Season 03 Episode 13
Cynt Marshall, CEO of the Dallas Mavericks

Cynt Marshall: Everybody matters, and I’m stressing that so much now. Yes, you want a diverse workforce to serve all your customers and your demographics, but it is about leading with inclusion.

Chris Allen: Welcome to the Entrepreneur Studio podcast. I’m your host, Chris Allen, and today we’re bringing you an exclusive interview recorded live at Heartland’s Diamond Conference. In today’s episode, I’m speaking with Dallas Maverick, CEO Cynt Marshall. Cynt Marshall has been a dynamic force for inclusion and diversity within the Mavericks organization and over a 36-year career at AT&T.

When Cynt was hired as the CEO of the Mavs in March of 2018, she set her sights on cultural transformation and her vision was for the Mavericks to become the NBA standard for inclusion and diversity, and brought transparency, trust and her values-based leadership style that evolved the company culture in her first 100 days. Tune in as Cynt shares her story of overcoming incredible adversity from childhood trauma to a personal fight with cancer to her becoming the first female CEO in the NBA. Thanks for listening. This is the Entrepreneur Studio podcast helping you to run and grow a better business.

All right, well, season three of the Entrepreneur Studio kicked off recently and we’re continuing with another remarkable individual. And this year you saw by the video that really focused on how to topics and today we’ve got an absolute honor of being with somebody who has one of the most dynamic leadership, culture and diversity playbooks on the planet. It’s probably on your seats. So ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome to the stage of a live Entrepreneur Studio, the CEO of the Dallas Mavericks, Cynt Marshall.

Cynt: That’s my song, right there.

Chris: It is.

Cynt: Hi everybody.

Audience: Hello.

Cynt: How y’all doing?

Audience: Good.

Cynt: Me too.

Chris: Okay, so the energy, it was unexpected the amount of energy that was going to happen, but then I saw the red.

Cynt: Oh, yes.

Chris: And it was all-

Cynt: Oh, did you see the red boots?

Chris: Yeah.

Cynt: I’m not playing. I thought about Mavs blue boots, but I wear Mavs blue almost every day during this time of year.

Chris: And now you’re going red.

Cynt: I had to go red.

Chris: All right.

Cynt: Because I’m not in Houston, so it’s not the Rocket season.

Chris: Oh, okay.

Cynt: Yeah, so I can get away with it, too.

Chris: There’s a lesson there I’m sure that has happened.

Cynt: Every city you go to have to think of the colors of the team, and you can’t wear that and you can’t wear ... It is complicated.

Chris: Oh my goodness.

Cynt: But I can wear red today.

Chris: Yeah, there you go.

Cynt: Thanks for having me.

Chris: Yeah. Hey, thank you for being here.

Cynt: Yes.

Chris: I think one of the things that’s awesome is you’ve been, I’d say the first of many things in your life, right?

Cynt: Yes.

Recognizing your influence

Chris: You were really the first senior class president that happened to be black at your high school and the first of the black cheerleaders in college, and now you are the first black CEO, female CEO of the NBA, right? Yeah, it’s amazing. All right, so we got to know when was really the first time that you recognized that you had this kind of influence and you knew you could really make a difference?

Cynt: Actually, when I sought out to be first was when I was the first senior class president at my high school. Any other time, I was first and I didn’t know I was first. Even this job, I did not know that I was first until I was doing a national TV interview, and the interviewer said, “How is it being the first black female CEO of the NBA team?” I didn’t believe him. I flat out did not believe him.

Chris: You’re like, “It couldn’t be.”

Cynt: Well, at that time, I had been a year into the job. So in 2019, I’m like, “No way I’m first.” So then when he convinced me, I thought, “Wow, okay, so I won’t be last, and I just need to make sure that I do a great job so that every time somebody thinks about these jobs, they think about everybody. They think about white men, black women, Asian women, just everybody.” And so that’s why I want to do a good job.

But I actually sought to be first when I was the senior class president, because I just knew I had leadership capabilities and I was at my sister’s graduation and I saw two white guys on stage, and I asked my mom, I said, “Could a black girl ever be senior class president?” And she says, “Yeah, you could do whatever you want to do.” And I’m like, “Okay.” And so then when I got to be a junior, I ran for it and there were two guys on stage. So I asked one of my buddies to run for student body president, and we made it.

Chris: Wow.

Cynt: And then once we made it, we’re like, “Oh, we actually have to run this school and we actually have to govern this class right now.” And so we had an amazing, amazing year. I went to a very diverse high school and we just got a lot of great things done. And it was a great experience. And so after that I said, “Okay, I can do this.” And then once I got to college, I just signed up for things and just did a lot of things.

Chris: Well, you do know how to be first.

Cynt: It was okay. I knew how to be first.

Chris: You made it happen.

