BOLDER & WISER with Peter Wang and Michelle Kraemer

Announcing Bolder & Wiser Podcast with Leadership & Performance Coach Michelle Kraemer

• Peter Wang • Season 2 • Episode 1

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In this episode of the rebranded 'Bolder and Wiser' podcast, I am excited to introduce Michelle Kraemer as a co-host.

1. Introducing Bolder and Wiser:
Hello! We are Peter Wang, a former tech executive and entrepreneur, and Michelle Kraemer, a tech and media executive turned leadership coach. We are friends and former co-workers who reconnected after 13 years to launch a new incarnation of the podcast, Bolder and Wiser.

Inspired by the idea that we are all works and progress and that the north star on that journey is to become bolder and wiser versions of ourselves, we’ve teamed up to bring to light the untold stories of leaders who have built professional and personal fulfillment lives.  

2. Michelle’s Insights on the Power of Coaching:
Involuntary change, whether a reorg, layoff, or disruptive technology, can be a catalyst for positive change, but you have to have a clear north star to take advantage of it. 

While many professionals might struggle with the idea that they don’t know what they really want, creating a space that’s high trust and confidential through coaching can help unlock an internal knowing quickly.

Moving to something new doesn’t always have to be the answer. By connecting to your values and exploring your dreams as a leader and professional, coaching can help you identify how you might be able to honor those values and embrace those dreams where you are today.

3. Designing an Alliance:
Borrowing from the coaching concept of designing an alliance, we want to design an alliance with the audience and understand what you’d like to get out of future episodes. Please share in the comments your top goals on your journey to growing bolder and wiser. Who would you like to hear from and what topics do you want us to cover?



🔗 ENGAGE WITH MICHELLE KRAEMER
Interested in Coaching? Schedule a Complementary Intro Call: https://michellekraemercoaching.com/
Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mlkraemer/


🔗 FOLLOW PETER WANG
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuchunwang/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/peterpeterwang/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/wsdm.water/


⌚️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Welcome to the Podcast: A New Chapter Begins
00:20 Reconnecting and Brainstorming
01:05 Introducing Michelle: A Journey From Tech to Coaching
02:35 'Bolder and Wiser': Rebranding the Podcast
05:36 Becoming Bolder & Wiser
14:57 Navigating the Unexpected: Pandemic and Beyond
20:25 Betting On Yourself
26:05 Designing Alliances
28:46 Wrapping Up: How to Connect and Share Your Goals


📷 EQUIPMENT
Camera: Fujifilm X-T5
Lens: 16mm f1.4 prime
Mic: DJI Mic

Peter Wang:

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Work in Progress podcast. Today we're doing something a little different. As you can see, we have a special guest next to me. This is Michelle Kraemer.

Michelle Kraemer:

Nice to meet you all.

Peter Wang:

I am very excited to introduce Michelle to you all. As you guys know, I've been doing this podcast alone for the last year or so. Earlier this year, Michelle and I got back in touch. We worked together 13 years ago

Michelle Kraemer:

at Buddy Media.

Peter Wang:

At Buddy Media,

Michelle Kraemer:

hi buddies,

Peter Wang:

hey buddies. It's great to reconnect. And when she reached out, I was excited to talk. If you're on a creative journey, it's a lot harder to do on your own.

Michelle Kraemer:

For sure.

Peter Wang:

For the last couple weeks we've been brainstorming, how do we collaborate? What kind of people do we wanna bring on the show?

Michelle Kraemer:

I had a secret plan, which I told you it wasn't so secret. No, not anymore. Which to say, Peter my dream is for you to rebrand your podcast and for us to do it together. And you agreed.

Peter Wang:

I'll say, sure, let's talk. Buddy Media was a great introduction for both of us in the startup

Michelle Kraemer:

That's right.

Peter Wang:

In the startup world. We had one of the best cultures, we had a great time. I want to spend the majority of the day introducing you to Michelle. Michelle has had an amazing background You grew up on the East coast.

