The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 074 Carly Fiorina

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 1 of 19
EPISODE #74: CARLY FIORINA
In this episode, Travis interviews former business executive, successful entrepreneur, and dynamic
business person Carly Fiorina. Carly was an executive of AT&T and a former CEO of Hewlett-Packard,
making her one of the most successful women in business for years to come. Carly is also an inspired
entrepreneur and an advocate for entrepreneurs, especially those in the small business sector.
Travis and Carly delved on various points of view on how to improve your business as well as their
views on how the government is handling business owners and entrepreneurs through their policies
and political stance. Carly also gives helpful advice on how to create a business environment that
encourages employee creativity and growth. Balancing your time and prioritizing what's important is
also vital in handling your business as well as your personal life. Also, the value of making your
customer your focus in all your activities in business is also very important since the customers are the
ones that'll maintain your company's growth and stability. These are just some of the things
entrepreneurs can gain through this episode and can certainly apply in their business in today's
competitive market.
Carly Fiorina – Using leverage
to grow your business
Travis: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins, welcome to episode number 74 of the Entrepreneur's Radio
Show, conversations with self-made millionaires and high-level entrepreneurs that will grow your
business. This show is a production of Rockstar Entrepreneur Network.
Now, I'm super excited today to introduce you to rock star entrepreneur Carly Fiorina. Carly became the
first woman to lead a Fortune 20 Company serving as the chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, easy
for me to say. Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005. Now this is something that's really impressive,
under Carly's leadership HP double revenues from 44 billion to 88 billion, that's with a B, billion. Now
she was named Fortune's most powerful woman in business for 6 consecutive years. And so it's crystal
clear that Carly is absolutely brilliant.
In this episode we're going to talk about the entrepreneurial spirit which completely changed the way
that I view the topic or at least how I defined it. We also talk about what's holding many businesses
back and lots more. Now one of the things I want you to notice about this interview is how radically
different her line of thinking is. Even how she answers the questions in the lightning round. The reason
why I want you to pay attention to this is you've got to be willing to go against the grain and think
differently. Because in most cases to get dramatically better you have to do exactly the opposite of

what most other people are doing. So just keep that in mind and be mindful of the different angles that
she comes from, I love it.
Now before we get started I want to remind you that you can download this podcast on iTunes and take
these interviews with you on the go. The easiest way to do that is go to
RockstarEntprepreneurNetwork.com and click on the iTunes button, you'll see it up there on the very
top tab. And it will take you directly to the podcast on iTunes where you can subscribe to the show.
Now this will make it easy for you to listen to the podcast while you're on the move and get other things
done.
Also, one other thing, be sure and stay with us until the very end if you can because I've got something
that I want to share with you that's extremely exciting. So now that we've got all of that stuff out of the
way let's get down to business okay? I'll go ahead and segway into the interview with Carly. Welcome
to the show Carly.
Carly: Thank you so much for having me Travis.
Travis: I am super excited to have you on the show.
Carly: Well, it's good to be with you, I always like speaking with entrepreneurs and about
entrepreneurs, some of my favorite people.
Travis: Yeah, I know you're passionate about that. You've had a pretty incredible career and one of the
things that I found that's really helpful to entrepreneurs is that they can understand the back story and
really kind of deconstruct what it takes to find that next level of success. Maybe not the level of success
that you've had but the next level whatever that is for them. Do you mind giving us the back-story of
how you've got to this incredible level at such a young age?
Carly: Well, you're nice to describe it that way and the truth is that the back story as you call it, I'm not
sure I know it all but here's the chronology and then I'll give you a sense of what I think was important.
So first, I'm an unlikely success story in many, many ways. I was a sort of goody two shoes child, a
young woman. I graduated with a degree in Medieval History and Philosophy which is not exactly
destining you for success. I went to law school because my dad was a lawyer and he very much
wanted me to follow in his footsteps. I hated law school and I quit after 1 semester. So that's not a very
auspicious beginning for a young 22-year old woman, I graduated from college in the middle of the 70's
recession. So I went back to work as a typist. I had put myself through college as a temporary secretary
basically. I typed really well, I filed really well, I answered the phones really well. So I went back to work
as a secretary in a little 9 person firm run by two entrepreneurs. And that was my first introduction to
business, it was my first introduction to entrepreneurs. And the most important thing from bad
experience was I figured out I like business but I also understood how important it was for somebody to
take a chance on me and for me to take a chance on myself. And what I mean by that is the two

