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Navigating Authentic Leadership as Tech Startup Execs: A Journey of Friendship, Motherhood, and Growth - with Annemieke Rice
141 Plays2 years ago
Annemieke Rice joins the podcast today for a conversation with host, Leanna Laskey McGrath, about tech startup executive life and motherhood. They discuss:
- Their experiences as young execs being the only woman on the leadership team.
- Stumbling through those early years trying to navigate this world and discover their authentic leadership styles, working to find a balance between competitiveness and compassion.
- Learning to trust their own voices more than all the external voices, and the importance of seeking out values-aligned community and mentors.
- The ways in which motherhood has changed them and the importance of learning to accept themselves as they are.
- How they continue to be achievement-oriented but with new metrics they set for themselves.
Annemieke is a mom and a tech exec. Connect with Annemieke here.
Connect with Leanna here.
Full transcript available here.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Host
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to the Executive Coach for Moms podcast, where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leanne Alaski McGrath, former tech exec turned full-time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach. Hi everyone, and welcome to the show.
Guest Introduction: Ana Meek
00:00:33
Speaker
I'm very excited about
00:00:35
Speaker
Today's conversation, I have my dear friend with me, Ana Meek. We were both executives working moms for a while. I took a full break. Ana Meek took a sort of break, and she's back in the game, and so I'm really excited to talk about our experiences and hear more about hers. So Ana Meek, can you just say hi to everyone and maybe introduce yourself a little bit? Sure. Always great to chat with you, Liana,
00:01:04
Speaker
Probably share and laugh a little bit about what we've gone through or what I'm going to go through. So a little bit about me. I am a working mom. I'm have an 18 month old at home right now. And I would say had a fun exit and reentry into
00:01:23
Speaker
my customer success exact life, happy in my motherhood and my career right now, which feels like a special moment to be. I live in Boston with my husband and my daughter, and that's a little bit about me. Thank
Career Journeys and Challenges as Female Executives
00:01:35
Speaker
you. We used to say that we lived very parallel lives for a long time, and we both worked in higher education. Then we went into ed tech startups, and we both became the Vice President of Customer Success at our respective companies.
00:01:53
Speaker
and our companies competed against each other. Then we were brought together in an arranged marriage whenever a private equity firm purchased both of our companies and decided to merge us together.
00:02:08
Speaker
We've had lots of experience working, doing the same thing separately, doing the same thing together, and now doing similar things and different things as well. Let's start with our first startup experience. We were both 20-something VPs, the only woman on the executive team for at least the majority of the time. We both planned to have kids at some point, but we weren't quite there yet.
00:02:31
Speaker
How was that for you, Annemiek? Well, it's interesting. At the time, it was exciting and thrilling. And generally, I feel like thinking about doing things every day that I was by no means qualified to do at all. Learning a ton. And yet I think that the part of it that was unfortunate was that it was lonely.
00:02:52
Speaker
I felt I didn't have connection to mentors in my career at that time, where the mentors didn't really share the same life aspirations that I did. I didn't really have any other women in leadership to go to or chat with. Customer success was such an emerging field at that time. It wasn't even named. It wasn't named. There wasn't a network. There wasn't a community in the way there is today.
00:03:17
Speaker
which I think is so wonderful for women and folks of all kinds who are trying to make it in this industry. And that is also why I think it's so great to have found you and found others that I now get to have as that support and connection. But I think it was just so exciting and such a high growth oriented time for me as a person and as an executive too. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think I felt lonely because like you said, customer success, like what is it?
00:03:46
Speaker
Nobody really knew. So when I would go to conferences or, you know, there'd be like sales and marketing and development. And then it was like, Oh, just go hang out with the salespeople because you're kind of like, right? Like we kind of just get grouped in with somebody else. So yeah, I definitely hear that. And as you kind of look back on that time, so you said it was a high growth time.
00:04:10
Speaker
What were some of the things that you were learning and what was exciting and how would you define your growth during that time? I felt like at the time I was bringing a certain amount of expertise to my role. I was in a leadership role because at my company I was the expert in the customer experience. I had been a customer. I focused all my time on that.
00:04:36
Speaker
the things that became the roadblocks. Roadblocks or obstacles for me had nothing to do with the customer experience. It was things like finance terms and negotiating how to talk to a bunch of board members who had MBAs from fancy schools and ask questions and acronyms I'd never heard before.
