Ep 180: Jill Kelly - In 15

Edited highlights of our full conversation.

Jill Kelly is the Global CMO of GroupM, the world’s largest media investment company.

The journey that brought her to this powerful position has been complicated and has forced her to confront threats both real and imagined.

It has been said that if you stand in a group of randomly selected people and ask everyone to place their fears in the center of that circle, most of us would choose to take back our own.

If that’s true, it’s because our own fears have become so familiar to us that we have learned to live with them, sometimes even to empower them, in case confronting them reveals an ever greater terror - that we were right to be afraid. That the monster in the attic is real.

Fear is a foundation of the human condition. Without it we would not exist as a species.

But the fear that fills today’s society, the fear of individual irrelevance, has become so powerful that it threatens to wash away everything else that matters on the human journey. Kindness. Compassion. Empathy. Respect. And love.

The only path away from the abyss is leadership. And that is the hero’s journey. The willingness to resist the herd mentality and forge another path.

That journey is always hard. But it becomes impossible if we decide to accept our own monster in the attic without resistance or challenge. Because when we start to accept our own fear, when we allow it to join us, unchecked, on our journey, only one thing is certain. That the time it will show up is when our back is turned and we are facing the real threat.

I cannot promise you that you will ever conquer your monster in the attic.

But I can promise you that every day you stare it down, you weaken it. Even time you shine a light on it, you expand what is possible. For yourself and for others.