entrepreneurs, George Marcus and Mark Millichap they took a chance on me. They said, "Hey, we've
been watching you, maybe you could do something besides type and file, do you want to know what we
do?" I took a chance on myself because I took the risk to try something new. And honestly, truthfully, if I
think about my career, those two things have always been true. I have always found people who are
willing to take a chance on me, but I was also always willing to take a chance on myself by trying
something new, by trying the hard things, not the easy things, by going into areas where candidly many
people told me not to go, it's too hard, it's too hard, it's too this, it's too that. But what I found is the more
challenged I was the better I performed, the more I took chances on myself, the more people who are
willing to take chances on me. And the last thing I'll say, I guess is there is no substitute for hard work
ever. There is dignity in all work, there is an opportunity to perform with excellence no matter what
you're doing even if what you're doing is typing and filing. And when you work hard and when you
perform with excellence people notice it. And when people notice they're more apt to take a chance on
you.
Travis: Yeah, I agree with you. Do you feel like being able to perform under pressure, is that just
something that you were born with or is that something that you developed as you honed your skills?
Carly: I don't think it's something you're necessarily born with. By the way, I think all people are
capable of leadership, I think all people are capable of risk taking, I think all people are capable of
performing under pressure, it's just not everybody develops those skills. But I think the only way to
develop the ability to work under pressure is to put yourself under pressure. To put yourself under
pressure by trying new things, put yourself under pressure by expecting more of yourself, to put
yourself under pressure by expecting to do better and better every time. If you're satisfied and rest on
your laurels then over time you're never under pressure. So it's just like working out in the gym. If you
want to get fit you have to do more everytime and the more you do the easier it becomes and the more
you have to do.
Travis: Yeah, I agree. So by constantly challenging yourself to grow more and to do more you increase
your skill set and also that muscle to be able to accomplish more, right.
Carly: Absolutely. And the more you challenge yourself, the more risk you're willing and able to take.
Not stupid risks, prudent risks. But many people back away from taking risks because they're afraid.
Fear is a very human emotion, I've been afraid of many things in my life and the question is not are you
afraid, the question is what do you do with your fear. And there are people who are defeated by their
fear and say, "Ooh, I'm afraid, maybe I'm going to fail, I don't want to try something new." And then they
sit back. And there are other people who say, "I may be afraid but I'm going to move forward."
Travis: And so, how did you get that clarity? Well, let me back up a little bit. Time wise, when was it
that you were working in this office and these two entrepreneurs decided to take a chance on you,
when was this?

Carly: Well, this was, you know, I was 23 years old. I had been typing and filing and answering the
phones there for maybe 4 months. And I was frankly, happy to have a job. But when they said to me,
"We think you can do something more." And when they started to show me what they did and take an
interest in me and the other brokers in the office took an interest in me. It changed my life literally in the
sense that it opened up a whole world of possibilities for me. All of a sudden people were saying to me,
"You know, you could do business. You could be in business, you're good at this." And it frankly had
never occurred to me.
Travis: What you're describing is a superstar employee in the making and as an entrepreneur you
grow to look for these types of people. The people that are obviously taking it above and beyond what
they have to right. And so, anytime you see someone taking it beyond that point, for me I know that
what I like to do is encourage them and challenge to see if they'll take it to that next level. Because
typically in my experience, I'd like to hear what you're experience is in this, start performers can
outperform a regular employee, two to three times, or two to three fold, do you agree with that?
Carly: I do agree with that and I also think that that's why working hard is so important. I see a lot of
people sometimes who don't like their current job or don't think their current job is good enough for
them or dissatisfied with whatever their current circumstances are. And so they spend a lot of energy
thinking about what should be happening, what's next instead of concentrating on doing the most with
what they have. The truth is that there are possibilities in every situation. The star employees, we use
your term for a second, they see the possibilities. An average employee sees the limitations. So what
you’re looking for are people who see possibilities, and what you want to encourage in those people is
to seize possibilities. I think everyone's capable of seizing possibilities but not everybody does it. There
are sometimes however where people might see possibilities but they don't know they're supposed to.
And so that's why that encouragement is so important. You say, "People look, step it up. What are the
possibilities, what else could you be doing?" And it's why performing with excellence no matter what
you're doing is so important.
Travis: Right.
Carly: Because it's a signal to people.
Travis: Yeah, I agree with you. You know, I started out very early in business with my father, and he'd
put me on task that I hated. And I hated them so much that it just ruined my day and I noticed at a very
young age that the only person that I was torturing was me. And so over time I learned to turn those
tasks into a game and now that was how I started becoming a star performer when I work for someone,
and I also did that in business to where I could get a team to have some fun with things. We'd make it
into a contest. Maybe you're not crazy about the tasks that you're doing but you can become excited
and have fun about excelling at it. And I feel like that's kind of the reverse of what you're explaining or a
connotation of what you're explaining, correct?