00:04:59
Speaker
Lots of acronyms you can accidentally mispronounce and worry in that moment. I know I'm walking into this room, you know, younger and as the only woman. And so the expectations are already maybe like, okay, little girl, you don't know what you're talking about. And then I actually didn't know what I was talking about. And so
00:05:15
Speaker
I felt like I had to really study a lot and make sure that I was over prepared and over qualified to do everything.
Authentic Leadership and Personal Strengths
00:05:23
Speaker
And those were really expectations I set on myself. It's not like anyone actually made me feel that way. I think I just came from a position of needing to prove myself in every room and every conversation.
00:05:33
Speaker
And then the second was learning how to lead, right? How to lead when the models for leadership around me didn't fit in my skin properly. It didn't feel like what I was seeing was something that I could fit into my personality. A lot of the role models for leadership in women that I had seen were very, this makes me sound so callous,
00:05:54
Speaker
Carrying and compassionate and kind and I was competitive and critical and innovative and so finding a way to be a people leader but be true to the things that got me to where I was was a challenge. I don't even know that I succeeded at it every day. It was a lot of failing and trying again.
00:06:14
Speaker
So I think that those were the two places where I did the most learning. And a lot of that was stumbling around, trying something, asking for feedback, hearing a lot of difficult feedback, and trying again. And then eventually finding people that I could collaborate with, meeting you. I had some amazing women that made up my leadership teams with the women that I chose to hire.
00:06:40
Speaker
and promote who I still look to as, always look to as peers at the time. I often hire people more qualified than me to make more money than me because I knew that's what I needed to make the team succeed. And that was a huge part of my learning, was learning from my team and getting really good feedback from my team. Oh, so many things I want to jump into, but I think when you talk about how to lead and kind of not having examples around you that resonated with how you
00:07:11
Speaker
like what feels right for you, that speaks to me. I definitely had that experience as well. And I'm curious what you did about that because for me, I recognized at some point that what I was doing was kind of seeing that there were all these men around me and seeing what they were doing and
00:07:30
Speaker
I kind of had this belief that since I wasn't in my own domain, I was no longer on a campus. Both of our master's degrees are in higher education. And a lot of people I worked with had business degrees or MBAs. I felt like, well, they must know what they're doing much better than I do. And so I would kind of try on different things that they were doing and found that they just didn't work.
00:08:00
Speaker
for me. What did you do about it? Did you try the same thing? Yeah. Um, so this is something I've learned is like not all feedback is a gift. Like you need to look at the person who's giving you direction and be sure that you want to head in the direction they're heading. Yeah, that's a really good point.
00:08:16
Speaker
Technically, being your supervisor or manager does not mean that's who you want to model yourself after, but as a achievement-oriented person, I wanted to do what was expected of me or what was seen as leading to power and achievement in my environment. I think a lot of the biggest mistakes I made were following prescriptive advice I was given by others, don't do that, do this. One of them was, you're moving into your first management role,
00:08:45
Speaker
And you can't be the captain of the kickball team anymore. I had previously been a connector at the company. I think I always have felt myself to be that way as someone who made folks feel welcome, at least tried to be inclusive, who helped folks feel engaged and connected to work. And so I organized our company's kickball team.
00:09:09
Speaker
made sure we had things to do together we were a startup we were young we were trying to motivate people 12 hours a day it was helpful to play rock band at the end of that day for no money right the illusion of potential like big bucks at the end and that was never really motivating for me but
00:09:27
Speaker
I think I had followed some of that advice and to my detriment. I think it would have been better for me to be authentic in my leadership, but to do that would have required some confidence I didn't have. If I could have gone back, I would have spent a little more time finding a mentor outside of the company that could give me a little more unbiased advice. Remember that someone's feedback is just their perspective. It's a reflection of their experience with you. It's not the truth. It's not your reality.
00:09:57
Speaker
One reflection point of your of your way you're showing up. And so I definitely feel like that type of feedback was not super helpful in my decision making at the time. Yeah. As you were talking about that, I was thinking like, what's the worst advice we've ever gotten advice? I don't think the person absolutely I think it would work for others, but it wasn't the right advice for me at the time.
