Elizabeth Wiel

Elizabeth: Hi. I’m Elizabeth Weil. I’m currently a partner at a venture capital firm on Sandhill Road.
Formerly worked at Twitter for a long time and I’m a letterpress printer. Started a
company called Paperwheel, and I’m also an ultra-marathon runner.

Ramit: Welcome.

Elizabeth: Thanks.

Ramit: Probably the best introduction anyone can ever give for themselves. I love how modest
you are, but you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m also an ultra-marathon runner.’

Elizabeth: Keeps me sane.

Ramit: Thank you for coming. We have known each other for a long time, and I have written
about you on my blog. I’ve actually featured you in an interview before about your
letterpress company, but let’s just give everyone a little bit of background on how we
originally met. Do you remember?

Elizabeth: I remember seventh grade.

Ramit: Yes.

Elizabeth: The awkward stage of life in every nerdy class.

Ramit: Wait. I thought I was a big-time player back then. Tell everyone the truth.

Elizabeth: Skinny Ramit, super smart. He had the best minivan that he rolled up to school to be
dropped off in.

Ramit: That’s true.

Elizabeth: And you were awesome at dances.

Ramit: Why are you blowing up my game? I’ve got a lot of respect from these people watching
and now they’re not going to think anything of me. Thank you, that’s true. So we did
meet in seventh grade. We went to highschool together. We actually went to college
together. And you are the person I refer to a lot when I talk about how one day, it was
a Friday, and I called my friend up, you, and I was said like ‘Hey, do you know any cool
internships?’ And you were already working somewhere and you were like, ‘Why don’t
you just come work for us?’ And I sent you my resume. Monday you said, ‘Okay, come
in for the interview,’ although it was already a done deal, and then we stepped outside I
negotiated salary…

Elizabeth: At a picnic table.

Ramit: Yeah, and I’m like, this is the way to do it, with your seventh- grade friend. So we’ve

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 known each other a long time and I have been fascinated following your career. I want
to talk about that today because what you’ve done is quite remarkable, but yet you
have an amazing ability to balance all these things and we’re going to talk about that
because we laugh about balance like what does that even mean? But I remember I came
to your house one time. You have a beautiful house with your husband. And there were
like 25 pairs of shoes or something outside.

Elizabeth: Still there.

Ramit: Yeah, and I was like ‘Oh should I take off my shoes?’ and you go ‘No’ and you’re like
‘Why would you take off your shoes?’ And then I’m like ‘Well, aren’t all these guests?’
and you’re like ‘No one’s here.’ It was your shoes.

Elizabeth: It’s a running shoe addiction.

Ramit: Unbelievable. So we’re going to talk about how you managed to work as a partner at a
top-tier venture firm, how you run your own business, how you run ultra-marathons, and
how you got to come here and how you manage all this stuff. We’re going to talk about
that. I’m particularly excited to have you because a lot of my RBT members, Ramit’s
Brain Trust members, a lot of women specifically said, ‘Please bring in women that
inspire you or that you admire.’ And you were the first that I thought of.

Elizabeth: Thank you.

Ramit: So let’s talk about this. Let’s start right after college, because I want to get inside the
mind of a top performer. So you graduated from college, and obviously, you’ve done
very well in college. You have a lot of great connections that you made and you decide
to go the start-up route. Can you take us through your career path where you went from
college to how you came to be a partner at a top-tier venture firm?

Elizabeth: Well, it was not planned despite what it looks like now. It seems like it makes a lot of
logical sense, but I think when you look back on your career it always does. So that’s
one thing, don’t stress about where your career will take you. But I’ve always done what
I wanted to do around people that I enjoyed working with where I get to learn every day.

I think it actually started for me before college as far as interest and just more in the
business side, but getting to do something verses just learn something. And at Stanford
there was a program called Stanford Student Enterprises, and it was actually the part of
the university that was revenue generating so the student body could stay independent
from the school and I had a chance to operate the eleven student run business there
and that was through school and also through a summer. I just felt like, in addition to
classes, I really got to work with a team and learn the insides of business without having
a lot of stress around it.

Ramit: So you’re already operating a business when you’re in college. You were doing
internships in college as well?

Elizabeth: That is very true and that’s where the start-ups came in. I think one of the things about
how I was able to cram a lot in is just really maximizing the hours in every day and
was fortunate enough to get on the startup track early in college. So after my junior
summer, I learned that start-ups really were existing, and I didn’t know much about that.
I thought I was either going to a consulting firm or an investment bank.

I’d grown up in Sacramento, my mom was a teacher and my dad was a marine biologist,
so I knew more traditional-style careers and I learned about all of these companies,
that were growing in the Silicon Valley and all over the world, and I started learning
more about different industries that excited me, and I was able to intern to start-up, just
before I graduated from college and that had just laid a really great foundation of what

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 I like to do, what I don’t like to do and helped guide me to what sort of real job I want to
apply for, leaving school.

Ramit: So let me ask you this. I mean, not everyone has the opportunity to kind of slide into
investment banking or consulting. You would have, if you wanted to you could’ve
easily gotten those jobs. I mean you remember how easy it was for us. We show up to
an interview, it’s like you get a guaranteed interview with these firms and I mean, you
are great interviewing. You’ve been able to knock that job down, and you would have
been able to get a very high paying job. Whether it is consulting banking or a lot of the
people watching here, maybe it’s not consulting banking for them, but they have a set
default career that they can go to. Something safe, something that is predictable and
you decided to not do that. You actually went the opposite way, the ultra-risky route of
a start-up, which is almost a guaranteed failure.

Elizabeth: And which is very not my personality.

Ramit: Yeah. So talk to us about that.

Elizabeth: My mom is the most practical and down-to-earth person you will ever meet.

Ramit: Yeah. She still runs too right?

Elizabeth: She runs too. She is 70 years old and still running marathons. You can continue to do.
But she’s still so, she still living in the house I grew up in. And with the taking a risky
route, I really didn’t even view it like that, though now it seems like it would have been,
but it really is the only time in your life that you have so few other distractions that are
kids related, owning a home. I had to make sure I paid my rent, and I had my vehicle,
and those things put you, you really do have the opportunity to play and try doing
different things, when there’s a lot less on the line. And I think, if you use those years
and look at them as a way to grow and guide what you will ultimately love and do for
the rest of your life, or as you get older, that it’s definitely worth taking a little riskier
route.

Ramit: For sure. I know that even roughly 10 years out of college, I’m more conservative than I
was back then. Honestly, I’ve gotten a little use to the nicer things in life. I live relatively
modestly, but there’s a couple of things I have, which I could not afford right now on
a start-up salary. Like, my apartment in New York, I could never afford it on a start-up
salary. And so I think to myself, “Man I’m glad I took a risky route, when I was in my
early 20s.” But then I think to myself, 10 years from now, I’m going to be even more
conservative. So what risks am I not taking? Like, how do you think about today versus
10 years from now because just a few minutes ago you said, you didn’t plan your career?
Does that change over time?

Elizabeth: I think the one thing that I want to optimize for, is working with people I like and doing
something that’s keeping me learning. Every time I’ve left a job, it’s usually that I still
love the people that rarely changes, but the learning curve has flattened a bit and I think
optimizing for that through the times of your life where you need to be learning more
because you are at that stage versus kind of having a little bit more predictable route. I
think that’s okay too.