Michelle Kraemer:

Yep.

Peter Wang:

You have your MBA from Harvard, you worked in New York Times Buddy Media, which is acquired by Salesforce. And you went to Google. Yeah. And, Michelle has also started a coaching business.

Michelle Kraemer:

That's right. I was at Google for eight years and for a number of those years I was an internal coach. I did that for a few years and it was always the most fun and rewarding hour of my week that I dedicated to coaching because you met people from all over the world doing very different things from engineering to sales to hr, and I just fell in love with Googlers through that. It's the same way I feel like you fall in love with humans through coaching. Because everyone wants to do what they do really well. They want to feel fulfilled and purposeful. And when you get into a one-on-one conversation with people about it it just becomes like this beautiful vulnerable space where magic can happen. And I was fortunate to have a number of coaches both at Google and since then myself and they have been really important allies and guides in helping me to transform into a bolder and wiser version of myself.

Peter Wang:

Oh, bolder and wiser. I forgot to introduce our new title

Michelle Kraemer:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

For the podcast. Branding is not easy. We debated different options. We landed at Bolder and Wiser. Do you wanna talk about why we choose Bolder and Wiser?

Michelle Kraemer:

Yeah. So I loved this idea of work in progress because the idea that everyone is imperfect no matter where you are, if you are the CEO of a Fortune 1000 company or someone who's starting out, just starting out, yeah. That it's always a work in progress really appealed to me, and I love that you put that out there to the world. We talked a lot about, okay, if the state of being is work in progress, what's the north star that we're really all trying to get to? Yeah. And we talked about that. Yeah. And,

Peter Wang:

bolder and wiser as being defining the north star for I think all of us want to be.

Michelle Kraemer:

That's right. Yeah.

Peter Wang:

And they're not easy. The folks on the show are folks who have led their life with purpose and they can share how they become bolder and wiser throughout the journey. And if you're listening to this podcast, you can always get nuggets to say, okay, we are also on this journey. Here's the nugget to help me to, be bolder. Wiser.

Michelle Kraemer:

Yeah. And we were both really inspired by this idea that historically it was how do you get business wisdom in, in the world, right? It comes from biographies about Steve Jobs and Cheryl Sandberg's books and now Phil Knight at Nike. And there's some real wisdom there as well. Sure. But for most people especially if you look at mid-career, it's just not a relatable story in the same way that some of the stories are that we're trying to bring out. So what you're left with really is looking at people's LinkedIn and you see the highlight reel of their careers and you don't really hear about the stumbles, the learnings along the way. The stories that are left off the highlight reel. Yeah. And that have a lot to teach, about what it really took for that person to live this life of professional and personal fulfillment. And we were both really inspired to bring that to bear.

Peter Wang:

A lot of these conversations would happen at dinners amongst friends, but not something that you would hear about.

Michelle Kraemer:

Right. Or you're having dinner with those people, right? Yes. Yes. And you know them in your own lives and you look up to them. But wouldn't it be nice if you could grab them all together Yeah. And say, tell us and sit down with them for an hour and just learn from their wisdom. That's what we're trying to do.

Peter Wang:

And we are gonna try to do more in person. Yes. Which is logistically is a little more challenging. It's counterculture, it's counterculture. That's right. IRL versus URL. Yeah. Of course we'll have URLs. But that's a joke. That's not bad joke. That's a dad. That's a dad joke right here. Dad jokes. Anyways, the reason we wanna do more in persons it just feels, it has a lot more dynamics you can bring out people.

Michelle Kraemer:

For sure.

Peter Wang:

So today, let's go back a little bit

Michelle Kraemer:

Sure.

Peter Wang:

Since we worked together, what, 20 11, 20 12? Yeah. How have you become Bolder Wiser? Yes.