Cynt: But I never know I’m first until it happens. When I was one of the first black cheerleaders at Berkeley, I didn’t know that. I was a cheerleader in high school so when I got to college, I said, “I’m going to go out and be a cheerleader.” And I went out the first year I tried out, I didn’t make it, and then the next time I tried it out, I actually messed up my routine, but somehow I recovered, which is a lesson in that somehow I recovered and then I made it. And so every time it happens, usually I don’t know, but it’s okay.

Chris: Yeah.

Cynt: One day, I just hope we’re never talking about that one day. I just want it to be that Cynt Marshall is a CEO of an NBA team.

Chris: Yes.

Cynt: And we never have to say, “She’s the first black.”

Chris: I love it.

Cynt: That is part of my prayer that we just get there one day, so everybody in here can help with that, that we just recognize people for who they are, the competence they have. If they’re a good job match for the position, let’s go for it and stop saying all these first. I just took over as chair of the board for the Dallas Regional Chamber, and so the president and CEO of the chamber came to me and he says, “You know you’re the first black woman to ever do this.” I said, “If I ever hear you tell anybody that I’m not going to do it.”

Chris: Wow.

Cynt: I’m going to step down.

Chris: You laid down the law right out of the gate.

Cynt: I just said, “I don’t want that to be the mantra.” Yes, it suggests progress and all that. And yes, but it’s not a heavy burden. I just want to do a great job so people won’t even think about it. So I hope I’m blazing trails that will put us in a position where people just don’t think about it.

Chris: Yeah, it’s amazing. I think one of the things that-

Cynt: Is that all right?

Facing challenges with integrity

Chris: Absolutely. Something that when we were first starting to get to know each other and stuff like that, one of the things that was I’d say really powerful is just the spark of what really made you get into, “I can lead,” right? You became a people person and I wanted to have everybody hear a little bit about just your mom and how much influence, inspiration that you really got from her that was a bedrock for you in leadership.

Cynt: My mom is amazing. Her name is Carolyn Gardner. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is incredible. So my parents left Birmingham Alabama when I was three months old because of segregation and all the things that were happening, and they wanted us to grow up with everybody. And so we landed in a public housing project. So I grew up in a public housing project in the East Bay.

I saw my father shoot a man in the head when I was 11 years old. Believe it or not, you’re not going to believe this, Chris, but I was a quiet kid. I know. Okay, go ahead, get the laughter out. Okay. I was a quiet kid, shy. I would sit in the back room with the two books that my mother put in my hand at an early age. She put a math book in one hand and a bible in the other and said, “If you keep your head in these two books, you’ll make it out.” Now you don’t know what out is. I didn’t know what out meant, but it meant out of poverty, out of the projects. But I didn’t know that at the time. And so we had a lot of stuff going on.

So I’m in the back room with my two books and all of a sudden this commotion comes out, happens at our house. I sneak out of the room, I’m in the room with my five brothers and sisters. I sneak out of the room to see what was going on, and that’s when I saw a seventeen-year-old that we knew from church pointing a silver pistol at my father.

Chris: Oh my goodness.

Cynt: And in fact, he pointed it down to my father’s right side where I was standing because once I showed up, I was the target

Chris: That was the most vulnerable.

Cynt: And that’s when my father knew I was no longer in the back room with my five brothers and sisters, but in the potential pathway of a bullet. So he shot back. Fortunately it wasn’t fatal. The young man lost his eye, but clearly he came to our house just to wreak havoc on the family. And so after that, we just had chaos in the neighborhood and we had to be sequestered in the house for safety purposes.

But I cried, cried, cried because I wanted to go to school. I was in the seventh grade, 11 years old, and I had already learned by then that education was everything and it was my refuge. It was my safe place. I loved going to school, loved my math books. I just loved going to school. And so my mother figured out a way for me to get to school because I just didn’t want to stay home. And she had a uniformed police officer take me to school for the rest of that year in the seventh grade.

Chris: No way.

Cynt: He would show up in his police car and either ask me if I wanted to ride in the police car. He never put the siren or anything on, but he asked me if I wanted to ride in the police car or if I wanted him on the bus with me. So we rotated. I was never ashamed by it. I was so happy that my mother figured out a way for me to get to school. And this police officer did exactly what was written on his card, to protect and to serve, and that is truly what most of them do. And so he took care of me.

And then four years later, my parents had an ugly divorce, left the house. We had to flee our house for safety purposes. My mother’s prayer, this is about my mom and her resilience and always having hope. And so that’s what I saw. My mother’s prayer was that we would make it back home before school started because three of us were still in school. We had to live with my sister that summer. My father, he beat up everybody.

And so by the time we made it back home, I had a brace on my nose where my father had broken my nose that summer, 15 years old, one mattress and a four-bedroom deluxe unit in the projects, one mattress there for me and my younger sister to sleep on. My father had taken everything. And when we walked in, I ran track. So sent to sprint, all of our trophies were gone. I’m 15 years old, so you’re hung up on your stuff like “Where are my green velvet trophies,” and just all this stuff. And my mom just told us to be quiet.