Carly: Well, absolutely, and in fact all throughout my career I have done what you're talking about. In
other words, make it a game for people, make it a contest, make it fun. Hey, I'm a cancer survivor, life
is short, and part of doing something well is enjoying it and having fun at it. So, sometimes it's the role
of leadership to get people to see possibilities and to put some fun into it and say, "Hey, let's go have
some fun." The other thing I would just say is there is nothing more rewarding than galvanizing a team
to do more than they thought they were capable of.
Travis: Right.
Carly: That's fun. And when people have accomplished more than they thought they could. They get
that look in their eye and that's so exciting to see, and then once they've had that feeling they're more
likely to try it again.
Travis: I agree with you. Something magic happens when a team gels together and they start
accomplishing these levels that you're talking about.
Carly: Yes. There are many interesting and great things that happen. One is that a team builds
confidence and confidence is actually important. You were talking about building the skill to perform
under pressure, building the skill to take risk. But another skill is having confidence. I think success is
the right balance between confidence and humility. You need to be humble so that you remember that
there's always things I can do better, there are always things I can learn, there are always people I can
learn from, I don't know it all. But you also have to have the self-confidence to be able to say, "You
know what, I can do this. And if I can't figure out how to do it I can find people who could help me figure
out how to do it."
Travis: Right. So I understand this point of divergence here, if we drew this on a chart, this point where
these two entrepreneurs took a chance on you I think was where your path started heading on an
upward trajectory. So how do you get from there to someone running a gigantic company like HP and
doubling revenue and all of these other things? How do you make that transition?
Carly: Well, first a couple of degrees besides medieval history along the way helped. So once I learned
that business was something I really could get excited about and was good at I went off and got a
business degree. And then I went to work for AT&T which was then the Bell system a million
employees and I started in Washington, D.C. And the reason that that also was a very important
experience, it was a huge company. At that time it was before divestiture, you and your listeners may
be too young to remember divestiture but when you talk about a big bureaucracy, this was a huge
bureaucracy with a million employees. So on the one hand that kind of huge, complicated bureaucratic
organization can crush risk taking and entrepreneurial spirit. On the other hand, in my case it didn't
because I was handed a bunch of accounts that nobody cared about, that nobody had any expectations
for. I was put into a very difficult position with a colleague who was much older than I was who resented
my presence terribly. And all those challenges together caused me to say, "You know what, I'm going

to make something of this, I'm going to go serve these customers, I'm going to see what it is they need,
I'm going to make this relationship with this older colleague work even though he doesn't want it to?" So
I created challenge in that situation, and because I produce results that people weren't expecting,
people took another look at me, and said, "Well hey, she's doing something here." And that also was a
really important lesson, that it doesn't matter what other people expect of you, what matters is what you
expect of yourself. And if you set high standards and say, "I'm going to go do something here. I'm going
to go do something that hasn't been done, I'm going to produce results that are better than others
expect. I'm going to go make something work." In other words, if you tackle tough challenges and do
something with them, people will take notice, and once they take notice and they're more willing to take
a chance, and another chance, and another chance. And the truth is that's just been the story of my
career, I didn't have a place to become a CEO, I didn't say, "Here's where I want to be 10 or 20 years
from now," I truly didn't. But what I thought about was I want to love what I do, I want to be challenged
by what I do, I want to be excellent at everything I want to do, and I'm not going to sell myself out. I'm
not going to do things I don't believe in, I'm not going to become somebody I don't like. You know the
old song I did it my way, but I actually think that's important, to do it your way.
Travis: So, with the entrepreneurial spirit, how does that take you down a path of becoming, working
for a large corporation, because normally those two are polar opposites, right?
Carly: Well, and I have great admiration for entrepreneurs who set out on their own and build
something because that is the ultimate risk take, that is the ultimate taking a chance on yourself.
Entrepreneurial spirit is the willingness to take risks, to take chances, but also the ability to see things
that other people don't see. And I think that's what binds entrepreneurs of all kinds working in all kinds
of situations together. I think entrepreneurs have the ability to see possibilities that other people don't
see. That's a very important trait of leadership, I think entrepreneurs are always leaders, and leaders
always have entrepreneurial spirit. But in my life, in my career, opportunities kept coming up that were
interesting and challenging, and that I kept taking on. And ultimately it led to Hewlett-Packard, although
that wasn't the plan.
Travis: Right. Well you know, you're forcing me to think of it in a different way because I guess, I'm
reflecting as you're talking and explaining your mindset on that. And I guess it really does makes sense
to me, entrepreneurial-ism, if that's a word, has a always been something that in my mind I view as an
endeavor that someone takes on their own. When having the spirit is someone that is a trailblazer and
an innovator whether they're doing it for themselves or not, right.
Carly: Well, yes, I think so. And here's the other common element that I would say. An entrepreneur
who sets out to build their business, they also need a team, they also need support, they also need
people to take a chance on them. Maybe it's the bank that takes a chance on them and gives them a
loan. Maybe it's their family that takes a chance on them and says, "You know what, we're willing to
tighten our belts here to give you the financial resources to take this risk and go try and build this