00:10:21
Speaker
Well, yeah, because you want to share what has worked for you, right? And so that's what the people around you are doing. It's just that those people aren't you and they have different strengths, right? And you have different strengths and bring different things to the table. So I remember I had some, some old school mentalities on the team and it was like, you always have to have a carrot out in front of them, you know, in terms of employees. And it was like, just this very kind of old school way of thinking. And I was like,
00:10:51
Speaker
I'd rather just be there right beside them and or behind them, encouraging them and cheering them on. I don't want to be holding this carrot out in front of them, but I tried it and I saw some turnover because it didn't work for me. Maybe it worked for the other people on their teams. Maybe it worked for the sales leader, for example, but it just didn't work for me. When you talked about the
00:11:18
Speaker
being an achievement oriented person and seeing kind of what leads to power.
Balancing Ambition with Family Life
00:11:24
Speaker
I have so much admiration for the women who came into the workplace when there were no other women at all. And they were just trying to
00:11:33
Speaker
make it in a man's world. I think that now that we've gone through, we've had a few generations of women in the workforce. I love to see that now, I think there's such an opportunity for us to bring ourselves to work because our companies, I think about how much they missed out on because we weren't comfortable showing our authentic leadership styles. I don't know about you, but I wasn't always
00:12:02
Speaker
comfortable sharing ideas that were like complete opposite, right? Like they're talking about something and I'm just sitting there thinking, that doesn't make any sense to me. But like, if I say that I'm going to look like I don't know what's going on or because it seemed to be that I don't know that they knew what they were doing. They're so confident about it. Yeah. I think also just to note that having that experience as a young woman, and it wasn't just being a young woman, it was being a young woman of mostly
00:12:31
Speaker
men with either female partners with wives at home, many of whom didn't have jobs or had secondary jobs. So the other part of this for me was role modeling. If you want to be in the boardroom, you need to put this first. Nothing else can be important to you. You need to have
00:12:50
Speaker
singular focus on this. And that eventually became like a tension point in my marriage with my husband of, is your ambition going to come before our potential to have a family? And no, absolutely not. I was able and am able to navigate that with different role models in my environment or that I'm exposed to. But at the time, it really created some self-fulfilling prophecies for me of what it looked like to be successful. And I regret putting that amount of pressure or limitation on myself at that time in my life. Yeah.
00:13:18
Speaker
Yeah, if you could look back and like call up on a meek from what 15 years ago or so, what would you tell her?
00:13:28
Speaker
Oh my gosh. You know, I think at this stage in my career, I'm a little bit more in that like humility and how do I, you know, be better for others than I was early in my career stage. So I probably would give myself a few notes on like where I could have been more supportive and less critical of others. I think one of the things that being a parent gives me is perspective and empathy.
00:13:52
Speaker
For folks as full human beings and that is hard to put forth on a 25 year old who is like wants to be in a rocket ship and is solely focused on themselves I was selfish right and and that selfishness does not translate to be a great team leader and so I think there's a way to be competitive and inclusive and
00:14:14
Speaker
And that is what I try to model now, not with perfection, but it's a conscious effort now. And I, and I wish I had done that sooner because I think there are some folks along the way I could have brought along for the ride a little bit more effectively if I'd had that mindset. Yeah, I was thinking about whenever you said earlier about how you've always felt like you had something to prove every time you went into the boardroom and you know, into a leadership meeting, me too. And I, I think that the consequence of that is what you just,
00:14:42
Speaker
talked about there, right? Because it's like when you're showing up, like you have something to prove it, you feel like you're starting behind the starting line. And so that's all you're focused on. You can't really focus as much on the people around you or who they are or creating connections and really bringing them along for the ride. It's like, I just got to get to that starting line at least right so that I can
00:15:06
Speaker
go and show that I'm capable and confident here. Yeah, I think a lot of my career was white knuckling it to the next milestone and then white knuckling it again until you get to the point where you ran out of juice.
00:15:21
Speaker
the enjoyment of the strategy of my career is I have a better ability to see what matters and what doesn't and make better decisions about where it's worth it to white knuckle it and where it's where it's okay to have a cost or a consequence and know that it won't change my trajectory or someone else's or the business's. But it's a balance, competitive and compassion. I think it's a balance that is particularly difficult for women to navigate because of the expectations we have of each other or the models that were given.
00:15:48
Speaker
Talk more about that. The traditional nurturing role model and expectations, but at the same time, the conditions of traditional business, especially startups that are very, this is what it takes. This is what it takes. I think that was something I heard and saw a lot. That's all well and good in a business book because I'm absorbing as many advice books as I can at this stage in my life, speed reading,
00:16:13
Speaker
everything from all these leadership coaches and gurus. And then it's like, well, that's not how real businesses are run. And at this point, my grandma, no, I think you can, you can be compassionate and competitive, you can be ethical and successful, and act with integrity and still, you know, have achievement.