She said, “All I want is peace of mind. God will provide.” He’ll take care of us. That was one week before school started. I went back to school as a junior in high school, head cheerleader with a silver brace on my nose. And I cheered. And I still got my moves now. I cheered. I cheered. I did everything like nothing was wrong. But of course you have these educators who looked and these three teachers and a principal said, “We got to fix, something’s not right. Cynt came back to school with a brace on her nose.”

They embraced my mom. They found out what was going on in our family and the rest is history. These people got me involved in every activity you could think of. I was leading more clubs than you could shake a stick at, and I ended up getting five full scholarships to the college of my choice.

Chris: That’s awesome.

Cynt: Yes. So I love educators. I love educators. Do we have any former educators or current educators in here right now? I know we got a lot of entrepreneurs. Anybody that ever taught? Any former teachers? Stand up. Stand up. I got to give you your props. Everywhere I go, I give educators their props. Yes, thank you. Thank you. I think educators and social workers are the best people on the planet.

And these people saved my life. They literally put me on a path to college and I stepped on Berkeley’s campus with four words that my mother gave me. It’s a combination of what my mother gave me and what these educators gave me. And these are the four words that I live by dream, focus, pray, and act. And so I had big dreams. They had big dreams for this little kid coming out of the projects. I focused. I focused to the point where my boyfriend was three hours away from me, and he was a year ahead of me in school. And he called my first week in college and he told me he had a surprise for me, that he had transferred colleges. He was at San Francisco State University to be close to me. And I said, “Well, hold on, boyfriend.”

I said, “I got a surprise for you. I got to focus.” This is an opportunity of a lifetime. I remember standing on that campus looking up at the big buildings and all that, and that’s when I knew I just had to be big. This was an opportunity for me. My mom had a lot invested in it. These educators had a lot invested in me, and I told him I would call him the day I graduated. So this is my first week in college. So four years later, the day I graduated, I called him. I said, Hey, Kenny, it’s Cynt.“ I said, ”I just graduated from college. I’m so excited." And oh, I was fired up.

I said, “My mom’s having me a party at six o’clock. You got to show up to the party.” He said, “Who is this?” I said, “Don’t act like you don’t know me. I’ve been focused. I just graduated.” He goes, “I haven’t talked to you in almost four years.” So in his mind, he waited four years in my mind, he waited an hour. I graduated at two o’clock. I called him at three o’clock and I told him I was going to call him when I graduated. And then he tried to say he was engaged and all this stuff. It was ridiculous. And now I’ve been married to that boy almost 41 years. I tell him all the time, I say, “You were that close to missing your blessing.”

Chris: Yeah.

Cynt: That close, that close. But apparently when he hung up, his I guess fiancee at the time said, “If that’s your girlfriend from high school, you need to go to that party.”

Chris: Whoa.

Cynt: So I’m glad she sent him to the party.

Chris: Yeah.

Cynt: Yeah.

Chris: Look at you.

Cynt: 41 years. Man, I got it like that.

Chris: You do. So good.

Cynt: He showed up.

Chris: He did.

Cynt: And so it’s so funny in our household, when our kids go off to college or our nieces and nephews, you take them off to school and my husband is always the one that says, “Don’t you have a call to make? This is where you’re supposed to put him on hold for four years and call them back later. And if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be,” and they just look at him like, “What is he talking about?” But that’s what happened to us.

Chris: That’s amazing.

Cynt: You got to focus. Focus.

Chris: Absolutely. And then it’s care and

Cynt: Dream, focus, pray.

Chris: Pray.

Cynt: And act. And whoever you pray to, however you ground yourself. I pray, but however you ground yourself, you just need that. Because I have learned in this life that sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is a train.

Chris: Yeah.

Cynt: Bad things do happen to good people, but if you know how to ground yourself, you know how to draw strength from something else or somebody else, you can get through it.

Chris: That’s great.

Cynt: And so I have had, as you know, many times in my life where I’ve had to just lay out, pray, try to get myself together and just wait for that hand to bring me back up. Because sometimes you can’t get back up by yourself.

Chris: Absolutely. Well, I think it’s pretty clear to all of us that you’re a people person.

Cynt: Yes. I am.

Chris: People person.

Cynt: I’m a numbers person too, so that freak people out when they come to work.

Chris: That was the math, that was the math.

Cynt: That’s the math. When they come to work for me, especially my CFOs, and then they give me some numbers and I go, “Okay, well what about this? Blah, blah, blah.” They go, I say, “Oh, yeah. I’m people and numbers. Dollars too. I can multitask. I can talk to the people. I can handle my business.”

Leading with strength

Chris: I love that. Well talk about maybe the first time that you really had to lead. You had a pretty tenured career at AT&T.

Cynt: 36 years, 13,088 days. Because I’m a numbers person.

Chris: Numbers person has spoken. I love it. Well talk to this about really that first experience of you really needing to lead somebody. And what was the aha moment about you take all of what you’re great at and then have to be able to build that into like, “Man, I got to lead some people now.”

