Speaker 1: This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast
Speaker 1: more what You Hear weekday afternoons on the Drive.
Speaker 2: She was once the CEO of one of the more
Speaker 2: influential sports, lifestyle and entertainment media brands on the Internet
Speaker 2: to Barstool Sports, Erica ayers Badan has written many other books,
Speaker 2: You're a Badass, Atomic Habits, and her latest, Nobody Cares
Speaker 2: About Your Career, Why Failure Is Good, The Great Ones,
Speaker 2: Play Hurt, and other hard truths. Erica, I hope you're
Speaker 2: not playing hurt today.
Speaker 1: I'm not, are you?
Speaker 2: No? No, not emotionally nor physically. But what was the
Speaker 2: purpose of this?
Speaker 1: Yeah? You know, I wrote the book on the train
Speaker 1: to New York City every day when I was running
Speaker 1: Barstool Sports. I really Barstool was a crazy workplace. It
Speaker 1: was a funny farm, It was a pirate ship. We
Speaker 1: had one of the most out there were cultures known
Speaker 1: to man. And what I really saw was a lot
Speaker 1: of lessons and a lot of experiences that I thought
Speaker 1: everyone could take into their work life. I think work
Speaker 1: is tuition and you get out of it what you
Speaker 1: put into it. And I don't think there's anyone who's
Speaker 1: in the middle of their own career, who's giving perspective
Speaker 1: and opinion about what it takes to be successful in
Speaker 1: a way that can appeal to most anyone. So you
Speaker 1: work at Google, you work in a gift shop, you
Speaker 1: work in a nursing home, you work, you're a teacher.
Speaker 1: I think it doesn't matter where you work, if you
Speaker 1: bring yourself to work, if you work hard, if you're
Speaker 1: willing to fail, if you're willing to learn, you can
Speaker 1: use work to give yourself a better life.
Speaker 2: Your's play in my song Erica. I had the advantage,
Speaker 2: and some would say disadvantage, of falling in love with
Speaker 2: a business. I'm in at a very tender age, maybe
Speaker 2: eight or ten, and started my journey in this career
Speaker 2: when I was fourteen or fifteen, and have loved every
Speaker 2: day that i've that I've been in it, and and
Speaker 2: I'm one of the few of my fellow students and
Speaker 2: fellow friends who had that advantage to like what they do.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine going into a job each day on
Speaker 2: a job that you.
Speaker 1: Hate one hundred percent. I mean, life is short. I
Speaker 1: think everyone can love what they do. I think when
Speaker 1: you're starting in your career sometimes you're lucky and you
Speaker 1: fall into your dream job right away, or you've got
Speaker 1: to you know, more like me, you've got to slog
Speaker 1: through a couple of dumb jobs to get there. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think you've got to make the most
Speaker 1: of where you work and also how you work, and
Speaker 1: if you love what you do, work will never feel
Speaker 1: like work. And that's, you know, the greatest thing about
Speaker 1: We spend more time at work than we spend doing
Speaker 1: anything else in our lives. So this book is really about,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you unlock that, how do you
Speaker 1: be your best at it? How do you figure it out?
Speaker 1: How do you get up courage to go for something
Speaker 1: you didn't think you were ready for or capable of.
Speaker 1: So this book is really full of that kind of message.
Speaker 2: The name of the book is Nobody cares about your career,
Speaker 2: Why failure is good? The great ones play hurt, and
Speaker 2: other hard truths. That was one thing I too learned
Speaker 2: early on. Nobody does care about my career. They're not
Speaker 2: here to help me. They're here to make me perform
Speaker 2: tasks that will make them successful.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, you know, it's so funny. Somebody sent me
Speaker 1: a direct DM over the internet. Was like, Oh, the
Speaker 1: title of your book is so depressing, And I was like,
Speaker 1: the title of the book is so great, Like how
Speaker 1: liberating that no one cares about your career. You can
Speaker 1: do exactly what makes you happy. You can do exactly
Speaker 1: what you want. Stop doing things that you think are
Speaker 1: the right thing to do because somebody else likes them
Speaker 1: and you don't. So I also think every you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of times at work, people just sit around
Speaker 1: and expect that, you know, someone's going to come trotting
Speaker 1: up on some white horse and save them or do
Speaker 1: it for them, or figure it out for them, or
Speaker 1: make it better for them, And the reality is it's
Speaker 1: just not going to happen, and you have to move
Speaker 1: forward for yourself, by yourself, because of yourself. And this,
Speaker 1: you know, this is really like a real time message
Speaker 1: from things I've screwed up and done wrong and done
Speaker 1: right and learned from in the last twenty years of
Speaker 1: my career.