But as far as where I was a decade ago and now, some of the basics that I put in place
and now I look at them as a go to and guarantee. I was fortunate enough to learn about
simple, simple investing when I was 15, 16 and started a Roth IRA right then, and it was
those little things that almost worked hard to pay into each year, but I just forced myself
to, that now I even have a little bit more of a buffer, that I can be a little riskier because I
know I set up and sowed the seeds early and can fall back on things.

Ramit: What do you mean by, the learning curve? Because I think that’s something that top

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 performers instinctively get, but I actually think that it’s not obvious to everyone? What
does that mean?

Elizabeth: And this is a definitely debatable point and have chatted about this with lots of friends,
because so many times you say, you get into a new job and it’s so hard and there’s all
these things to figure out which is fun at one point. But then you get into your job and
you know how to do really great work, you know how to get by, you know how to come
in at 9:30 a.m., make the important meetings, leave early and optimize for everything.

I remember my early days of Twitter. I never had time for friend to come have lunch
at the office and by the time I left there, that was part of the enjoyable part of my
day. I divided the point of, where are you happy? Some people say, “Oh, I want the
predictable schedule where you know how to do your job well. But you’re not every day,
drinking from a fire hose.” And for me, I think I get a lot of energy out of that fire hose
and being really excited about how to solve new problems and, ah, I’m given something
new, but I know how I can solve and figure out how to make it work.

Ramit: It sounds like you really know yourself. You know like, “This is what I want and when I’m
not getting that, I don’t feel good.” And we’ve have these discussions before where you
have kind of like, “I don’t know. I’m kind of ready to make my move.” And it always takes
you a little longer. You start talking about it and a year later, you might make a move?

Elizabeth: Unfortunately, as soon as I start getting unhappy, it happens relatively fast. But yes, you
plant the seeds you don’t know what’s going to happen.

Ramit: Well, I have a similar thing. For me, I’ll know that I should and something or make a
move and I don’t like change that much. So, it takes me way longer than I should and
I look back and like, “I should have done this a year ago.” But I don’t know, I’m not
comfortable with that. Okay, so continuing, you started working with start-ups after
college. You had laid this foundation. You’re optimizing for smart people and new
experience. Where are you working, what happened?

Elizabeth: So, the two start-ups that I had a chance to work for, both were in different areas. So
I learn some new skills, one I focused a lot more on marketing and growth. One even
more on the PR side and some more design and then, project management and product
marketing. So I got a good swath, but all related. And I actually, straight out of college,
got an email from a group that I was a part of, the Mayfield Fellows Group, at Stanford.

Ramit: Which I got rejected from. So everyone knows, this is an entrepreneur community on
campus. You have to apply. My recommendation was from Seth Godin himself and
asked me to interview and I was like, “Yeah, I got this.” And then, they rejected me. And
I was like, “Okay whatever, can’t win them all.” In my case, most of them. But, there was
a very talented group of Mayfield Fellows.

Elizabeth: And it was a relatively small group and when I think of everybody being able to create a
small group of people that are really pivotal in the lives of, helping shape decisions. For
me, this is one of those small pivotal, my own brain trust group. So, I got an email from
that group saying, “A venture capital firm was hiring, and it was for an analyst associate
role.” I didn’t know anything about the job description, it looked fun. I got to meet with
companies, learning about different industries, mapping our markets. But I was thinking,
big company, do I go very normal, and normal where I lived, Google or Yahoo and more
established company or the start-up route.

So venture, the company, little company? And I applied to the venture capital job and
had the offer about three weeks later. It was very quick. It was interview, interview,
interview, and it felt like a great place to be, and frankly, I had not interviewed in a lot of
other places, so I jumped on it. And I don’t think I even knew how much I was going to
learn at a place like that.

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 So I spent about five years in venture capital, split between two firms. One was focused
more on early-stage, one was more on later stage and at the last place I was, the later
stage firm, we made the investment in Twitter. And I had gotten to know the company,
more from the behind-the-scenes model of the fact that I actually believed in the
company a lot, and then, I got to know the company socially and personally.

Ramit: What do you mean socially? Like, you went out to drinks? What does that mean?

Elizabeth: Yes. I found myself taking my laptop more and more up to their San Francisco office and
have some friends that. They would invite me in for a happy hour and pretty soon you
start getting that nudge from people there saying, “Why aren’t you working here? Why
don’t you do this?”

Ramit: So, just so everyone understands. You said earlier that you really optimized for working
with smart people and everything you’ve done is about personal relationships at the
core. And so you are doing your business, but you are like going to happy hours, just
kind of intermingling and now people are-like, what does that mean? They are nudging
you saying, “Why don’t you work here?” Is that have jobs happen?

Elizabeth: I think a lot of it is really not just about applying to a dead link, but having some
personal context to know what type of environment it is. Are you going to be a fit? So I
think a lot of that comes two ways, and that’s the part that street technology can’t take
out of the equation. And I think that for places, especially fast-growing early companies
or companies that you spent a lot of time with the team, it’s so important to see people
in action and realize you could be one of them.

Ramit: For me, when I think about how a lot of the behind-the-scenes hiring happens. A
company says first of all, do I like this person? That’s really important and then in these
circles, most people are smart. So it’s like, do I like them? By definition they are smart
because they are hanging out in these crowds and then, it’s icing on the cake if they
have some specific skill set. But how often have you seen people just get hired because
they’re smart and you’re like, “Okay they’re smart. We’ll figure out something for them
to do.” Right? It happens a lot so, I appreciate this so you’re in the right social circles,
you’ve made yourself indispensable, they like you, then nudge you. What happens?

Elizabeth: Well, that was a, well that was almost fun and scary at the same time. I hadn’t really had
to quit a job like that before, and I was relatively, I had only been at the firm for about a
year and a half, and I thought, “Oh, I was going to be there for a long time.” And I was so
nervous to go in and tell all the partners that I was leaving to join a portfolio company
of ours. But when I announced it, everyone was thrilled for me because it was a riskier
decision. I think they were older and more established in their careers. They thought I
had this amazing opportunity to join a fast-growing, fun company and why wouldn’t I?

Ramit: Wow. So what were you worried they would say?

Elizabeth: I thought well, we need you here, we have lots of investments to do, we have a big fund
to invest. But you don’t realize how other people are really wanting to be happy in your
career as well and will push you, when you have a great opportunity. And the funny
thing is, those people now I’m still interacting with and the world becomes so small, had
dinner with one of them last night, ran into one today and they will come back into your
life.

Ramit: The very best people and the people I know, in terms of careers, they definitely want
you to succeed even if it hurts a little bit in the short-term. One, it’s just a nice thing to
do, and I think people are generally good, they’re generally nice. But also, like if you
succeed and you have a network, it’s like, “Oh cool, let’s go out to dinner. Maybe we can
do a deal.” That happens all the time.

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 And I know nowadays you know, I get a lot of emails, “Can you come speak, can you
come to this or do that?” Or take this for example, how many emails do you get, for
people wanting to come but we know each other not only in a personal relationship, but
on a professional side. And so that’s a meeting that you will take all that’s a meeting that
I will take. But you know, if you don’t know someone, it becomes a lot more calculated.
Okay, so you end up making the move to Twitter and what did you do there?