Michelle Kraemer:

Yeah. I want to hear your answer to that as well, because, yeah. Bolder and Wiser and yet totally not aged, not aging. We met in 20 11, 20 12. If I think about the couple of years after that, I would say on this journey to Bolder and Wiser, they were some of the most transformational of my life. Salesforce agreed to buy Buddy Media in 2012. Professionally, the journey at Salesforce was so rewarding. I learned from the operating and the enterprise sales rigor that Salesforce had in that year, post acquisition. I learned so much about how to really execute the craft of sales excellently. So from a professional standpoint, it was a big year of growth. It was also very tumultuous as you could imagine. Integrations often are, and there were some choppy waters. For example, I closed the first deal that Buddy Media had with Walmart. I worked on Kellogg, I worked with Mars. Who owns Eminem and other brands. And then I land in this. Big company with lots of people who have a lot of years and years of enterprise sales experience, and we were the new kids on the block. I think in the effort to get as much scale as possible, as quickly as possible, we were integrated pretty quickly into the company and I ended up with accounts like a senior living center and I was selling social media management software. So it was like really climbing out of the starting blocks to rebuild my reputation and my list as I was learning from these people who had a lot more experience than I have. And I was able to successfully do that. And got to a point where I had one over my boss who I'm still friendly with today and my skip level who found me in the lobby one day and was like, are you worried because Salesforce had then acquired another company Yeah. On top of Buddy Media, I think you had left by then.

Peter Wang:

Yeah. They went on a shopping spree, but they had the first mover at Advantage to create the marketing cloud.

Michelle Kraemer:

Yes. And it's been really a fun thing to watch over the last decade for sure. When you layer one acquisition on top of the other, there's inevitably efficiencies that the company is often looking for. Yeah. And I was pretty naive. This was the first major acquisition that I had gone through and certainly hadn't been through two in a row. So I had no idea what was coming. Yeah. But my skip level was like are you nervous? And I'm, I said, no, not particularly Uhhuh. And he was like, oh, okay, good.'cause as long as you're here, I'm here. And you can imagine what happens next, right? Yeah. I was in the office and working late with one of the account managers we both knew. And I saw that there had been an, invite with my skip level that popped up on my calendar for the next day. And I was like, oh boy. If I thought there was any chance of being laid off, this is probably how it would happen. But I really did not see it coming. And of course, you know how the story goes the next day. My skip level had the unenviable task of breaking the news to me that my manager and I, and a bunch of other people had been laid off. And it was definitely surprising and destabilizing, and my heart really does go out to the folks who are going through this right now.'cause I know firsthand that if you've never been through it before it can be hard not to take it personally. And I probably did a little bit of that. But one thing that I knew in that time was I had this real clarity that I wanted to be in San Francisco. And I'm a planner and I had this master plan of, okay, I'm gonna work with this at Salesforce, the marketing cloud for this amount of time, and then I'm gonna ask for a transfer. And I went at San Francisco and I'm gonna do the sabba. Like I had a whole Yes. Plan. Yes. That was blown up. But I had that kernel of knowing and. I took that and I really leaned into it and that became the thing that, I think that's the bolder part. Of, in that moment of uncertainty and unexpected, dislocation really, that I had the knowledge of knowing, okay, I want to go west. This is the time. And when I went and told my parents that I had been laid off, which like as a young professional, it's like a big deal. I told'em at the same time that I was moving to San Francisco and I was gonna only look for jobs on the West coast. And, they were surprised, but supportive and, and then flew back and forth between New York and San Francisco for a couple of months and landed, had a couple of startup offers and, and landed at Google. And it's this kind of thing you don't see because Yeah, you look at my resume and I was, that job search was pretty tight. It was like three months. 2013 I was at Salesforce, 2014. I was at Google and I was at Google for eight years. But the, journey was really a lot more complex than that.

Peter Wang:

Yeah. That's one of one of the reasons why we wanna bring people onto the show who have done impactful things purposefully and yet not perfectly. Yes and no one's journey has been perfect, myself included.

Michelle Kraemer:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

But it's hard to talk about them.