Cynt: Yes. So when I graduated from college, I had 13 job offers and I had two criteria. I said, “I want the one that pays the most money,” because of course I wanted to help my mom get out of poverty, and then, “I want the one that will allow me to be the boss,” coming in the door.

Chris: Out of the gate.

Cynt: At 21 years old with no work experience. And I wanted that because I wanted to serve people. I was so focused on serving people because I just watched my mom. I watched people, and so I knew at an early age that leadership was about serving people. It wasn’t about truly telling people what to do.

Chris: Wow.

Cynt: And so I wanted to serve. And so I was blessed to be a part of AT&T’s Fast Track Management Program where they gave me an evening shift where I supervised 30 operators, mostly women. Most of them had about 25, 30, 40 years of service. And so they had been at that company longer than I was old. And so I walked in at 21 years old, letting them know that I didn’t know a thing about what they were doing. And one of them said, “We know that,” because I didn’t know a thing about it, but I let them know I was there to serve them and to serve them, and we ultimately would serve the business. And so these people had me doing all kinds of stuff. They were risk-takers.

And so they knew they had this little 21-year-old who said she was there to serve people. So they gave me all kinds of challenges, and they didn’t mean for them to be challenges. They told me the things that they wanted changed to serve them better and the things that would make their work life better. And one good example is they used to have to turn on the light. There was a light, you have to watch it before you could go to the restroom, because it’s all about call volumes and average wait time and all that. And they came to me one night and they said, “We don’t want to use the light anymore. Tell them we’re not going to use it.”

And I said, “Well, how are we going to manage the traffic flow and how many people are on the consoles and all that?” And they said, “You just have to trust us. We already talked and we figured that out.” And that was my job. That’s how I got paid, those results from that light and having enough people on call. And I said, “Okay, well let me talk to my boss.” So I talked to her the next day and she basically asked me if I had gone crazy. She goes, “We’re not doing that. The results aren’t that good. We’re already at the bottom across the country, and that’s just going to get us all fired.” They talked to me again and I said, “No, that’s going to make them feel better.” And so I was explaining why they wanted that, because they just felt it was so demeaning not to be able to just get up and go to the bathroom.

So I went back, I didn’t give up. I said, “No, we got a system.” And she goes, “I’ll give you one day. Let’s see what happens.” And so I came back and told them, I said, “Okay, look, we’re taking a risk.” I’m 21 years old making more money than I ever thought I would make. So what? It was a risk, but I want to serve these people. And so I turned that light out and I was just shaking. And so they would talk to each other. They had a whole system. We ended up with the top results in the country, and the light no longer existed after that because of these ladies, because of them. It was all them. It was all them. So after that, I just realized it’s all about people. And I had a large customer service organization. I went to pole climbing school. And so what I learned from those ladies, but I learned-

Chris: I hear you still have the boots, by the way.

Cynt: I still have the boots. I can wear them. I still have the belt that I cannot wear. I have the hat that I can wear, but I still have all my stuff from pole climbing school. And the union officials came because they could not believe that one of the suits, because I had gotten my director promotion, that one of the suits actually showed up and was climbing poles. But I did it because I wanted to really understand their world and what they were going through again so that I could serve them better.

And I learned my three L’s of leadership early on in my career from these jobs and my three L’s are real simple. In order for me to be an effective leader, like the kind of leader that I think and just have people take the hill with you. When you say, “Ain’t no mountain high enough,” they just take off and go with you. I have to listen to the people, learn from the people and love the people. Listen to them at a level where you can hear what they’re not even saying. There’s a reason we have two ears and one mouth, okay? Listen to them.

Learn from them. Whatever it is that they’re doing, really dig in so that you can understand what they’re dealing with every day. And then love them. Love them as people, not the person who gets up out of bed in the morning and walks into a phone booth and put a T on their chest for AT&T or an M for Mavs. I want to love that person that gets up out of bed in the morning. The dreams they have, the issues they have, the baggage they have, the cultures they have. I want all that walking into our doors because first of all, it makes us better because you get all these authentic people walking in. But I want to love them and I want to know what dreams they have.

When I first came to the Mavs, the Dallas Mavericks, I met with every single employee, one-on-one with every single employee in the first 90 days. I would start out by saying, Chris, I would say, “Give me your life story.” And so they couldn’t believe that I wanted the life story. They would say, “This is my fifth season at the Mavs,” or, “My 10th season at the Mavs.” I said, “Were you born in this building? Were you born on the court? I want to know the story before the Mavs.” And so it would catch them off guard, so then they would give me the story. Then we talk about all kinds of stuff. Because when I came in, a lot of stuff was going on,

Chris: A lot of things were happening.

Cynt: And then at the end, I would close the same way with all of them. I would say, “Tell me where you see yourself five years from now, personally and professionally, because my job is to help make that happen.” So then it gave me a sense of their dreams and what they really wanted in life and what they wanted out of their careers and all that. And it’s interesting because last year when I hit year five, we went back and revisited some of that, but I wanted to get to know them and truly love them, and I love them as people.