Elizabeth: So I started the corporate development team, which means at that point it was looking
at all of the business functions and the acquisitions that we potentially might do. The
company was relatively small and at a company like that, mostly focused on engineering.
So the COO and CEO didn’t have a lot of time to just look at all the info that was coming
in. So, I got to look at different business deals, different partnerships we should make. If
we were interested in a market space, what are the five companies in it, should we go in
and acquire one of those companies?

So I had a chance to work on a variety of things, which was quite fun and quite busy.
And with really great fun people. And then in the spring, the following year we launched
our ad products at Twitter and had the chance to start a very small product marketing
team with a few good friends at that point, at the company and grow that, to help
educate businesses about how to do the basics of tweeting and ultimately, how to
become an advertiser on the platform.

Ramit: Yeah, amazing. How long did you stay at Twitter?

Elizabeth: I was there a little more than three years.

Ramit: So what was the headcount from when you started to when you ended?

Elizabeth: When we started, it was about 70 people and when I left, we were a little under 1,500.

Ramit: Wow.

Elizabeth: With 16 offices now, so.

Ramit: that’s crazy.

Elizabeth: A lot of growth.

Ramit: I remember having lunch, I think twice with you. Once it was, you were pretty big,
several hundred people and then the next time you are like, way bigger and were about
to move into a different office. So it was just, insane growth.

Elizabeth: And always, I found that some of the most fascinating things about what I learned
through that experience, were the things that you would never expect. I remember
when a single lunch line wasn’t optimal any more, and so we had to go down to both
sides of the table. And then as we grew, we used to have a long rectangular table, then
it had to become round because you could fit more people in one space at a roundtable.
I loved those more behavioral challenges of working together.

Ramit: Fascinating. So you’re there. Like you said, you’re drinking from a fire hose. You’re
learning all this stuff. And after three years, as you mentioned, you’re taking more
lunches with people because you’re kind of on top of stuff. What happens to help you
make your next move then?

Elizabeth: A hard decision, because I still do love the company and spend a lot of time with people
there and using the product.

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: I was fortunate enough to have somebody at a venture capital firm give me a ring, and
ask if I was ever interested in coming back to the venture side.

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Ramit: Wait. So how does this happen? Literally they just call you?

Elizabeth: When you keep those relationships going, people are doing other interesting things, and
they think, oh, they might be able to be part of my team.

Ramit: So keeping those relationships warm means what? You’re e- mailing them? You’re going
out to lunch? What does that mean?

Elizabeth: Yeah. I think just being totally yourself and alive. I am not one of those that likes to be
out every night of the week.

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: But I do like to do things that are important to me, and I’m very much me when I’m
doing them. So if it means getting a run on with somebody, or meeting somebody for
lunch, or just taking five extra minutes when you run into them in the grocery store…

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: …just keeping some of those warm relationships warm.

Ramit: Totally.

Elizabeth: So it was one of those, and a friend had started at the firm and said, ‘You should meet
some of the great folks here.’ And one thing led to another, and then it turned into just a
conversation into an interview…

Ramit: Right.

Elizabeth: …and interviews into an offer and then, ‘Ah, I didn’t think it was like this.’

Ramit: I love hearing this, because, honestly, most people don’t know how these high level
positions are filled. It just seems very mysterious, like there’s a moat, and today we get
to learn how it happens. So I want to deconstruct what you just said. It starts off with
you already have a conversation going. You’re just friends, maybe professional contacts,
and they’re like, ‘Oh, you should meet some of the people at this firm.’ Now, you kind
of know what that means, but you don’t want to presume anything, right? So you go in,
and what do you do at these meetings? Do you just say hello? What do you do?

Elizabeth: Well, I think getting to know people is just fun and interesting anyway. I think that’s
part of the learning thing. When you’re surrounded by awesome people, you’re learning
things no matter what…

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: …which is one of my challenges to everyone too, is just to find somebody interesting
that has nothing to do with your normal world and go learn from them for an hour, if it’s
a coffee or if it’s a walk or a talk, but it’s those sorts of things.

Ramit: Okay.

Elizabeth: You meet with somebody, and I didn’t think they were really interviewing, but it’s a get-
to-know-you.

Ramit: Yes.

Elizabeth: I’m very much me, and I am not compromising who I am and what I like to do, and
if that’s not the type of person they want in the org, why not get that out of the way
early?

Ramit: What is an example? How would you make that clear?

Elizabeth: So my running life is important to me, and I love being able to interact with people. And

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 if I was just stuck in one job all through the day, and I only got out a few hours, that’s
not me. I’ve had an internship like that…

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: …and it killed me to actually look at the clock.

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: So I just tried to describe what gets me going. I like working on business deals. I like
thinking of creative solutions for things. I like having an eye for design. And if you start
getting out what makes you tick…

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: …people start seeing the real you and seeing if you would be a fit for their firm.

Ramit: I like it. I actually think people love someone who knows who they are, and, like you said,
you’re unapologetic about it. Now, I notice that when we use words like “unapologetic”
and “not compromising,” our natural tendency is to think that you have to be really
serious and mean, but you’re not. You’re great, you’re smiling, and I could see you in a
meeting, just being like, “I love to run, and, for me, I have to run at least an hour a day or
it drives me crazy.”

Elizabeth: I wouldn’t shower. It’s the tradeoff.

Ramit: And that’s funny. That’s funny. You’re like, “Oh, okay.” You said something that’s fun,
we’re connected, but you’re also staking a claim, “This is who I am.” When I go in and
talk to people or meet them or whatever, if I’m advising a company, or even back when
I was interviewing a lot, I was really clear about what kind of stuff I wanted, like I hated
the Excel thing.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Ramit: I couldn’t do it, and I said it in a nice way, but it was also clear that, “Okay, so this is who
this guy is.”

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Ramit: Capital One did not like me when I was interviewing for them, also because I didn’t
know how to do their math problems, but we weren’t a good fit.

Elizabeth: Right.

Ramit: That was an Excel role.

Elizabeth: Exactly.

Ramit: And then other companies loved it, because we were good.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Ramit: So you go and have these conversations, and one thing leads to another, and they start
getting more serious. They say, ‘Would you ever consider working here?’ And then?

Elizabeth: And then one more did the same thing, and then it was like, ‘Ah, I actually have to
decide if I’m going to leave Twitter.’

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: I started talking to both of them, and I was, at this point, very methodical, but I wanted
to give each a fair shake. Something I’ve done for every job, I create a little grid for
myself.

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Ramit: Okay. Like on paper?

Elizabeth: On paper, and I force people to do this when I’ve talked to people that are dealing
with, “Should a leave a job,” trying to do the pros and cons, and it’s kind of like all of the
things that are important to you in it and all of the known variables. So maybe, salary,
commute, if there’s a bonus, do you have an office or not? The title, any other little, too I
get free lunch?

So you have all of the things that are part of the job, and then, kind of like, ‘Heck yeah,
I’m going there tomorrow. Gone.’ And then, the pretty good not over the moon, and
then the ‘Heck no, I would not do this,’ and without knowing much about the job, so
without having all those variables, what you’re hoping for.

So in the, ‘Yes column, I’m definitely going there.’ It’s probably over the salary I’m
hoping for. And the ‘Meh, it’s going to be fine but am not over the moon,’ and I do this
for the entire little grid. And it becomes very obvious, your deal breakers and you’re not
deal breakers. And if I see there am really anchored somewhere, for me it helps guide
my thinking.