Michelle Kraemer:

Yeah, for sure. It's and, I do think it's something and we just recorded our first, hosted episode yesterday, which you'll see after this one. Yeah. But it'll, it just takes the first person to break the ice. Yeah. I think, and then it hopefully becomes easier for everyone else to be a little bit more human. Yeah. And that's, I think one of the goals that I have for our work together is to really make the space for people to do that.

Peter Wang:

Yeah. Do you wanna talk, do you wanna mention a little bit who the guest was?

Michelle Kraemer:

Yes. Philip Wong who is the regional culinary operations manager for Meta currently and has a storied history that would probably take half our episode to go through all the Michelin stars that he's collected, but couldn't be more thrilled for him to be our first Bolder and wiser guest after today. Yes.

Peter Wang:

That's a long that's a fascinating journey that you described.

Michelle Kraemer:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

And that was like, I would say the, start of the bolder part of just yeah, knowing, okay, I'm gonna move. My entire family's on the East coast. I have friends who are out here. I flew, I worked out here for years. But the wiser part really came later. And it's also, by the way, I think hard to be wise in moments that are unexpected. Asking yourself to have all the wisdom when you've just been laid off is it's a lot to ask. But the wisdom that I developed, I would say in the 13 years since I've seen you, has really been possible because this is my home. Because San Francisco's my home and because I connected with. And like the Burning Man community. I've been out there a couple of times and just learned a lot from that world. I really got into Buddhist meditation. I've sat a couple of week long silent retreats. One actually, the other have been weekends. I think those things can be real paths to wisdom. And being wiser allows you to then take the next step of being bolder. And for me that next step came years later. Probably in 2018. I was at Google. I was working for an amazing manager who is a dear friend and mentor to me. And I had a great run professionally. Was working on a deep passion of mine, which is marketing analytics, and growing a team, got promoted, doing all that, on the professional side. But on the personal side, I was on my own journey to become a mom. And it was something that I really knew was important to me and decided to forge my own path forward as a single mom by choice. And my son was born in June of 2020. Wow. Wow. Benji. Benji. Yes. Hi, Benji. Benji's. A little sick today. Hopefully you feel better.

Michelle Kraemer:

I know. That's also the messy part behind the scenes is. Not only is he a little sick today, but I do not normally sound like this myself. I am thankfully over laryngitis, but we were supposed to film this two days ago. And everything can sometimes need to be reshuffled. So everyone has their pandemic story, right? My story is that, my, my son was born in June, 2020. Maybe five months before that. I was on this great team. I got promoted, I had a bigger, scope of responsibility. I love my boss. I was not interested in making changes because I had everything dialed of yeah, okay, this is, you could spot, this is the dream. This is good. And now I'm expecting my son, and this is great. Yeah. And, corporate priorities get shuffled around. The strategy for the area that I was working on changed from being product driven of us building something ourselves to being a partner led. And it meant that my entire team was looking for a new job within Google. And had 60 days to figure out my next landing point. I had not told people this was in my second trimester. So second trimester doing lots and lots of meetings at Google where we were like, should we bump elbows? Should we shake hands? Yeah. And the job that I ended up taking, being fortunate enough to land in that time, I don't think I met anyone in person because the world was shutting down and I started that job in April of 2020 and I did it for eight weeks before I went on maternity leave. Wow. So that was like the first challenge. Yeah. The second was, giving birth during COVID when your entire family is on the East coast. Baby shower was over zoom. My, experience of the hospital is probably different from. Yeah, we were with your kids. Very different. Yeah. Nobody, came to visit. Wow. Except for my doula who I was fortunate enough to have at the time. And then I had this baby. And then you were, when did you arrive on the West Coast? October, 2020. Okay. So you might have missed this. Yeah. But in August of 2020, there were a series of really intense heat waves in the Bay Area. Oh. And then the lightning strikes caused massive wildfires all over the state. And then in September was that day that turned orange. And you may have seen the picture. Yes, I have. Yeah. But going through that with a newborn, nobody around. I this is a privilege. I had a doula who helped me. Came for a couple of hours a week, like under 10. And then it was just me and Benji and I watched the lightning strike at some god awful hour in like the kitchen as I was waking up to feed him. And was just, it was like really mental strength that was needed to get through that. Like amazing, but also incredibly taxing time. Yeah. And I wouldn't say that made me fearless as far as being bolder and wiser, like after getting through that time, especially those first several months, I was pretty much nothing that you throw at me is gonna really be harder than this. Yeah. And I know that's probably not true but it felt very true and it made me more bold and. That's true. It made me willing to leave the comfort that I had at Google and join a pre IPO company and now today taking that next step since last year I have not been working in the corporate world and been doing my own thing and investing in coaching my passion.