business." Maybe it's employees who take a chance on them and say, "Yeah, we believe in you." The
point is no success happens with someone acting alone, every successful person has people who have
taken a chance on them, every successful person has support around them, every success is a team
effort actually.
Travis: Yeah, I agree with you 100%. So my experience with just corporate in general is that it takes
the entrepreneurial spirit and smothers it.
Carly: Well, it does sometimes, you're absolutely right. And by the way, that's the problem with
bureaucracies, whether they're bureaucracies or government bureaucracies. What happens is
bureaucracies focus on rules and people following rules, and of course if you're focused on following
rules what are you doing? You're crushing judgment, you're crushing innovation, you're crushing
entrepreneurial spirit, absolutely right.
Travis: So how do you get beyond that?
Carly: Well, smart businesses know that the only way you can succeed long term particularly in this
hyper-competitive, global economy of the 21st Century. The only way a business can succeed over
time, whether it's a small business or it's an incredibly large business, is you have to always serve
customers better than your competitors, and you have to at the same time invest in the future. And the
only way to do that consistently, week after week after week after week, is to unlock the potential of the
people in that business. In other words you have to unlock people's brain power, their judgment, their
innovation, their entrepreneurial spirit, because you can't write enough rules to cover every situation.
Travis: Right.
Carly: So, the best businesses, again, whether they're 9 people, 3 people, or 300,000 people. The best
businesses are encouraging innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. Yes, you have to have controls, you
have to have financial controls, you have to have administrative controls, there are some rules that
must apply, but within a set of parameters. Successful businesses are encouraging employees to use
their judgment, use their brain power, use their creativity to serve customers and to think about the
future at the same time.
Travis: Right. And this is a topic that is worth going over a couple of times because I think it's confusing
to a lot of people. My experience with some of the rules within corporations have been created for the
few people that cause trouble, and to me you're speaking to the opposite side of that, about focusing
on-- Of course you need to manage people but you need to focus on manifesting an environment that
breeds individualism just like you talked about doing it your own way. One of the reasons why you
stood out is you were able to be your own person and walk down your own path even if it was contrary
to what other people felt like was the right move. And in that process you were able to, maybe for the
lack of a better term, break the mold and do some things differently.

Carly: Well, yes, I think that's right. And I think your observation at the outset is right as well, but there
are a lot of bureaucracies that write rules for the bad people.
Travis: Right.
Carly: Government does that. It's why regulation is so crushing because governments and some
businesses are always thinking about who's going to do something wrong and let's write a rule to
prevent somebody from doing something wrong. And the weight of that is just crushing. So the best
businesses and the best leaders say, "You know what, let's create a set of parameters that will keep
people on the rails but that will allow them to unleash their potential." The highest calling of leadership
is to unlock other people's potential, and the most successful businesses realize that. And so you're
focused on “How do I get the maximum number of people to succeed?” instead of focusing on, "Let me
worry about all the people who are going to fail."
Travis: Yeah, and it's much trickier than one would think, and I know this because I've built a couple of
my businesses to some pretty sizable businesses. And the rules and regulations, and all of the
bureaucracy had managed to stamp out all of the profits in the process because there were so many
regulations and there are so many problems. And so speaking from experience I've seen that,
something that I see a lot of Carly, and I'd be interested to get your perspective on this because I speak
with a lot of business owners, is the lack of business basics. And now that, the word basic may sound
like it's an insult towards business owners and it's really not. The word basics, there's so many
businesses don't have the metrics in place to empirically measure what is or is not happening. And so a
lot of their decisions are really based on opinions or guesstimates, and when you can move the
opinions and guesstimates out of the way and decisively move forward with what is or is not working,
you're able to make consistent and predictable forward progress, do you agree with that?
Carly: Well, I do. Look, facts are always our friends. Facts matter, data matters, and this is one of the
things that technology enables. There are so much technology now that helps even the smallest
businesses understand what's actually happening. Put another way, the more data you have, the more
you can ensure that every decision is fact-based which is very important, and you can also ensure that
every dollar is being spent wisely and well, and that's important, particularly when you're a small
business. You don't have a lot of margin of error when you're a small business. And so, knowing that
you're spending your dollars wisely and well, knowing that you're applying your resources where they
can do the most good, that's really incredibly important.
Travis: Right. Now, I know you're passionate about, and I'm just going to throw a couple of things out
there, innovation, education, entrepreneurship, job creation, what is it that in speaking to entrepreneurs,
what do you feel like they need to be focusing on to get the most-- A lot of businesses are struggling in
this, what I consider this new economy. What's your advice, what do they need to focus on?

Carly: Well, let me break that into two parts if I may because on the one hand I'll answer your question
directly, what should entrepreneurs focus on. On the other hand I also think it's fair to say that we have
created an environment right now in this country that is literally hostile to business owners, and that's a
grave concern.
Travis: Right.
Carly: In other words we are making it harder and harder and harder for entrepreneurs to succeed and I
want to come back to that because it's really important. And so I spend a lot of time talking to policy
makers and politicians as well who frequently lack any understanding of how a business works or what
an entrepreneur is up against. So let's come back to that.
Travis: Okay.
Carly: But to answer your question directly-- The thing that I think is important for entrepreneurs to
remember and this is really basic, to your point about business basics, focus on the customer. You
know, I have seen businesses from very small to very large forget, literally forget that a business can't
succeed unless a customer buys your product. And so, sort of the most important thing to start with is
what am I selling that a customer is willing to pay for over, and over, and over. And why is it that what
I'm selling is better than what somebody else is selling? So for me that's kind of the north star. You got
to stay focused on who is the customer, how do I satisfy the customer, who do I want my customers to
be, what am I customers asking for from me, it's really important. And I say that because all the day to
day struggles of running a business, you can kind of forget that, you can get all-- You have employee
issues, you have regulation issues, you have vendor issues, you have landlord issues, you got a million
issues.
Travis: Right.
Carly: You got to deal with. Stay focus on the customer because customers will see you through. The
second thing that I would, and again, these are all really basic things. The second thing that I would say
is people have asked me all my life, "What's the toughest decision you make every day?", and my
answer is always that same and I think it applies for every entrepreneur. The toughest decision I have
to make every day is how to spend my time. And the only person that can decide how to spend your
time is you. Time is the one asset we can never get back, we never have enough of, and the people
who succeed I think are extremely good at prioritizing their time. I stress this because I think in today's
age with technology, what happens is people are losing their ability or their appetite to prioritize their
time and they let all the technology prioritize their time for them. You know, you have a million
messages, you've got tweets, you've got email, and people just get consumed with the flooder of
activity. And they stop prioritizing their time. An entrepreneur who is stretched in a thousand different
directions, prioritizing his or her time is key. And it is an active discipline that has to go on every hour of
every day.