Ramit: I can imagine that it makes you brutally honest because I think a lot of people they say
stuff like, ‘I just want to change the world.’ And then they look at the great and they’re
like, ‘Wait a minute, salary is really important to me.’ Have you found that?

Elizabeth: Yes and it can be things that you would never expect to be important for you. A certain
title might the one that you’re anchoring on the location and these are things that, like
location for me is hugely important. And I can cram so much into my life because of it.
So that’s something that I rank as extremely, extremely high on needing to have, very
close to home, so.

Ramit: My thing that I hated when I interviewed with companies was, I would always look at
what do people do for lunch. Because I don’t know if you know, I hate eating alone, and
I never go to movies alone. I hate it, I can’t do it.

Elizabeth: Oh, movies alone are one of my favorite things.

Ramit: My resolution is actually, to go to a movie alone this year and I keep avoiding it.

Elizabeth: We can go and sit on other sides of the theater.

Ramit: But I’m like, I’m going to cheat. I’m going to go at like 9:30 a.m. when no one is there.
Anyways so, I would always look at what people were doing for lunch and if they were
eating alone, I was like, ‘I don’t really like this.’ That was oddly motivating to me.

Elizabeth: That’s the sort of thing, we would go directly on my grid.

Ramit: So at this point you have two firms there kind of vying for your attention.

Elizabeth: I’ve made my chart, yes.

Ramit: You’ve made your chart.

Elizabeth: Which didn’t help a lot in that case because the offers from both were so similar, that I
really, at this point, just had to optimize for, what I felt best at. And I went to a firm that
is known right now to really be shaking things up and working hard…

Ramit: Top-tier firm.

Elizabeth: …changing the way we’re doing business, and it was exciting to me. I really liked the
people both places that I had met. So at that point, honestly, one firm was a lot closer to
my home and that factored heavily into my decision. If I’m being honest about it, that is
definitely honest.

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Ramit: Amazing. I learned this when I was in college and you know, when you first get to
college or you’re in high school, you’re always try to take every opportunity and then
your learn, “Whoa, I actually have too many opportunities and I have to start saying no.”
So you have to build that skill set, which we’ve had to build.

One of my mentors said to me, “Look, both are great decisions. You can’t really go
wrong, so ultimately this is a gut decision which you have to make.” So it sounds like this
is what happened here.

Elizabeth: Yes. And both of my mentors said the exact same thing.

Ramit: Okay. all right. So first of all, amazing career path and you’re just getting started. So I
love being able to get inside your head and see what happened as you moved up that
route because if I didn’t know you, and I just look and I read your bio. I’m like, “Whoa,
like how did this happen? It just seems like one amazing step after the other.” But you’ve
really helped me understand the decision-making behind it. So I appreciate that.

I want to shift topics to talk about being a woman in, a generally like a male-oriented
industry. so technology, there’s a lot of dudes, and yet you’ve been very, very successful,
and I want to take a little bit of time because I have a lot of female are RBT members,
who in particular have asked to meet really inspirational women. We’ve talked about
this before. There are a lot of my female friends, who actually don’t have great female
role models, like they’re the best of every female friend that they know. And they’re
like, “Who do I find that I can talk to about these decisions to make?” Let’s just start at
the beginning. As you’ve progressed in this industry, and through your career, have you
noticed any specific challenges, specific to being a woman?

Elizabeth: That’s a good question and I think one of the challenges is probably, I’m not too focused
on the fact that you are one of the few women in the industry. I actually think it’s an
advantage in a lot of ways, because you’re a little bit diverse. The area that I haven’t had
to deal with yet, we do not have children yet. I know that throws a huge monkey wrench
into things, as far as optimizing.

I think one of the things that comes up that people get sensitive about is all of those
life factors that do play into life. Part of that is, like we speaking about, a commute,
or what your responsibilities are around your home, the differences of work, even if
that’s with roommates. I think talking about these as you choose your job is important.
Often, it’s not wanted to because you think, “Oh, are you getting too personal? Is this
going against some HR violations?” But I think trying to bring some of those helps,
and often that means I’ve brought them up in interviews, so that people wouldn’t feel
uncomfortable that were interviewing me to maybe find out a little bit more. ‘Where do
you live? Or are you married?’

Ramit: How do you bring that up?

Elizabeth: This is just how about you and I would have coffee. ‘How’s so- and-so doing,’ or “My
husband did this last weekend.” There’s casual ways to give the cues, I think, in a
conversation, and I think those are important. I don’t think it makes you look just like
screaming woman, but it shows that you have other influences in your life.

Ramit: You mentioned your mentors. Are your mentors male? Female?

Elizabeth: Both.

Ramit: Both. And have you learned anything, like, do your female mentors give you specific
advice relative to being a woman, or what they’ve gone through?

Elizabeth: It’s interesting, in the venture capital industry, most of the partnerships are made up
entirely of men. I know that’s something that people have been cognizant to try to

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 change, but it hasn’t been changing very quickly, at least in the firms that I see. My
mentors have come from different industries, different areas.

I think male and female is important just to give the perspective, but I think some of
those more similar in life areas. Are they married with kids? Have they been on both the
startup side and have they dabbled in venture? Have they had a side project before? I
never chose the people that are my true mentors because of that, but when I look back
and pattern match now, each of them have the makeup that I really admire and that is
me.

Ramit: Interesting. Okay, interesting. What about positioning yourself? Now I’m talking more
on a day-to-day basis. Have you had to position yourself differently as a woman? Have
you had to change any behavior? Is it perhaps thinking carefully about the clothes you
wear, which guys, especially in tech, don’t think about at all? They’re wearing their free
Google shirt from 2006. Is it where you sit in a meeting or who raises their hand? Do
you have to think about these things, or did you in the past?

Elizabeth: I think that with a lot that has been brought up now, I’m probably more cognizant
of it than I ever was. Now that people are talking about it, I don’t know if I feel more
awkward about it or less awkward, because if I didn’t sit at the table, does it mean I
haven’t read “Lean In” yet? Sometimes there’s just natural conventions that if there’s a
certain number of chairs, and I’m not one of the main people that needed to be there,
should I be taking that? This, I think, will forever be something I struggle with.

On the clothes side, first of all, I think everyone’s parent has probably said, ‘Dress a little
bit nicer than you think you need to be dressed.’ I’ve tried to follow that. I think it makes
you both look a little bit older, received a little bit more professionally, but I think also
just adjusting to the types of people you’re working with and meeting with. On days that
I know I’m meeting with an executive team that has a lot more polish, maybe a larger
company, maybe one of the Fortune 500’s, maybe I dress up a little nicer. The days that
I get to go and spend time with our small consumer portfolio companies, I can be in
my jeans and my flats, and I love that too. I think just being knowledgeable about what
you’re doing and factoring that in is important.

As far as the raising hand, getting where your seat is, I’ve also had some people say,
‘Never offer to get the client or guest a drink from the fridge, because then you’re put
in this administrative role.’ I think part of it is being a good host, too. I think as long as
you are you and you are compensating and they know you’re a valuable player in that
meeting, you are leading a discussion, you are showing that you’re credible too, why
would you want to leave somebody at the table thirsty? I balance things.

Ramit: That’s actually very fascinating. I want to extract what you just taught me, which is you
know all of the rules, and then you can choose what to break, but at least you know
what the advice is.

Elizabeth: That’s a good point.

