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VEST Her Podcast
The VEST Her Podcast explores the real, often unspoken challenges women face at work, in society, and on the path to economic mobility.
Through candid conversations with women navigating career pivots, entrepreneurship, leadership, and family life, we unpack the pressure to do it all, the self-doubt, and the systems not built with us in mind.
This podcast is for professionals ready to move beyond outdated advice and create success on their own terms. If you’re looking to grow, speak up, and be part of a supportive, change-making community, welcome.
Let’s question the rules, share what’s real, and build a better future together.
VEST Her Podcast
Emotional Runway: the Hidden Currency of Entrepreneurship
When we talk about startup runway, we obsess over finances, how many months until the money runs out. But what about the founder's emotional runway? That invisible reservoir of energy, resilience, and motivation that keeps a company alive even when the path forward seems impossible?
In this deeply personal and practical conversation, Claudia Naim Burt, Co-founder and COO of Keep Company, shares how she discovered the concept of emotional runway through her own struggle to sustain herself while building a venture-backed startup. As one of only 250 Latinas to raise over $1 million in venture capital, Claudia brings a unique perspective to the challenges of entrepreneurship, motherhood, and maintaining wellbeing when everything feels urgent.
The emotional runway framework offers a strategic way to think about personal sustainability. Just as financial runway helps you make business decisions, emotional runway helps you make intentional choices about your time and energy before hitting burnout. Claudia shares her process of conducting an "energy audit" to identify activities that drain versus replenish her, and how making seemingly indulgent choices (like taking hour-long walks) became non-negotiable investments in herself as a key business asset.
Throughout our conversation, we explore powerful frameworks for extending your emotional runway:
- Reframing choices through values rather than guilt
- Recognizing the spectrum of burnout rather than viewing it as binary
- Making needs explicit rather than implicit
- Finding connection with peers as the ultimate antidote to isolation.
We also dive into how these principles apply differently across various seasons of business and life, and the importance of regularly renegotiating your contract with yourself about what matters most.
Ready to extend your emotional runway? Listen now and discover practical strategies to protect your wellbeing while leading through challenging times.
Your business and the people who depend on you will thank you for it.
Whether you’re running a business or building a career in corporate America, if you’re ready to extend your emotional runway, 🎧 Listen now.
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If you are ready to take your career and business to the next level, apply to join our community of professional women, all eager to help you get there and stay there. Learn more at www.VESTHer.co
When founders talk about building a company, the conversation almost always comes back to one thing Runway. How long can the business keep going before the money runs out? But there's another kind of runway we don't talk about nearly enough the emotional runway. Because, let's be honest, it's not just the bank account that keeps a company alive. It's the founder's energy, resilience and ability to keep showing up every day. And when that emotional runway runs out, companies can break apart, even if the financials look strong. That's exactly what we're digging into today. How do you protect your well-being when the weight of the business is on your shoulders? How do you keep leading when stepping back doesn't feel like an option?
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, I'm Gabby Eichenlaub, coo at Vest and your host for today. In this episode, I'm joined by Claudia Naeem Burt, co-founder and COO of Keep Company, a patented group learning platform built on real human connection. Keep Company has closed over $3 million in venture capital financing, making Claudia one of only 250 Latinas to raise over $1 million in venture capital. Together, we'll explore how to recognize burnout before it derails you, what it means to build a business that supports your life, not consumes it, and practical ways to extend your emotional runway, even during the busiest seasons. For our guest's full bio and show notes go to wwwvestherco forward slash podcast. And if you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and leave us a review. Tell us what wasn't in the bio and where the term emotional runway came from.
Speaker 2:Yes, not in the bio mom of two boys, I have a four-year-old and a seven-year-old. So reverence, empathy, camaraderie for everybody navigating back to school, mental load, chaos, and originally from Venezuela and have been in back and forth between Venezuela and the DC area always. So emotional runway. One of the things I am, you know, a mom, a caregiver, a founder, a manager, a sister, right, All of these things and one of the things that I started to feel was I didn't have the words for it, but my emotional runway going down and what I started to do was I have tools in my toolkit, and so I have a therapist, I have friends, I talk to my sister all day long, right, so, like, I have self-awareness, but what I found was it wasn't enough and so I needed a new tool. So I started working with an executive coach who is phenomenal and works with founders specifically, so she really understands, like, the pace and the challenges of the stage that I'm building at, and she introduced me to this term, emotional runway, which is, as business owners, as leaders, whether you're managing a business unit or a function or a business entirely. We talk a lot about runway right or burn rate. Like how many if you did not make a single dollar more revenue. Or if you hit your goals, how many months of runway does the business have to operate on? And they're always thinking about cost benefit through that lens. And she said there is such a thing that's financial runway, right, there is such a thing. And just to ground, I think one of the goals with that term is to provide that forward perspective so that you can make more strategic choices today, so that you can say, okay, if my burn rate is three months, then I have different choices that I'm going to be making than if my burn rate is 12 months, Right. And so she said you need to. She was like she said I hear you thinking about your, your run rate, your burn rate, your, you know, you know your runway financially, but you need to be thinking about it emotionally too.
