Sylvester  33:27

Oh, that's a tough one. It's always looking back. And what would you could or do differently or how you would position it, I think that it's so common these days to always have imposter syndrome, and feel like you're not good enough, or you shouldn't be here. And I think that's very natural. And you can also use that in your favor sometimes. But I feel like you can give yourself a break sometimes too. I feel like people are so pressure- put so much pressure on themselves to always work harder, do better, get to the next faster. And those things are really important. But it's not the only things that are important. So every now and then just give yourself a break. And stay true to yourself. Like I said earlier, I think being authentic to who you are, and if you feel like you should be going right when everyone's telling you to go left, don't be afraid to go right. And so I would say keep doing what you're doing. Give yourself a break sometimes and just stay true to yourself.

Callan Harrington  34:31

So I guess the last question in a similar vein, is if you can have a conversation with your younger self, any age, for any reason, what would that conversation be and what advice would you give them?

Sarah Sylvester  34:43

I would probably go a little bit younger to that tween age. You know, it's such a hard time. You're so unsure of yourself. If anyone's like me and was having the glasses, and the braces, and am I going to have friends, and all of that stuff, you know, that you have to worry about. I was a book nerd. So I was always loving to read books and probably back to being the curious thing. It's okay. Keep doing what you're doing. All of those things in life that you're not sure about. What are you going to do with your career? What do you want to be when you grow up? Are you going to get married and have a family and whatever happiness is meant to be like, it's going to be okay. Life will take a lot of twists and turns, you won't be able to plan all of it out, no matter if you have the best plan in the world, and keep rolling with the punches. It'll be okay.

Callan Harrington  35:35

Such good advice. I- tween years... Yeah, I pretty much was a spitting image of Eminem from 8 Mile to the T.

Sarah Sylvester  35:42

I would love to be able to talk about that a little bit more.

Callan Harrington  35:45

Oh, well, we'll do that for another episode. For sure. Sarah, this has been so much fun. Thank you for coming on. I'm excited that we're able to nail this down.

Sarah Sylvester  35:55

Yeah, I so appreciate you working with my crazy changing schedule. But this Friday afternoon turned out great.

Callan Harrington  36:01

I love it. Thanks for coming on.

Sarah Sylvester  36:03

All right, talk to you later.

Callan Harrington  36:08

I hope you enjoyed Sarah and I's conversation. I loved hearing Sarah's story, and how she adapted to all the changing situations, and empowered people along the way. If you want to learn more about Sarah, you could find her on LinkedIn in the show notes. Also, if you liked this episode, you could find me on LinkedIn to let me know. And if you really want to support the show, our review on Apple Podcast or Spotify is very much appreciated. Thanks for listening, and I'll see everybody next week.