Ramit: That may have just been intuitive for you, but for the people watching, I really want to
break it down

Because if they didn’t know that advice, which probably, by the way, a lot of people
don’t know, they might just do it or they might just not, not knowing it. So, you knew the
advice in your like, ‘Screw it. I don’t believe in that at all.’ But when you come back to
the table, you’re certainly going to contribute I’ve seen you in meetings and you’re not
shying away from anyone. You’re like, ‘This is my opinion, here’s why I wanted to listen.’

What advice do you have for the women watching, who are looking for guidance on
how to improve their careers, and I’m speaking specifically for women. I mean we have
general career guidance where you’ve done an amazing job, but specifically for them, if

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 you have any people that you are a mentor to, young women, what are the things you
tell them?

Elizabeth: That’s a tough question, but a good question. Luckily, it’s pretty similar for both males
and females, I don’t change my advice a lot. But I do think and this probably sounds
stereotypical, but I think women can cram a lot more in every day than men can. And
I think so much of the advice I have given to some people that are choosing where to
start their career, something that it took me about a decade to realize what’s happening,
how important location was to me. And this might not even be a female/male thing, but
if there’s other parts of your life that you really want to optimize as an addition to work,
location is key for me. And I was speaking with a young woman, earlier this spring and
she was deciding between five different start-ups to go work for.

Ramit: That’s a nice choice.

Elizabeth: Very awesome and she was excited by all of them, and it was one of those, it was a
tough decision. But one had an hour of commute attached to it, one had an hour and a
half. One was 15 minutes and when everything was looking like apples to apples, choose
something that means that you can get your swim in, or you can go meet a friend for a
drink after work, and you still can get sleep.

Ramit: Do you know, when I used to have a reverse commute, I was living in San Francisco, I
commuted to San Mateo, which is about 30 minutes south. I wanted to go to happy hour.
It was very important to me to see my friends and go to happy hour. But to go to happy
hour, I would have to leave at 3:30 PM from the office, drop my car off and then take a
taxi to the happy hour place to make it there by like 5:30 p.m.

I mean it was crazy, which meant that I went into the office those days at like 5:30 PM
6:00 p.m. or 6:30 p.m., but to me it was important and I think, “Man, if my office had
been closer or I had a home office, that would have been amazing for my lifestyle.” Okay,
so I hear what you’re saying about giving advice to them, optimize for what matters to
them and really think about that.

Elizabeth: Time is going to be the thing that you want no matter what and I think that’s a male and
female thing but…

Ramit: One other thing I hear from you is the crowd you run with, they are confronting
decisions like how do I choose from five different offers? I want to just take a minute
to put an exclamation point in that because this is happening. Like even in a terrible
economy, people are getting five job offers. And like, these groups exist. You can
actually become part of these groups and learn from these people, the way they think,
the decisions they make. I don’t think you had any special access that anyone else had.
Like, we both grew up 15 minutes from each other. You did well on I guess your SATs or
whatever to get into college.

Elizabeth: Probably worse than you.

Ramit: I wasn’t that great either. I’ll tell you, I was never the best test taker, but I just want to
put a point here that, these crowds of people exist. They are not always clawing and
fighting for opportunities, they actually have a surplus of opportunities. So that’s what
we’re talking about today.

Elizabeth: And one of the final points on the, both the community and the really woman focused is
I think for a lot of young women now that I’m even getting older, I have an older women
crew. Some women-only circles and I have one that meets every second Tuesday at the
same little restaurant with the same two bottles of wine and the same appetizer, and it’s
like predictable clockwork in an awesome way.

You know that it’s your solid crew and you’ve gotten all of the work stuff out of the way.

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 You’re not them to really talk work, but when it’s women only you’re allowed to, now
there are some moms in the talk about how they’re dealing with nannies or babysitters
or when there has been struggling, what do they optimize for. And you are almost given
more permission to talk about women-only things that men sometimes get nervous
because it seems like an HR violation.

Ramit: Sure, I mean I would be nervous talking about a lot of these things even if, not in a
professional environment. I will give you an example. This is horrible but true. I’m on
my rooftop in New York. I’m there with my whole family. My sisters, my brothers-in-law,
were all just like having a barbecue and like a family friend comes out to the roof and
she’s clearly pregnant, she’s probably eight months pregnant. And me and my brother-
in-law and I look at each other, and we have the most imperceptible shake of our head.
We go …and she comes up to us, and we make zero mention of the pregnancy. Because,
what is the nuclear thing? You don’t want to say, ‘Oh, when’s the baby due,’ and she’s
not pregnant.

Elizabeth: Right?

Ramit: Even though she’s eight months pregnant, wearing maternity clothes. We go, ‘Hey,
how’s it going?’ Like, ‘How’s work?’ And of course my sister obviously knows. She goes,
‘Oh my God, I didn’t know you were pregnant. When’s the baby…’ you know. But the
guys were just like, ‘We don’t even want to touch that.’ So I can see that the benefit of
having a female-only group, where you can talk about these things and you don’t have
to deal with, there’s something to be said for a group of people just like you. Just like
the people watching here.

Elizabeth: Yep. Definitely. Definitely.

Ramit: All right. Amazing. So, let’s now talk about time management. In particular I want to talk
about your side business, which is not just a side business now.

Elizabeth: Seven years old.

Ramit: Seven years old, it’s amazing. You have an employee, all right. Talk to us about this.

Elizabeth: So, again, this trickled into my life, and it was because it was important and interesting
to me. That’s where it really started. I was having lunch with a friend, and they handed
me a business card, and I said, ‘Oh my goodness. What form of printing is this?’

Ramit: You’ve always loved design.

Elizabeth: Yes. I’ve always loved paper and design. And I wasn’t asking where she was working or
what she was doing, but I was fascinated by the business card. And she said, ‘Oh, that’s
letterpress printing.’ And I tucked the card away and started just reading anything I
could on the Internet about what letterpress printing was. I didn’t even know there were
different types of printing. I didn’t know the difference between thermography and
engraving and offset. And I started reading. And found a place in San Francisco, and
there’s some all over the country that teach letterpress printing more just on a class.

Ramit: Okay.

Elizabeth: And I took a day off of work, and I snuck up to the city for this class, and I thought, ‘You
know, this is going to be one of those things. Might as well learn a bit about it, and I
might hate it. And that’s great.’ So I did, and luckily my first project turned out really
well and I didn’t hate it. And I still started thinking about it all the time. Then I treated
myself really, and I doubled up and took a week of staycation where I was really around,
but I took this week-intensive class, and I thought that’s going to really talk me out of
doing this.

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Ramit: Wow. Right.

Elizabeth: And I’ll get extremely sick of it. And after that, I got better, and I really liked it, and I
was still thinking about letterpress printing. So I started trolling the Web for different
presses. Letterpresses were originally the Gutenberg presses, and now my press is 1600
pounds of steel. It was built in 1923 in Ohio, and it’s huge. There aren’t presses still being
produced. So usually they’re found in people’s basements, older people that have either
taught them or used to be printers have them in garages. So I was lucky enough to find
a press in an 85-year-old man’s basement in San Francisco that was listed on Craigslist.

Ramit: Whoa. How much did it cost?

