Becoming a conscious leader: Leading without fear, finding your life’s objective function, and getting better at vision and strategy | John Mark Nickels (Uber, Waymo, DoorDash)

"Most of us just aren't really tuned into an awareness that our lives will come to an end. We try to pretend like we're going to live forever and just not think about it. The horror of it is that we succeed, right? We mostly manage to just go live our life and eat ice cream and go to work and go on vacation and do what we do."

"To me, leadership is broadly defined as having influence in the world. And so by that definition, everyone is a leader, right? Because we all have influence in some way. It's not about whether you're a manager or not. It's like, I have influence on my kids or my partner or my community."

"I think when I was younger in my career, I thought it was really important that we got to show up to the meeting and have the right slides and be the loudest, rightest voice in the room. And, you know, that's sort of the way to have influence. And, uh, you know, there's certainly a place for having leadership in a meeting and presenting a point of view and helping guide the narrative."

"When you experience stress in a meeting, it’s crucial to embrace that nervousness rather than trying to suppress it. Accepting your emotions can counterintuitively help you perform better."

"My experience shows that what you resist will persist. The more aware you become of your internal state, the more agency you have over how you respond to challenging situations."

"It's essential to realize that focusing on the optics, while sometimes necessary, should not overshadow the importance of productive work and actual outcomes, as that's what truly drives success in any enterprise."

"You know, one example might be, why do we need a 4,000 pound vehicle to move a human three miles? If you think about like the physics there, like the energy expenditure, right. It's like, you might come up with bikes and scooters and little other things."

"I'm sure it's not always, it's raining if you want the car, but that's a very example of like questioning, like, why are things the way they are? And then are, is the way they are like super inefficient or like not optimal from, in some sense. Right. And that is often a doorway to opportunity."

"Uber's initial focus on riders and then expanding into delivery illustrates the nature of consumer-centric views, where the end-user experience drives operational strategies. Conversely, DoorDash's model emerges from a purpose-driven approach to support small businesses to flourish in the delivery landscape."

"The analogy I use is like Uber is to Amazon as DoorDash is to Shopify. Uber has been more consumer-focused, while Shopify is distinctly merchant-focused, illustrating how the core motivations behind selection can pivot based on market approach."

""Imagine if instead of having a OKR review where like you're behind target and everyone's like blaming other people and like, you know, you can tell everyone's kind of fearful. And if someone was just like, wow, I, I noticed that, um, I just feel fear around this. Everyone was like, wow, I feel fear too. Right. Like I would just totally change the tone of the conversation.""

""The advice here is bring your emotions into work. Like don't let emotions, what most people believe is leave your emotions at home. Don't bring emotions into the workplace.""

""What you found is they actually can make you more effective and it makes like your teams more effective. And he even talked about, it'll help you make decisions and more intelligently, right? Cause your gut and lizard brain almost tells you things that you should pay attention to.""

"Christensen highlights the disconnect between professional success and personal fulfillment, stating that many Fortune 500 executives are divorced and have strained family relationships. This serves as a poignant reminder that external achievements often come at a personal cost."

"He said, 'Many executives see their children next week, thinking they'll have time to catch up later, but time is fleeting. Later becomes a missed opportunity, and relationships suffer as a result.' This emphasizes the crucial nature of prioritizing immediate connections."

"Viktor Frankl's perspective from 'Man's Search for Meaning' reveals that even in the direst circumstances, one can maintain agency and perspective. He teaches that one can extend compassion to oppressors, which invites reflection on our attitude towards life's adversities."

"There's another Ram Dass, uh, line that I often use with my wife, be here now, which is the title of his book. That everyone sees with the blue cover. And I do that when she's like on her phone and we're doing some, I'm like, be here now."

"And then one time I was like, why are you doing that? He's like, I'm pretty sure Lyft has drones outside the windows of our office and they're spying on our presentation."

"And I was like, whoa, your parent, your competitor paranoia runs deep, man."