00:16:33
Speaker
And I think that there's like some gender dynamics in some of those choices that if you present a, well, maybe it makes more sense in this case to slow down that that's a soft feminine perspective. And I think in that case, I don't even know that I give anyone a chance to hear me say it because I like self-censored. I'm there to present that viewpoint because I don't want to be seen as being soft or feminine when I'm expecting the environment will. And maybe the environment wouldn't have thought less of me. I just thought
00:17:03
Speaker
that it would. Yeah, I think about that all the time about how much better the companies could be if they had the full women's perspective,
Evolving Leadership Styles and Personal Growth
00:17:13
Speaker
right? Like if we actually felt like we could show up and show our whole selves and share all those things that go through our minds that we're like that we talk ourselves out of saying out loud because we don't want to feel like, Oh, I don't know what they'll think of me. I don't know. You know, maybe that's a dumb idea or whatever all of those things that we talk ourselves out of. There's
00:17:34
Speaker
Imagine if we could like pile up all those ideas. It's a gold mine, right? Yeah, I remember hearing a lot. That's just business. Or this is how it's done in business. And we didn't have the language back then, or at least I didn't. But it was kind of like professional gaslighting. I would be like, this doesn't seem like it makes much sense. And it was just like, well, that's just how it's done in business.
00:18:02
Speaker
And that was kind of the explanation sometimes. And I was like, okay, so I must be wrong. I guess someone else knows better. Yeah, I guess I just don't know business that well. I think this is where customer success as a community ended up being a real asset to me as an individual, because there are some great thought leaders in the customer success space who focus on what's right for the customer and not like tricks to increase your bottom line.
00:18:28
Speaker
So having, and I would say this to any leader, like if you can find external credible voices that back up your perspective that can really help both my own confidence and bringing an idea to the table and helping say like, this is not a random idea that I have. This is a perspective that's role modeled and benchmarked and assessed by an industry.
00:18:51
Speaker
And I think the customer success industry is currently speaking and was speaking at that time in a way that really aligned with my values and made me feel eventually a sense of belonging in the thought and point of view that felt right for me. And surprise, surprise, there's just a ton of women in customer success doing that, right? Yeah. And I think you kind of alluded to what it was like then and kind of what it's like now for you. So can you give me like a quick
00:19:23
Speaker
You then, I know a lot happened between that, but we get to kind of, you're starting a family and you did some career shifting. Can you kind of just walk us through that high level overview? And then I'd love to talk about what it's looking like now. Yeah, I think I knew that I wanted to have a child and I had gotten to the point in my career where I had a lot of career success and a lot of runway to have more.
00:19:45
Speaker
like fast forward through from that time.
00:19:53
Speaker
And yet, I realized that wasn't enough for me and I needed a lot of help to get pregnant. It ended up taking five years and lots of money and doctor's visits and really good medical care to eventually get pregnant and have a child. And a lot of that had to do with the amount of stress I was carrying at that point in my career. And also my own self-development. I will acknowledge it wasn't just the job I was in, it was the way that I was bringing myself to that job.
00:20:21
Speaker
and the choices and the balance that I had in my own decision making and daily life. I knew I always wanted to do something that brought value to society as a whole for me. And that while I wanted a family that I still felt like I needed a connection to like this broader societal impact. So I thought it was unlikely that I wouldn't want to work. But I was also really open minded to the idea that motherhood would change me or would change my point of view. And so I really was like,
00:20:51
Speaker
I know I want to make a shift in my career at this point. I think parenthood will probably change my perspective. So I want to wait until I'm a parent and then take a step back and be open to all of the options. And by all the options, I mean, I was open to being a stable parent. I was open to working part time. I was open to pursuing a like mission oriented, lower paying job that allowed me to go home and punch out.
00:21:16
Speaker
I was open to going back and being an executive for a company with the right mission and the right culture. And yet that last one was the one I was the most worried about because I didn't know if I'd have the self-discipline to do that again. And I tried all of them. I tried being a stay-at-home parent after I had my daughter.
00:21:32
Speaker
It was the pandemic, so being a stay-at-home parent was almost requirement. We have really generous leave in the state that I live, so I had five months I could take. Within three months, I was itching. I was missing my sense of self, and so I had negotiated with my husband, like, what if I work part-time? You know, like, get back in the game a little bit. And then once I ended the part-time game, I was like, I'm itching even more. Like, I really, really want to get back into something that I care deeply about, and that is what landed me back into
00:22:02
Speaker
a job and career path that I find extremely fulfilling in an environment that I carefully assessed and chose to be one that was compassionate and inclusive and, you know, big surprise. Lots of amazing women in leadership at my company. And I think what I noticed as you were talking is you talked about how you showed up and how you worked and your relationship with the company.