Travis: Right.
Carly: And one of the things I do is once a month I go back and look at my calendar and I say, "Am I
happy with how I prioritize my time?" and if not you make adjustments. So focus on the customer, think
very long and hard about how you spend your time, and prioritize your time. And the third thing, and
again, it's so basic is it is very difficult to do. It's this right balance between focusing on the here and
now, and thinking about the future. It's a little bit, I like to say that successful entrepreneurs have
peripheral vision and strategic vision, as well as tactical focus. In other words they got to be able to see
around them, what's going on in the environment, what are my competitors doing, what are my
customers asking me to do? And they also have to be able to kind of face the future every day,
especially in an environment where it's changing so rapidly.
Travis: Right. Well you know, to help make your point is you've served on a large number of high
profile boards, you're a mother, you're a wife, you're a cancer survivor, you're extremely successful in
business, so obviously you've figured out this time efficiency thing. So is it due not only to eliminating
the things that are not relative to what you're doing, but is it having a system for everything that you do
as well?
Carly: Yes, but it's about thinking through everyday what really matters. So just let me give a simple,
silly example, but it really doesn't matter that you answer every single message you get immediately. It
just doesn't matter. There are some things that are truly urgent but not very many, point one. Point two,
it isn't easy, and there are times when I’ve balanced it better than other times and there are times when
the balance point has to change, you know. When your family's in trouble, when you're ill, when you're
business is tanking, there are time when the balance point shifts. But it is being conscious of what is
really important and what's just stuff, getting the right balance. And I think the other thing is you have to
get comfortable with the fact that whatever you choose someone will be unhappy with you. You're not
going to please everybody all the time, it's impossible.
Travis: Right.
Carly: And so you have to just sort of accept someone's going to be unhappy with how I'm choosing
but these are decisions that only I can make for myself and I have to live with them.
Travis: Yeah, I see so many business owners engaged in activities that are not leverageable just like
you're talking about. It's really analogous to organizing chairs on the deck of the Titanic. You need to
place your time and energy in places where it makes a difference and makes the biggest impact.
Carly: That's right.
Travis: Constantly staying on Twitter and responding to everything is just, there's no way you can run a
business no matter how efficient you are and constantly be on Twitter.

Carly: Well, that's right. And you know, another way of saying what you just mentioned is you have to
think about things that have multiplier effect, that are leverageable to use your term. So finding star
employees has a multiplier effect. Finding the people in your organization that are really going to go the
extra mile, helping them unlock their potential, that has huge multiplier effect, it's leverageable. Finding
the things that are sustainable and scalable, that has multiplier effects. It's all about leverage to your
point, and that's true whether it's a big business, a little business, a not for profit, or for profit. You're
always thinking about what has a multiplier effect, what can I leverage, what allows me to sustain effort
more easily, what allows me to scale this activity more easily. That's what an entrepreneur and a leader
has to focus on.
Travis: Right, yeah, definitely. So let me take you back to the topic that you had mentioned earlier to
where you feel like we're in an environment that is more difficult for business owners, which I happen to
agree. It highly offends me because the amount of taxes that I pay across the board, you know. A lot of
people, non-entrepreneurs don't realize that the furniture I bought 10 years ago, I paid taxes on that
every year. The employee tax, there's so many things. Now we need to pay our part but there's so
many other things going on that are attacking small business owners rather than supporting them. And
so, take me down that path, tell me what you were referring to?
Carly: Well, first we talked earlier about facts or our friends so let's just look at a little data. This isn't
just in our heads. So in a recent survey, 70% of small business owners said they thought the
government was hostile to them. It is supported by the data. There are fewer small businesses starting
and more failing now than in any time in the last 40 years. It is one of the reasons why our economic
recovery is so lackluster, because we don't have small businesses forming and succeeding. In fact,
more small businesses are failing now than in any time in the last 40 years. Entrepreneurs built this
country. The reason America is a great country is because people know that they have the chance to
fulfill their potential, to build a better life for themselves and their families, and entrepreneurs made that
happen.
Entrepreneurs, small and new businesses create two-thirds of the new jobs, they employ half the
people in this country, they innovate at a rate, 6 or 7 times than in big businesses, I mean, they're vital.
And when you ask small businesses as you do, what's getting in their way, why aren't they starting, why
aren't they failing. What they basically tell you is it's just too hard. The cost of failure is too high, the
reward for success is too low, the regulatory thicket is too crushing, the tax system is too complicated. If
you think about Washington, D.C., which you have basically are a lot of politicians who mostly have
never run a business, they don't understand how business works. But you also have a system in
Washington that's built around big. It's for big business, it's for big labor, it's for big government. And so
the little business gets lost. A big business can hire accountants and lawyers to understand the tax
code which is now 27,000 pages long. They can hire accountants, they can hire lawyers to help them
understand the regulatory thing, a small business can't. And so we literally are crushing small business
owners with complexity, with regulatory burden, with taxation, with a system that's just not friendly to