Speaker 2:This is an emotional game as much as it is an intellectual one, and so she really one of the things that she did was have me do like an energy audit. So what are the things that give you energy and what are the things that don't? Over the course of your day, both work and family and self. And very quickly, certain things came to the surface, of things that drain my energy and things that give me energy. And so she said you know, investing in things that give you energy is extending your emotional runway, In other words, how long you can run at this pace or in this way, in this way. And so what it allowed me to do was to make more strategic choices about what I did. So if I, you know, we're always talking about boundaries, we know that that is a huge skill we all have to build to have more sustainability in our careers and in our lives, what it allowed me to do is it empowered me to actually set those boundaries. It gave me like almost a rational reasoning behind it. So if I knew that somebody had asked me to book the fifth meeting of my afternoon, but I knew that that would decrease my emotional runway for the day before I have a really important call, then I will feel more empowered to say no.
Speaker 2:The other thing that came to the surface was the single biggest source of energy for me was time alone, specifically time moving. So what I found was, when I did a long walk by myself for one hour if I crossed that 30-minute mark I started to feel like ideas, creativity, I felt lighter, I felt more perspective. And so she said okay, if you are one of Keep Company's greatest assets and this is something that unlocks taking a one hour walk every day, this is something that unlocks this key asset for Keep Company Keep Lemonade is my business Then we need to figure out how to make your one hour happen every single day. And I looked at her like she had seven heads. I was like impossible. Like are you? Like haven't I told you what my life looks like? I don't want to take it away from time with my kids, but it certainly came out of the workday. So I'm like stuck between a rock and a hard place. And she said if we just look at this strategically and we're trying to unlock you as an asset, Our goal is to prolong your emotional runway so you don't burn out in three months, you burn out in 18 months, and at that point you've changed enough things that you're not going in that direction. Right, and so that's the concept of emotional runway.
Speaker 2:I think similarly, like that is a micro of a choice you can make over the course of a day, but I think big ones are hiring. Nothing will reduce my emotional runway more than somebody underperforming. So if every day I am not. I and we know these choices are really hard. People say you know, hire slow and fire fast. In practice, when you're stretched thin and have limited resources, that's really hard to do. But I think seeing how much having to course correct an underperformer reduces my bandwidth and emotional runway and how long I can run is very motivating to make some kind of hard but strategic decisions that are ultimately best for me as a resource.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love so much that you said and I think one thing that I got away from it, too, is that burnout to me feels like very present, like in the present moment and runway the emotional runway aspect is it's almost like you can be proactive about something and we're so excited to have you here to talk about this.
Speaker 1:As I mentioned, we have founders at different stages, we have professionals in different careers and stages as well, and a lot of the times founders or professionals maybe sometimes have to wear a lot of hats and I think a lot of the times it's encouraged to just keep pushing through and ignore how you're really doing.
Speaker 1:Then sometimes you also have, like this mission to your work that feels so critical, whether it's like a social component, a personal tie, or just even the fact that, like you, are the one putting food on your plate or for other people as well, right, so sometimes taking a second to step back feels like I just can't do that, right. But your work with Keep Company reminds us that burnout doesn't just impact our energy. It affects how we show up as leaders and how we make decisions and how we even feel connected to our work or the people around us. So I love what you are saying and I think I'd love to know just how do you check in with yourself to really assess how you're actually doing. I feel like that's something that gets thrown around, but how do you put that into practice?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that, first of all, I think when we talk about burnout or well-being, or even on the more clinical mental health side of depression and clinical anxiety and these kinds of things, I think that we talk about it as a binary You're burnt out or you're not, you're depressed or you're not, you're well or you're not and I think, realistically, we need to be talking about it as a full spectrum and so, realistically, what we're not trying to do is flip a switch. You're burned out. I'm going to do these seven things and it'll be great. In four weeks you won't be burned out. That is not how humans work and, of course, our brains. It's very attractive, right, like do these things and then it'll be. This won't be a problem. But we are kind of like living, breathing things that are constantly changing. Our environment is constantly changing. There's only so much that we can control, so we will always be living somewhere on the spectrum. And I think that one of the reasons why so much content and services and things about burnout, why it often sounds like trite and cheesy and not helpful, is because the hard truth is you have to get to know yourself and figure out what that looks like for you, and so if you are reading somebody else's playbook, I don't know how hopeful it'll be. If you get lucky and they have a temperament and a personality and habits and challenges and assets similar to you, awesome, copy their playbook. That is not really realistic. So I do think there is a lot of work of introspection and self-awareness building to understand what that looks like, and there are lots of tools to be able to do that. Certainly, reading is one of them looking at frameworks, seeing what resonates with you. There is everything I mean there is therapy, there is coaching, there are peer experiences. We always say that when people are struggling, their options are phone, a friend, so like a completely unstructured social environment where they might have bandwidth and skill to support you or not, or one-on-one clinical therapy. Right, we need to be building tools in the toolkit across that whole spectrum, and so I think about it often, as there are tools like StrengthsFinders and IMAP and personality tests that sometimes are helpful in assessing like, not just, are you an introvert or are you an extrovert, and how does that insight into yourself, how does that inform your decision making?
Speaker 2:I remember my brother was this is like a long time ago. He was working in banking and he is super, super extroverted. He gets a ton of energy from other people and he was like 22. And I'm very introverted. I recharge alone. And I remember he called me. He's like I've been working for 24 hours or something crazy. I'm like go home, eat, sleep. And he was like are you kidding me? I have to go be around people because that's how I'm going to recover my baseline and that's like the ultimate example, right, like these two extremes.
Speaker 2:But I think for me, a lot of that awareness honestly came in living through a postpartum during the pandemic. So I had my first child. My first child is seven, almost eight. My second child I found out I was pregnant with him the first day of lockdown, and so I experienced a very extreme version, like so many of us did right, of motherhood and caregiving and working and active mothering while you know. And so I think I saw, I saw a lot was going around at the time in 2020, in the kind of maternity space, maternal well-being space, about rage, about maternal rage and what that looks like the clinical components, the non-clinical components and I remember somebody said rage in mothers is often the engine light going on, so when your car is like I'm empty.
Speaker 2:Right the, a red light comes on rage. Often is that engine light saying I'm empty, and so I think it is a way for me. It's a really powerful metaphor, for how can you figure out what those lights and warning signals are for you? Um and again, I'm happy to share what they are for me, but the truth is that, um, there, that is a. That is work that introspection requires.
Speaker 1:No, I love that and I think that having that toolkit component is so important because it is like you said, it's not a one size fits all, it's not like this is the magic answer. It's really having, whether it's other people, whether it's you know, introspection, whatever it is for you, having being able to go to two or three different things that may work for you, I think is super important. I'd love to know too you mentioned you know kind of your postpartum as well, and I'm sure, through building a company or even professional life, there's so many different seasons that we go through and I'd love to know just your thoughts on how can founders distinguish between, like a tough season, something that's you know something quick or short, or that you kind of get through to something more serious, like burnout?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good question. I think that there are clinical markers. I think, like we at Keep Company, a lot of what we do in this peer support space, so we create groups where we find peers like you and your industry. So what that often looks like is other women at your seniority level, or other people caring for a parent with dementia, other dads who are also at this seniority level and caring for adolescent kids, right. So whatever that looks like for you because what we have found is that it is the greatest antidote to burnout is actually connection.
Speaker 2:Feeling like you are the only one navigating something is the greatest accelerant of burnout that I have been able to identify. And what we found was when we were starting. For us, it began with the experience of motherhood and then expanded into fatherhood and caregiving and now all employee experiences, which is you know, what we heard over and over again is it feels like I'm the only one. I'm the only one who can't hack it. I'm the only one who doesn't have this figured out. I'm the only one who can't juggle the balls. I'm the only one who doesn't post pretty pictures on Instagram. I'm the only one who can't juggle the balls. I'm the only one who doesn't post pretty pictures on Instagram. I'm the only one who doesn't have this big career. I'm the only fill in the blank, and it's a very bizarre thing to be on the other side of everybody telling you they feel like the only one, and so I really believe strongly that finding people like you is the greatest antidote to burnout.
Speaker 2:I think that it's worth noting like we are living in a time of loneliness. I think most people feel loneliness in one way shape or form. A lot of the mechanisms for organic connection that we had in life and at work are gone. They have been redesigned and we have a ton of flexibility because of that. We have a ton of access, but there is a cost and it is human connection, and so I think for people that work only remotely, that can be a challenge. I think, like you're not going to run into somebody at the grocery store, you might just do Instacart. You're not going to ask your friend to give you a ride, you're going to grab Uber right. Like there are all of these optimizations that we've done over the course of the last five years in particular that have little by little removed these small ways that we connect with other human beings and I think that that can sound really superficial but it is truly a core human need and I think, cumulatively, people don't start to realize that that's what they're feeling. And so you know, you might not say I'm lonely, but you might say I feel numb, I feel disconnected, I feel disengaged, I feel isolated.
Speaker 2:But I think on a fundamental level, what many of us are experiencing is loneliness, and there's so much data I mean the former Surgeon General, the parting prescription was about loneliness and the loneliness epidemic and the impact that that is taking. I mean, particularly when you think about elder care, the data says that acute and chronic loneliness is the equivalent of smoking an entire pack of cigarettes every single day. So like it has huge impacts to our physical health, not just our emotional health. So I think when you look at the tools in the toolkit, different types of human connection have to be part of it, no matter where that is for you.
Speaker 2:But I think a core distinction on the clinical side of like that line with burnout is the numbness I was talking about. So feeling numb, feeling like you just don't, can't care, you just don't have enough energy even to care, I think self-isolating for a lot of people can come with burnout. I think this is particularly true with women. Like your body will start letting you know, so things will start feeling off, and if you don't listen to the early warning signals of your body, you will get bigger signals. So I do think that, particularly with women, you start to see a lot of physical manifestations as well that are the cumulative impact of stress.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely saw a lot of head nodding going on in the in the group, so I think a lot of what you're saying is definitely resonating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's also a theme that I'm hearing in in the chat which is not working or taking a break or resting or encouraging your team to rest. Somebody was talking about that. I think those feel like choices in the negative. They feel like I am choosing not to work and that actually like tricks your brain into going into a guilt shame loop, and so what you want to do is try to trick your brain to do the opposite. There is a kind of tool in cognitive behavioral therapy which really focuses on like dissecting our thoughts and patterns there. And one thing, one tool that I've taken from cognitive behavioral therapy that has entered this space of like cognitive behavioral coaching, which I think is really powerful, is just asking yourself what do I value, what matters to me? And so I'll bring this to life with an example I think about often because I think a lot of people can resonate with it.
Speaker 2:So I had had my first child. I was having a lot of anxiety about leaving him after I went back to work. I had to travel for work at the time and I had to go to New York. I'm in at the time and I had to go to New York. I'm in DC. I had to go to New York regularly and I remember feeling a little bit panicked, like true, like physical panic, about the idea of being in a different city from him, even if it was for 24 hours. And I remember some somebody saying to me don't focus on the fact that you're not going to be with him. Focus on what you value and why those values are driving you to make these decisions. And so, for me, what that sounded like just to bring the example to life is I value my work. I value the space and skills and means that it gives me. I value showing up for my team. I value giving my husband space to build his skills with the child and his bond with the child. I value having three hours on the train where nobody can touch me right, and that really reframes the experience of these emotions to one of saying I'm choosing this right, like I am choosing to value these things, and so for your team that might be. If you value the sustainability of this work, you need to rest, because you value being able to do this for more than three more months, and for yourself. Similarly, you know somebody said how can I show up if I don't want to.
Speaker 2:I think that this exercise applies there too.
Speaker 2:You're showing up because there is something you value there, which of whether it's being able to have the financial means to make other decisions, whether it is finishing a project that you started because you have a value of accountability and ownership, whether it is the people that you serve because you have a value of something related to the mission. I think that reframe can be really powerful in making you feel like you have agency and like you are in choice, because, I mean, there's so much that all of us are not in choice about, especially right now where we have like 20 macro crises everywhere you look right. I think it can be really overwhelming. And so, focusing on your values and how they're informing your choices, I heard somebody say I think this is not quite right, but there is something to it which is. I heard somebody say burnout is just living out of alignment with your values. I don't know that it's that simple, right. I think sometimes it's exhaustion or all these other things, but there is something to values when you're thinking about being in choice.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for your, for your insight on that. I think that really goes into kind of this next portion of questions too, where one of the things that really resonated with the founders as we were building out this session was talking about how to manage stress or burnout or, you know, build out your emotional runway when you feel like you can't afford to slow down. The business has to keep moving, whether you're building it or whether you're in it as a professional. So I'd love to know kind of what it means to manage all that while you're in the middle, and that idea of really, you know, shaping out and saying the idea that burnout it's not just personal, it's also structural in the way we built our businesses, and you mentioned that earlier. How can we as founders or as professionals, sometimes C-suite executives to really rethink the systems that we build around ourselves, whether that's routines, relationships, support?
Speaker 2:that's routines, relationships, support and our teams. I think the heart of why this is such a hard question is because it changes. It's a moving target. So like in the same way that I hate the word balance, because I think work-life balance is a mirage it assumes that we have two stagnant parts of ourselves that are not pushing and pulling and that once you got it, you got it right Versus, really it is. This thing is changing and sometimes it pulls harder, and this thing is changing and sometimes it pulls harder. And then you're in this constant kind of tug of war between these different parts of who you are and your life and your identity and, from my perspective, your emotional skills, your self-awareness. That is strengthening your core so that when you get yanked this way by work or yanked this way by your mother-in-law or yanked this way by school, you can come back to center. So I think, like what makes that so challenging and I'm feeling this now is, as you're in different seasons, what that looks like will change, and so right now I'm really reevaluating my kind of support systems.
Speaker 2:But at Keep Company, I think what we've come back to is it is about connection to self, how much self-awareness you have about what is the engine light for you, and have you been able to articulate the things that give you energy or bring you back to baseline? One nudge I would make there is, like, put it on a post-it note and put it by your computer or your desk the five people that you can call that will give you energy, or the five things that you can do that will give you energy and bring you back to baseline. Because I think when you're like really in it, it can be hard to remember oh, I have these tools, oh I have these people, I have these things that actually help. And so I think that it is connection to self, and then connection to others, and that looks like the relationships you have both at work and at home and how you lean on them and what that looks like. And then the last piece is connection to the systems around you.
Speaker 2:We are an employee benefit, so the system we often think about is the organization, and there is a huge amount of tension in if you feel like your values are not in alignment with the values of an organization, the organization you work for that can really reduce your emotional runway, right, like, and that makes sense. And so at that point you come back to like well, self-awareness, right, like what do I need to be in alignment with our values, what's important to me right now? And the answer is allowed to be Monday, today and next year, it's allowed to be time to rest. And then the year after, it's allowed to be like you are allowed to renegotiate the contract you have with yourself about what matters, right. And I think that, particularly as women, we will have many seasons of care, we will have many seasons of career. It is not linear, and I think that, as the workforce evolves, that's just more and more true, and so many industries are being like, really fundamentally redesigned right now more true when so many industries are being like really fundamentally redesigned right now.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love being able to renegotiate with yourselves. You don't have to stay where you were at one year ago, and it's not a failure if you decide that that's not what you need today. So thank you for that important reminder. I have a quick question and then we are going to see what's going on in the chat. But you know, as founders, it's easy to build a business or, again, a career that looks good on paper but it doesn't actually support the kind of life you actually want to live. So I'd love to know from you what boundaries or non-negotiables have been maybe the hardest to protect but have made the biggest difference for your well-being.
Speaker 2:The walk. I'll tell you, like that, one hour walk in the middle of the day, I don't I'm not able to do it every day, but having an accountability partner to do it and also there's just these things like habits build on each other, right. So what I have found is that when I do it, I get that positive feedback loop. I see the clarity, I feel better, and then it motivates me to do it again later, and so I think that that has been a piece. I think another piece is leaning on my co-founder. I'm lucky to have a really strong relationship with my co-founder.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we did we participate in this program called Tech Stars and they take you through this like personality assessment, where they map out your stress behaviors and so, based on your personality, what do you tend to do when you're stressed?
Speaker 2:Turns out, we have different stress behaviors and they're basically opposite, and so it was super, super helpful to say to both ourselves and each other when I am getting activated and to a point of stress, this is what that looks like, and so we can wave a flag to each other.
Speaker 2:I also said it to my husband and my sister and my mom the people I talk to all the time Like this is what I learned about my stress behaviors, this is what you might notice, this is what you might notice, and we've asked all of our team to take the same assessment so that we can all come from a place of grace and awareness like, hey, I'm noticing X, y, z, that might mean you're stressed, right.
Speaker 2:And so I think that building that awareness and then articulating it can be really powerful. But I mean, I would say over the last couple of years, every six months, my non-negotiables kind of change in terms of what the business needs, what my family needs, what I need and what is pulling hardest, I think for me, the heart of resilience for me is feeling in choice, is really feeling like, yeah, I don't have a big social life right now, that's my choice. I am focused on work and I'm focused on my kids, and that is this season for me and that's my choice. And so I think that grounding in that has been a helpful tool for me.
Speaker 1:I love that, taking the guilt out of like what you're not doing right those negative, negative choices.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's important. So, like the difference between guilt and shame, I think is really important in the conversation around burnout. So when you talk about guilt, it is I feel like I did something wrong. I feel like I'm supposed to be doing this and instead I'm doing this. Shame is I did something wrong and therefore I am wrong, or I did something bad, therefore I am bad, and shame is a very powerful emotion.
Speaker 2:What we find in the group kind of peer setting that we have here at Keep Company is that people will really stay in shame when they feel alone in an experience. Does they feel like they're the only one that's having a hard time with something? It can really bring a ton of shame and that really creates like a stuckness around you. It's really hard to action out of shame when they realize that like, oh, you're like me and you're struggling and you seem great, and you're like me and you're struggling, you seem great. Well, I guess I'm not the problem then. So what is the problem? They go into actioning and so I think, like, keeping in mind, give somebody a chance to say me too, right, give somebody a chance to say, yeah, I'm going through that too, because it can be such a quick and powerful way to move out of shame and guilt that something is hard.
Speaker 1:I love that, thank you, and I really encourage everyone to really think about, like, what boundaries or non-negotiables you're building out for this season, right and again making that the choice, jay, I'd love to know how the chat is going, if we have any questions in there.
Speaker 3:Yes, I love this one from Autumn. She says how do you retrain the people around you as you go through different seasons and need things to operate differently, Whether that's employees, clients, family, friends I think we could relate it to all those.
Speaker 2:Oh man, it is so hard. I think the short answer is make it explicit, not implicit. I think that we are often taught not to make people uncomfortable. We're taught to dance around it. We're taught to say like well, if you can, maybe it was like right, like you're. Like going around and around but not saying the thing, and I think we leave a lot on the table because we assume that they're getting the message, but usually they're not right.
Speaker 2:And so I think particularly this is, I would say, the one thing that I try to tell, that that I would say to every woman, working woman, especially female leaders is make your asks explicit, do not leave them to be implicit. And so I think for personal relationships and professional relationships, whatever that looks like, it is about saying does this person have the capacity to support me in this way I mean in the context of kind of some of the stuff we're talking about here and then figuring out what your explicit asks are. I think you know, for me it took time to figure out as I entered the like motherhood. It took time to figure out who I could ask for what right Like. That is an exercise that you have to go through, and so you're, there is also kind of a building awareness of people's limits, like sometimes people will not have the capacity to support you in the way that you want, and so you can make the ask, but then you also have to accept, at a certain point, their limits, and so I think being explicit about what you need is really important.
Speaker 2:I would say one thing that I think is important to talk about that I don't that is often not talked about in these conversations is your spouse, your partner, your significant other. I actually find that, particularly in conversations about you know stress, the mental load. It's like the final frontier hard conversation to have, because it's really hard to renegotiate those contracts right About, like those unsaid, unspoken understandings about how we move through our life together and different seasons require different things, and so I think renegotiating those contracts is really important, but they're not going to read our minds Right Like. There is work to be done first about building awareness about what you need because, again in the spirit of making it explicit, you can't make it explicit if you don't have awareness of what it even is.
Speaker 3:That's great. This is a great question from Erica. She asked can you describe what you mean by choices in the negative?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what I mean is you can say, let's say that you're feeling physically tired, physically run down, and you have an opportunity to rest. You might say I'm choosing not to work. Right now I'm offering a reframe, which is I am choosing to rest because I value my work and I value continuing to do it. Or I am choosing to rest because I value listening to my body when it sends me this message and I will be honoring it. Or I am choosing to rest because I value modeling to my kids that honoring their physical needs is worthwhile. So it is making choices about what you are choosing, not what you're not choosing.
Speaker 3:I love that and that kind of disrupts burnout, I feel like, because you have those negative reactions and a lot of times we're just on autopilot and then we'll just do things that make us even more stressed out because that's what we need to do, or what we feel like we need to do. So I love that. It feels like disrupting burnout to me by making choices and then when you're feeling those negative things, yeah yeah, I think it's certainly part of it.
Speaker 2:And and and again like I to the point earlier um, some of this is on us and some of it it's not. There's a lot we can't control, so the goal is to build skills in um getting better and better at managing our energy and what we can control, and I I certainly think some of these, like frames and tools, are powerful in that.
Speaker 1:That's a powerful part too is just learning to let go of control sometimes, or to the false sense of control. Well, I'd love to jump into just kind of our last questions. We have a rapid fire kind of resource questions that we'd like to ask you, claudia, and maybe some of this will resonate I think it's more personal to you, but maybe some will resonate to people here maybe that are watching this afterwards. So I'd love to know first what's one low effort thing that makes you feel more human during a busy week.
Speaker 2:Making tea. I'm a tea drink. There's like a ritual. My kids now my four-year-old daughter's like hey, I just need some tea. My mom was over and she was like what in the world is this child talking about? I'm like it's hot water with honey, like it's okay, but yeah, I think like just like the heat of it, like taking it, does make me slow down, even if it's just for like three minutes.
Speaker 1:Love it. What's one thing you do to shift out of work mode? At the end of the day, I feel like I struggle with that shifting in and out of work mode. So what's one thing that you do?
Speaker 2:So I have started a habit, which is when I get home, I leave my phone in my bag until my kids are asleep. And so I think, like not, I'm not perfect about this. I break it on the weekends and I have my phone around me more than I want, but there's like a one hour period when I get home. That like that critical, like you know. Bedtime, bath time, like good night, like review the day, homework, like that window. I try to keep my phone in my bag and for me that has helped. I think on the flip side, I go and buy a cup of coffee every single day post, drop off, pre getting to the office, and it for me since very early in, like my motherhood journey, it has been like a, like a prompt to my brain of like we're transitioning from this job to this job, from this part of the day to that part of the day. So I actually really do believe in those rituals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. What's one lesson or mindset shift that helped you step into your role as COO?
Speaker 2:I think. I mean I will say I think it is coming back to this idea that you are one of the business's biggest assets. How, what strategic choices can you make to unlock this asset? That, for me, was a huge mindset shift and it took it took the idea of taking space to move my body as something like absurd and indulgent to do in the workday into something that was like it's just not a smart choice for me as a leader not to do that, because I'm going to walk into meetings with less ideas and less clarity. So I think that, for me, was a huge mindset shift. The theme of all of this is my coach has really been an unlock because she is to thank for a lot of these things.
Speaker 1:I love that Part of your toolkit right. What's something you've automated or delegated recently that made a big difference?
Speaker 2:I mean, what do I not? I am a serial optimizer and I think Keep Company was truly born out of the fact that I looked at. I was like I have strategic frameworks in everything that I do. You better believe I'm applying that to motherhood and so I think that is very much my foundational approach. I think to think of an example. I mean I am leaning really heavily into AI and how I'm using that. I'll say I was using it a ton at work and then I realized I wasn't really using it outside of work and so I've started to lean into it more outside of work and that has been interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah definitely, definitely, a great tool that you can use. What's one wellness or self-care trend you actually buy into?
Speaker 2:Touch grass. There's like a whole thread on TikTok about it. I think, like I would say, the number one tool I have discovered over the last couple of years is that there's not much wisdom in the brain, it's all in the body. So like anything that can get you back into the present, whether it's like putting cold water on your face, like touching a leaf, like truly anything that reminds you I am here in this, that gets you out of your head, for me, there is nothing more powerful. So, yes, touch grass.
Speaker 1:I love that one. What's a resource you wish more founders knew about or tapped into?
Speaker 2:Executive coaches. I think that people use them, but I think it's important to like the fit piece right. Like I think that for me, I found somebody that worked with co-founders at our stage with our tech. Like I think that piece matters a lot so that they have the full context of what you're navigating. I think finding resources that can understand you as a whole person. She is a woman, she is Latina, she is a like she. She has an important context for me. I think that that piece is there's's work right in finding resources that understand you contextually, but I think it has outsized impact.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. What's the best non-business book that shaped how you lead or think as a founder.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I do not read business books. I read romance novels because that's what I'm doing right now. I don't need to read about business or politics. I need to be escaping and letting my mind go into, like happy, joyful, light, low stakes places. So I actually have really leaned into only reading for pleasure over the last couple of months and and it I 10 out of 10, I'm very happy with my choice.
Speaker 1:I mean what? What author are you currently reading? Oh, I, don't know.
Speaker 2:I feel like I'm. I just finished one by this woman named Carly Fortune. It was like a like my friends were all talking about. It was like a summer read about like a lake and something like that. I mean, I think that it's telling that I don't even remember. That's like how I consume it.
Speaker 1:I'm just like, oh, it's just popcorn for your brain, like it's just levity, I love it, and if that helps fill your emotional runway, all for it. Totally. My last question, and then I definitely want to jump over to any audience questions that we have. What's one question you wish more founders would take the time to ask themselves?
Speaker 2:Who takes care of me?
Speaker 1:Wow, so powerful. I think yeah great way to end that kind of question and hopefully everyone kind of thinks and mulls over that after the session too. But I'd love to jump over into any audience questions that have maybe popped up in the chat. Or if you have a question that has been burning at you, please go ahead and feel free to unmute yourself.
Speaker 4:I didn't necessarily have a question. I just keep going back to the point that you made about reevaluating a contract for yourself, because I feel like I'm like this is what it is, this is what it's going to be, this is my boundary, I'm going to stay with that and that's what it is, and so being able to really process OK, there is certain seasons and times and things that shift that I will need to reevaluate, and so I really didn't process it like that, and so I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm glad it resonated. I will say like it's exhausting, right To like be reevaluating what you need, but it's honest, like I think, like I wish we could all find our forever toolkit. I think some things will be forever, but realistically, I do think that it is like you have to be in a constant conversation with yourself about is this working for me? So true, and thank you for sharing, tiffany, I do think that it is like you have to be in a constant conversation with yourself about is this working for me?
Speaker 1:So true? Thank you for sharing, Tiffany. Anyone else have any thoughts that?
Speaker 5:resonated or a question. I have a question. So I find and I think a lot of us do, this is is evidence of it that, yeah, community is a big part of what supports me and helps me feel like, hey, I'm on the right path. All the things and and I'm trying to do that myself for the people that I want to work with small businesses and helping them with marketing to do things, not by themselves, but like get things done. But how do you? Because there's so much emotion wrapped up in it. What are the impacts from a business standpoint? Like when you're managing communities and trying to make sure that it's fulfilling, both emotional and honestly.
Speaker 5:We, like I to your point about feeling guilty about going for a walk. Like I feel guilty when I go do one of these things sometimes, actually, I don't anymore, but but like I feel guilty when I go do one of these things. Sometimes actually I don't anymore, but but like I used to a lot more because I felt like, oh, but I've got this long list of things. If I don't accomplish it, do you, do you help them tie, like maybe in that community, tie, uh, the time spent and the activity, to know you're actually checking things off the list, or is it better to just say no, let that go it's such a good question.
Speaker 2:I think, like the word that came up as you were talking for me is discernment, which is really like building the skill and knowing when you got to just do the thing, even if you don't want to do the thing you got to push through and finish the thing, and what you can start to change habits and behaviors and build some space. And so I do think there's a level of discernment. And, again, I think our brains like binary thinking. They like yes, no, good, bad. The truth is there is going to be more in between. And so if your kind of personhood, let's call it your non-work, non-family self, if I said to you, on a scale of one to 10, how's personhood today? And you said to me two, the question is not how do I get you to a 10?, the question is, how do I get you to a three right Like, how do we make those incremental changes that over time can be impactful? But in terms of the organization, yes, I mean we spend a huge amount of time and resources measuring the impact of this, and I would say it's a couple of different things. One is we see that having the right support systems in place drives retention. So our members, the employees that sign up for Keep Company, tend to resign at a rate three times less than people that don't in their industry, and so the impact of like again, like that, sustainability is really powerful.
Speaker 2:What we find, though and this is, like I would say, like a core part of our thesis is that the skills that you build relationally will make you stronger at work. If you learn how to listen, you will be better with your clients. I promise you that, if you learn critical thinking and how to read emotional cues, that will make you more effective in how you manage yourself and how you manage others. There's so much data about how leaders that have and exhibit signs and skills of self-awareness show up as stronger managers and as stronger leaders show up as stronger managers and as stronger leaders, so I think there's a skills piece to this, which are what are the emotional skills that you need to have in your toolkit?
Speaker 2:I think when I started my career, it was like you're a good manager or you're a bad manager. That was like the language. We didn't have a level of granularity or specificity. It wasn't. You are. Your team is ineffective because you are a poor communicator and you're communicating from a place of dysregulation and a lack of specificity. So when you're frustrated, people are getting emotional data from you. They have no idea what you want them to do differently. Right, we need to get to a place, I think in organizations, where we can speak with more granularity about lack of skill, and I think people learning these skills and practicing them is an important part of that.
Speaker 6:Gloria, I have. I have a question. You talked about the importance of family dynamics and spouses and stuff, and then you also talked about loneliness being one of the most critical challenges that we're facing as humans. How do we, how can we support, like our kids and our families in developing those connections Because we also take care of them Model it?
Speaker 2:which is the hardest thing to do. It's like the ultimate, like put the oxygen mask on yourself. But I do think there is. I think I remember somebody said to me a couple of years ago that they wanted to model to their kids that they choose work. They didn't want to use language that was like, oh, I have to go to work. They wanted to say like I choose work. They didn't want to use language that was like, oh, I have to go to work. They wanted to say, like I choose work because it fills me and I get the opportunity to work in a field that I enjoy. And so, like they really tried to reframe the language they used around work. And that really resonated with me.
Speaker 2:And so I think, even like my husband and I have like a date night on Wednesday nights, we like pre-booked the babysitter. It is a ritual we have done forever. And last week one of my kids was like, oh, you guys always do this. And and my husband said like, to his credit, he was like I value having one-on-one time with mommy and that is why we're doing this. And so I think that, like that's like the goal, right, like the goal is to be able to use language that's intentional and to say to them like relationships don't just happen, you have to invest in them.
Speaker 2:But I think the other piece of it is like knowing it's work, like knowing that, like it is work for us, like we, we are doing some of that labor on their behalf and so like that probably looks like.
Speaker 2:I mean, I let me tell you I do not want to drive these children to the number of play dates that they are invited to or have or want to have, but I want them to have these relationships. So it's like this constant push and pull of like knowing relationships require work and no matter what type of relationship, and I think, like while our kids are of a certain age, we are doing that work for them until they can do it for themselves. So, yeah, I don't know, I don't have, I don't know yet. And I think that the in the context of social media, obviously like not going to go on that whole tangent right now, but what is meaningful human connection is up for debate right now, and so I think that how we talk to our kids about that matters a ton, especially when so few of us have it figured out for ourselves, right.
Speaker 1:What a great question, very timely. I was just seeing a post about just like. My kids don't know the amount of work I put in as an introvert for them, so thank you, thank you so much, and great question, erica. Anyone else have any last thoughts? Questions Autumn yeah, go for it.
Speaker 7:I would love to. So one challenge I have. So I have a 13-year old and I find that by the time I get to her after school, my emotional runway is already spent for that day. And then a lot of times she likes to um do what teenagers do, and so I'm curious if there are any strategies um, you know, as you're balancing being a founder and being a mom, um that really work to make sure that you're protecting that emotional runway time for your family and not giving it all away at work.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, it is so hard and I do think it is quite a reckoning when we have those moments which, like I have certainly had and I think most people have had which is, I use the best of me at work, the high energy, the like. Let you like I bring the best of me to work. And that is a hard thing to like look in the face, and sometimes it's a necessity and sometimes it's a choice, and so I think that I mean my instinct there I don't, again, I don't have a perfect answer I think my instinct is to kind of sit with yourself about what matters the most to you in those moments and those interactions. So is it that you have a little bit more of a boundary so that you can protect 15 minutes to like come back to baseline, whatever that looks like for you before that interaction? Or is it that, back to the outsourcing conversation Maybe you do pick up two days a week and you renegotiate the terms of somebody else can do pickup, so that you are like kind of changed?
Speaker 2:So I would say like rethink it all, rethink the structure right and figure out what works for you. Like I know, like some people you know, are you the drop-off parent? Are you the pickup parent? How do, how do you guardrail those interactions so that they don't just work for them, they work for you too. And there's a lot in there that's indulgent, right, like, like the assumption even that, like you can choose. But where you can choose, I do think there's an opportunity to say how do I make these interactions work better for me so that I can show up in a way that feels good to me? And there's room there right to redesign, knowing again there's a lot we can't control, including the mood of our children, certainly.
Speaker 1:Great, great question, and I think, too, part of it goes back to like we are more than just the founder, so being able to have these conversations, we're more than just the founder, we're more than just the mom, we're more than just the caretaker. So all of these different aspects really depend on each other. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend and don't forget to leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your career to the next level, consider joining our community of powerful women eager to help you get there and stay there. To learn more, go to wwwbestherco.