Setting Boundaries and Self-Acceptance
00:22:24
Speaker
And and then you said about how you didn't give the environment enough credit. And I think it's really interesting how we
00:22:31
Speaker
high achieving women think that like everything is our responsibility and within our control and our fall. And not to say that we don't have some ownership, right? Over how we show up, we have a lot of owner. I mean, that's what we have, but also I think it's interesting. I think as I've been studying more about where all these different ideas come from and how every woman and high achieving female executive in America
00:23:01
Speaker
shows up like that, right? That we have this expectation of ourselves that we are fully engaged and that we give our 100% selves to work. That's not a coincidence. That's a product of our environment and social conditioning. And so I think it's interesting because I'm curious what your thoughts are about it. It's like,
00:23:25
Speaker
We want to have full control over it, but it's like a seed is planted. We're kind of working against all of our programming to say, no, no, I'm going to turn off my computer for the night. Or I'm going to stop here. There's a clear boundary. And I think it's really hard for us to put those up because we've been taught our whole lives that we need to go 100% or nothing.
00:23:54
Speaker
give our full selves and work hard and show up, right? What are your thoughts about that? I mean, I don't think I'm any different or more successful or stronger than any other woman or person in the workforce or trying to be part of a family. I think that
00:24:15
Speaker
We're all struggling with some element of this. And at the time, a lot of what I was thinking was, well, let me just get the next planner or the next like method of doing my weekly schedule or, and that's going to solve my problem. And while those things would often like temporarily help me manage that perfectionism or achievement orientation.
00:24:37
Speaker
It wasn't really until quite honestly that I accepted that I am not perfect and that I have weaknesses and faults and that they're not going away and that that's okay.
00:24:47
Speaker
that I really was able to give myself the grace to stop in certain places and let go. It used to be very difficult for me to hear negative feedback. I ended up spending so much time in my weaknesses and self-criticism that the only way for me to move forward was to say, these things might never change about me, and therefore, I need to be happy in my life as the person that I am. I need to build a life for the person that I am and not constantly be thinking, well,
00:25:14
Speaker
as I used to before, if I could just become a different person than I am, I would be happier. And we talk about that in terms of our relationships, in terms of the shape of our bodies, in terms of our talents and our skills. And I think that career change and motherhood gave me the jarring transition that allowed me to truly be like, I am who I am. I know my faults. And I don't think I'm any better than anyone who works for me or with me.
00:25:43
Speaker
I don't think I'm better than someone who's a stay-at-home mom just because I have a job. I don't think I was lesser than when I wasn't working. And it's just a choice to put my energy somewhere. And I'm going to do that. I'm going to put energy into it. And that's enough. And it didn't end up being a technique or a schedule or a workbook or a mantra. It ended up spending some really difficult time with myself accepting that I have real faults and that they are not going away and that I need to enjoy my life.
00:26:12
Speaker
with who I am. Yeah. That you're a human. Yeah. And I think that is what eventually made me, I think, a much better leader. My leadership evolved a lot from that self-acceptance as well, because I do not try to change my voice either. We all bring different types of skills and strengths. And I think we should all try to be in environments that bring our strengths to the forefront more often than our weaknesses. I love how you put that. I 100% agree. I think that's what shifted for me as well.
00:26:40
Speaker
Because when I think about like, what's different now, but I feel I can't say that I've let go of perfectionism completely, but I feel like I have a very different relationship with it at this point in my life where it's like, it still itches me sometimes, but I have the ability to say like, okay, yeah, you're right. Like that, that's something we want to make sure we do well.