them and that does not encourage them. And it greatly, greatly concerns me, because what the data
says is we are becoming a more risk-averse nation, we are making it harder for people to take a
chance and start a business, and that's bad for everybody.
Travis: Right. I completely agree. I'm floored that we would ask a politician to run a business, the
government, and they've never had any experience running a business.
Carly: Well, yes, and it's one of the reasons I ran for office because I really think that ours was
intended to be a citizen government. There was a time in our country's history where people moved
easily in and out of public and private life. And all of our founding father really were entrepreneurs in
their own way. It's true, when you have people who are doing things that have a direct impact on the
economy every single day, but they don't actually understand what makes the economy work, that's a
problem. And of course the other problem is once something gets put into law, a tax, a rule, a
regulation, we never get rid of them.
Travis: Never. Ever.
Carly: Never, and that's why everything gets more, and more, and more, and more complicated, and
it's honestly why I think one of the most important things that could be done is to literally go back and
look at every single regulation on the books, every single tax. I think we ought to eliminate every loop
hole, lower every rate, go back and review every regulation, and look at all of them from the point of
view of an entrepreneur, not a big business, a little business. What does this do to an entrepreneur?
Because what it's doing right now is making it too hard for them.
Travis: And I belong to several masterminds with very accomplished business owners and a lot of
them are considering drastic measurements of taking up residency somewhere else because they feel
like they're being attacked rather than welcomed.
Carly: I know, and it's tragic, it's really tragic, and this is why I speak about this all the time, I gave a
recent speech at the National Press Club. It's why I interact with policy makers, not that I alone can
change it, I can't. But I feel as though it's critically important that I as well as others continue to raise our
voices because it's a little bit like, you know, you've heard the old story of the frog and the boiling
water? If you throw a frog into boiling water it will jump out, but if you put a frog in water and then slowly
bring it to a boil it will boil to death. And I feel as though we're in a situation right now where we're just
slowly boiling entrepreneurs to death. The entrepreneurs understand but the politicians don't
understand it. So it's just this creeping, inexorable process where we're strangling our economy. I'm
mixing many, many metaphors there but I'm really concerned, and I think there is a direct correlation
between GDP growth that is less than 2% quarter after quarter after quarter, and entrepreneurs feeling
that the government is hostile to them. I think those are directly correlated events.

Travis: Yeah, I agree with you. For me, as a business owner, and I know a lot of my friends, my fellow
entrepreneurs think the same way. We've just checked out from the political environment because
there's so much nonsensical demagoguing going on that rather than defending-- Have you ever been in
an argument with someone that's just bent on being right rather than getting to the actual truth, you
know.
Carly: Of course.
Travis: And it makes you not want to engage with him.
Carly: My husband would stay on that way sometimes.
Travis: Well, you know, there's a difference between being strong-headed about something but there's
another thing, it's a whole different element when you're at least willing to hear contrasting opinions and
if something, a better option comes up then we both agree to choose that option rather than hang on to
our previous beliefs.
Carly: Well look, business owners, entrepreneurs are problem solvers. I mean that's what
entrepreneurs do, they solve problems all day long. And the only way you can solve problems is to be
open minded to solutions rather than what you came in to this situation within your head. And so I think
one of the reasons business owners just throw their hands up with politicians is because politicians
don't actually behave like they want to solve a problem.
Travis: Right, exactly. It's more about the loyalty of what their party thinks rather than getting down to
the bottom. And you know, I'm painting everyone with one broad brush which is unfair, but for the most
part that's the attitude. And so a lot of business owners have just checked out because I can't stand to
watch something that incites me so much than have such little effect or control over it.
Carly: Well, I know and I really do empathize with that feeling and I also know, I can remember
speaking to a group of small business owners a year or so ago and really encouraging them to get
more engaged in the political process because the political process impacts them so directly. And one
of them finally said to me, "Carly, we're too busy running our businesses."
Travis: Right.
Carly: And of course that's true. So you combine people being totally flat out trying to run their
business with a feeling of it's just hopeless, it's useless, I totally understand. And yet I think it is so
important that we have people who understand business speaking into the political process that we
have people who are trying to run businesses, talking to their representatives about what is happening
to them as a result of the political process. And this is a bipartisan issue. It doesn't matter whether
you're a Democrat or a Republican. It doesn't matter what your representative is, I just think it's critically
important. You know, if I can back up for a second, there used to be a time when business and politics

