Naji Gehchan: Hello, leaders of the world. Welcome to “Spread Love in Organizations”, a podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders, striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care, servant leadership, and love.
I’m Naji, your host, joined today by Rebecca Young, Corporate Vice President at FedEx Corporation and leads Operations Science and Advanced Technology.
In her role, Rebecca is responsible for driving critical aspects of FedEx innovation and transformation strategy, including scaling up robotics and automation, uh, technology, autonomous vehicles, decision science, and electromobility. She sits on the FedEx Strategic Management Committee, a C suite leadership group that sets the strategic direction for the enterprise.
As an expert in both advanced technology and logistics operations, she frequently speaks at high profile industry forums including Fortune, Word50, Reuters Momentum, CES, the AI Summit Silicon Valley, uh, and several more. In March 2024, Rebecca was recognized by Reuters event as one of the top 20 trade blazing women in enterprise AI.
who are demonstrating real influence, impact, and leadership in large scale enterprise AI deployment. Rebecca joined two public boards in 2023, Royal Caribbean Group and Columbus McKinnon, bringing to both her technology and innovation expertise and strategic perspective. She has also previously served as Board of Director for the Mid South 2022, and most recently, she is the author of What’s Rule?
Think differently about success and cultivate a happy life. A book that inspires readers to challenge the status quo, dive deep, think differently, and charter their unique path to success. Rebecca, it’s great to see you again and have you with me today.
Yeah, good morning, Yunaochi. So good to be on your podcast.
Naji Gehchan: I’m eager first, before going to your book that I really enjoyed, I want to first hear your personal story from childhood in rural China to corporate boardrooms. What’s in between the lines of your inspiring journey?
Oh, I, I would just say it’s a very long arc. And, um, I grew up, like, if I rewind five decades ago, and I grew up in rural China without running water or electricity.
And, uh, really to see right now, um, I am sitting as a, uh, Fortune 50 senior executive and a board director. Um, my life journey begins with, uh, a lot of difficulties in early life that, um, no money and not even, and not even enough food to go around in the village, but plenty of that. And then I went to Shanghai, uh, reunited with my parents at the age of seven, but that’s the difficult journey start with me having, um, just diagnosed dyslexia.
And, uh, had a huge challenges in school, even being viewed as the most stupid kid, um, like by the principal, which was like a really harsh for a child to actually experience. And so I had a tremendous struggle trying to fit in and, uh, um, and that lasted for many years until my mother, probably at the age of 12 me.
Told me the biggest life lesson. Um, she basically just said, I know you’re miserable, but you’re actually really smart and if you didn’t like what you experienced, you should have fight with all your mind. And, um, if not, your choice is accept the reality and be miserable. Which choice do you really choose?
That was a reckoning moment. Just made me realize my young self realized. But in life, you always have to fight and for a different outcome. So that ignited me. I eventually went to an elite Chinese university, which is Fudan University. And then that actually in a very different period, I was an accidental English major.
Um, but that was the early 90s when China was under through a tremendous amount of pressure. Opening up to the Western world. So guess what? English is the best golden key to, um, career opportunities than to exposure. So, um, I, I did many interesting engagement did management consulting for British companies to.
Enter into the Chinese market, and that somehow also and as well as an American delegation as their English interpreter, um, and that really ignited of my American dream. So, 96, I pack up my two suitcase had a hundred dollars in my pocket and a scholarship. To an MBA program, and so that’s how I actually just had the courage at that time to had a one way ticket, which took all my family’s kind of savings and my dad literally back me at the airport.
Please don’t go because we did not know anybody there. And by the way, that’s a one way ticket. You do understand if you fail. I know we wouldn’t have money or means to get you back, but I was young in my mid 20s. I was like, I wanted to pursue the American dream. I finished two years. I had my MBA, um, had a lot of, um, landing a summer internship with, uh, FedEx for as a marketing intern and did not know that it turned into a 25 year amazing career journey.
And pretty much, um, took me from marketing to operations to customer experience to advanced technology and eventually lead it to the scene. 1 of the senior most position at FedEx. And so that’s a little bit. Um, I’ll call my journey and, uh, um, it’s it’s just incredible.
Naji Gehchan: Wow. It certainly is. And, uh, you’re, it’s, it’s really an amazing journey of resilience, grit.
As you said, uh, you, you said really strong words, uh, in your, you know, beginning struggle to fit in and how, I love it. I remember we had a conversation with, uh, our friend Gail also, and I, I wrote down actually what you said that you said again today, like at your lowest point of your life, you have a choice.