00:27:02
Speaker
And also I feel okay if it's not totally perfect. Like this is still really good and I'm good with that. And I'm going to accept myself. I'm going to accept that work and therefore accept myself for what I've put forward. And I feel good about my contribution, even though it's not perfect, quote unquote. So I love how you put that. I think it's like we are here living this human experience. We have one life to live. So if we're just like killing ourselves to try to make it perfect,
00:27:30
Speaker
that time that we're spending killing ourselves trying to make it perfect is part of our lives, right? So I have been thinking about this actually as I've been writing different podcast episodes and diving more into this because it's helped me to kind of put words to it. But for you arriving at this kind of place of, we'll call it, I think the way that I've been terming it lately is acceptance over resistance. So accepting ourselves as we are with all of our faults rather than
00:28:00
Speaker
resisting our faults and kind of trying to hide them or push them away or deny them. It's just like, Hey, you're going to show up with me too. And that's fine. Getting to that place though, like
00:28:12
Speaker
I think a lot about what is it? Is it therapy? Is it age? Is it becoming a parent? Like what is it for you? Yeah, I think a few things for me helped me finally turn the corner in that way. One was honestly some worst case scenarios happening to me and not being that bad. So I had been, as I said, like white knuckling before this vision of what my life would be, you know, this like TV Barbie movie, whatever scenario I had in my head.
00:28:42
Speaker
And then some of that crumbled and I couldn't keep it together.
00:28:47
Speaker
And life got better, Leanna. It got better. My life improved. How so? My physical health improved. I exercised. My relationship with my husband strengthened. I became a kinder, better friend. I had been so focused on this high achievement thing that I really wasn't appreciating a lot of what I had. And it wasn't because I wasn't trying. I was reading all the books about being grateful. I was writing down things I was grateful for.
00:29:17
Speaker
I was doing everything I was supposed to do. And I think that's why I'm like, we shouldn't harp on ourselves so much. Like it was a real shift, like a shake up in my environment. I think that becoming a mother, the threat of not being able to become a mother and then the gift of being able to become a mother really changed my mindset. And because all my worst case, some of my worst case scenarios happened and some didn't, the lessons I got from that are one, stop worrying. And oh my gosh, no one who is worrying can hear that and not like curse at the world.
00:29:47
Speaker
As a former worrier, I stopped worrying now because nothing ever ended up being as bad as I thought it was going to be. And now I can catch myself, and because I have turned the corner and had that experience, my heart and my brain will let go of the worry.
00:30:03
Speaker
And that is maybe an age and experience thing. I think it's also why people who have resilience early in life aren't capable of doing such amazing things and why those who are privileged maybe struggle a lot more in certain ways of like this emotional element.
00:30:18
Speaker
And the second thing was that I realized that I could grow and evolve. And so I don't stress. I'm like, yeah, in 10 years, I'll feel differently. And that's the beauty of life. And I relish the idea that I'm in a phase and that that phase will change and that there is a beauty to every version of myself that will exist.
00:30:38
Speaker
And that is probably an age element, right? It is also probably a privileged thing. I have a job. I have, I was able to buy a house. I have a lot of basic needs met that gives me the ability to be content and give myself grace. But for me, it was honestly like the worst case scenario happening and being better. Yeah, it's so true. What we create in our heads is often much worse than, than the reality in terms of being in a,
00:31:04
Speaker
quote unquote phase and knowing that you're going to evolve. I think that for me, that was often in the past a reason to wait or a reason to put something off or hold off until I was quote unquote there. And I was reflecting on this recently and I was thinking like,
00:31:22
Speaker
Am I there? Because I feel like, I mean, it took me years to put this podcast out in the world until I felt like it was quote unquote, perfect enough. And it's not perfect at all, but it's, I get so much great feedback about how it's genuinely enhancing people's lives. And I'm so glad that I finally let go of that and, and just said like, I'm just going to do it because this is where I am now. And in, you know, five years or 10 years, it's going to be different and,
00:31:52
Speaker
then what a great chronicling of my journey that anyone who wants to follow can can follow and yeah I think that's such an interesting shift in view and I think really key and I'm so glad that you pointed that out because I think it's really important to
00:32:10
Speaker
not look at it like I'm going to be so much wiser in 10 years. So therefore I should put this off or I should write or wait for that time to do whatever, you know, insert any action here instead.
00:32:26
Speaker
let's do it and then yeah, who knows what will happen now. It's going to be different than it is in 10 years. And how interesting to see how different it's going to be. I think it's difficult to navigate where to do that, right? So it's like, I'm going to enjoy the life that I've built for myself right now because what I want or what I have access to can change. And so it's like, take out your good silverware, right? Like don't put the nice china on the shelf and never use it. Like open that nice bottle of wine or put on your sparkly outfit for a random Tuesday.