And I’m like that with our fans. I’m like that with the season ticket holders. I just love them as people And it puts me in a position where I can serve them better and then they want to do things for us. It’s that simple. Three Ls of leadership. Listen to the people. Learn from the people. Love the people.

Chris: Well, what was the first phone call when Cuban called you up?

Cynt: Oh Lord. Okay.

Chris: You know there’s a story there. This is a really good story.

Cynt: I had retired from AT&T after my 13,088 days and had started my own company. I had said I wanted to take a year off because I had one getting out of college, one getting out of high school.

Chris: You were going to take a year off.

Cynt: I was going to take a year off. It turned out that I took three months off to start my consulting company because formerly Dow Chemical, their CEO, wanted me to help them transform their culture. And they were merging with DuPont. They had a lot of stuff going on and we had been helping them a bit when I was at AT&T. So he saw this as an opportunity for me to help full-time and not just when they popped into our building to meet.

So he convinced me to just take the summer off, and I had started this consulting career, and it was booming. I was feeling good. I was in control of my own time. I’m traveling to Midland, Michigan and Houston. I’m doing my thing. I’m in charge. Finally, I’m in charge of my life. Well, I was home one day February the 21st 2018 and I had written this blog about impact because some things were going on in the world with these high schoolers in Parkland, Florida and gun violence and all that. And then the Reverend Dr. Billy Graham had passed away. So we got these teenagers, this 99-year-old, age-wise I’m smack dab in the middle, and they were both impacting my life that morning.

And so I wrote a blog called Impact. So I parked it, got on my call, and then my cell phone. I take my phone everywhere. I tell people all the time, even right now, they say silence the phones. You don’t silence the phones with me. You can text, you can talk, you can take pictures. If you got an AT&T phone, this is my pension, okay? So you don’t have to park the phones for me. So I keep my phone. Where’s your phone, Chris?

Chris: I don’t bring it on stage.

Cynt: You bring it everywhere. Okay. So anyway, so I got my phone, and so I’m on this call and my phone is going off, just [inaudible 00:25:21], and so I have four kids, okay? College, everything. So I’m at home. And so I handed my husband the phone. I said, “Kenny,” boyfriend who tried to act like he didn’t know me. I said, “Boyfriend,” I said, “Kenny, call, one of the kids need money,” because that’s the only time they would really text me, because that was the rule that we had. I’m busy. You’re busy. Your business at school, handle your business. My business is work. Take care of you guys tuition. So I don’t have time to be sitting up on the phone with you all the time. Okay, you need something, you just text me. You need $232? You just putting there $232. I got you.

Chris: That’s it?

Cynt: That’s it. I got you.

Chris: Who wants Cynt’s cell phone number now?

Cynt: Because I talk to them all the time. I’m like, “Okay, so we can square it all up later, but I’m busy. Don’t try to track me down.”

Chris: Okay.

Cynt: I ain’t trying to track you down. You don’t try to track me down.

Chris: So they just sent you numbers.

Cynt: So they’re sending me texts, so my phone’s going off. So I said, “One of the kids need money,” because it was five or six messages or it had to be. So my husband brings me the phone back and he goes, “You need to get off your call.” I said, “Well,” he goes, “Hang up.” He said, “This guy doesn’t need any money. Mark Cuban is trying to reach you.” So of course don’t judge me, Chris. I said, “Who is that?” I didn’t know Mark Cuban. I am not making this up. I didn’t know Mark Cuban. And people always laugh. I said, “Well, he didn’t know me either. Okay?” He got my name from somebody. And so he says, “You got to call him back.” So then I refused to call him back. So then my husband called my son in Los Angeles, and then he calls and they’re like, he goes, “Mom, dad says Mark Cuban called you.”

I said, “And?” He said, “Something’s going on. Turn on the news. Something’s going on at the Mavericks. You need to call him back.” So I called Mark back and he asked me if I knew what was going on. I told him no, because I’ve been watching national news. So he described that he’s having some big issues. He wants to transform his culture. He had talked to some people, which I found out later was the big wigs at AT&T and wanted to know if I could come and help him. And in my words, he was saying, help him create a great place to work.

And he wanted to meet with me at two o’clock. And I said, “Well, I can’t meet with you at two o’clock because I have a mammogram scheduled.” And I learned the hard way. I’m a colon cancer survivor. I learned the hard way. What happens? Thank you. I learned the hard way. What happens when you don’t take care of your medical business? Okay, I learned it the hard way. And he says, “Okay, well, do you want me to meet you out there?” “No, no, no, no. I don’t need you to come to the mammogram.” And he was not offering to come to the mammogram. What he was trying to do was make it very easy for me. I said, “No, I think I can get to you by four o’clock.” So I come back from the mammogram, my husband is decked out in Mav’s colors. Head to toe.

Chris: Okay. Did he have this stuff before or was this since the phone call?