were sort of different tracks. And you knew people who went into politics and you knew people who
went into business and the two never met, unless there was some huge problem. Well, I think we have
to go back to the way it used to be where all of us were engaged in civic society in some way. And this
is now I think too important for business people to just step back and say, "Oh well, there's nothing I
can do and I can't have an impact," because what the politicians are doing is having an impact on us
every single day.
Travis: Well, based on my 47 years of living I've come to the conclusion that obviously, us human
beings we're creatures of habit and we tend to not want to embrace change until something breaks,
and we're forced to. And I feel like we're heading towards that date where something really big breaks
and we're forced to completely change the way that we do things. I agree with you, we need business-
minded people within the government to eliminate a lot of these nonsense and get us back on track.
Carly: Well, and we need people who are outside of government and outside of politics traditionally
who are business people--
Travis: Which is where innovation comes from, right?
Carly: Yeah, to put real pressure on the system.
Travis: Well, and there's so much esoteric things that's going on. My wife and I sit there and watch the
news. And she's pretty intelligent, and I asked her, "Did you understand what they just said?" They
were having a discussion about something involved with the government; I don't remember what the
topic was. And she said, "No", and so this government is supposedly for the people and 80% of the
people have no clue of what's being said.
Carly: Well look, this is a government intended to be by the people, for the people, of the people.
What's happened over time is we have a government that is, and politicians who are professionals,
meaning, they are professional politicians. Not all of them but most of them.
Travis: Right.
Carly: We have professional politicians, we have professional government employees. And so what's
happened is the government has become sort of a separate population. And that's a problem, because
it means that we're on totally separate pages, we use to the example of you and your wife listening to
the news. We speak different languages now, that's a bad thing.
Travis: Right. And you know, the comment that I made wasn't to say that our public is dumb as much
as the professional politicians have made conversations so complicated that it's just virtually
impossible. They might as well be speaking in another language.

Carly: Well, they are speaking in another language, and a lot of the language they're speaking in has to
do with political points and their world up on Capitol Hill which is not the world of most business people.
Travis: Right. To go back to your point of looking at things from the customer's perspective. When I
walk in to an airport, occasionally I'll have an employee there speak to me in airport acronyms as if I
work there, and I'll have to say, "No, I don't know what that means, can you translate for me." So that's
when a business is slipping, is exactly to your point. You've got to speak to the people that you're
serving and many businesses aren't, and obviously governments aren't.
Carly: Yeah, it would be a wonderful thing if when you went into an airport, you felt as though people
there actually understood you had paid for a plane ticket.
Travis: Right.
Carly: And it would also be a wonderful thing if people and government understood, actually my job is
to serve the citizen who pays my salary through their taxes because that's literally what's going on. But
I think we have forgotten that too often in Washington, D.C.
Travis: Right. Well, we definitely need you in office Carly.
Carly: Well, whether or not I'm in office someday, what I will continue to do is raise my voice and try
and influence how people think about it. We all can do what we can do, and that's something I can do.
Travis: Right. So let's segue into the lightning round, the last three questions here. We've had a lot of
great conversation and I know that we could really go on for another hour here. But are you ready?
Carly: I'm ready.
Travis: Now, I know, Tera are you still there?
Tera: Yes.
Travis: We've got Tera with us also; she's not used to being interviewed. Tera, I'm still thinking of a
way that we can get you involved on this interview. So hang in there okay.
Tera: That's okay.
Travis: Alright. So Carly, what book or program made an impact on you related to business that you
would recommend and why?
Carly: You know, I looked at this question this morning and I know you'll be disappointed. I never can
come up with one thing. I never can, and I guess the thing that I would say is the one-- You'll be