00:32:56
Speaker
But on the other hand, I let go of a lot of pressure on myself. A good example of this is landscaping. My mom is nutty about having a beautiful garden, and I have a nice house with a nice guard. And I probably should, air quote, put effort into it. But I keep thinking, I can do that in another phase of my life. I do not have to have a beautiful garden right now. Maybe I'll enjoy landscaping in my next decade. And I let go of that pressure that previously I would have put in myself to get everything in my life right.
00:33:23
Speaker
and like be achieving on all 10 levels in every phase and now i actually enjoy looking forward to the time when i might invest in something that i'm okay letting go of now yeah because there's a cost to having everything in your life quote unquote right you don't feel good about it because you don't have any
00:33:40
Speaker
Time to breathe or enjoy it.
Finding Fulfillment in Work and Motherhood
00:33:43
Speaker
So how is it now for you as a high achieving woman who is, I don't know if these are the words you would use, but like you're not focused on achievement in the way that you used to be.
00:33:56
Speaker
Are you still achieving? Do you still feel good about your contributions at work? What does that look like now for you? Yes. I'm not collecting coins or stickers anymore, I think. I don't know. Elder millennial here. I'm a sticker chart kid. Look at all the bullets I can put on my resume. That's not the way I think of achievement anymore. I definitely think of achievement
00:34:18
Speaker
in terms of how can i help my organization make the right decisions about our growth and how can i amplify the impact of my team by unlocking the potential of some employees who are flying over the radar those are not collectibles they do not show up stickers they might not ever be bullets in my resume but i don't have less focus on my own power and.
00:34:40
Speaker
accolades and more focused on probably my impact and I also think of achievement at this stage in as I think I'm in a crucial stage in my career to stay open to learning. I don't want at this stage of my career where I have a lot of credibility and experience to become a rinse and repeat leader who like has a methodology that I'm going to use for the next 30 years. I still want to absorb and learn and be open-minded. I want to try things differently and so I actually right now think of achievement as
00:35:09
Speaker
scrapping the way I've done it and role modeling myself after a different leader or learning a new trick, consciously putting myself in an uncomfortable position because it's easy to get comfortable once you have power and achievement. And I don't like the way that looks on others later in their generation. And so I'm really at this stage thinking about staying relevant, staying connected to the modern workforce.
00:35:35
Speaker
and the skills that help companies and workforces evolve. And I find it extremely joyful to have a point of view at work of humility and of learning and listening to others and I love it so much. So I think I enjoy work a lot more than I used to and I hope that I'm making a great impact.
00:35:55
Speaker
but I'm also open to the idea that there might be some feedback points where I need to edit and adjust and that's not going to be the end of the world if I need to pivot or I need to change or my organization needs me to go a different direction. That's not going to be an identity crisis for me. It's not going to be about you. It's going to be about what you're doing and that's easy to change.
00:36:14
Speaker
And then I also find it an achievement to do this and still enjoy motherhood. And for as long as I can be in this place of enjoyable balance, being able to show others that they can try for it. I don't think every organization is able to offer what my organization does. So I will put in a caveat that paid parental leave, flexible workplace policies, leaders that role model taking time off is a necessity. You cannot go at this in an organization that doesn't
00:36:43
Speaker
let you. But in an organization that does, I like seeing other parents who do this. I like seeing single parents in my workplace. I like seeing folks who devote a lot to a passion project, even if it's not children. And I think that that is in of itself like an achievement, like trying to make space for others to realize this is possible and hopefully keep as many women and parents in the workforce, giving their benefit of their perspective as we can. Yeah.
00:37:14
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds like you're still achieving, but your measures are different or you're setting your own goalposts, right? For me, as you were talking about that, I was thinking,
00:37:25
Speaker
enjoyment I don't know for me lately is like the ultimate achievement like that's yeah I just want to enjoy the ride I mean I think it's a privilege to do that though because I can enjoy the ride because and this is why I'm like try not to be too critical of my earlier self and I also try not to assume that my advice is going to work on a former version or an earlier version of myself because you know I have options in my career because I got to a certain stage pretty I mean you and I both
00:37:51
Speaker
Advanced early in our careers and then we're in companies that were really successful. So that opened all the doors for me Yeah, and there are others that are still trying to knock down doors and I am NOT at that stage in my career where I'm trying to knock down doors I'm trying to walk through the right doorway and for the most part I can get through it if I want to yeah, and you can choose the doorways I remember seeing an interview with Oprah once and
00:38:16
Speaker
And someone asked, what advice would you give to your 20 something year old self? And she said, my advice would be to relax, slow down. And immediately I thought, yeah, but would you be where you are today? If, if your 20 year old self slowed down, I think that there's something to be said for that hustle and that could we have done things differently, right? Along the way, certainly, but that working hard and
00:38:44
Speaker
achievement is what got us to where we are today so it's hard to I think though why I love that you're doing the podcast and why I love that you do what you do though is you don't need to go through that alone even if it's hard having a sense of belonging or a sense of community or recognizing that there are others in the same boat
00:39:02
Speaker
helps even if you're going through times of struggle. And even if, even if it doesn't remove the struggle, I feel so much better about my journey in motherhood because I see everyone else on my Facebook group or in my group chat or you when I was texting you with like a newborn at home to know that like, yes, this week sucks. Like this phase is so hard and nothing that anyone tells me is going to change that, but it's not me.