Cynt: It was in his closet. And I guess while I was at the mammogram, he went online to get all the Mav’s colors. Keep in mind, I’m from the San Francisco Bay Area, so I was loyal to somebody else. And so when I came back, he says, and I looked at him, he had this black suit, this royal blue tie and the gray. I said, “What are you doing?” He says, “When we go to see Mark Cuban,” we, we’re speaking French now, “When we go to see Mark Cuban, you have to have the right colors on.” And so I went to Berkeley.

He said, “Wrong shade of blue, no blue and gold. And then that’s another team. This is what you’re supposed to look like.” So he and my son had been FaceTime me in my closet. He said, “You got a few things to shade.” I’m like, “Man,” and my husband is not a fashion guy, but he meant for me to go in there and talk to Mark Cuban with the right stuff on. And so got dressed, we researched what was going on, and by the time I got to the building, I said, “I’m not sure I’m going to do this. It is heavy lifting. I just don’t know.” And so I went in there and my husband shook his hand first, “Hi, Mark Cuban, Kenny Marshall.” So I talked to the receptionist. I gave her a big hug and something just compelled me, I gave Mark a big hug. And so we went and we talked for 55 minutes, and he told me what was going on. And then I said, “Okay, well let me pray about it. Dream, focus, pray, act.”

I said, “Let me pray about it.” And he asked me to be his CEO. As I was leaving the office, two women stopped me and said they wanted to talk to me. And Mark was encouraging me to talk to them because he was just in this mode, he was talking to the employees. He wanted to know what was going on. And so when they talked to me and they said, “Mark Cuban says you’re going to be the one to come in here and save us.” And I said, “Well, no, I don’t have the power to save. I know who does. I don’t.” I said, “But what’s going on?” And they started telling me their stories and they started crying. And then they used the word, they said, “We really think you can come in here and have a real impact on us.” And I had just written a blog and posted it that morning entitled Impact.

Chris: So you’re telling me that you wrote a blog, you got, it sounded like some text messages and a phone call from Mark Cuban?

Cynt: Yes. Cold call.

Chris: Then you had 50 seconds-

Cynt: Cold call. Cold calls are okay. Cold calls are okay. You don’t know what you’re going to get on the other end. You could get me.

Chris: That’s amazing. And then after 55 minutes, you get the CEO job.

Cynt: Yes.

Chris: That’s amazing.

Cynt: Yes. With the pay that I asked for. I told him, “If I do this, this is what it’s going to cost.”

Chris: So your reputation preceded you, is what you’re saying?

Cynt: It did, and my reputation was all about people. I had been blessed to. I was in California then AT&T moved me after 25 years to go to North Carolina to lead that operation. Then they asked me to come to Dallas to help with this whole journey. We were buying all these companies and we were getting ready to buy DirecTV, and we had all these subcultures. Our chairman at the time, Randall Stevenson, wanted to address all the subcultures. He asked me to come to Dallas along with a few other people and help create a truly great place to work. He wanted to be recognized by Fortune and not for just being on the list before what it meant.

And so this is 31 years into my career, and I was getting ready to retire. I had just come through my cancer journey and prayed about it, and I said yes. And then I fortunately led the team and it was a team, because it’s all about teamwork. It’s all about people working together. I led the team that placed AT&T on Fortune’s great 100 best places to work list for the first time ever in the history of the company. And we were one of two Fortune 50 companies on the list.

Chris: Wow.

Cynt: It was crazy. So that is what led to me getting that phone call.

Practicing resilience and authenticity

Chris: And I think we’d be remiss to not talk about the resilience from your cancer journey, right?

Cynt: Yes.

Chris: So talk to us about that. What was the moment that you found out, and then what was this sort of determination that you said, “I’m going to beat this, I’m going to fight it, I’m going to survive?”

Cynt: Yeah. So I was in a session at AT&T that we had for all of our leaders called Corporate Athlete. This is where companies, their HR organizations, their people organizations can do so much good for the people actually in the company. It’s not just hiring and retaining and developing, but it’s really helping people thrive. And I’m in this corporate athlete session and it focused on physical, mental, and emotional and spiritual health. And so we had an assessment to make, and I was great on the mental, great on the spiritual, okay on the physical, and thought I was doing pretty good. I had already stopped eating my Ding Dongs and fried chicken and all that. I had just gotten to a point where I hit 50 and I said, “Okay, I need to get myself together.”

And they asked us to do one thing. We had to commit to doing one thing. And I actually, at first, I couldn’t think of anything. And they gave us an accountability buddy to help you do it and all that. And then I remembered a referral slip from my primary care physician to get a colonoscopy the year prior. And I put that slip on my nightstand and I never did anything with it. And honestly, as irresponsible as that sounds, I had never planned on doing anything with it because I was feeling pretty good. Didn’t exactly know what a colonoscopy was, didn’t have time to try to figure it all out. So I remembered that and I said, “Okay, I’ll get one. I’m 50.” So my last day of 50, I got a colonoscopy on my 51st birthday I was at work, I was working my birthday. I have to be there for the surprise party. So I always work on my birthday.

