Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

I know that you feel very strongly that in order to grow in your career, you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And you have said that for women especially you’ve noticed this: “Unrealistic need to be completely prepared for every new assignment or role.” So can you share with us some examples of where you leaned into the discomfort and you took on new responsibilities and just got comfortable being uncomfortable?

One that comes to mind with being comfortable being uncomfortable is close to six years ago when I moved into the President’s role. I was Chief Marketing Officer before this, and that certainly taught me a lot of things. But it certainly didn’t teach me everything I needed for a president’s role. And so I think going into it, knowing that I had never done this before, how could I be completely comfortable? You can’t be, and being uncomfortable is how you learn and how you stretch yourself.
I also got comfortable asking for help and asking questions and making certain that my team knew that I didn’t have all the answers, that wasn’t my job, to have all the answers, but that I was bringing them together as a team and building a team, so that we would figure out the answers together and knowing that I had leaders who were experts in their pieces of our puzzle, and that my job was to bring that all together in a way that we could have those important debates and discussions and tap into that collective genius.