00:39:27
Speaker
And it is going to pass. And I do have people who understand. And that is probably my only real regret about earlier is like, I didn't need to go through it alone. I didn't need to feel like it was just me. There was a community out there. And if I had tapped it, and it's also, you know, the job I'm at now, we help provide mentorship for college students. And it's just the same thing. Like you are not going through this transition alone. Others have been here. You can feel like you belong. You do belong. And that is so meaningful just to humans at any phase of their life.
00:39:56
Speaker
Absolutely.
Accepting Struggles and Growth
00:39:57
Speaker
And what I love so much about what you said is it's kind of like how you accept your own personal imperfections as part of you. I think also accepting the struggle as part of life. It's just part of the human experience. We're on this ride and some days and some phases and some years are going to be amazing and some are going to be really hard. And I think what makes it harder
00:40:25
Speaker
is our resistance to it and our, you know, it shouldn't be this way and kind of kicking and screaming. It makes it a lot harder and trying to just claw our way back to the good stuff. Whereas if we just kind of accept all of it as part of, not that that's an easy thing to do. That takes, I think a lot of, I would say therapy for me is how I got there and coaching. But yeah, I think,
00:40:51
Speaker
part of the beauty of life is that there are struggles so that we can also enjoy the great stuff too. You say
Navigating Transitions and Vulnerability
00:41:00
Speaker
therapy and that actually I did a lot of therapy in anticipation of my last career transition and then chatted with a lot of folks going into this job to really be like, sure, I had support through that time. And that was where it was so much easier than I thought it was going to be. I am the kind of person that the anticipation of the decision is so much worse than the next steps because I'm such a planner.
00:41:20
Speaker
But it did help to talk to a therapist because she was like, either of these decisions are fine. There is no wrong decision. And you don't know what's going to happen. And I was like, oh my gosh, there is no solution. There is no answer. I can't like grade myself on this. I can't keep assessing it and evaluating it and get better. I just need to live my life and live through it.
00:41:45
Speaker
Thinking like I put all this time and effort and it never actually changed the outcome gave me so much relief because I thought I just need to ride the wave and Like, you know everyone goes through it. It's gonna be fun. You're gonna figure it out one step at a time Yeah, and that does help me now like this was a bad day tomorrow might be different or this was a bad day And I have some choices in front of me or this is a bad day and I have someone to call It's not a permanent state. Yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much on a meek for
00:42:14
Speaker
chatting with me and sharing your wisdom. I love so many of the things that you said. And I always love to hear from other people who I really respect as well, because I think, you know, it's like when thoughts are swirling around your head, it's nice to hear it in different words than you might, you know, be having in your head and, and, but realizing, Oh yeah, that that's kind of what I was thinking. And so I think that is the beauty to what you've said,
00:42:41
Speaker
a few different times about the importance of community and having other people and other women to connect with and just kind of talk these ideas through because then it's like, yeah, I'm not alone. I'm not alone in these thoughts.
00:42:55
Speaker
I'm not alone in these experiences. And I think it's validating and also just it gives us an opportunity for more acceptance, which as we've identified today is so key. So any final thoughts or anything else that you want to share before we
00:43:12
Speaker
break for today. Gosh, just no one has it figured out. Like there is no better. There is no person who's better than you. You know, um, I think it's something I always want folks to hear. And finding a person you can be vulnerable with is such a powerful, powerful experience. And I'm so glad you've been that person for me, Liana. Thank you so much. And hopefully we'll come back on the podcast. We can have more chats. Thank you again. And thank you so much for everyone for tuning in and we will see you next week.
00:43:41
Speaker
Bye. Thanks so much for tuning into the Executive Coach for Moms podcast. Please like, subscribe, or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care.