Elizabeth: Well, I did not want to spend any money on this. My husband and I drove to see the
press one night after work and we went down to the basement and it was covered in ink,
and it was this little tabletop press, not the one that I have right now. And I thought, ‘Oh
my goodness.’ That one was built in 1929, and it looked like it, and I said, ‘$2,500? No
way. I’m leaving.’ And my husband said to me, ‘Write that man a check. I’m loading it in
the car. You’re going to regret it if you don’t.’

Ramit: Wow.

Elizabeth: And so huge credit to my husband, Kevin. We did, we loaded it into the car, and then I
thought, ‘Oh no. Now I’ve got to make something of this. This can’t just be a hobby.’

Ramit: This can’t be like one of those treadmills you just have sitting right there.

Elizabeth: Exactly. Exactly. So I started learning everything I could about that one. And you
become a machinist, you become a designer. Then the scariest thing was, somebody
found out I did letterpress printing, and they asked me to do a custom Christmas
card order, 250 cards, 3 colors of ink, and I said yes. And I don’t know why I said yes,
because I had never done anything remotely like this before. I taught myself how to
use Illustrator, I had to learn by doing through the whole process. And it was hard and
it was amazing. I had been calling myself Paperwheel, paperwheel.com, because I got
the domain, and the scary thing at the end of all of it is the client wrote a check to
Paperwheel.

Ramit: Oh.

Elizabeth: And I thought, ‘Oh, no. I can’t ever deposit this check. I don’t have a bank account.’

Ramit: This sounds like this business just happened by accident. ‘Oh. One day I took a class.
The next day I had to open a LLC.’

Elizabeth: It has. Well, that’s it, learning is doing.

Ramit: Okay.

Elizabeth: So, I figured out that if I had to deposit a check I need a bank account, and to get a bank
account in a business name, I needed to get a DBA, a Doing Business As, and one thing
led to another. So I was almost forced into turning this into a business, which was great
because now it has been an absolute wonderful part of my brain, my right brain, my left
brain, my side life, growing another team member…

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: …and something that’s really complimented all the other things I do. And the neatest
part has been that it’s all grown organically and all been word of mouth.

Ramit: So I’ve seen your designs. They’re absolutely gorgeous. You know I love design, as well,
although I don’t know how to do it. I just love looking at it. Your cards are amazing.

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Elizabeth: Thanks.

Ramit: I’ve seen the Twitter ones, which are hilarious. They’re so cute. And then I know a lot of
really big names have ordered from you, as well. Can you share any of those names?

Elizabeth: I’ve had a lot of really lucky business in some ways, and again it’s been people I’ve met
along the way. At one point, I met Oprah’s producer, and she ordered stationery for the
Oprah team, then businesses that ultimately just wanted their logos pressed, and pretty
soon I’m doing pretty famous CEO’s weddings.

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And then they end up having a baby, and they call me again, and they want a baby
announcement printed. Then pretty soon they’re throwing a birthday party, and I’m
printing personal stationery. So it’s all been word of mouth and just doing what I really
like to do.

Ramit: I’m interested in how you balance this with the full-time job, the husband, all that.
When do you physically do it, and then how do you think about this in terms of time
management?

Elizabeth: My studio is located on our property, which is one of the best things, because I can just
go out and get things done for an hour and then come back and shift.

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: But it takes a lot of multitasking, and now it is phenomenally better now that I’ve been
able to add somebody to help me. I have a team member, Vanessa, who does a lot of
what I used to have to do in the middle of the night and the early mornings, but it still
takes a lot of optimizing. So we have a lot the basics of the business of just responding
to customer inquiries, e-mails, doing quotes, and then the design work, and then that’s
not even the pressing part and needing to cut, order paper, mix ink, do samples, do
everything, packaging.

It becomes such a large, long process, and when I was trying to do it all myself, I just
had to cut up things into junks and get them done. So if I knew I had to get a client’s
wedding design out, I would design it and illustrate it, get some proofs out, make it
happen, then I would be at work all day.

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: I would try to respond to emails right when I got home from work, keep that continuous,
and I think, for me, it gave me a creative outlet, so that’s why I was able to balance both
things. But it was hard, and it is hard every single day still, but I get a lot of value out of
it.

Ramit: You know what I hear from you that maybe wasn’t obvious to me is that when I think
of all the stuff you do, I just think, wow, she has it all together. And you kind of wonder,
oh, how does she do it? But what I’m hearing from you it’s actually really messy behind
the scenes, like it’s super messy. You’ve got meetings, and then you’ve got e-mails, and
it’s not clean. People, sometimes they hear about my research process, I spend like two
years researching these courses, and they’re like, ‘Oh, Ramit, it’s like Minority Report.
He’s flipping screen around and stuff is three-dimensional.’

Elizabeth: I wish.

Ramit: I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no, it is messy. It’s dirty. There are papers everywhere. There are like
25 documents, and one of them is lost.’ And I’m hearing that from you, too. It’s messy,
but you find a way to manage that chaos and make it work for you.

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Elizabeth: Yes, definitely.

Ramit: Okay. All right. So I’m glad I’m reading that right. You also do ultra-marathons. Okay, this
is crazy. Just tell us about it. I know you’ve run the Boston Marathon.

Elizabeth: Yes, most people are like, ‘What’s an ultra-marathon?’

Ramit: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Technically, by definition, it’s anything longer than a marathon, but that doesn’t mean
you go run in 26.3 miles and call it an ultra-marathon.

Ramit: Oh, Okay, that’s what I…

Elizabeth: But, yes, started out running just small 5Ks, 10Ks, then cross country, track, then some
road races, half marathons, marathons, and marathons actually started becoming a lot
of pressure for me. I felt like I had to toe the line and do a three-hour marathon.

Ramit: Why? Because of the time? What do you mean?

Elizabeth: Just because I had done really well, and then I felt like the next time I had to do better.

Ramit: Got it.

Elizabeth: And it became less fun.

Ramit: Got it.

Elizabeth: And I was stressed about it, so a friend of mine I met on the trails said that they were
doing a trail run, and I didn’t even know really what trail running was. Turns out, we met,
and we went on a Saturday to do a trail race. It was 50K…

Ramit: Wait. What?

Elizabeth: …which is about 31 miles.

Ramit: Oh, my God.

Elizabeth: And it was all on dirt, uphill, downhill.

Ramit: Was this is in a car? What is this?

Elizabeth: No, all on foot.

Ramit: Okay.

Elizabeth: You’d come into eight stations, and there would be snacks, and you would drink, and
you would stop for a few minutes, and then you would keep running.

Ramit: Okay.

Elizabeth: And I came through the finish line, and they said, ‘First female.’

Ramit: Whoa.

Elizabeth: And I thought, what? I got to eat Oreos and Fritos along the way, and have Mountain
Dew…

Ramit: Oh, yeah.

Elizabeth: …and I won the race. And it became one of those fun, fun things that totally got my
brain off my other life. I got to be outside, I was on the door, for hours and that I could
really do for fun and less pressure. So, I started trail running and ultra- marathon
running and now that I live on a lot of trails so, I run trails every single morning, and it

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 just keeps me sane. I don’t have my phone out with me, and I’m just getting to be on the
dirt.

Ramit: I like that. I like that you know what you need in order to be a top performer during the
day and it could be like really weird, like you know me, I watch reality TV a lot and I’m an
apologetic about it. I’m like, yeah, I watch six hours straight right on my computer. And
I’m like, I do it and not only I acknowledge it, I almost celebrate it because I’m like, yeah
I’m a weirdo, this is me you know? Yours is a little more politically correct.