Peter Wang:

Yeah, like you were saying, when you have a corporate job, your job is about whatever you can do to solve the problems, so you can get the goal, right? Yes. And self-development a lot of times take a side step. Yes. Ironically. Yeah. Because that doesn't serve the goal that's immediately in front of you. I haven't shared a lot of personal stories'cause I've always been the host. With this new dynamic, I should do that more, that narrative. All of us have narrative in our heads. Yeah. Yeah. And a very small subset comes out as a narrative outside. Yeah. Telling the story externally will force me to also have a much more clear, what is the narrative here in life? Yeah.'cause I think a lot about the phase we're both in Yeah. We understand what the corporate life is about. We understand different industries, we have specific skill sets, but we look at life and saying, Hey, but we want other skill sets. Yeah. That, that build life, not just building a business. And the portfolio approach you were mentioning before, I think a lot of people we talked to are thinking about how to build life in a more portfolio approach.

Michelle Kraemer:

I've had two conversations with people I used to work with at Google today before. Oh, today. Oh, wow. Yes. Before coming here. Yes. About that very topic. And I, think it's it's top of mind for a lot of folks because of what's happening, the macro industry macroeconomics in the industry is that it's very clear that even the most sure-of-sure things doesn't feel, and my own personal story of Yeah. Of my experience being laid off, is a little taste of that. Yeah. So I think people are more like wanting to bet on themselves. We were joking about the getting t-shirts that say Bet on yourself.

Peter Wang:

Bet on yourself. We might just make that we still need branded mugs. Yeah. We'll figure out what goes on there. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's cool. Okay. So what, so one thing we want, let's talk about is coaching. Yes. Actually, I have one question about coaching. Yes.

Michelle Kraemer:

Have you coached, I'm really curious, have I

Peter Wang:

coached, have you had a coach? Yeah. The very first time I had a coach was Refinery29 when I was CTO. Okay. And they gave me an executive coach. Yeah. Katia. She's great. Yeah. And I still remember she gave me tools and she was the objective person that I could speak to. Yeah. And it's lonely when, you're in positions where you, it's really hard to talk about problems.

Michelle Kraemer:

'cause you don't have a, your peer set shrinks as you move by. It's very

Peter Wang:

shrink. Yeah. And, and I, she was my very first one. Then I had another one later on But as I talk more with you, I'm thinking you don't have to be an executive. No. to have a coach, right? Yeah. I feel like I could have benefited Yeah. Years beforehand. For sure. Yeah. Tell us more about, some of the misunderstandings and myths about coaching.

Michelle Kraemer:

Yeah. I think one of the things that gets misunderstood a lot about coaching is, it can be confusing because there are people who call themselves coaches who do what's probably more like consulting, advice giving. So coaching is really a discipline and set of skills, which is why, the International Coaching Federation exists, why organizations like Coactive are training coaches in a methodology of, teach coaches to ask powerful questions that unlock your own wisdom. It's not about just oh, tell me how you did it. It's really how do you understand what you, yourself might bring to the situation. So I think that can be often confusing for people. And not all coaches have this training and it is different from your relationship with a manager who Yeah. Might be giving you advice about a project or something like that. In that it really is about asking powerful questions, connecting with your values and evoking transformation as a whole. There's this myth that transformation is only available in times of great change. Sometimes the change can be self inspired and that's also the work of coaching. So as a coach, I often am meeting with people who have these resumes that from the outside look amazing. And they may themselves fully acknowledge that Yeah. But feel unfulfilled. And, I help them connect with their values. And understand what they, their dreams are and ask them why can't they have that dream where they are and what would it be like if they did. And one thing that I've found, I find is that for each person, they come up with two or three things off the top of their heads that they can do where they are that would get them to that state that they really want to be in. So you're talking about when change is forced on you, but there's also when change isn't forced on you. That's true. That's true. Now when change is forced on you, I think there's a lot that can happen and that can be really healthy time for, coaching and to be really purposeful about where you're going next to make sure your values are at the heart of it, that you define your goals and that you're not just like. What's coming at me, and I'm just gonna just reacting to what's happening. React to what's happening outside. Yeah. Which is easy to do if you don't have your North star clear.

Peter Wang:

Yeah. In future episodes, we can explore deeper some of the concepts, like involuntary versus voluntary transformations. Sure. We often were forced to react to involuntary transformations. Yeah. The covid for example, that's like the universal involuntary transformation. Yes.

Michelle Kraemer:

I think the difference between voluntary and involuntary is just like how much time you have. Because. Involuntary. You don't, see it coming. It's happening And you, you haven't necessarily prepared. Yeah. So that can be like, that can be a really supportive time for coaching. But just because it's voluntary time. Those, come from deep and sometimes years of low grade dissatisfaction. Yeah. And, what I'm inspired by and is that low grade dissatisfaction does not need to be the state of life being for people. There is actually a lot more out there that's possible. And that's what's magical about coaching. Yeah. And it really just seeing my clients, go through transformations like that is so rewarding. So coaching provides the structure of accountability to help you not just define what are your goals and what do you wanna do, but actually take the steps. To being bolder. If that's your goal and and actually accomplish some tangible things. Yeah. And, on the topic of Bolder and Wiser, I would say that, one like micro thing that happens in coaching that I think makes my clients bolder is, is that they get to design an alliance and a design. Designing an alliance is something that is unique, right? If you have a manager, they're not necessarily talking to you about designing an alliance of how you work together. But basically what a design alliance is, that you tell me what you need to be successful in evoking this kind of transformation that you want or, going through this career search and you can say, oh you need to make me laugh.'cause otherwise if I'm not laughing I am gonna cry. It's like we have to be laughing or I'm not gonna keep doing this, or you need to challenge me. And I do really well when I get challenged, I like to challenge clients. So that's fun. That's cool. Yeah. But it really is asking for what you need and how do you start? So does the question. Yes. Yeah. A lot of times we don't know what we want. Yeah. But you'd be surprised that often when you create a space that's confidential and, safe, where there's a high level of trust and start asking deep questions. The knowing starts to come up. It's it's there. It's there. Yeah. I find that's been true for me with coaches that I've worked with, and That's cool. I like it in the context of we're starting this podcast and we wanna design an alliance with our audience of, what do you need? Yeah. To become bolder and wiser. Yeah. I think for our audience, we want to know what do they, want to hear? Who do they want to hear from? Who's on their wishlist of guess and what potential topics. Yeah.

Peter Wang:

What are your top three goals? Share that. If these are your goals, who are the folks that you know that maybe you want to learn from? We would love to hear who you wanna hear from, and we reach out to them and bring them on the show. Maybe should we wrap up this one? Yes.

Michelle Kraemer:

Yeah, you can find me at my website. Michelle Kraemer coaching.com. We, include a show notes. We'll put it in the show notes. And we'd also really like you to connect with us. That's right. We're here as co-hosts. So subscribe. Yeah. The channel Spotify, review all the things. Yeah. And

Peter Wang:

then we look forward to seeing your comments about your goals and who you want to hear from. And we'll see you next time.

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