amazed by this answer. Remember I told you early on in our conversation, I was a philosophy major,
remember that?
Travis: Uhm hmm
Carly: So the thing that I remember, I had always remembered all through my business career was a
philosopher named, if I have to pick one thing, is a philosopher named Hegel. Doesn't matter who he
was, or when he lived or any of the rest but Hegel had this idea that you took two opposing ideas and
you manage to marry them. And his word for that was thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Now why do I bring
that up? Because I think what a lot of business and leadership is about, is finding ways to take two
things that seem impossible to reconcile and reconciling them. Example, "Wow, I have to focus so
much of my time and energy on serving the customer today, how can I possibly have any energy left to
think about the future? Well, if you figure out a way to do both, that is success. We've talked about lots
of those balance points but it's something that I remember every single day and it's the only way you
solve problems actually. What's a problem, a problem is a seemingly irreconcilable conflict but
somehow you've figured out how to marry two opposed ideas and get something better as a result. In
the end, I think that's what innovation's about.
Travis: Interesting, I like that. That's completely a different take on it. What's one of your favorite tools
or pieces of technology that you've recently discovered if any, I don't know if you use much tech or not,
that you'd recommend to other business owners and why.
Carly: This is also a really interesting question but I mentioned that I started out in the phone company.
So it's amazing to me the kinds of tools now, magicJack, Vonage, all of these things that literally create
free communications. And it applies to everything. But I think what we're going through right now to
take it from the specific to something more holistic, I think what we're going through right now is a
fundamental transformation that is historic across all of humanity's history, honestly. I think we're living
through a time period where everything that is physical and analog is becoming digital, mobile, virtual,
and personal. If you think about, why am I saying that, telephone communications, nobody even thinks
about it anymore but it used to be this incredible, physical network of analog connections? Now guess
what, it's completely digital and mobile. The music industry, the books, music, everything is going from
physical and analog, to digital, mobile, virtual, and personal. The reason I bring this up in this context,
talking with entrepreneurs is I think entrepreneurs have to think very hard about that. Because I don't
care what kind of business you're in, I don't care if you're running the tacoria down the street, you're
running a dry cleaners, you're running a technology service company, you're running a not for profit, it
doesn't matter. Whatever you're doing, you now have to think about how do I leverage this incredible
trend in technology where people are able to connect in a meaningful way, anytime, anywhere, virtually
in a personalized way, how do I leverage that for my business. Because if you're not thinking about that
you are behind the arc of history, truly.

Travis: Yeah, I think the stats may be a little off. We create in text every 72 hours what took us the first
2,000 years of existence to create.
Carly: Yeah, the reason I say its transformationals, the first time in human history-- Think about this,
literally, for the first time in human history, any person, anywhere, can get any piece of information on
any device.
Travis: Right.
Carly: That's transformational to humanity, much less to somebody's business. And so, I think it's very
profound and I think people who don't think about that with regard to their business get behind the 8
ball very fast.
Travis: Great point. Your answers come from a complete different angle than most. I love it. You're
really a different type thinker here, I'm eating this up Carly. So, what famous quote would best
summarize your belief or attitude in business?
Carly: Well, my attitude in business. Let me maybe again take a different tack, but we started this
conversation which has been so much fun Travis I have to say, thank you so much.
Travis: Yeah, thank you.
Carly: We started this conversation talking about an individual, in this case me but it applies to other
people. And while it is true that every success is a team effort, it is also true that success comes from
someplace inside every person. I think every person has the potential to succeed, I think every person
has the potential to lead, I think every person has the potential to be an entrepreneur but many don't
choose to become any of those things. So the quote that I carry around in my head all the time comes
from when I was an 8-year old child, and it came from Sunday school literally, but it is "What you are is
God's gift to you, what you make of yourself is your gift to God." And to me whether your listeners
believe in God or not or come from a spiritual place. To me it's about every single one of us has gifts,
every single one of us has tremendous potential that we rarely, fully tap. One thing I know from
managing people all my life, every single person has more potential than they realize, every
organization has more potential than frequently is tapped. So all of us have gifts, all of us have
potential, this country is the greatest on earth because it gives more people the opportunity to tap their
potential. But every single one of us has those gifts and that potential and question is what are going to
do with it. And I think if we spend our days thinking about how do I make the most of my gifts, the most
of my good fortune, the most of my success, the most of my potential, it's a good life.
Travis: Well said. You know Carly, you're brilliant and I find you very authentic, and so it's just an
absolute pleasure to spend time with you and throw that ball of communication and just go down
several different paths of so many important topics. How do people connect with you?

Carly: If they go on to my website, carlyfiorina.com and there is a contact me button there, and they
can connect with me that way. And they can also see a little bit about all the things that are going on in
my life if they're interested in that,
Travis: Great. Now, can you hang out with me for a couple more minutes while I wrap things up?
Carly: Sure.
Travis: Excellent.
Carly: I have like 5 more minutes if that's okay.
End of Interview
Travis: Yeah, I'm going to wrap it up and probably too. I want to remind you that you can find all of the
links to the books and the resources mentioned in the show in the show notes. Just go to
RockstarEntrepreneurNetwork.com, again it's a brand new site that we're building out that's completely
focused on giving you the resources to grow your business.
Before I close the show today, I want to tell you about a really exciting program that we've put together
called the Business Breakthrough Sweepstakes where you'll have a chance to win $73,000 in cash and
prizes and a Lamborghini. Now the business breakthrough sweepstakes is a program that's centered
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lots of fun and excitement as we build out our community, and the program is completely free. For more
information just go to RockstarEntrepreneurNetwork.com and click on the Business Breakthrough
Sweepstakes. Now my quote today comes from Dale Carnegie, and the quote reads, "If you want to
conquer fear, don't sit at home and think about it, go out and get busy." This is Travis Lane Jenkins
signing off for now, remember, no matter where you're at in your journey as an entrepreneur, you're an
inspiration to those around you to go after their dreams too, so keep it up. To your incredible success,
take care.

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Travis Lane Jenkins
Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist
Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show
“Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"

The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 074 Carly Fiorina

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