I went out for an ultra today, but whatever the case is, I think top performers know what
they need in order to function at their levels, and you can be an apologetic about it. I
also know that you get a lot of energy from just meeting people. Even if it’s a half an
hour coffee, which we’ve done when I see you in New York. I mean, that’s energizing for
you. I always knew that you had a ton of energy. One thing that I know a lot of people,
they use phrases like, “I’m really tired after work.” How do you, what are your thoughts
on that?

Elizabeth: Me too. That’s actually one reason that I’ve scheduled my day the way I do. I’m
exhausted after work, and I also know enough about my routines that I know, I can get
a fraction of what I need to get done, between the nighttime hours, and I can get 200
things done between early morning hours.

Ramit: Talk to us about your day in the life of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: I usually wake of relatively early. If I try to sleep in on a weekend, I may sleep till about
7:30 a.m. I usually wake up about 6:00 or 6:15 and that’s very great now because I don’t
have a huge commute, and I hop right out and I get an hours’ run in, and then I have a
pool very close by. So then I get a 30-minute swim in, that’s an added addition now that
I don’t have to commute. So I run, swim, shower fast and then straight to the office. And
my day at the office is usually back-to-back-to-back- to-back meetings.

Ramit: All on your calendar?

Elizabeth: All on my calendar. I live by my calendar now and that’s just some of the organizational
things that I do. I try to really only have what I’m going to on it and I have addresses
I need, if this phone numbers in the, I put any notes I need to have in the calendar,
because it’s so awkward to go back to email, back and forth. So I really try to have my
calendar be my tool. And then usually, I get to the end of the day around 5:30, 6:00, and
I’m like, “Ah, I haven’t done any of my real work, email, getting back to people doing any
of the things I need to do, to actually produce.”

And I spent some time doing that, but I’m exhausted by the end of the day. I’m also kind
of binary in the way I know I’m extremely tired, but I get a lot of energy out of people.
So if we’re having a dinner at our house or if I’m meeting somebody out for a drink, as
much as I don’t want to go at that point, I know I’ll get energized by it. But I also try to
balance that during the week by the nights that I have, nothing I have to do. I can eat
cereal for dinner and just kind of do emails, sink into the couch and get …so I’m usually
working a lot, but I try to balance the outflow of energy.

Ramit: You’re totally like me in a sense that. I’m a morning person as well and I know I get all
of my cerebral tasks done like thinking, writing all that stuff and as the day goes on, like
around 4:00, I really stop. I can’t really do hard thinking, so at that point the shift to calls,
which are just easy for me and then, since I work alone most of the day, I’m an extrovert
I need to get out. So I go out and see people which energizes me. Even if I’m tired, I
need that otherwise I go crazy and I know you do similar. Okay so.

Elizabeth: And don’t underrate sleep.

Ramit: Okay, talk to us about that.

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Elizabeth: I’ve seen, I now get to see my husband, really not get as many hours of sleep. And…

Ramit: He’s like the one person, arguably busier than you, which is crazy, okay.

Elizabeth: It’s pretty bad. And I know that by the end of a week, sleep is needed and it kind of
keeps going. So the thing for me, I also feel like I don’t need a lot of sleep, but man, if I
can get to bed and get a solid for me, an amazing night for me would be seven hours. If
I can get that, that’s like a dream come true, and I am more productive. So I know those
hours just creeping up to midnight, I am so not productive. So I try to, and not always
great at it, but I really try to get to bed before 11:00.

Ramit: You know, one of our other RBT guests, Gretchen Rubin. At the end of every interview I
asked my guest to issue a challenge for the RBT. And her challenge was very interesting.
She said, “I challenge everyone to get 14 days straight of seven hours of sleep at night.”
And I was like, “I’ll take a challenge Gretchen.” And I went home that night and it was
really hard. She said, “How come we set alarm clocks to wake up but not go to sleep?”
And so I’m sitting in bed and I’m like, “I’m Mr. RBT. I’m going to dominate this challenge.”
And you know, at 11:00 comes, I’m on my computer. One more link, like you, I’ve got 50
tabs open, I’m like reading all this stuff and so on, it’s like 1:30 a.m.

Elizabeth: Yes. The Internet coma I call it.

Ramit: It’s crazy and waking up at the same time and it took me a while to get into it. But like
you, when I have a great night of sleep, I’m like a machine the next day. It’s awesome.

Elizabeth: And I actually had a friend that sat an alarm, the night-time alarm and it was eight hours
from when they knew they had to wake up. So at 9:15 p.m., some nights, or 10:00 PM,
that alarm happened and they knew every minute that they stayed up after that, they
were eating into their eight hours of sleep. It was a constant reminder that it was their
choice.

Ramit: So what about like, did you have ever have days where you just wake up and you’re just
not feeling it?

Elizabeth: Yes.

Ramit: Okay. What happens?

Elizabeth: I go for a run.

Ramit: Okay.

Elizabeth: Every night, even this morning, I got out of the house, met my running partner, which
also helps. I wouldn’t bail on him because I know he was driving to meet me at 7:00 a.m.
in a parking lot. And we met we both said, “Oh, is this the morning where witches drive
and get pancakes instead?” And then we say, no we’ve never finish the run, and said, ‘I
wish I hadn’t done that.’ And I think that, so many days of the week because I’m always
tired and I think I will never have regretted this. And even if it’s getting out for less than
you think you’re going to do, that’s usually somewhere in there, ‘I can go more than 20
minutes, I can go more than 30.’ Pretty soon I’ve gotten my hour and am very happy.

Ramit: That’s amazing, but that’s tough for me to do. Like, I used to just shrug off the gym.
For me, I needed to get a trainer and now that I’ve had a trainer, in maybe three years,
I’ve missed it maybe twice. That’s it. I never miss it, for me it needed to be, that human
accountability because despite how strong a willpower I have, I just didn’t want to do it.
And now, I love it. Okay, let me ask you about saying no. Okay, this is something we all
struggle with and I know you have so many people that want your attention and time. In
fact, we’ve tried to schedule this for several months.

Elizabeth: I’m sorry.

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Ramit: But I’m actually curious. Because we finally made it happen, I’m so happy. This is an
amazing interview, but how do you handle. Sometimes you want to do something
your schedule won’t allow it. Or how do you handle, when you just don’t want to do
something at all?

Elizabeth: Luckily I wanted to do this.

Ramit: Thank you, thank you.

Elizabeth: So, to tackle the second one first. Life’s too short to really not do something you don’t
want to do, if you feel they’re not going to be a lot of added benefits. Sometimes there
are things on the border where you say, “It would be interesting to meet that person. I
don’t really want to do this, but I should.” So I definitely do some of those shoulds. But,
if there’s really something you don’t think is adding a lot of value, I think it’s easier to
just cut it off politely or early and be honest.

Ramit: How do you do that?

Elizabeth: I don’t have time. Instead of saying, ‘Oh, let’s meet next week, let’s meet next week.’
‘Frankly, I’m so busy at work right now for the next two quarters, I need to be heads
down and getting cramped up in this job. Then perhaps we could get caught up. If that’s
too long, I understand and I apologize.’ So I think some of those light, soft no’s help,
but sometimes you just, ‘This isn’t of interest right now and I have too much else on my
plate. I can’t focus on it and I don’t want to do something poorly.