Speaker 2: And we're talking to Erica ayers Bedan. The book is
Speaker 2: nobody cares about your career. She's a former CEO of
Speaker 2: Barstool Sports and many many others. Also voted one of
Speaker 2: Forbes's most Powerful Women in the US we're living and work.
Speaker 2: I learned this in the pandemic Erica. We're living and
Speaker 2: working in a time where things are in overdrive. We
Speaker 2: are moving forward so fast it is often difficult for
Speaker 2: your employer even to keep up, let alone you. And
Speaker 2: oftentimes you will find that things are moving so fast
Speaker 2: that what was important to your com copy or maybe
Speaker 2: to a goal that you've been provided with may not
Speaker 2: be as soon as the end of the week. And
Speaker 2: you feel like you've spent your wheels, spend spun your
Speaker 2: wheels on a project that at the end of the
Speaker 2: week is no longer important. Is there a way to
Speaker 2: deal with that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? It super frustrating right where you're like, like, I
Speaker 1: spent all this time, I put in all this effort,
Speaker 1: I had to deal with all these stupid people to
Speaker 1: get whatever the thing is done, and then you find
Speaker 1: out the thing doesn't matter. And you know, for me,
Speaker 1: it's all about how you look at it. If you choose,
Speaker 1: you know, I think your environment is relentless. So if
Speaker 1: you choose to just be consumed by all of the
Speaker 1: stupid things that happen at work, and it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: where you work, stupid things happen, then you're going to
Speaker 1: feel negative about it, versus saying, hey, I'm going to
Speaker 1: take this experience. I'm going to learn how I don't
Speaker 1: want to be when I'm a boss, or what I
Speaker 1: do want to do the next time I'm given the
Speaker 1: ball on this project. And you know, it's also hard
Speaker 1: where a lot of people now work from their homes,
Speaker 1: so it's hard to it is hard to keep up,
Speaker 1: so you've got to go the extra mile to ask.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times people don't do really
Speaker 1: basic things like just ask the question and if something's
Speaker 1: bothering you at work or something seems you know, like
Speaker 1: it's not making sense at work, or it's a waste
Speaker 1: of time at work, just that there's no harm in
Speaker 1: ever asking the question. And I wish people did that more.
Speaker 2: We're talking to the former CEO of Oarstool Sports. Erica ayers,
Speaker 2: but Dan, nobody cares about your career is the book
Speaker 2: and you give a Well, I've started out this conversation
Speaker 2: saying that I was lucky enough to fall in love
Speaker 2: with what I do and have ever since. But that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean, like all good lovers, it hasn't broken my
Speaker 2: heart once in a while, all jobs break your Yeah,
Speaker 2: so is there is there a way to avoid that
Speaker 2: or is there another way to think about it?
Speaker 1: No? I mean I think that's exactly the point, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, I think all of us are striving to
Speaker 1: be happy and to be fulfilled and to feel a
Speaker 1: sense of purpose, and that you're on a mission to
Speaker 1: be whatever it is you want to be. And my
Speaker 1: point in the book is really your mission should just
Speaker 1: be for you. It shouldn't be because it's what your
Speaker 1: mom wants you to do, or what you know, the
Speaker 1: fancy guy you know at the country club wants to do.
Speaker 1: Like it should be for you. And it's good to
Speaker 1: have your heart broken because it means you put yourself
Speaker 1: out there and you loved. And I think the same
Speaker 1: is true of work.
Speaker 2: And finally you talk about not being a bleephole at work.
Speaker 1: Yes, I do. Everyone is a jerk at work at
Speaker 1: one point or another, and it's easy to fall into
Speaker 1: being a jerk. Right, I'm a CEO. Now, I have
Speaker 1: someone yesterday in my office and I was like, you're
Speaker 1: just being a complete jerk. And this chapter is really about, hey,
Speaker 1: how do you avoid that? So when someone makes you
Speaker 1: super mad? How do you not send the email right away,
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, I wish I didn't say that.
Speaker 2: There are times when I've written that email and given
Speaker 2: it a good thirty minute cooling period where I came
Speaker 2: back and said, ooh, I'm glad I didn't hit send.
Speaker 2: Just the writing of the email was therapeutic enough.
Speaker 1: Exactly, I have failed more and I've actually sent the email,
Speaker 1: and then I spend four days being like, why did
Speaker 1: I say that?
Speaker 2: Erica ayers, but Dan, nobody cares about your career. Why
Speaker 2: failure is good? The great Ones, Play Hurt and other
Speaker 2: hard truths out everywhere you get books, And thank you
Speaker 2: for joining us today, Thank you for having me, Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast,
Speaker 2: and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons
Speaker 2: from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation