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4 Beliefs Critical in Helping Women Rise in Leadership: Show Notes & Transcript

Post | Dec 20, 2022

Welcome back to Marketing Smarts! From brand-building and marketing veterans Anne Candido and April Martini (that’s us) comes a podcast committed to cutting through all the confusing marketing BS so you can actually understand how to take action and change your business today. We deep-dive into topics most would gloss-over, infusing real-world examples from our combined 35+ years of corporate and agency experience. We tell it how it is so whether you are just starting out or have been in business awhile, you have the Marketing Smarts to immediately impact your business.

This is Episode #142 and we’re talking helping women rise in leadership. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re exercising your Marketing Smarts!

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  • Show Notes
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Marketing Smarts Episode #142: 4 Beliefs Critical in Helping Women Rise in Leadership

So many of us women deserve to be in the leadership positions we dream of. But, we struggle getting there due to outdated beliefs – some environmental, some due to archaic processes, and some due to us getting in our own way. This is exactly why we launched ForthRight Women (FRW) – to help us overcome what is holding us back. Helping women rise in leadership comes down to being good moms and good leaders, having the responsibility to rise and pull others up, being powerful, and acknowledging where we get in our own way. But what if you don’t have a village? How do you make time to prioritize yourself? And why does everyone else have to have an opinion? We have all the answers, as this is an area we’re super, super, super passionate about. This episode covers everything from ForthRight Women to being a good mom. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

  • How do you rise in leadership as a woman?
  • What if you don’t have a village?
  • How do you make time for prioritizing yourself?
  • Why does everyone else have to have an opinion?
  • How do you be a good mom and a good leader?
  • What does Mr. Wonderful say about women-owned businesses?
  • How do you find a babysitter?
  • Why is Peyton Manning so marketable?

And as always, if you need help in building your Marketing Smarts, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

What is Marketing Smarts?

From brand-building and marketing veterans Anne Candido and April Martini comes a podcast committed to cutting through all the confusing marketing BS so you can actually understand how to take action and change your business today. They deep-dive into topics most would gloss-over, infusing real-world examples from their combined 35+ years of corporate and agency experience. They tell it how it is so whether you are just starting out or have been in business awhile, you have the Marketing Smarts to immediately impact your business.

How do I exercise my Marketing Smarts?

Thanks for listening to Marketing Smarts. Get in touch here to become a savvier marketer. 

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Anne Candido 0:02
This is Marketing Smarts – a podcast committed to helping you become a savvier marketing leader, no matter your level. In each episode, we will dive into a relevant topic or challenge that marketing leaders are currently facing. We will also give you practical tools and applications that will help you put what you learn into practice today. And if you missed anything, don’t worry, we put worksheets on our website that summarize the key points. Now, let’s get to it. Welcome to Marketing Smarts. I am Anne Candido and I am April Martini. And today we’re going to talk about how to help women rise into the leadership positions they covet. And we notice continues to be a big struggle due to outdated beliefs. Some are environmental that seem to be forced upon us. Some are due to archaic processes that also seem to be forced upon us. Some are because we as women, just frankly, can’t get out of our own way. Now, we just launched ForthRight Women based on this overwhelming need, we feel to really help women overcome what is holding us back, and really to bring together for around sometimes selfish reasons. Like-minded women who feel the same way, right? We we just, I mean, we look but we just couldn’t find a group that we resonate with that

April Martini 1:16
was truly embracing these beliefs. And so we do what a lot of people do, it’s like, well, we’re just going to start our own. Right, exactly. And we want you to join us because we’re hearing that many of you haven’t found these groups, either. So this episode is all about how are we set up forthright women and what is inspiring this conversation. And it’s all about then the critical beliefs needed to help women rise into leadership positions. Yes, and I often talk about this or in conversations with an and since we’ve started forthwith, right women about being on the other side, and feeling like I’ve gotten over the hump of a lot of the things we’re going to talk about today and realize how capable I am. But then to Anne’s point, not being able to find other people that feel like they’re in the same place. And so to her point, we were like, well, we can’t find it, we may as well go ahead and create it. And I will say that this was a take a deep breath moment for me because it was stressful to put myself ourselves out there and talk about some of the things that we talked about. But like Anne said, we’ve recently just launched and we had a first event and I think we’re gaining the right traction. So therefore having this episode and feeling like we’re onto something, so we’re going to continue the conversation and push forward.

Anne Candido 2:37
Yeah, that’s exactly right on. And you might be sitting here listening and wondering if this is for you. If you have ambition to rise to a higher level, whatever that looks like for you, this is for you. If you want to start your own business, this is for you. That doesn’t mean we expect everyone to be a CEO or want to be a CEO, we just want you to reach a level where you feel the most fulfilled. So in doing that is April kind of alluded to, we’re going to be kind of putting a lot of things on the table, we might be making some controversial statements, we might be citing some situations, I might be a little bit uncomfortable, I feel a little bit taboo. We just asked you to be open so we can start generating the conversation. Because if we don’t address it, we can’t change it. Amen. Right. And if this is feeling like something that is for you, and you love this episode, obviously written review the episode, but also have a blog, of course, always but um, contact us through our website, forthright dash people.com. And through our contact page and say that you want to be more involved, we don’t have everything yet established on our page is going to be coming soon. But if this is something you want to be a part of, and you want to continue to hear about this, then contact us and we’ll put you on the list. Alright, with that, let’s jump into for beliefs critical in helping women rise in leadership. The first one is we can be good moms and good leaders. Okay, we sure can. Yes. Many feel. And I know April and I both felt this and various parts of our career progression, that you can only be one or the other end to achieve the one a compromise needs to be made. And yes, we would say choices need to be made. But it’s our own filter that defines us as compromises. And this is what we really want to address. This is a little bit what we want to debunk, okay. Because what causes this feeling that we have to make a compromise and there’s two key situations. Usually it’s when women decide they’re going to shy away from a demanding leadership position because of their perceived assumptions of how it’s going to impact their home life. Right. That’s a very common misconception and a lot of cases and that’s what we want to address. And if that doesn’t get you the mom guilt will Yeah, right. That’s the second one. So that’s another one we want to address. Now when you pull these two circumstances together, this creates a devastating event in which you meet me a female they’ll just don’t have a path forward in order to rise, it just kind of gets stopped right there. So our pipeline basically dries up. So in order to overcome this, we need to look at our rules a mom and leader differently and adopt some new behaviors that addressed this perception and the guilt so we can make choices without feeling like it’s a compromise all the time, right. So I’m gonna give you a few of these, and I’m going to ask a ball to to provide some of her perspective on these two. So first is women need to create a and leverage their village? Right, and they need to feel okay about doing it. And even more, we need to understand that it can be good for our kids to have exposure to others who can be caregivers. That means we need to ask others for help, right. And not just default to that it has to be us, especially if there’s a conflict between work and life. So this is a really big one, because we hear this a lot. We hear this when women decided they’re not going to do evening events, because they’re responsible for picking up the kids taking the kids here kicking because there we hear on business trips, they can’t go on business trips, because they need to take care of our kids. These are really big realities, we know that their realities, but what we want you to realize is that this is a choice that you’re making. And if you can have a village around you to support you, you may be able to make different choices. So for example, I’m taking one of Corinne’s soccer mates to Indy, her parents can’t be there for the noon game tomorrow on tomorrow’s on Friday. Right? A new game on Friday, right? Her parents have to work. I have some flexibility I can do that. I can take her there coming later. Right? That is an ask that actually their daughter made of Corinne to ask me, so you didn’t have the girls making that and arranging that, right? So sometimes the parents don’t even need to get involved. And I mean, not to mention, all these cultures have the generational family that lives underneath one roof. I mean, this is how they’ve been living for years. So our village just extends beyond our doors a little bit more than some of these other circumstances. But the key is is asking in the key is developing those relationships that you’ve so you feel comfortable asking. The next one here is women need to feel okay and choosing ourselves. As we talked about in previous episodes, when we talk about personal brand characteristics on hold back, aspiring female leaders in April just did a fantastic talk about this at the Northern Kentucky chamber. Empathy and caregiving can get in the way of pursuing what is best for us. These tend to be too personal brand keratosis that we over indexing as women. And that means that we tend to put others ahead of ourselves because it feels like the right thing to do. And that can really dramatically compromise our own health, our own mental well being our own energy, our own ambitions. Now, we aren’t suggesting you become self consumed narcissist. But you should ask why do you feel like this? Like what is that that is making you feel like you can’t choose yourself? Is it rooted in a traditional male female roles is this because that’s what our moms did for us, or what maybe they are other moms feel like we should do. So what we say here is instead no one you choose yourself, you’re sending the message to your kids, both male and female, to your direct reports, both male and female, to those who are watching you in this world, both male and male and female that is okay to choose yourself. Yes, you’re being the model, you’re setting this up. And I’m gonna give one more. And then I know I’ve been talking a really long time, I’m gonna stop talking.

April Martini 8:22
And I’m chomping at the bit, which I know,

Anne Candido 8:24
I know, this is a really long point, but then I’m gonna be quiet for like, at least a couple of seconds. Does that third point is here, we need to question the guilt. So why does certain situations and decisions cause a skill? Right? Again, we have to go back to the belief system. Is it actually what we believe? Or is it was someone imposed on us right? And that happens a lot do we feel if we aren’t 100% present for our kids that we’re somehow failing them, that they will hate us. So these are really deep seated fears, and they cause a lot of challenges and roadblocks for us to be able to make certain decisions or certain choices that are in our own personal best benefit. I mean, the truth is, is if you’re going to want to aspire to these higher positions, your family can’t always come first. That’s just really the reality of the situation, you’re going to have to make some choices where you have to choose work first. But that doesn’t mean your family suffers as a result. It just means new expectations need to be set. Again, I’ll bring up Corinne’s soccer, this has been a big one for us, because last year, she played on three teams. We told her we’re not going to be at every game. If you want to be on play on three teams, that’s fine. You’re gonna have to help us find ways to get you there and get you back. And we’re not going to come to indoor soccer games. If it’s not our weekend, for example, because you know, we split parroting because I see that as more practice. Okay, I get that. That’s fine, you know, so you start just resetting those expectations. All right. I’ll stop talking for a second April.

April Martini 9:49
Well, one thing I do want to say too, because I know that that comment you just made before I get into my diatribe around family not always coming first. I think that that is one that We’ll hear and they’re like, what, what we’re actually saying is that, or what we’re not saying is that they can’t ultimately be at the very list of your top of your priorities. It’s just that that doesn’t mean or translate to every single thing that’s happening, they get to come first. Right? Right. And I think that that is worth emphasizing. Because, to me, that is a huge mindset shift and everything that you said around, you know, the point that of leveraging the village and finding other ways to get kids to and from practice, you know, if it’s being at every single game, especially if they’re playing multiple sports are your multiple children in sports at the same time. I mean, these are very big realities. And one of the things that I have started to think about and internalize that might be helpful, is what do I actually remember about whatever age I was and what my parents were there for. And those are the things that I try to use as the lens for when my family does come first. So I don’t remember my parents being every single game I played when I was seven, like my son, right? So when Bryce and I decided to go to Montreal for the first adults only weekend we’d had in a year, I didn’t feel bad about that. And when he scored his first goal, and I missed it, I didn’t feel bad about that. Because guess what my dad was there. Bryce’s parents were there, my sister was there, he wasn’t mad that mom and dad missed his first goal, he was excited that his village was there in whatever capacity showed up to see him scored that first goal, right. So I just think we’ve got to be more realistic about how necessary we are in these moments and how we prioritize. So I’m just gonna put that out there. Just super,

Anne Candido 11:43
super good point.

April Martini 11:44
And then on my end, one of the things that I have talked about before on the show, and one of the things that I try to live is fluidity in my life. And so when I think about guilt, and getting over the guilt, and getting over that hump that I talked about before, the last agency I was at, in theory could have been the one where I could have found a life as a mom and a life as an executive, and it could have worked. But what actually ended up happening is there were too many instances where I felt guilt because I was in a meeting that actually didn’t matter instead of picking up Sam on time, right? Like it was like the, in theory on paper looks good. Yeah, it looked good, right. But I just couldn’t get my head around the fact that I was participating in 40 hours of meetings a week, if I wanted to get out of some to go do something that I perceived more important, it was way too much work on my end, and not that it wouldn’t have been condoned. It just didn’t feel right. Right. And so that was kind of the aha moment of getting myself out of that situation. And now I find that I can avoid the guilt by being able to fluidly flex throughout the day on whatever needs to happen. And so as I was reading my comments on this episode at 745, in the morning, earlier this week, Mia doesn’t start school until nine and Bryce is here this week. So he took Sam to school. So guess what, she’s sitting next to me at my desk with her breakfast, and yes, her iPad, go ahead and judge away. quietly working, quote, unquote, alongside mom, right. And so in really embracing this moment of writing this episode, when I was finished, I turned to her and I said, Maria, I just want to say thank you, you sitting here quietly, and entertaining yourself is helping mom be a better worker, which makes her business do better. And she got the smile on her face. And those are the types of things I won’t forget, right? Because she felt really appreciated and proud of herself. And then I got the little You’re welcome, which right now is pronounced, you’re welcome. Because she can’t say it. But all she needed, right was for me to be like to acknowledge, and that she just wanted to sit next to me, it didn’t matter what I was doing. So we could be watching a show because that’s what she really wanted to do. Or we can compromise. And I can say I gotta get some stuff done. But you are welcome to be there beside me. And then other than that, I mean, I think one of the things you say a lot, and that I feel like we focus on in our house, too, is letting the kids help choose which things they want you to be at, because you’re not going to be at all of them. So we recently had a situation where Sam was really mad because I was going on a field trip with Mia. And I’ve never been on a field trip with him. Which is true, because we weren’t allowed to go on field trips or COVID. There was no chance that I was ever going to be at his four year old field trip, right? And so I explained, you know, you and I sat down and I asked you which Christmas parties you wanted me to be at Mia doesn’t have those in her classroom at four years old. So mom wants to show up for her and show up for you. And we talked about how I’ll be at the Christmas party in a few weeks and that fixed right that was totally fine. And then in addition to that, one of the other things I will say and you hear me talking about Like rationalizing with kids, which is not always an easy thing to do. But I do think if you sit down and you have the conversation in the why, as you would with anyone else in your life, it can be tremendously helpful. So this time of year, Bryce is gone all the time, almost every week. And it always hits us that there’s a couple week long stints where literally, he’s gone for seven full days. And you can imagine with a seven and four year old, the impact that that has on our life, but he has started sitting them down before he goes and explaining that mom is one person, she can’t do everything, I need you to help her. And please don’t get frustrated when you both need something at the same time, and she could not do it. And then I reinforced that too. And one of the things they really hate is I have started instituting that even if Bryce has not gone date night becomes mom night. So I go out for a few hours by myself, sometimes I’m having a glass of wine at a restaurant and catching up on work life and the things right, or I’m running errands that are just easier to do without the kids. Or sometimes I’m having dinner with a friend or my sister or whatever. But it’s time that is dedicated to me. A few weeks ago, or two weeks ago, when we did our first forthright Women event, ironically, he was in your delicious last week cheese pizza, it was last week last week when he was in Japan, right. And we were on day number four of him being in Japan, which is about when things start getting real dicey. And so I explained to them that Mackenzie, one of their favorite sitters of all time was coming, and that they were going to be with her later than normal. And I was not going to be there for bedtime, to which they both lost their minds. But after we got over the tantrum, and all of that I explained to them that mom was doing something for her work that she’d never done before. And that it was a very big deal for me and and the other people that were going to be there. And that as much as I also understood their feelings. I was asking them to allow me to go do what I needed to do for work. And that I would come in and say goodnight to them, even though they wouldn’t remember when I got home and make sure that they were good. Were they happy? No. But did I feel guilty? No, because I was doing the thing that was most important to my life in that moment. And my family to the point I made the very beginning of this wasn’t coming, quote unquote, first, in that exact situation, although they ultimately do.

Anne Candido 17:21
I think that’s a really, really fabulous example. I also liked the one when you told me when you came down for the chamber event and you share with me that you had did your speaking event. And she’s like, how did it go? Yes. There’s something like really charming about it. But there’s also something that when we explain to our kids, and we treat them a little bit like more like people Yeah, and little kids, yes. And we share how we feel we share our emotions, we share what it means to us, they develop a sense of empathy, yes, that then becomes something that they can take with them as they get older. Now you had to be reasonable with regard to what you kind of empathy expected to have. But even now, as I see, as my girls have gotten older, I can see the things that I’ve instilled in them when they’re younger, the expectations are different now when they’re older, yes. So when I told you know, Korean as she was younger, that we’re only going to be at so many things, you’re going to do all these things. Now that she’s older, when we say we can’t, you know, do everything and she just like, alright, well then I want you to be here, I want you to be here. That’s what’s important to me. And it becomes a lot clearer have a conversation versus us defaulting to the fact that we need to be at everything are our kids going to be upset, and they’re gonna be traumatized for life, I can tell you having an 18 year old and a 15 year old with things that have happened in the past, especially with a divorce, and you know, and all those other sorts of things. My kids are not traumatized. So if you think you’re going to traumatize your kids, then you need to rethink the real reason why you’re doing this, because it’s probably not going to traumatize your kids, it’s probably more having to do something with you than it has to do with them, which I think is the point that you were making, which I guess was a really telegraphic story to tell that. All right, so there’s four of these guys, this might be a longer episode, you might have to take this into Yeah, bear with us. Okay. Our second belief that’s critical in helping women rise in leadership is a smart, capable, ambitious women, it is our responsibility to rise and pull others up behind us, April that you start with this one.

April Martini 19:25
Yes, and gives me this one because she was there when I had my sort of aha moment and I’ll never forget where I was standing. And, you know, and anyway, I do believe it is our responsibility. I actually believe it’s so much that I feel like it’s becoming the thing that I’m called to do more than anything else, which, as someone who’s always striving to be better and do more and help the world. However, small way I can do that. It’s a really fulfilling thing to have realized. But it is a bit of a catch-22 Because we need more Women at the top to get more women at the top. And, you know, I was I was having a conversation after the event last week. And the feedback that came back was, I was struck by how in 2022, there aren’t more of us. But the truth of the matter is there aren’t more of us. And there needs to be more of us. And we need to be doing things to make that happen, right. And so, again, like some positive stuff that is coming out of this, and I think helps me continue to move, but it is the reality. And we do need more examples that younger aspiring women leaders can relate to, because they have to see that it’s possible and they have to see that it’s possible without any sort of scarcity mindset associated with it, they have to be able to believe that they can equally achieve it the same as their male counterparts can at the same level in the same numbers. Yes. So I’ll use an analogy here of breaking the four minute mile. So because this one made me chuckle I was like, oh, running reference. Alright, I can do this.

Anne Candido 20:59
See, I didn’t. Sports. Yeah, well, but it’s something that you could actually relate

April Martini 21:04
to. Yes, yes. So before the 4-minute mile was broken in 1954, by Roger Bannister, many runners thought it was an impossible feat, right? Because it had never happened before. And everybody was trying and trying and trying and nobody could, nobody could do it, right, which shows you the mindset that needs to happen. And then it was broken three times just a few weeks later, Roger being one of those with the new sub for personal record. Right, right. So you see what we’re getting at here, the volume is important to getting more through that gate, or the proverbial gate, whatever. So really, the more women that get in these exact positions, the more normal it will feel, which then breaks that paradigm of the fact that it’s impossible. And that means that smart, capable, ambitious women who can rise need to see it as their responsibility to do it, and then help others do it as well. It’s not always an easy choice. But it really is crucial to flipping that paradigm on its head and recovering from the situation that I believe a lot of us are currently in. And we also need to acknowledge that it’s a team effort where we are the captains it’s not a solo sport, this is why we’ve started fourth, right women, right, we need more of us, we need the numbers of us to work together to make the movement bigger, we only succeed if we create that opportunity for other female leaders. And I guess I think in all honesty, I’m tired of seeing women shy away from this, we said we’re going to have controversial statements during this right. But at forthright people, we believe it’s our job always as a company to respectfully push people. And that’s what this responsibility means to me. And it is a choice that we’re posing to other women to join us. But my goal has become to give them every reason why there’s only one option, and that is to join us. And that might be the lawyers daughter and me or it might be the fact that I’m tired of seeing it. But I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting since we had our event last week. And while the ones that showed up, I can’t say anything better about how it went the conversation, the openness, the vulnerability. On the other side, there was just as many that committed and pulled out, right? For various reasons, right. And some of them like illness, okay. You know, like, there’s certain things that you can’t prevent. But there were some where I was just left, just almost like angry, which I don’t get mad very often at people I’m not really like, I would never define my feelings towards relationships and things very often as getting to the point of anger. But I think I was so just disappointed that it had been presented and kind of wrapped with a bow and given to them and all they had to do was show up, and not being able to do that just kind of left me in this place where I just, I was a little bit angry. So there you go.

Anne Candido 23:51
Well, I think that’s a really great vulnerable thing to share. Because I think that’s kind of what gets at the heart of the frustration by why there isn’t any more because it feels like such a lonely sport, right to try to kind of climb your way to the top. And I’m not saying that the women at the top are not smart, ambitious, really phenomenal women. There are plenty up there. But what I’m saying is, there’s a couple of phenomenons that are happening that I think are really impacting that. One is it feels like we’re and again, I’m gonna make a very controversial statement. You guys are free to disagree with me. This is Anne’s point of view, that we are creating executive roles for the sake of putting women in like dei roles.

April Martini 24:37
Dangerous,

Anne Candido 24:37
it is very, very dangerous. I doubt that women aren’t in these kinds of women are great for those roles. And there shouldn’t be women in those roles. But I need to find that which shouldn’t be defined that way. And it shouldn’t be the way that we’re going to get women to the top. It also shouldn’t be Oh, the only women that get to the top are the ones who decide I’m not going to have any kids. I’m going to make my career like the only thing that matters matters. And I’m going to, you know, be the the Trailblazer that goes up, that shouldn’t have to be the choice that you have to make either, right? So I think that’s one thing that’s happening that needs to change. And that leads to my second point, which is women, you need to apply for these jobs. Yes, I just I have a coaching client who’s phenomenal, she is just a rockstar person. And she got this opportunity, she was to apply for the CFO role. And she is not 100% qualified for the role. And but she’s like, I like it, I have to give a chance. And she started putting out her cover letter, she sent it to me, I sent some feedback back. And her first day was like, I’m losing my confidence. And I don’t think I’m qualified enough. I’m like, you don’t have to be 100% qualified, you’ll never be 100% qualified for any job you apply for. But women seem to feel like they at least need to be in the top, you know, 95%, like hit the the qualification, men are fine if they hit 50%. Right. And there are statistics that support and there’s statistics that support that, but they are swinging, right, so you’re not going to get a hit or a homerun every time you go to bat. But they’re taking more swings. So therefore, they’re getting more times at bat. So therefore, they’re refining it. And so their chances of actually getting one of these are a lot higher, versus the people who are gonna be like, Oh, I’m going to sit on the bench. And I’m going to wait until I feel like I have enough skill, and I have enough of a hit rate that I’m going to go up and I’m going to try to swing. And if that’s your mindset, you’ll never get there, you’ll never get there, you can’t get any rules that you don’t apply for. So it became a matter of like, Listen, you stay where you don’t actually have those qualifications, you link your current experience to why your experiences matches the experiences that they need, even if it’s not in the exact skills or time or duration, or you know, the exact kind of roles that they’re looking for. And then you show and you demonstrate your opportunity to grow. Yes, that’s what you have to do. And that’s how that’s that’s the key to really going for a position if you don’t feel totally qualified. And by the way, you have to go in with confidence. If you don’t go with confidence, then it’s going to be sunk at the get go. And there’s that’s a whole nother one. Maybe we should do an episode on interviewing. I think that’s actually actually that’s a good one. All right, well put that down. Because that really comes from interviewing, we see us too many women really struggle in this capacity, because again, they’re trying to be too polite. They’re trying to be too inclusive, and they are not a good enough advocate of themselves. So I say all that to say, again, a smart, capable, ambitious women, it is our responsibility to rise. And if we can get more people, we can have more at bats, we have a bigger pool to pull from. It’s not just like an anomaly that one woman was able to kind of get through because of all the sacrifices that she had to make in order to do that. I think that’s fair. Right. The third belief critical in helping women rise in leadership is the one of we are powerful. And this goes to the point that we just talked about being smart, capable, ambitious, we are also powerful. And if we don’t believe in our ability to change the face of business, we are sunk before we’ve even begun. Alright, so ironically, again, the personal brand characteristics that can hold us back from aspiring to leadership positions, like empathy, caregiver fairness, and humbleness. And if you want more on this, we have an episode on this. Frankly, these personal brand characteristics can actually make us really good leaders when we get there, right, don’t and if you don’t want to just take my word for it, go look up everything that Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank has said about best performing investments. They’re all women owned businesses, for a lot of these reasons. He loves investing in women owned businesses, because of the characteristics that women tend to over index and that can bring to the table in the research of reinforces this too. So just Google why women make great leaders, you’re gonna get a whole host of research. And he from very reputable universities and references that cite this as being a really, really truism. It’s just a matter of getting women to those positions, right. But sometimes our power gets undermined by what we said like the outdated stereotypes and processes which are imposed on us and which we impose on ourselves. And here’s a few and I’ll try to do this a little bit quicker than I did the first point. But I can’t promise any, it’s okay. Alright, so first, that women are the best caregivers, and therefore they should take the lead, right? We think that because we gave birth to the kids, it’s just a natural light connection that we have. And there’s nothing that’s going to overcome that, except for we have to take a little bit more of an objective view about what the roles are going to be in that caregiving. Alright, so are we giving our partners enough credit for the way that they can be cared for a big one? It’s a huge one. We tend to be very big control freaks, it’s our way or the highway. We know how to do it, right? We are the moms. If we’re going to mandate that then our partners are going to take the backseat, and they’re not going to put themselves out there because the last thing they want to do is do it wrong. Yep. Or get yelled at for doing it wrong. Something I have to manage within me all the time. We know how our men act, right? And so we have to really think about the question, which is, is it really our responsibility? Is it? Are we the only ones who can actually really do it well? Or are we just nominating ourselves? Because it’s a default reaction. It’s just easier if we just do it ourselves. Right. So I think that’s the big question to really contemplate here when you’re trying to think about that. The second is maternity leave means a loss of progress. This continues to be a huge, huge issue, where it’s like, if you have no work, you have no results there, you have nothing to put on your contribution sheet. So therefore, you fall behind because you can’t compete against somebody who’s been there. The whole year, if you’ve only been there six months, or seven months, I think this is totally flat out ridiculous. It’s like, oh, so I perform really well, like top performer in the first six months. So you think I’m just going to like, fall off. And the last six months, I was just going to do a crappy job. And so my progress wasn’t going to continue. I mean, that doesn’t make any sense. I mean, I know that there’s some cubbies who don’t even evaluate women who’ve been on maternity leave. Yep. Because they weren’t there for the full 12 months, that is a system problem that has to be changed. The other one that women tend to get in their own way about is that they feel this promotion is seen as egotistical, which results in a win lose again, it goes back to that empathy. And therefore we should avoid any sense of self promotion, and what will sell you and we tell you guys, this ally, self promotion is essential to rising, the work does not speak for itself, okay. So you have to get good as a promoting yourself, it doesn’t have to be in the sleazy way doesn’t have to be how your male counterparts do it. But you have to get good at promoting yourself and we have an episode on that, you’re going to hear us say, we’re going to hear that a lot as we go through this. The other one, and this kind of goes to that. One is that you refuse to play the game, or so I’ll say we refuse to play the game. Sometimes. Again, it goes back to that everything should be fair, right? And so whether it feels like it’s a boys club, or there’s just too much drama, or is too manipulating, and you don’t want to even participate it, that just gets you a seat on the bench, or sometimes worse, it gets you seen in the stance, you’re not even in the game. Yep. So you can’t play the game, you can’t be part of all these discussions about getting promoted to get progressing in your career if you’re not on the court. So you need to get on the floor. And only when we stand in our power, can we expect others to believe that we’re actually powerful, so we can’t go and claim that everybody should respect us for being powerful if we’re not willing to stand in it. April, your thoughts?

April Martini 32:37
Yeah. And this one, you know, her this was kind of a big moment, I think of self reflection for me as I went through these this list and thought about where do I show up? Or how have I historically and what have I changed maybe. And so one of the things about me is for a very long time, I didn’t think I wanted kids. And I think there’s a whole lot of reasons. And you know, maybe I shouldn’t have my head examined to get to all of them. But really, though, I do think that a large component of that was I looked around and I didn’t see women rising if they had kids, right. And so I really think that I shut that down as part of who I was, and just kind of took like the stiff upper lip thing and was like, that’s not happening for me. And so I’m gonna go over here, and I’m gonna run it all the things I want to do with my career. Right, right. Until I turned 30 years old, at which point my husband and my sister found me crying on the toilet upstairs in our condo, on my 30th birthday. And they were like, first of all, I don’t cry very often. So that was alarming. And then also my birthday the thought it was just because I felt like I was getting old. And so when I could finally speak enough to articulate, I think I would they were both like that a good thing. So anyway, I say that to say I do think that it hit me in a way that I was like, I the way I phrase it is I didn’t feel like I had a choice anymore. So now I had to go and find a way because I wanted that right. And so I’m well I’m really glad that I listened to myself, because I think becoming a mom made me feel more powerful than I have really at any other point in my life. And I have this moment I remember standing at the front windows in our condo, and I was holding Sam and he was just days old. And Bryce was back traveling. And I remember thinking to myself, who thought it was a good idea for me to be responsible for another human being one of those moments you have as a brand new mom, right? It’s like 3am He’s not sleeping. I haven’t slept in however many days he’s been alive. But what came after that was just this fierceness that I don’t think I ever knew I had inside of me and I think I stand in my power because I think I owe it to the kids even more than anybody else. And so when I experience any of these things and mentioned whether it’s directly me or it’s seeing it in our clients, it really takes me to this really specific place about what actually matters the most in life. And this goes to my earlier comment about putting your family first in situations versus just in general, because, to me, the best impact I can have on this world is to raise good kind human beings, because there also aren’t enough of those in the world right now. Right. And so in order to do that, I have to rise above, I have to stand in my power. And I have to take a stand when it’s needed, whether it’s for myself or someone else, because my hope is that my daughter and my son reach a point where they’re both standing, and they can feel like they can achieve equal things with each other. And then I think that empathy that you talk about to or what that you’ve talked about before, of instilling that with them, so that they feel like they have the worse, to be able to be powerful in very equal ways. And maybe we won’t get there. And that’s a huge aspiration. And she’s here she’s for, you know, I don’t know, I can’t predict that. But that is just the, like, when I get the fire in my belly, it’s because of the situation that happens, and then thinking about them and their future lives.

Anne Candido 36:10
Yeah, I think that’s a really, really fabulous point. Because I think it does give a different perspective when you have kids for sure. And it definitely gives you a pause for how you want them to see the world. Yes. Right. And the same goes, you can see the world as a safe place, you can see the world is a dangerous place. And both people are right, yep. And so that becomes the, the decision you have to make with regards to how you want to frame things up. And I’ve always been trying to run the middle. But I’ve always been very clear with my girls about what the reality of the situation is, and what they’re gonna have to overcome as women in business specifically, and how some of these things play out. And so I’ve shared very honestly, when things haven’t gone well for me, not that I’m a feminist not to believe everything that has happened to me is because I’m a woman, that’s not the case. But I have recognizing knowledge mistakes that I’ve made, that have something to do with me being a woman too, that when put together, it kind of creates the impacted that it did. So whether it’s in the way that I acted in a meeting being very direct, you know, in a meeting and not being very well received, because I am a woman, and me not understanding well, then how come my male counterpart can be direct, but I can’t be direct. And yes, it’s not fair. Doesn’t matter that it’s fair, or it’s not fair, it matters that I was not productive in my conversation, I was not received well. So therefore, I need to change the way that I am acting, that is standing in your power. And that is really, really important. Because that becomes a really great tool to give to your kids boy or girl male 100% male, about how do you actually receive from women? You know, how, what, how, as a boy or a male? Are you going to receive this kind of input from women? And how are you going to, then what was your impression gonna be of them? And as well, as a woman? How are you going to stand up for yourself? And how are you going to have conviction, but you’re going to do it in a way that’s finesse and savvy because you have to if you want to rise, right, so we get like, so caught up in trying to play it very much, like at a high level, and like, kind of like diluting it all down without really being very honest about what actually is going on, and then taking the power back into ourselves to say, okay, I get I get what’s happening here, I need to act differently, I need to be different, I need to show up in a way that’s going to help me be conducive to rise. And that has nothing to do with the other stuff that’s going on with the choices you need to make between life and in your work. I mean, those are decisions you have to be made for sure. But that is not the reason why you have to compromise in the way that you’re going to show up. You can show up in that same way, as we talked a lot about how to treat your kids you strep in the same way as how you treat your co workers and your boss. Yep, I’m sorry, I can’t go to this meeting. I have another I have an obligation I promised my kids, I am not going to let them down. This is what I can do. As a result. I can take the call after it. I can get this work done tonight. Can you give me an extra day, as opposed to just saying, shoot now what do I do? I can’t tell them. I’m gonna do my kids at that, because then they’re gonna see that, you know, thinks something about me. But I don’t want to disappoint my kids and therefore, I’m stuck. Yeah, right. So don’t default to that stand in your power. Think about what you want to do in that situation and try to find a way to get it done. Yep. Yeah. All right. We are number four.

April Martini 39:41
We’re on number four. All right, we got there. Okay. The fourth belief critical in helping women rise and leadership is we need to acknowledge where we get in our own way. And we’ve talked a lot about this, but April, I’m gonna ask you to put some finer points on this. Yeah. So I think a good summary list is here, given all the conversation we’ve had, which is kind of the point of this one right? And then I have another recent situation to share, which I think helps bring it to life and contextualize right and also share with you that we’re still in it, we’re still in it, it’s every day instantly taken, we’re constantly having to monitor. So in any case, so there are real challenges to face that are outside of our control. But what we’ve been talking about and what this point is here for is to acknowledge what is in our control. And specifically, these realities look like, not holding ourselves accountable for the commitments we made to our own growth and aspirations to the point of my little bit of anger about the people that didn’t show up last week, right, it’s missing out on those opportunities, not saying no to things that we feel obligated to do, but have no passion to do. Or, or, and worse, letting people take advantage of that inability to say no, you have got to get this under control. Guys, if you hear one thing on this episode, you cannot say yes to everything. And think that you’re going to be able to sustain that whether it’s people taking advantage, or you just getting in the pattern and the default of it. It will erode all of your energy, if you continue to say yes, all the time. The other side of the coin is defaulting to what others expect of us because it’s easier to the point I just made while I’m supposed to do that. So I’m just going to do it, feeling jealous of other women and their achievements and thereby undermining them. This is when we are not supportive of the women that are in these positions and we become our slash their worst enemies. Making all those a come behind us blaze the trail because we had to, please do not do this. Take the mindset that you’ve been there. And therefore you’ve paved a path and know that they’re going to have their own struggles don’t make it harder on them. Not taking care of our physical, mental and emotional health. And, and I talk about this all of the time. That’s why I’m so adamant about not saying yes to everything, or the inability to say no to things, you are just as important. You’re also a human being, which means there are things that you must do in order to be physically mentally and emotionally healthy. Making excuses versus taking action because we’re afraid of inconvenience others. Our favorite sighs I’m too busy, you’re too busy doing what we’re all busy prioritize playing small so as to not rock the boat or stand out. This one kills a little bit of my soul when I see this happen, because I feel like it means you’ve given up or don’t believe that we’re qualified, which and gave the whole point before about applying for the job, right? You don’t have all the answers. No one does. That is also a definition of being human. So have the competence in yourself that you can one figure it out, and that you’re worthy of being there. So these are just a few that we’ve experienced in our lives and, and coaching others, we’re not passing judgment, to be clear, but it is impossible to rise if you don’t own it. And the first step of that is acknowledging where you sit within this list, right. And there’s plenty of them that I’ve failed at in the past to and still did still do and still struggle with. And I’m gonna give another example now just to prove this point. But overall, this requires constant monitoring and reevaluation, you really have to stay on top of it. It’s not something where you’re like, Oh, I made it here. And now I’m all done. Right? It is a continuous battle for us as women for all the reasons we’ve talked about, including those characteristics that we over indexing. So I’ll give you my example. Right? Friday, the kids were sick, and Bryce was still in Japan. And so I looked around me and I thought, okay, I could cancel my day, right. But then I started to think about what that was going to mean. And I got to the point with myself, where I was like, they’re going to need me more tonight. Because when kids are sick, and it’s bedtime, it’s dark, and all those things, they they want their mom there, right? And I will be a better more patient mom. In those moments. If I step away today. Some people might say that was the wrong decision. Okay, but I can tell you right now that this is where my village came in. So my sister Mandy works a job that is on West Coast hours. So her day starts later. And then McKenzie is one of the nannies it’s in the regular rotation. Both people that they spend lots of time with that they are comfortable with, they love them. And if I’m being really honest, the place I came to in my head was that they could take equal if not better care for them than I could in this moment, because I was already exhausted and running on fumes from the week. Yeah. And I was also going to have them for another 24 hours until Bryce got home. So I went to my meetings, and I communicated the situation on both sides. I told Mandy and Mackenzie if they needed me throughout the day, I would be out have my phone there and when I went to the client meetings, I told them the situation and there was a chance that I’m I have to step away.

Anne Candido 45:01
I was I think the exact words if they throw up I gotta leave. Yeah.

April Martini 45:06
That’s that’s where I get these situations. It just, it’s like, look at this happens, this happens. Okay, guys, that’s where we are. But I, I took the approach of transparency and clarity with me and everyone that I was going to interact with that day. It didn’t have to be me that day. And I believe that because we are so committed to building the village. And honestly, I don’t have a choice, quite frankly, with as much as Bryce is gone, especially this time of year. But we also choose then on the other side, how we show up with our clients to it for three people. And so when I had made the comment about with our families, or kids or whatever, how you communicate and with the people on the other side, the way that I communicated, even saying if they puke I gotta leave was not unexpected from anyone that had to deal with me that day that was in my circle, right? It was like, Okay, got it. And then guess what I was able to concentrate in the meetings because I knew my phone would ring if something had happened. That night, I came back, they were tired, they wanted to lay and watch movies, I had the wherewithal to do that. Because I had completed my day I had had this space. And now I could come back and be a good mom, versus any of the other things that could have happened if I cancelled my day. So there you go.

Anne Candido 46:21
I think that is a fabulous story. And I think it’s definitely one where it doesn’t have to be the same solution for everybody. No, right. Like for me to like when I was at p&g, I always had to have the nanny, take the kids to practice because you weren’t out working early enough to in order to do that. Now I choose to take them into practice. So I can have a couple of minutes with them. One on one, it sounds just Corinne but I then I practice on either workout while I’m there. So I’ll go for my run or walk. Or maybe I’ll take some time for myself. And I’ll do my puzzle book, or I’ll get worked on. Yep. Right. So it’s about like flexing a little bit like that so that you can do the things that matter. But it doesn’t have to look the same for everything. No. Right.

April Martini 47:10
And that situation looked that way on that day. And it would have taken to life. Yeah, you know, the next time that they’re sick, and that happens, it’ll be different. Yeah. And

Anne Candido 47:19
I’m just like, don’t throw up because I don’t know if I could do this presentation.

April Martini 47:23
And I knew that was in your head to like, I did float out a note like and if this happens, can you cover this and there it was like the dots kind of sat there for a minute. I’m

Anne Candido 47:31
like, Okay, so that’s not asleep. I could have gone through it. I could have done do you cut up? I’m pretty sure it’s not the preparation that we liked. Right? Because you were owning that word. That piece of work. Yeah, yes. All right. That’s awesome. Okay, so we got through the four points, let me just summarize them up. And those are the four beliefs critical in helping women rise in leadership. And let me just summarize them for you. We can be good moms and good leaders, many fail, you can only one into even achieve the one compromises need to be made. This is just not true. Second, as smart, capable, ambitious women, it is our responsibility to rise and pull others up behind us, it is a bit of a catch 22 We need more women at the top in order to get more women to the top. But that is the reality, and it’s up to each of us to flip it. Third, we are powerful. If you don’t believe in our ability to change the face of business, we are sunk before we’ve even begun. We need to stand in our power if we expect others to believe we are powerful. And fourth, we need to acknowledge where we get in our own way. Sure, there are real challenges to face that are outside of our control. But what we are talking about is what is in our control, acknowledge it and address it. In our next section is in the trenches. It’s really good here award examples, like we haven’t been already. But these are gonna be us obviously, under specific industries and situations. But I think these are gonna be very situationally oriented, and ones that we’ve gotten from a lot of our coaching clients, ones that we’ve addressed ourselves in our own lives. And so hopefully, these will have some applicability to you that you guys can then translate into your own lives. But if you want to talk about these more days, or where we’re like, contact us because this is where we need to kind of get this conversation going. So our first in the trenches question what if I don’t have a village, then I’ll take this one, but I definitely wasn’t able to jump in. This is where we just have to be very forthright and say that you need to do more harder work in order to find one. There’s no reason not to have a village. I know April has said that she has family in town. I have some family in town too. We have friends I mean, we have people that we can ask and we can count on you may say I don’t have any family here or maybe I’m new and I don’t have any friends. Then it’s time to you need to make them and you need to can’t make the family okay, but you can. You can start making friends you can start getting to know the parents of your kids. You can start to find out where you can engage with more moms in your situation through mom groups or any of those things. It may not be the the ideal social environment for you, especially if you tend to be introverted. But this is where you have to look at it is doing something that’s bigger and beyond what the core rationale is for it, because it has benefit to helping you be able to manage your life in a much more fluid way as April talks about which I love. So if you don’t have family, or you don’t have the friends, yet, you have to make a more concerted effort to actually cultivate some of those relationships. Also, nannies, sitters, again, a lot of people will say, I don’t have the money for that, you have some money that you can set aside, if you prioritize some of your funds in order to make this happen. There’s a lot of suitors in that are out there in your neighborhood who are willing to do a couple of hours for a very cheap rate, you just need to ask, or you need to ask where you can find these centers. Most of these, especially in Cincinnati have these little networks. I mean, my daughter’s on one of them, she’s having the Madeira babysitters, I can’t remember that’s exactly what it’s called. But that’s how they access a lot of these sitters in the in the area. So even if you don’t know a lot of people, there’s channels like that. There’s also things like under services like babysit ease and some of these other ones where you can actually go through a more formal process. And these are all vetted sitters in the end. So if you’d rather do that, you can do that. So there’s lots of different avenues for how to create your village. You just need to do the work in order to go do it. Okay. And I know a lot of people too, are like, I want to leave my kids with a stranger and all these sorts of things. And yes, it can be extremely uncomfortable having to do that. And we April and I will be very honest that we’ve both had bad nannies. Yes, we have this happen. It can happen. Has it been traumatizing? No, because they were bit at least vetted enough that they’re actually like, not serial killer? Yeah. So and then do any harm. Do they didn’t do any harm to the kids now continue to remain to be stories about that. Like, Hey, Mom, remember when our babysitter abducted us? I’m like, Yeah, not a great day. Am I say abducted? Like she took them to Kroger in Madeira. And she refused to take them to their dad’s house until I came to pick them up. So that’s kind of how they classified that. So at least I’ll have stories to tell Oprah when they actually, you know, get invited on there about how their child so how ridiculous that sounds? Yeah. So So I’m saying it’s like you guys, we tend to make it more in our heads. And it actually isn’t real in real life.

Do the vetting. Ask for references, make sure you have good qualified people. Yes, it takes a little bit of time, but it’s so worth it to get some of that freedom and flexibility for your life. Yeah, 100%. And I’ve already so in this episode, but I’ll say it really overtly that I am currently in the process of working very hard to grow my village because I’m in a situation currently where I do not have a choice when it comes to that, right. So you know, my parents are getting older, which I can say because I know that they aren’t podcast listeners, unfortunately.

April Martini 52:58
There are more grandkids in the picture in my family now. And I also am careful about how much I let my family take on because I want to make sure that they enjoy my kids and they don’t feel like their responsibility. So a lot of it is led by what they’re willing to do. And then the mindset that if I end up in an O shit moment, then I know the chain of command of who can typically help, right? So right now currently, I have five nannies in rotation, which when I say that people’s eyes get huge, and then the question is always how do you manage that I manage it one day at a time. However, I will say that while it happened, because it was the only solution when Ainsley decided to go to college, I mean, how could she do that to me in Macon, Georgia? Yeah, it was super stressful. And I had to basically put all them through training on where and how do you pick up the kids? What are the lunches? What’s the homework situation? What are my expectations? But at this point in time, what I have is five gals who I just go down the list when we have needs and generally one of them can fill it. Now, there has been a very good friend of mine who has been pushing me for since we’ve moved up here. Well, I guess since Mia started school, because that’s when we ran into each other to allow her and her husband to help. They have one daughter, and she’s in Mia’s class. And like I said, We reconnected we had been friends for, I don’t know, seven or eight years we hung out. They lived in my parents building. They moved away last track found each other in the parking lot at the preschool last year. And so we’ve reconnected been hanging out with them. It’s great. My daughter and her daughter are friends. And they’re you know, people we have a great time with. She’s been on me to let her help. And she has asked me I can’t even tell you how many times to the point where she now would she got into a situation where she would scold me. Why didn’t you call me I told you to call me there. no reason that you went through that I told you, I called you April. Because I, what I realized about myself, I felt bad. And I’ve realized one thing about myself that I feel like I’ll get over the hump of it in some capacity, and then I have to recalibrate, again is I don’t like to ask for help when it comes to my children, because I feel like I should be able to handle it within the village and infrastructure that I built. Well, I had a situation where I had a nine o’clock appointment, which I had moved, I think four times at that point. And let’s see, no one in my family could help because I did go that route. And none of all the girls had class. And so I texted Aaron, and I was like, Is there any way that I can drop me at your house at 830? And can you take her to school? For me? I have a nine o’clock appointment, and the answer came back immediately. Absolutely. drop her off. So we got to the morning of and she was like, I’m making pancakes. Does Mia want any I dropped me off. I also got the mom, I don’t need you to come to the door. I’ve been here before. I don’t need you to help me. And so I’m like, okay, great. So I stood next to my car door. And when Aaron opened the door and was like what’s happening? I was like, I’ve been told to not move from this place right here. So they had breakfast together. They made it to school. It was lovely. And she enjoyed it. And she had a great time. They had a great time, right. And so I need to embrace more of that. The other thing that I’ve realized about myself is I’ve always stated that my sister is reciprocate her. Yes. Like she she doesn’t like to owe anyone anything. So if she does, it drives her crazy. And she needs to give it back immediately. I’ve realized I actually have that tendency to Yes. And so I had a hard time allowing Aaron to help because I wasn’t sure how I was going to help back. Yeah, right. It’s not very reasonable. Although she could drop Hadley to me, and it would be totally fine, right? That’s not really like the reason she’s offering, right? She’s offering because she’s trying to help take something off my plate, not give me more things to manage, right. However, as things happen, we had a conversation because our cute little daughters walked in holding hands the other day, and I caught a picture of it. And her husband was there and had already left. And so I sent her the picture. And I’m like, Oh my gosh. And we went down this whole thing about 10 years ago when we were having beers at the pool, who would have thought that we’d have kids in the same class that are buddies, all that stuff. And then she’s like, how’s the week, and I was like, hey, alright, thanks for looking up. Kids are not sick anymore. Bryce is here this week, I think I can do it. And she’s like, Oh, girl, we’re having an issue, our nanny is sick and continues to be sick. The day before, one of my five nannies had sent me two more people to put into the mix. And so I was like, I have got this. So I paid it forward. And I sent her those two names. And when I saw her in the parking lot today, she was like, You’re not gonna believe it. You are a lifesaver. Megan’s helping us now. So appreciate it. Thank you for sending, right. So I now took a look at myself and was like, Okay, you need to get over it. You need to continue to let her help. And also relax, that you’re not going to have to pay it forward immediately. It will happen in

Anne Candido 58:02
due time. That is, yes, a really, really good exam, because I was going to bring up the whole reciprocity thing, which I think holds people back. I also think the they don’t want to feel like they’re taking advantage of people hold them back. I would say continue to ask until you start getting the signals that maybe you’re asking too much, or that you don’t actually give it back, right? Yes, yes. There, you’ll know they’ll be a signal to you know, but don’t automatically think that you’re taking advantage of people in the moment. And that if you ask too many times, it’s going to be like a nuisance. So you’ll know. I think the other thing is and I meant to bring up this point, too, is like nannies have networks, right? And that used to be my case. He was like, Oh, my nanny couldn’t do it. She’s like, Oh, but I have my three other friends. One of my other friends could do it. And I was like, Oh great. Another person and like that person would come she goes, Oh, no, don’t worry. I post tell her what to go do. Yep. And we’re in that we’re doing that now too, right? Yes. And so then she would come and then you know, the girls would like how’d it go? We loved Henry. She thought we thought she was great. Yeah, that was Devon. So you’re like all worried because you have a new person. And then all of a sudden, these girls especially because they’re strong, capable women manage the process really, really expertly and they know it because that’s how they get these really good jobs. Yeah. And get the really good families and get the really good money. Yes. So it’s all I mean, our reason

April Martini 59:23
our situation today is exactly that the one girl sick. And so she texts me with the replacement who was one of our regulars and said I can’t be there. Are you cool with this? Great and it was done for me? Yeah,

Anne Candido 59:35
that’s perfect. All right are second in the trenches question but I’m just so busy. How do I make time for prioritizing myself? And as a response is that I’m too busy. I’m into the point that it drives me absolutely nuts when somebody says oh, just how busy they are. Mike. Okay, then I surprised because I expect you to be sitting around twiddling your thumbs, right? Like your paycheck but Um, I think what we both would say is here you have to time, you just don’t think you’re more important than everything else that’s going on. Right. So you’re choosing to let other people run their agendas and prioritize their lives over your life. Again, I mean, just very simply, it is about making a choice. And it goes back to the ways we’re getting in our own way, especially not being able to say no, and the fall into just I’ll do it, that’s fine. You know, and it’s sometimes it comes to having to be, again, more flexible in your way that you want to manage your day. So for example, I am a morning workout person, I love to get my workouts out in the morning because like, if my whole day goes to crap, at least I got my workout in, you know, and like I knew accomplished yeah, I’ve done that. For years, even it was at P&G, I did that for years to the point where I’m like, I didn’t show up till 9am. Like, if I had an early medium, like you guys are interfering with my workout. So like, for the most part, they would adjust, sometimes I didn’t get that choice. And so what I’d be like have to do is like, okay, either just didn’t get my workout in for the day, or I will get to some other time. I don’t really like working out like in the afternoons or you know, some of those other things. But I do it anyway. Because I, it’s a way that I best manage my day, and then you just have to get it done. So sometimes we get these things just stuck in our head that we can only do them at certain points of time, like you said, it’s like, well, if I’m not with my kid during the day, when they’re sick, I’m often a bad mom. But no, maybe if I’m at them with them in the evening, that’s actually the better time to be at them. Just play differently in your head, toss it up a little bit and kind of see it’s like it may really it does is that really the truth is that really the situation, or is really a different scenario actually can work here just as well. And really, like just be honest with yourself, I also say to is get some hobbies, if you don’t have any. That’s the other reason why people don’t prioritize themselves, because they’re like, why don’t know what I would do with my time and just sit there, scroll through their feet, get some hobbies, like go like get a massage or get your nails done. Or if you don’t like that, or you don’t like working out, like read a book or join a club or I mean, whatever, there’s a gazillion things you can do. Try them all on and see what you like the best as part of just having the time for yourself. Sometimes you just like me and April where you’re like, I just want some quiet time I’m gonna go have a glass of wine, I’m gonna catch up on work all by myself. That can be it too. But find somebody that works for you.

April Martini 1:02:16
Yeah, I think that is all right. And I want to make the point too, that there are maintenance things. And then there are the other things to where you prioritize yourself. Right. So I get the question a lot to have. I just don’t know how you make so much time to work out your kids or little Bryce has always gone, you’re running your own business, how does that happen? And my response is, if I do not work out, I cannot do those other things. It is a non negotiable. And it has been for 21 years since I got into college and realized I was anxious about my major being stressful and became a runner. Right? So I think that you have to take more of that mindset too. And then also not feel bad about doing the quote unquote, maintenance things and then other things as well, because that’s the other question I get is like, but she’ll just go out by yourself. I’m like, Yeah, cuz sometimes I just need a minute. Yeah, really. So you work out your nails always look nice, you get a monthly facial, and then you’re also going to take a few hours alone. Yeah, I am, actually. And I think that we’ve got to shift it to the other way of thinking, which is you do have the time. And then to Anne’s point, which I think is a really good one. What are you going to do with the time, right? And I think hobbies are a huge one. And I think this is one where I talked before about burning yourself down or burying yourself under the weight of all the things that you have to do we have to have outlets. Yes, right. Now, some people would say that for me running as a hobby, I guess technically yes. But to me, it’s my mental health. It is yes. It’s not even actually, as much as I love the physical like the high and all of that. It’s actually the getting away getting out letting my racing thoughts settle down having the air like it’s all of this stuff that makes me feel better. And the other thing I would say is, don’t apologize for this either. Yes. Because that’s the other piece and I don’t I mean, I don’t even ever apologize to and I mean, like we run our own schedules. It was one of the things we talked about early on when we started this business was we both like our lives to run different ways and how was that going to work? Yvan sends me something to look at. And I can’t get to it that afternoon. I don’t say sorry. I say I’ll look at it tomorrow morning before you get up. And so I think that’s the way we have to look at it is if you don’t start realizing How important it is to take care of yourself and you keep making the excuses for why you’re not going to do it. You won’t ever get over the hump that we’ve talked about, and you won’t be able to have enough sense of self, to be able to make the decisions and then feel okay about them.

Anne Candido 1:05:18
I think that’s a really good point. And the only thing I’ll add is, manage your expectations around what you’re going to spend that time doing to a lot of times people are like, Well, okay, I got my time, I’m right, I’m gonna hit the gym every day, right? Seven o’clock in the morning, I’m going to guess what I’m going to do. That’s not what you really want to do. Don’t pretend like it, that’s what you’re gonna go do. I mean, I used to be a runner, too. I’ve gotten to the point where my you know, I just don’t like it as much as I used to. But I read I really like to do is I like to walk and listen to my podcasts. So now I get a double dose of exercise and learning time. And then I stop at Starbucks, and I get my Starbucks and I walk home. Yep. Right, you know, so find something you enjoy. That is actually like you said, an outlet and not just somebody you feel like, forced to go do so therefore, you know what? Well, I could go to the gym, but you know what, I probably need to get a couple hours of work instead. And you know, because you don’t really want to go to the gym, make it something that you actually look forward to doing. But make sure it’s something that you feel energy and going to go do it. Sometimes you’re gonna feel like really tired, like, I just don’t have the energy for that. But you’ll find that those things light you up in ways that you didn’t even think, or you could have just conceived of. So give it a shot. And you’ll I think you’ll find that those refuel you just as much as like, I’m gonna sit on the couch, and I’m going to just go and scroll through my feet and watch TV.

April Martini 1:06:33
I think it’s a good point not to force yourself to suffer through stuff just because just because you think that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. Exactly. And also don’t. Again, don’t worry about people what people think about what you are doing. Like sometimes when I go and I just do like evening errands by myself and I go sit at a restaurant at the bar and have a glass of wine and a meal and catch up on work. There’s a lot of people that have been like, yeah, that’s what you went and did. And I’m like, but it set me up for the next day or the next week or it got stuff off my mind that was there like there. If you do it with intention. And you you’re not lying to yourself about why you’re doing it, then whatever it is, is fine. Just find out what that is.

Anne Candido 1:07:18
Yeah, I agree. All right. Our last in the trenches question. I can almost hear everybody clapping. I have a really hard time letting go of the judgment, which is you’re just getting this I am a hard enough on myself. Why does everyone else have to have an opinion, April, toughen up gals. Yep.

April Martini 1:07:35
I mean, that’s in your power and in your power, because you do owe it to yourself. If you’ve not heard that today, then we have not done our job. You have to let go, what does not serve you? This is something that I have. Every time that I feel like I’m running up against any of the variety of things that we have in this episode, I that phrase I like it just comes in my head now because of how many times I repeat it to myself. You have got to get this under control. And there’s an expression out there. I’m not going to say the whole thing. But you know, opinions are like everybody has one. So you can’t get away from people in their opinions. Right? I always tried to take it to a more objective place of evaluating why the opinions even in my head. And so it’s it looks like, do I even like this person told you the force of nature comes out, then why do I care what they think? Do they live their life? Make decisions parent the way that I do? If not? Then again? Why do I care? Why am I wasting my energy energy on this? I mean, I say that I’m an acquired taste, which recently I’ve been rethinking saying that because I’m not exactly sure that that’s entirely true. What I’ve decided is it is that I stand in my power. And some people will get on board with that, and some people won’t. Yep. So to the why do I care? I’ve realized I actually don’t, because what I do is I say things that other people are too afraid to do and then I don’t apologize for it. And there are just some people that don’t know what to do with that. And that’s okay with me. That’s totally fine. I don’t do it in a way to be disrespectful at all. I would never do that. We preach kindness in our house. I’ve said that when I’m trying to raise kind human beings, I do my best to never cut anyone down because I know what that feels like. And there’s just no reason for that. It’s not worth the guilt, honestly. But if someone for example asks me how the party went for my son and I say their kids aren’t allowed back at my house and they asked who those people are. I tell them and I got some looks from one of the other moms who now gives me a wide berth for doing so and that is fine with me. Oh, well. I’m not slamming other people. I’m not speaking ill I’m just speaking honestly. And again, I’m saying the things other people won’t say I told the situation in my rationale you can agree with me or not. You can think I’m crazy. It’s fine. I cannot remember what I was listening to. And obviously I’ve heard this a million times before, but the expression of you’re never going to make every One like you, so why are you trying? Which is essentially what this is right? I’m more interested in my village in the community of people that respect me that take me as I am and look out for me. I’m not interested in drama for the sake of drama. And so that is my lens. And really, you have to define what your

Anne Candido 1:10:18
six. So yeah, and I think the only thing I’ll add to that is, I love what you said about judgment. I just want to reiterate this, this is nothing about judging anything about whatever you’re doing being right or wrong. No. All it’s meant to do is help you raise the questions like, Hmm, is this really what I want? Or is am I defaulting to a preconceived set of criteria, notions beliefs that aren’t serving me? So I love what you say about you got to get rid of what’s not serving you. Yeah. And that’s not being selfish. It’s not being narcissistic. It’s about being able to be the best version of you can be so you can achieve what you want to achieve and fulfill what you want to fulfill.

April Martini 1:10:57
Well, I think to that point, you know, our big thing is an I see this all the time is assuming positive intent. Yeah, I state that about myself, right? So if you don’t, if you don’t, if you’re not made that same way, then I just opt out like that. And that’s the objectivity I’m talking about. It’s like, Look, you don’t have to agree with me. I’m not judging you. I don’t know why you have an opinion. I didn’t ask for it.

Anne Candido 1:11:20
So yeah, I think that’s right on all right. And if you guys are still with us, we are going to do our third and final segment where we like company your brand and may or may not be using a marketing smarts cause the marketing smarts moments. And today, mine I don’t think has anything to do with it. But you know, I like to try to find you always do you say that and then I try to find the connection. I actually there is a connection but it’s probably not the most like it’s it’s probably something I shouldn’t be talking about. But so the person it’s it’s actually a person that I want to talk about exercising his marketing smarts is Peyton Manning. Oh, my is there. Is there anything else I need to say? I mean, if you want to get a boost in your marketing, just hire Peyton Manning, it seems like right. So in the last week, he hosted the CMAs with Luke Bryan. I don’t know why, but he did. Interesting choice, but but he has that like kind of the charisma and he has I can see how it worked. Especially with Luke I can and it has a dial the dynamic that I’m Texas it actually are New Orleans, New Orleans. See, this

April Martini 1:12:25
is why shouldn’t participate? Yeah.

Anne Candido 1:12:29
Okay. Zip. It seems like he’s from everywhere. So I mean, I could see how he would think that. And now I saw him in the promo for the Santa Clause sequels. Oh, really? Yes. So I saw that this week. He was like, He’s gonna act. Like he was just an advertisement. Alright, so opposite Tim Allen. Because timeouts. Oh, like a replacement. Yeah, it was like, they were kind of going out with it. Yeah. So he was I can’t even remember what the context of it was like, Oh, my god, there he is, again. So I see all that. They say, tongue in cheek just hired Peyton Manning if you want to boost your marketing, but really the broader context I want to have here or want to share here is about hiring talent, when you’re trying to do marketing, because it seems to be an easy way. And I can see how people think it’s an easy way when they just like, well just pay, you know, Peyton Manning, a million dollars will show up here and he’s going to make all of our brand dreams come true, right. And that’s not generally what happens, guys. I mean, so generally, when you’re hiring, especially top caliber talent like that, you are just trying to get an awareness. Yep, dream. So you want him to use his channels, you want just the popularity of him just to drive some awareness of what you’re doing. And for some cases that can result in some really, really fantastic KPIs. And for you, like for CMAs are trying to get viewership, right? They just want people to tune in and watch is paid and being part of the CMA is going to improve the credibility, reputation popularity of country music, probably not, it’s probably not going to do anything to improve the brand of country music or the industry of country music, but it probably did get people to tune in to watch the CMAS that maybe not might not have, at least for a little while. And just out of curiosity, oh, this is still the CMAS and there’s still people singing country music and I don’t like country music, so therefore, I’m gonna tune out after like, a few minutes. Same thing with Tim Allen and you know, the Santa Clause sequel. They’re just trying to get awareness, right. Maybe he’ll participate. Maybe he won’t participate. Will that get additional viewership? It certainly may or may, you know, may or may not it probably would. But what I say is like when you’re thinking about your brand, and you’re thinking about your business and you’re thinking about whether or not this is a silver bullet for you, I want you to think about two things. One I want you to think about, can your brand exist without it if you start to intrinsically tie it to it. So this is what tends to happen is these these celebrities become so or any talent, frankly, becomes so intrinsically tied to your brand that your brand can’t exist without it. So that becomes a problem if that talent becomes too expensive. If or if that talent decides to opt out for some reason, or the town decides I’m gonna go to a competitor because they’re paying you more. The other thing is, is that you have to consider if that talent goes sideways, can your brand survive it? So I think about what happened with Nike, right when Tiger Woods had his major collapse, and that became a big huge issue for Nike, then they leaned into it for Colin Kaepernick, which still continued to be a huge issue for them, right? So they’re leveraging this talent in a way to Well, first for Tiger was a performance-based message was totally makes sense. Then they dropped him because of what happened. I’m not saying that was right or wrong or whatever. But the Colin Kaepernick one was intentionally chosen to make a stand and make a point, right? I still know people who are refusing to even engage in the brand because of that. So you’re making your choices. Those are your choices to make, but think about what are the implications of those choices. And if your brand has a longevity, to be able to live without it, as well as to be able to overcome anything that might happen with that talent that could negatively reflect on your brand.

April Martini 1:16:05
Yeah, and the only thing I’ll say is make sure that you’re honest with yourself about what you’re trying to achieve by putting that person in there.

Anne Candido 1:16:12
Yes, because again, I say silver bullet very intentionally, because that’s what a lot of people think it is 100% and it’s 99.9% of the time not going to work. All right, so just to recap for but least critical and helping women rise in leadership. First, we can be good moms and good leaders, many feel you can only be one and to even achieve the one compromises need to be made. This is just not true. Next is smart, capable, ambitious women is our responsibility to rise and pull others up behind us. It’s a bit of a catch 22 We need more women at the top in order to get more women at the to the top. But that is a reality. And it’s up to each of us to flip it. Three, we are powerful if we don’t believe in our ability to change the face of business we are so before we’ve even begun, we need to stand in our power if we expect others to believe we are powerful. And finally we need to acknowledge where we get in our own way. Show there are real challenges to face that are outside of our control. But what we are talking about is what is in our control, acknowledge it and address it. And with that, we’ll say go and exercise your Marketing Smarts!

April Martini 1:17:17
Still need help in growing your Marketing Smarts? Contact us through our website: ForthRight-People.com. We can help you become a savvier marketer through coaching or training you and your team or doing the work on your behalf. Please also help us grow the podcast by rating and reviewing on your player of choice and sharing with at least one person. Now, go show off your Marketing Smarts!