Ramit: Got it.

Elizabeth: And people would rather hear the honest opinion.

Ramit: Then be strung along. I have a phrase that I use. I say, ‘I really appreciate the note and
am flattered. Unfortunately I’ll have to decline as I’m forcing myself to stay focused on
my own projects.’

Elizabeth: That’s good, I’m going use your line.

Ramit: Try it. And I tested it because you know, people get disappointed and when you’re
declining, let’s say 20 or 30 things a week or even more, you’ve got to find something
that you don’t want to come across as mean. It’s just, respecting your own time. What
about the things that you want to do, but you can’t just find time in the schedule?

Elizabeth: That’s hard and that often makes me sad too because I look at my calendar I think,
“How did I get so programmed. I actually really want to do this and there’s no physical
way. Travel hurts that. As much as travel can sometimes be fun, you look at weeks and
you think, there’s really no way you can cram something else in. Optimizing, again on
the location, I take a pretty consistent look and my calendar and know that if something
is back-to-back location, that I should try to tackle that. So, I really try to be smart on
that. Kind of like the UPS driver that only right turns, try to live…

Ramit: Yeah

Elizabeth: …my calendar like that.

Ramit: I like that.

Elizabeth: And my husband gets mad at me for optimizing my errands in only right turns.

Ramit: Oh, that’s smart though.

Elizabeth: It’s smart.

Ramit: I do something, I try to fit in, I call them TC’s…

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Elizabeth: Okay.

Ramit: …so this is a cool one. Sometimes people email me, ‘Hey Ramit, would love to chat with
you, I know your friend whatever.’ And I’m like, I like this person, they seem interesting,
but it’s not important enough to put on my calendar, for like, a 15 or 30-minute call. So,
I’ll reply, I’ll say, ‘Terrific to meet you, I’d love to chat with you, my assistant, she’s cc’d
here, can you help us schedule a time?’ And I’ll sign it and I put a code “slash TC”. Slash
TC means taxi call. So I’m in the back of a taxi…

Elizabeth: Ooh, that’s cool.

Ramit: …but here’s the key. My assistant will tell them ‘He’ll call you sometime between 4:15 and
4:35.’ Because I don’t know when I’ll exactly be there, but it’s like when I get in the back
of a taxi, it says TC, phone number, all the info, and it’s like perfect right?

Elizabeth: Ooh, that’s cool.

Ramit: So, something for everyone, I have a whole…

Elizabeth: So, where do you put the TC?

Ramit: …So, it in the reply, and it says “slash TC” and my assistant knows what that means. But I
have a bunch of codes, I’ll teach you some more…

Elizabeth: Oh, I like this.

Ramit: …But basically, I try to find unusual ways, like airports are like three TC’s, because that’s
like a 45 to an hour minute ride. You know, like commutes, my friend Chris Yeh, he
always calls me on his commutes, that’s a killer one.

Elizabeth: Yep.

Ramit: Squeezing in time when it’s like, these are all calls I want to do…

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Ramit: …but I’m like, how can I be creative about, you know, when I’m going to take these calls.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Ramit: Okay, so, but it sounds. . .

Elizabeth: That’s…

Ramit: …like you also find out ways to do it, location-wise.

Elizabeth: …and even sometimes on house things, when I do know I have to be home early to prep
a dinner…

Ramit: Yep.

Elizabeth: …or to, do laundry, I know that that can be my call time…

Ramit: Right.

Elizabeth: …like, multitasking. Speakerphone and folding clothes does work.

Ramit: I do ironing, I iron my own, I love ironing, because I’m a weirdo, and I’m like, “Oh I got
the phone going, I got the iron, I’m like this is my heaven right now.

Elizabeth: I like that, I like that.

Ramit: Okay, so as we wrap, I would love to ask two more questions. One, your favorite books,
websites, resources. They can be stuff about design that you love, could be something

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 totally off the wall.

Elizabeth: Oh, the perfect combo of both of those, Twitter.

Ramit: Okay.

Elizabeth: So my personal Twitter, I’m @Elizabeth, and that’s all the things that are interesting to
me. So, design, business, interesting tech companies, the areas I live in, trail running,
products and brands, all sorts of things.

Ramit: Perfect, perfect.

Elizabeth: I love using my Twitter stream as almost what I open tabs to read from. So for me, a lot
of the discovery comes from that, because I don’t have to dive in, it doesn’t stress me
out that I have to read everything. But it’s a great seeding ground. So really a lot of the
random things I do consume come from my Twitter stream.

Ramit: Perfect.

Elizabeth: I also have my Paperwheel Twitter stream. And that’s so interesting for me because
that’s a lot more graphical, and a lot of the geek letterpress love and design…

Ramit: Okay.

Elizabeth: …so those are definitely 2 that I anchor on.

Ramit: So @Elizabeth…

Elizabeth: @Elizabeth.

Ramit: …and @Paperwheel.

Elizabeth: @Paperwheel.

Ramit: Awesome. Okay, now final question for you, every guest we have I ask them to issue a
challenge. This is a challenge, typically can take 7, 14, or 21 days, something they can do
to change their life. Something you’ve learned that you could pass on your wisdom that
could change someone’s life. What would you issue to them?

Elizabeth: This week, go out your front door and walk either 7 or 14 minutes.

Ramit: Okay.

Elizabeth: At the end of 14 days have done that 5 times.

Ramit: Okay.

Elizabeth: And at the end of 30 days, have run 30 minutes, within that.

Ramit: Whoa. So, this is a running challenge?

Elizabeth: It’s a running challenge.

Ramit: Okay, and tell us, what are we going to get out of this?

Elizabeth: I think if you do this, and I would say go do it in the morning right when you wake up,
even if you have to wake up a little early, I think you are going to level set your day,
and you’re going to realize that the energy that you get out of something like that, just
getting outside, and if you are saying, “I can’t run, my knees hurt,” go out for a walk.

Ramit: Great.

Elizabeth: But I think getting out and then building that practice into your day of then showering,
then getting to the office or the job or the job hunt, I think it really optimizes your brain,

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 and then you get to play in the afternoon when somebody does say, ‘Hey, do you want
to go out for a drink,’ you don’t have to say, ‘No, I was supposed to go to the gym.’

Ramit: Right.

Elizabeth: So, do that.

Ramit: All right, so starting it off guilt-free, start with a walk, move up to a run within 30 days.

Elizabeth: Yes, can I have one more?

Ramit: Of course.

Elizabeth: One more I think would be around interesting people. In the next seven days, have
emailed maybe a small handful of people, five people that you just want to reconnect
with, somebody that has been interesting in your life at some point before. And before
30 days go by have spent 30 minutes with that person just learning from them.

Ramit: Whoa, I love that.

Elizabeth: I had a fun example yesterday, somebody I’ve gotten to know and it turns out he works
at a large consumer package goods brand, and I’ve always been interested in that space.
And we spent 45 minutes together yesterday in a Safeway, walking the aisles, and I got
to learn how somebody in a CPG company thought.

Ramit: Amazing.

Elizabeth: Some I never would have known, so that was my challenge to myself a month ago.

Ramit: You’re the first person to issue two challenges.

Elizabeth: Oh, good.

Ramit: I love them. We’ll report back on how everyone does.

Elizabeth: Alright.

Ramit: Thank you so much.

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