>> From Phoenix, Arizona, The Cube at Catalyst Contracts. Here's your host, Jeff Frick. >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with The Cube. We are in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. It's funny, seems something about Phoenix that this is where all the great women in tech conferences are. We were here two years ago for our first Grace Hopper and it's really fun to return now to this one, the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference, which, a little bit smaller, about 400 people, their fourth year, but again it's all about empowering girls, empowering women to think differently, to take charge and to be more successful so really excited for our next guest, Jim McCarthy, brought in to motivate the troops. >> That's right. >> So first off, welcome. >> Thank you. >> So-- >> Thanks Jeff. >> Your keynote was all about a career without regret, have a great impact on what you care about. That is so topical right now, and especially these people that talk about, you know, the millennials and you know, kind of the younger generation coming up, they want to do things that they care about >> Yeah, I think all the research indicates millennials, more than maybe prior generations, really are looking for work that has impact and has meaning. >> Is it because they can? You know, that things are a little bit easier, they know they're not necessarily y'know, suffering to get by? Why do you think there's the change and then once you've made that decision, how do you implement that in kind of your day to day life? >> Well I'm not sure I could explain how the millennials are perhaps different, maybe they just see some of the challenges in our world like climate change for example and realize wow, there's some very serious challenges we face. That might be why they're looking for more of an impact, but in terms of what to do to find more meaning in life I always encourage people to do work that they really love, that they're passionate about, and in this conference a lot of the women have talked about passion and what you're good at and really doing that 'cause that's what you're going to be most successful at. >> Right, but that's a really common theme >> Yeah. >> We've heard that forever, to close your parachute, y'know, if you could find something that you get paid well and you're passionate about, but often times there's a conflict, right? Sometimes it's just harder, people get stuck in something that they're not happy with, but they're not really willing to make the change, not really willing to make the investment or take the chance so what are some of the things you tell people that are specific actionable, that will help them y'know, make those changes to get some place where they're y'know, feeling better about what they're working on? >> Well, so for me part of my talk was I talk about how I had a career in Silicone Valley, early employee at Yahoo! and different internet companies and then about three and a half years ago I was diagnosed with cancer and that was a big wake up call for me. And even though my health seems to be okay right now, it really sort of helped me realize that wow, I'm not going to live forever and by embracing my mortality I've started living much more fully and I decided okay, if I wanted to be a motivational speaker, I always wanted to, never had the courage to do it, I thought okay, I'm not going to live forever, I might as well dive into it, have the courage to try even if I fail. But at least I'll be happy and I'm not living a life with regrets. >> Right. >> So that was part of my workshop yesterday. >> So that's really interesting and a powerful story I mean, we often hear when there's these, y'know, kind of life changing events, these big moments, y'know that is the catalyst. Does it take that to make the change? Can people do it without the change? I mean, we can't hardly get anyone to lift up their face out of email. (laughing) I mean, how do we do it without that or does it really take that? I mean, is that really what happens, whether it's yourself or a loved one or someone you care about, it's interesting 'cause that's powerful catalyst >> Yeah so, I think for some people it does take getting, y'know, hit with a ton of bricks like that in order to really realize what they need to do and have the courage to do it and just realize y'know, this may not work out but I'm just going to go for it. In part of my workshops I try to help people think about their mortality, think about if you were to die today, how would you feel about your relationships. If you were to die today, how would you feel about the work that you've done. And then I always have them write out action plans for okay, based on what I wrote, based on what we discussed, what do you want to change in your life and what's the deadline to do it? So that's kind of the process that I use in my workshops so it's not just nice story and inspiration but it's really okay, how can we bring this back to what am I going to do with my career, what am I going to do with my relationships and there's also very practical things that people can do that I think will help them a lot, one is mindfulness to reduce their stress, one is affirmation in which you can actually train your brain to be much more positive thinking and there's a lot of neuroscience behind that today which shows that you can actually sculpt your brain to have a much more positive attitude. So those are some and then the goal setting is important too. So -- and then gratitude, I'm sorry, there's another practice. So these are very, this is not just nice ideas but actually daily practices you can do, mindfulness and meditation, gratitude and affirmations, these are all things that can really have a daily impact in a very positive way. >> Right, and I'm sure people say, "Jim, that sounds great, I printed it out, it's on my fridge, but jeez, I wake up, I have 472 unread emails, the boss is calling me," how do I really actually do it? I want to do it but I'm drowning in email, whoever invented email is problematic, I'm glad that young kids don't use it 'cause it's going to die soon. (laughing) But y'know, practically, what do you tell folks? >> What I tell people is if you meditated 10 minutes a day, that's about 1% of your waking hours and that 1% would improve the other 99% of your waking hours and meditation used to be very weird and funky and new-agey and now you see more and more people saying, "No actually, 10 minutes of mindfulness or meditation or breathing or whatever can make a huge positive impact on your health both physically and mentally". There's all sorts of very serious scientific research, neuroscience, which underscores that. So if you invest 10 minutes of your day in being at peace, reducing stress, focusing on your breathing, then the other 99% of your day is going to be calmer, you're not going to be freaking out so much, you get an email in your inbox that you may not like but you can say, "okay, let me breath, okay let me think about this, okay", don't have to do an immediate flame mail response and then you're doing a lot less damage control in your life and you're being much more focused on how do I want to spend my day. And so that is one way to reduce your stress and yet still get stuff done, the most important stuff done. >> It's interesting, I have an unwritten book that I always wanted to write, kind of on some of the things you said before about y'know, don't forget your death bed, 'cause at some point you're going to be laying on your death bed-- >> That would be the title of your book? >> And you're going to have those questions. >> Yeah >> Yeah Y'know, did I do what I want to do? Did I spend too much time at the office, or too much time at the beach or too much time with the kids or not? >> Well if I can say, there's a woman who wrote a book named "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying" and regret number two was "I wish I had worked less". And every single man in her survey that she talked to said "I wish I had worked less". And these are men on their deathbeds. But it applies to a lot of women as well. >> So I want to shift gears a little bit, back to your tech days, >> Yeah (laughing) >> Just looking at your background, obviously some of our homework and you y'know, you did a summer at McKenzie, you're kind of at the leading edge of business and smart people and you -- >> You're too kind Jeff, okay? (laughing) >> No, and then you decide I haven't finished the story, and then you go to San Jose Mercury News to work in classifieds. >> Actually to do marketing. >> To do marketing >> Yeah >> But you were involved in classifieds and I only bring up the classifieds 'cause it's interesting because then you left and went to Yahoo!, right at the main, I mean really at a pivotal time in the transformation of classifieds moving from the newspaper to online. >> Yes >> So you lived kind of this digital transformation long before Uber and some of the other examples that are so often cited. >> Yeah. >> So I'd just love to get kind of your perspective on, y'know, kind of digital transformation, it happened, this was 97 so what 20 years ago, I can't believe it's 20 years ago, to now and then in the context of what you're doing now. >> So I graduated from business school in 1996, and went to the San Jose Mercury News and was doing marketing things. But right when I was graduating I was like, "Oh jeez, y'know this internet thing is going to be huge!", and after a few months at the Mercury News, I said, "Look, I really want to do something with internet", and they said, "Sorry, can't do that, keep helping us sell papers." And I said, "Well screw this!", and so I went to Yahoo! In July 1997, I was employee number 258 and I was hired to be a product manager for Yahoo! classifieds, so realizing, 'cause I remember sitting in the Mercury News at my computer and looking at, wow, Yahoo! has some like, online classifieds for autos? And careers? And this is way better than the newspaper! I can have long descriptions here and you can even see pictures of things, so I went to Yahoo! classifieds and out of that we created Yahoo! Autos, Yahoo! Careers Yahoo! Personals, Yahoo! Real Estate. And yes, this absolutely-- And then later there was the category killers where there was Match.com, where there was Monster or Monster Board, and on down the line-- >> Monster Park, remember Monster Park, one of the first sponsored stadiums back in the day. >> Yeah, yeah. >> After 3Com. Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt. >> No it's okay. So it was an amazing transformation and it was one of these things where the internet just does things so much better and you could say it also sort of helped destroy an industry, right? I mean, I'm certainly a big believer in the power of local newspapers and investigative journalism, and that's really been damaged a lot from the last 20 years, but sometimes it's like this technological imperative where the web is so much better, people have to figure out different business models, different ways to fund their journalism, different revenue models that work. But I mean it's just amazing to see what's gone on with how classifieds has developed, e-commerce has developed. I worked later on Yahoo! Auctions and Shopping, you can talk about that more if you want. >> Yeah, a friend of mine works at the Yellow Pages, I was like dude, you probably need to get a new job. >> Really? Still? >> It's YP.com now. Well turns out they have a huge online business which is good for them. No still, I was like c'mon, (laughing) You need to get out of that. >> Gosh (laughing). >> So, anyway. It's just interesting, the digital transformation that we're under now y'know, has happened over and over again, we just happen to be kind of in the current iteration, sometimes people forget-- >> Yes, yeah. >> That there was a time before Google, it was called AltaVista (laughing) or WebCrawler if you want to go back even further. Anyway, we regress. So Jim, what're you working on now, what're you looking forward to in the next six months, any special projects? You just traveling the country and spreading good word? >> I travel the country and I travel internationally doing my workshop. So basically the workshop's where I teach companies how to build happy, high performance teams. >> Awesome. >> And in the workshop, some of them are a little bit more, much more sort of inspirational and about mortality and about what you want to do for life purpose, I have a workshop called, "Happiness Workshop: Keep Calm and Get Stuff Done" and then so there's ones which are much more goal setting, there's more which are inspirational and yeah, I travel and teach companies how to -- whether it's an hour workshop or a six hour workshop, that's what I do. >> Jim, thanks for stopping by, it's a great story and I think it's just so important, y'know there's a lot of great inspirational stories out there but really y'know, how you do you help people, give them actionable things that they can put on the fridge, put on their calender and-- >> And have in their daily routine. >> Right and do it right, and do change behavior 'cause it's hard to change attitude, really hard, and the way you do it is you change behavior, that you can actually change. Thanks for-- >> Yeah, yeah. >> Thanks for sharing a few minutes with us. >> Thank you Jeff, very kind of you. >> Absolutely >> Thank you >> Jim McCarthy, I'm Jeff Frick, we're in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference, you're watching The Cube. Thanks for watching.