Accept it and stay miserable or fight and change it. And I think this is part of the thread you keep in the book. So if we go, uh, to, uh, to, to your book, What Rules, uh, tell us more about it. Tell us an overview and why you wrote it, uh, to, to start with. And then we can go and dig into the rules themselves.
What
motivates you to write books? Yeah, that’s a really a great question. First of all, I mean, I never really imagined I would write a book and what motivates me was one of a conversation I had with another executive in when he told me he wrote a book to multiply the kind of reach and effect. And that inspired me to say, there are many people I feel fortunate in my life and my way of paying it forward.
Is to share wisdom, share lessons, learn to inspire others to be their best, and so that was the motivation to write a book, and you may ask why the name what rules Gail actually had a huge part of it. She has been my amazing executive coach. So one day we were just having dinner and she asked a genuine question to me, which is Rebecca, you know, everybody.
I mean. How what you accomplish is very huge. And even for some Native Americans, that’s harder to achieve to your level. And especially as women in the U. S., we always needed to follow specific rules and specific ways of working in corporate. So how did you, as a person coming from China, figure out the rules and just advance?
And I was very stunned by her question. So I, the next two words came out of my mouth was, what rules am I supposed to follow any rules? And, uh, it took a gal by surprise. And I think she couldn’t, she burst into a laughter and couldn’t stop for a few minutes. And then she recognized, she said, Oh, my God, you break the glass ceiling because.
You didn’t not really like like view the those rules as constraint. You don’t even understand it. So by not understanding you, you played your own game. And that’s how you break through. And that really inspired me to use what rules as a book, book name, because I think in life, a lot of times there are tons of unseen, um, Like, um, good meaning rules that, uh, guide how we do and, and what, who we should become.
But in the end, we kind of live our life by someone else rules by the conventional rules. And, uh, I always believe like life is too short to live based on other people’s expectations and. Um, it should always, like, be much more fun and fulfilling to embrace yourself, live a genuine, authentic life, and, uh, and not following any of those rules.
I mean, for example, I just thought to give you one example, I would say if you ask most people, what is your goal? Like what? What is your goal in corporate? And most people say make lots of money from the corporate letters, right? Our success tends to be defined by conventional rules as, uh, the wells and this social standards, but very seldom did people ask.
Is that your real goal? I mean, what is your real goal in in life? And, um, even for the industries you pursue, right? Or the business you do. Are you really genuinely happy? So those are the kind of more profound, the common questions I explore in the book and not to preach any ideas, but as a genuine kind of sharing and exploration to say, let’s dig deeper.
Let’s dive in. Let’s figure out like our passion and what we want to do in life.
Naji Gehchan: So let’s, let’s dive deeper and talk about what rules I love the title and and the story and I remember you said break the breaking the glass ceiling. I remember you used the term also in the book and in our discussion track the bamboo ceiling.
As it relates, I think, to what you left. But let’s go there. Let’s talk about The six rules you have in the book, can you share them first with us, and then we can probably dig in one in particular that you think we should prioritize above any other.
Yeah, so I identified the six rules we commonly follow.
And there are the goals rule, the strengths rule, the opportunity rule, the limit rule, the either or rule, and the happiness rule. So starting with the goals, typically, in, by any normal convention, especially Asian culture, the success of a life goal is to make lots of money and achieve high social status.
And what. We if we dig deeper, sometimes we could achieve those goals, but miss the mark. Does that really make us happy? What is our passion? So the ghost rule is really trying to dig deeper into our inner self, our passion, because when we start our passion, our life naturally project to a more happy and fulfilling path.
And the second part rule is the stress rule. And, uh, particularly as a female, and we tend to have a tendency of the negative buyers. Like, every time we have a survey about ourselves, like, my, my mind will immediately go into, like, ignore all the, all the good things said about me, what are the, the kind of weaknesses, and immediately dive in.
And that’s pretty good. That helps me address some of the weaknesses. Gradually in life. I realized that if I spend all my time addressing only the weaknesses, I missed the opportunity of like exemplify my like amplify my students so I can break through and for example, my current role is very unique role at the intersection of technology and application.
That is where I find. Um, the students actually project me to a totally different space. You have a ton of technology like executives. You have a ton of operations executives, but the combination of the two brings more power because. The intersection of technology and business application is where the value is generated.
So, that teaches me the lesson about don’t spend all the time trying to address your weaknesses. You want to making sure weakness doesn’t become an object of your success, but you needed to actually spend more energy to amplify the strength. So to break out and to get unstuck. Um, the third rule, which is opportunity rules, and in a nutshell, we always say opportunity is luck, but is it really?
So I would say two things. Um, one is, do you recognize when the opportunity actually show up? Second is, do you have the courage to take the opportunity? Because that comes with risk, right? So dig deeper. And oftentimes that builds, if you’re clear about your passion and your strengths, then you are more likely to recognize the right opportunity and be willing to take them.
And the fourth rule, interestingly, is limits rule or the failure rule. By taking the opportunity, you may fail at some point. And then doubt the decisions we make and we, I, what I, I want to share from my experience is limit or failure is temporary. If you don’t try hard enough and fail at something and always in the zone, then that’s very hard to break through.
That’s more like a comfort zone. Right? So we needed to actually be more intentional about pushing the boundaries, pushing the limit. And not to be governed by. Okay. That’s a safe zone. So that’s a force on high level is a force or the last. Then the 5th 1 is either oral, which is something we always struggle is, um, do we will have a work life balance and as a mother as a woman, and I struggled with that at the beginning.
I had a very unique past that. I literally at FedEx, I will say it’s two, um, I would divide it in half. So the first 10 years I spent as a mother raising two young children, and I did not intentionally go for a promotion because I was trying to really weigh what my priority in life, which is Um, being the best mother I can to my kids and spend time with them and that, that is because I couldn’t reverse my kids age.
I can always pick up my career, but I couldn’t at the same time. It doesn’t mean that I just like bamboo growing shoots. It doesn’t mean that I’m just like stand still. I, I spend the 10 years trying to study. Every aspect about FedEx business from marketing to product development to technology to back end infrastructure operations, customer experience, et cetera.
So, I was using the time to build my strengths while spending a lot of time with my boss. So, the next 10 years, it just, it jump started my career. I had a very fast trajectory all the way to the senior leadership. So, that taught me that in life, everyone makes different decisions. But it’s about integration, integrating what’s important to you along with career.
So that is a, it’s not an easy or it’s more like, can we find a path that reflect your different stages of your life, different reflecting your priority. And the last rule is happiness rule, which is my favorite. And so I grew up poor and my, my parents, the only criteria for me is, am I happy in that? That has such a profound, like, impact on how I view life is not being viewed as the status or the money.
It’s more genuinely, did I live a happy life? And, uh, that also challenge our goal. Sometimes, oftentimes, The conventional wisdom is you right now you celebrate later, but do we miss the opportunity to view life as a journey celebrating everything along the journey so you don’t like to delay your happiness until you reach that elusive everlasting goal.
Like, because if we, we kind of have the mindset about delay now, but like the growing out in the celebratory later, it feels like you always will chase the next goal because there’s always someone more successful, more powerful, have more money. Right? So I want to challenge that to say, if we’re authentic to ourselves.
Can we really smell all the roses along the way and be happy while growing, while challenging the new norm? So that’s in a nutshell about the six rules I wrote in my book.
Naji Gehchan: Thank you so much, Rebecca, for sharing them. It’s a lot of wisdom and powerful, um, Uh, powerful, uh, pieces you gave us, uh, I really want to dig into all of them, but I’m gonna do the hard exercise.
You said happiness is your favorite, and that was my next question. Maybe not saying the favorite, but the one that you would prioritize above most. Is there one of them that you would prioritize above most as you think about your life?
Um, I definitely thought like I will prioritize the happiness like the in terms of the most it’s it’s more profound than just say the meaning of being just talk about daily happiness, et cetera.
It’s more reflection about what brings joy in life, because when we are joyful, we are more productive. They always say fund the job. Like, which align with your passion, then the job doesn’t become a job. If you’re so happy, you’re so involved into it. So happiness to me is the summary about all the rules.
It centers around that you live a purpose driven life, that you find the right integration for you regarding what you are doing to your passion, to the family life. It centers around you have enough confidence. And in the clarity that you are not swinged by a lot of other factors, like, for example, even I take teenager for these days, a lot of social media impact.
A lot of times you look at all these fabulous digital life of people, they have the perfect life, perfect body, perfect everything, perfect vacation, right? And that that amount of pressure is real. And so in order to be happy, you have to really have a solid foundation about the self to say, this is the life that’s an authentic real life for me that I, I am happy about it.
And as we grow older in professionals, there’s also a level of define enough. So I love the book psychology of money. And I remember there was one. Um, kind of chapter talk about a big yard party and with all the hugely successful rich people in this, but there’s a writer there and people ask, how do you feel he’s that I’m I’m perfectly content here because I have something they don’t have.
And people are like, oh, he’s sending enough. I can define my enough in life from a material perspective. So, so that’s why, like, I put everything together in order to be happy. It takes a lot to recognize yourself, your passion, recognize that the things you are doing aligns with your goals, recognizing you have the confidence to embrace life as it is, that you have the resilience, you have the grit, you You actually also happening by walking towards your goals and celebrating everything along the way.
So that to me is a very profound kind of way of summarizing a happy, fulfilling life to say, do you feel like you’re joyful? Do you feel you’re happy? That’s a hard question. So, Najee, if I ask you, how do Are you happy?
Naji Gehchan: I was going to ask you this question, but you’re bringing really an amazing point. And I, um, you know, and that was my question too.
And I can answer also your question. I’m not going to avoid it. Uh, but, but what, is there any tips or what did you do or recommend for leaders as a work to detach ourselves From what, like the, really the title of your book, like what truths, as you said, because I feel like several times. You know, we are in this craziness of doing good, doing fast, being ambitious, uh, trying to get to the next thing, making it good and even better.
And when you get, you want to do more, you know? And I think for some of us, it’s really built into how we function and within a purpose. So, for example, I, I can share with you, we know one another, like my, my purpose is to make, uh, life better for patients who needs it, developing drug, bring it to market.
It’s really my purpose, but you mix it to ambition and then it becomes, as you said, sometimes, uh, you, I talk a lot with, uh, with leaders where exactly, as you said, you are in this constant pursuit of something that might be better at some point and not taking the step back and say, well, Let’s enjoy each step of the journey.
And in the several interviews that I’ve had with, uh, uh, with leaders who have got to this place with really amazing careers, every single person told me the same thing we did not enjoy as much as we should. the journey and celebrating the small steps that we’ve done that actually are way more enjoyable than whatever job we achieved at the end.
So any tips or how do you do it to force yourself to change those rules, as you said, and find your happy place and your personal garden, as you call it in the, in your book?
Yeah, that’s a great question. So I heard that a lot. Also when people hugely successful people looking back, Would it be? I wish I actually spend more time enjoying the journey versus the never ending to go chasing.
So I think the kind of mental model we can think about it is a hamster on the wheel so you can always like a move, right? And but if it’s continuous, you never really, that’s a never ending goal. And we don’t want to be that. And first of all, I will say ambition is actually great. If we’re not ambitious people, we will not be aware.
We are right now. So having a goal in life have an inspiration. Ambition is, is amazing. But don’t feel that as the end goal is the only place you can celebrate. You want to break it down to say, okay, if I am, I view as my life as as a journey towards the destination. And can I just. Be more intentional about small wings along the way that gets me there.
So for each step, when you’re intentional. You want to be, um, and then you’re happy. So I’ll give you 1 example. Um, there was, uh, 1 summer, I attended a famous consulting companies, some, like, 1 of the summit. And it was hugely successful people. So the 1st exercise is pick 2 cards. And they have poster cards.
One depict what you feel right now. One depict what you feel hopefully in 18 months and never like almost universally. Most people pick now is like a lot of struggle. You can see the images. Lots of mad messy doing and so it was almost universal and interesting. I was at the stage. I was pretty content.
That moment, so I picked in my first picture. As a beach with hammock next to the palm tree. And then my next one is hot air balloon. They were stunned. They were like, that’s your first image. I said, yeah, I work so hard. I recently got a promotion the last 18 months. I got a promotion. I joined the two public boards.
So I feel like I should have a moment of celebration before I chase my next goal. It doesn’t mean I was standing still. But it doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t immediately discard that was like, Oh, what’s my next goal? So it boils down to be in being intentional about celebrating those moments that are being team with people you care.
Also, you love because I the joy of my life aside from a successful career is my beautiful family. I have a loving husband, two wonderful children. Cool when is a senior in college when it’s going to college? I’m so proud of them. We celebrate all the moment. They are proud of me. So, those brings additional joy to that journey.
I,
Naji Gehchan: I love it. Uh, and you’re, you know, as you’re sharing this great example about, uh, the picture, I, I feel like you, you were the only one actually who said this. And sometimes you have this pressure about, well, no, I, I have to be. like, you know, this other image of, you know, struggle to end up at a certain time in a happy place where actually you’re, it’s a great reflection on saying, well, let’s celebrate the small milestones instead of only, uh, the, the end point, which for many people like us, I think, It never like the end point keeps on evolving to be more and more.
So sometimes you end up like, I
mean, that’s why I said what the rules, the rules is you always like the bigger, the job title, the bigger, the paycheck, the more wealth anybody gets, it’s the happiest place, but the reality, if you challenge that, it was like. Is that a really?
Naji Gehchan: Yeah. Yeah. So can I ask you, how do you, what’s your definition of success that you as a leader and a person today, how do you define it?
I, I view the success is I’m a better today than yesterday. So it’s the continuous improvement is the ultimate definition of success. Is life is a journey. It’s about continuously learning, continuously experimenting, continuously be better. So, if I look back today versus last year, I can see I, I have new skills.
I, I actually mentored more people help other people. I touch more people to be more successful. I advanced a technology for that that actually will be hugely important for the business. I view that as success. So for me, the success, interestingly, is not a job title or the social status. It’s meaningful progress along the way, as well as continuously improvement of myself.
I guess that’s a non conventional. Definition of success. It’s a great one. Meaningful
Naji Gehchan: progress. It’s a great one. Rebecca, another question that I, you know, I was thinking as I read this and as you were talking today, as a leader within your organization, how do you apply those rules for your teams? So how are you translating all this wisdom and developing your people, hiring them, managing them, growing them, managing their performance?
I’d love to hear your translation of this.
So that is very important question is what the rules translate is create the most positive, nurturing environment. For team team members to achieve their best, which means encourage them to identify their strength. I mean, in my group, we do strength finders. So once you actually go through the exercise, you recognize everybody’s strengths is different.
So finding their strengths, um, elevate them in terms of giving them the right assignment. And, uh, and give them, like, um, I think really stretching assignment that were take them outside of their failure, like, outside of their limits and, uh, experiencing new potential, give them a joy and encourage them to embrace failures as opportunities.
So one of the whole cornerstone of culture, I help instigate academics is. Quality driven management whenever the key principle is view failures as opportunities. So, um, if you view that as a kind of guiding principle, then you give people the ability to fail small, fail fast in order to succeed and pushing their boundaries and limits.
And so I, so all of these roles actually play very well at work. Is help team members identify their strengths, give them aspirational goals and also as leaders be okay with sometimes the failures, not a huge failures, but have the ability to tolerate the necessary failures in order to have a breakthrough is a huge like foundation for a successful team, reaching their full potential.
Naji Gehchan: I would love now, uh, give you a word and getting a first reaction to it.
That’s fine.
Naji Gehchan: The first one is leadership.
Leadership is, uh, not, uh, it’s about bringing the best from, um, everybody.
Naji Gehchan: What about work life balance?
I wouldn’t use the word of balance. I think, like I said, the rule is the integration. When you look at the balance, it means almost like zero sum game. When you integrate work life, you have a much more positive kind of attitude towards challenges and, uh, just tackling the challenges and it makes the best out of the situation.
Naji Gehchan: The third one is touchstone.
So the touchstone gives like a me and I hope the readers orientation around the most important things in life and in my book there’s a whole section kind of dedicated to that is exploring deeply, dive deeper, exploring yourself, exploring your passions, strengths, and the core.
kind of opportunities that excites you and that leads to better orientation about what we want to accomplish in life and also do the trade off of what you can afford to lose and what you cannot. So making the decision that most relevant to each individual.
Naji Gehchan: The last one is spread love and organizations.
I think that’s all about creating the most positive, nurturing environment as I said. that helps people achieving their full potential.
Naji Gehchan: Any final word of wisdom, Rebecca, for leaders around the world?
Um, I would just encourage, um, like listeners, if, indulge me to read the book and identify, um, to, to actually break free from some of the conventional constraints and build a clarity about the passion, about the strength.
And also, uh, have, like, charter your unique path to success. That’s my final word.
Naji Gehchan: Well, thank you so much, Rebecca. I certainly recommend it too. And I love how you’re framing it, breaking from the conventional rules that we’ve set in our minds and really in this pursuit of, uh, of the breed rules we should set for ourselves.
Thank you so much again. It’s been a real pleasure to, uh, to see you again and have this conversation and congrats on your book.
Um, thank you. And, uh, my pleasure to be on your podcast.
Naji Gehchan: Thank you all for listening to SpreadLove in Organizations podcast. Drop us a review on your preferred podcast platform
Follow us on LinkedIn and connect with us on spreadloveio.com. We’re eager to hear your thoughts and feedback. Most importantly, spread love in your organizations and spread the word around you to inspire others and amplify this movement, our world so desperately needs