And so I’m there on a birthday and I’m thinking, “Okay, they’re pull me out of this conference room so we can have whatever little thing they had planned, they can surprise me and all that.” The surprise was my doctor called and said he did not like what he saw from the colonoscopy, and he had already told my husband that he was going to call me once I came from the anesthesia and all that. As it turned out, he sent me to a surgeon and the surgeon ended up doing surgery. I demanded that, he found a tumor I said, “I need it out now, because just the thought of it is making me sick. I need it out now.” And in fact, he even said, “I could wait.” He said, “You can wait a few months. I’ve seen a lot of this. It’s not cancer.” I said, “I want it out.”

So fortunately I wouldn’t leave his office. And he asked my husband, he says, “Is she going to leave?” On Friday night, he goes, “Is she going to leave?” My husband’s just look, he goes, “Nope.” He said, “If she says she wants it out, she wants it out.” This is on a Friday. I ended up having surgery that next Monday, so that Monday morning. And I got a call 10 days later. It was the day before New Year’s Eve. And the doctor asked me, he said, “Are you sitting down?” He said, “I have bad news.” He said, “I have news. It’s bad and it’s significant.” I can hear it right now. And I sat down and he said, “You have colon cancer stage 3C. It’s in your lymph nodes and blood vessels.”

Chris: Oh my goodness.

Cynt: “If you don’t have chemotherapy immediately, we probably won’t be having a conversation a year from now.” And at that point, I started having an out-of-body experience. I am like, “He is not talking to me.” I really started having an out-of-body experience, and I was actually on my cell phone. I was working. See, I’m always on my phone.

Chris: We’re learning this, [inaudible 00:35:44].

Cynt: Because I was talking to one of our lobbyists, I dropped the phone, because he called me on the house phone. I dropped the phone, I was crying. My husband started crying. And then I told him what was going on, and I called my mom and I said, “I just got diagnosed with cancer,” and I was trying to have a pity party. Now what I hadn’t connected yet, and I didn’t connect this until well into my chemo journey, that my father, who I was estranged from, died the year before from colon cancer. But when that happened to him, we just figured lifestyle. We didn’t ask that much about it. So now I’m really connected to him at this point.

Chris: Yeah, it happening to you.

Cynt: Because I have colon cancer. And so my mother would not have the pity party with me. And I was trying, I was sad. I was crying. I was trying to have this pity party. I was trying to get people with the hats, the balloons join me in this, and my mother said, “This is for God’s glory. You’ll be fine. You have a high-profile job. People will see you get through this. Their faith will be encouraged. You’ve been chosen for this.” And she just went on with this voice of power like she was preaching in a pulpit, and I honestly didn’t want to hear it, but you don’t talk back to your mother. I grew up at a time where you don’t talk back to your parents. My kids grew up at a time where you don’t talk back to your parents. And so I just listened and she just encouraged me.

Now, apparently when she got off the phone, she broke down and started crying and called my brothers and sisters. But for me, she gave me that encouragement that we will beat this. And so I couldn’t have my pity party. I got off the phone and I looked at my husband and I said, “We got to lay out a plan. Let’s go.” He says, “Well, we’re not going to tell the kids.” I said, “Well, no, we got to call the pastor. We got to call all these people. It is not normal that the pastor would come over on New Year’s Eve. Maybe Christmas Eve, but not New Year’s Eve,” I said, “So they’re going to know something is going on. We got to tell the kids.” We figured that out. And then we laid it out, and I got on a journey to chemotherapy, and I wrote about it in a journal, which ended up being the book You’ve Been Chosen.

And when we were writing the book about the cancer journey and all that, the publisher and the agent realized, they said, “You’ve been chosen for much more. When your husband got brain damage and he had to learn how to walk and talk again, and how you dealt with that.” Of course, they talked about the situation with my father. They talked about, they said, “The fourth, second trimester miscarriages and your daughter who died at six months old,” and I literally had her casket in my lap. They said, “You have been chosen for so much that we want to tell all of that in the book.” And they gave it the title You’ve Been Chosen. So yes, I do believe I was chosen for cancer. I was chosen to tell this story. I was chosen to encourage people. And so that’s what I’m doing right now, trying to take this whole life of mine, this wonderful, wonderful life of mine. Sometimes people will talk about my childhood and all that.

I said, “I had a good childhood.” My mother taught us is not where you live, it’s how you live. And so I had all this stuff that happened, but I was chosen for all of it and I was chosen. And what the book really is about, is about how God and great people, the hand always shows up to pull you up and pull you out. And we’re those hands. And so that’s my prayer when I get up every morning, Lord, who needs me? Does Chris need me? Let me give him my hand. Or sometimes I could be laid out. My husband is battling multiple myeloma right now. He is going to have a stem cell bone marrow transplant next Wednesday.

