The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish
How do you get ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results?
Mary Kay Ash built a two-billion-dollar company by solving that specific problem.
After watching men she trained get promoted above her for double the salary, she quit to build a company based on a radical idea: meritocracy.
This episode breaks down how she did it. You’ll learn her twenty-three leadership lessons, why pink Cadillacs outperformed raises, and the fundamentals of incentives, recognition, and human motivation that work in any business.
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Approximate Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction
(02:25)Part 1: You Can Do It, Mary Kay
(21:35)Part 2: Mary Kay Cosmetics
(36:45)Part 3: The System
(53:44)Epilogue: The Legacy
(55:16)Mary Kay’s 23 Lessons
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