Chris: Oh my goodness.

Cynt: He’s been through chemotherapy since August the fourth. And I said we, because I’ve been right there with him. And I’ve had days over the last six months where I was the one laid out and needed somebody to pull me back up the way my husband pulled me up after our daughter died, and he left to go see his parents after the funeral. And I just fell out in my house on the staircase. And when he came back, I was still in the same clothes. He came back two days later, so that was that Friday evening, he came back Sunday evening, I was still laying there, same clothes, everything.

I hadn’t budged because I was grieving so hard and I just needed to let it out. And my husband, when he realized I had the same clothes on and all that, and I convinced him to go and see his parents, because I just wanted quiet. My daughter had died on a Sunday I planned her whole little service. And then after that, the service on Friday, I just wanted to just be by myself. But I couldn’t even make it up the stairs because I looked to the left as I was going up the stairs to our bedroom and saw her nursery that she never saw, and I just laid out. But when he came back 48 hours later, and I can still see it, he just took his hand and he pulled me up and started me on a journey.

And so that’s my prayer every day is I want to be that hand. And then I want to be around people who know when they need to be that hand for me. So look at your hand. Ask yourself, what is this hand really for? It is more than just making sales, and you need to make sales and you need to handle your business because you need to make money. But that hand is also used for something else.

Chris: That’s powerful.

Cynt: That’s my message.

Chris: That’s powerful. I think one of the things that’s really powerful about your story, it’s amazing the lows that you’ve experienced in some of the highs that you’ve experienced and that your willingness to share them as vulnerably as you do. I think one of the things that’s really interesting about you that I would love for you to touch on is being a people person, culture and diversity and all of these troubling things that you’ve been through and all these highs and lows, you’ve brought it to work.

Cynt: Yes.

Chris: You know what I mean?

Cynt: Yes.

Chris: And I think that’s one of the things that, it’s something I say that we do, but we say the whole person comes to work.

Cynt: Authenticity. Yes. Whole person.

Joining the dance

Chris: Talk to us a little bit about when you bring cultural change to work, what are some of the things that maybe surprise you about some of the things that you’ve seen or where do you take it?

Cynt: Okay. So when I got to the Mavs, we didn’t have a set of values. And I think that’s so important to have a set of values. And so we put it in place and it spells crafts. And so our job every day is to perfect our CRAFTS, character, respect, authenticity, fairness, teamwork and safety, both physical and emotional safety. The authenticity piece is so important to us. And so our workplace promise is every voice matters and everybody belongs. And so we try to create an environment. And people talk a lot about diversity, equity, and inclusion, we lead with inclusion. We try to make sure that everybody, the individuals who are sitting there, that they are included.

Yes, you can invite all these people to the party, but you really have to teach them how to dance. People bring very different things. And I don’t know, I was actually going to do my little diversity and inclusion lesson at the end. Do they have my music teed up back there? And I know we’re doing a little podcast and all that, but truly we lead with inclusion and everybody matters. And I’m stressing that so much now, yes, you want a diverse workforce to serve all your customers and your demographics and all that, but it is about leading with inclusion. And so let me give you my quick lesson. Okay. Aaron, are we ready? Okay, hold on. Hold on. Okay. Can I stand up and do this?

Chris: Of course.

Cynt: I know there’s cameras and all that. I don’t want to get out of line with the podcast.

Chris: Do you need me to do something?

Cynt: But I’m in charge. I do need you to do something. Get up. Okay. All right. So this is my lesson on diversity and inclusion because this is what I truly think it’s all about. It is about inclusion and making sure that everybody feels valued and nobody is standing on the sideline, because you’re having a party here. You’re in Austin trying to have this party, right? You don’t want anybody on the sidelines. Okay. So how many of you consider yourselves to be good dancers? Okay. Okay, so we’re ready to do a dance lesson because I like to always talk about the difference between diversity and inclusion. Okay. Diversity sometime is about counting the numbers. Inclusion is about making the numbers count.

You want all these people to count. Diversity is a fact. Some diversity you can see, some diversity you can’t see. Inclusion is a choice. I make a choice to include you. Diversity is about the ingredients, but inclusion is about the recipe. How do you mix it all up so we can make something great? And then the best one I ever heard was diversity, look at somebody real quick. I grew up in a Pentecostal church. Don’t worry, we’re going to get out before midnight. Okay. So I grew up in the Pentecostal Church. So look at your neighbor. Look at your neighbor. Look at your neighbor right now and say, “Neighbor.”

Audience: Neighbor.

Cynt: Diversity.

Audience: Diversity.

Cynt: Is being invited to the party.

Audience: Is being invited to party.

Cynt: Inclusion.

Audience: Inclusion.

Cynt: Is being asked to dance.

Audience: Is being asked to-

Speaker 5: Thank you for listening to the Entrepreneur Studio podcast. For links to the resources mentioned in today’s episode or for more information on how we can help you build, run, and grow better businesses visit Estudio.life or see the show notes of this episode.