In the Thick of It
Welcome to 'In the Thick of It,' a podcast where candid conversations make you feel genuine understanding and connection. Hosted by Coach & Consultant, Robin Angela Baglietto, this show is a sanctuary for women braving the multifaceted female experience.
Each episode delves into the myriad of experiences that define womanhood today, from the joys and challenges of motherhood to the nuances of career and personal growth.
Robin’s approach is unfiltered, compassionate, and a little bit rebellious. Armed with a slightly foul mouth and a wealth of wisdom, she’s the feminist bestie you’ve always wanted, guiding you through life's thickets with humor, honesty, and a hefty dose of motivation. Whether discussing mental health, relationships, or societal issues, 'In the Thick of It' is your go-to source for encouragement, inspiration, and a much-needed sense of sisterhood.
So, for a dose of real-life stories, actionable insights, and a community that gets it, tune into 'In the Thick of It' and start feeling a little less crazy, a little less broken, and a lot more connected.
In the Thick of It
4. Competition vs. Collaboration - the power of creating community.
Ever found yourself caught in the struggle between competition and collaboration? In this episode, we unravel the age-old tension between competing against and collaborating with one another. Drawing inspiration from ancient societies, we examine the powerful roles women played, and how these historical insights can guide us toward a more cooperative and supportive dynamic in today's fast-paced world.
A mentor once said to me, "There's plenty of room at the top, it's the bottom that's crowded" and her wisdom has inspired me to focus on building bridges rather than climbing ladders. In this episode, we explore how adopting a collaborative mindset can transform professional and social landscapes, opening doors to richer experiences and greater opportunities. Join the conversation as we champion mutual support and shared goals, aiming to foster a culture where women's success is not just an individual triumph but a collective victory.
Let's connect!
Email: Robin@robinangela.com
Website: robinangela.com
IG: RobinAngela_
Life is so complex, especially for women, and we need a place where we can hash it out, laugh about it and toast to it. Welcome to the In the Thick of it podcast. My name is Robin Angela Baglietto and I'll be your host as we navigate the diversity of the female experience. Be your host as we navigate the diversity of the female experience. Whether you're here for some inspiration, some validation or a dose of humor, you're in the right place, so let's dive in. Hello and welcome back. I'm back, which is always exciting for me.
Speaker 1:Anyways, I don't get to record too often these days. There's just so many other great things going on. I mean, what a blessing right To just have a lot of great things in my life and not enough time for the great things. I know that annoys people when I talk like that sometimes. But hey, how are you going to attract more good shit if you don't talk about how good shit is right? So I love all the things. That's not why I'm here. No, I came on.
Speaker 1:Okay, y'all the tech I hate. I'm not going to spend much time talking about this. I hate when I listen to podcasts and they get super sidetracked. But I haven't been here in a minute. So allow one sidetrack the tech thing of this whole thing. It's actually quite simple. Doing a podcast is really quite simple, but for me, for some reason I don't know, the tech never works, and anybody who's been a guest on my podcast or who has been present for a recording knows the struggle. There's always freaking, something that doesn't work and I'm literally sitting here with like 18 cords, the microphone, headphones none of it's working. So I'm actually using old school technology and recording onto my phone because I'm not going to let it stop me coming here. I'm doing this, I have time, my kids are with my mom. They're going to be here soon. I have a thought and I'm going to show up imperfectly. So, hi, it's good to be here with you.
Speaker 1:I just got off call with a woman who is looking for some help with an event she's putting on and she's kind of a newer business and her friend has a newer business and they're like in the same kind of industry and they want to put on like an education fair, different booths and vendors and other people who do similar work in the world. But I think it's like their first big event and they've kind of bitten off not more than they can chew. I think they're gonna be fine, but they're just are kind of missing some main pieces and so they've got some work to do in the next few weeks but they're gonna be fine. But she said something a couple of times, so she brought up a topic a couple of times that I felt was noteworthy. She kept bringing up competition and how I was suggesting or I should say when I was suggesting meeting up with nonprofits who do similar work and like build collaborations and build relationships and maybe they'll sponsor and things like that.
Speaker 1:Um, there was some hesitancy there because I was like, well, they do some of the same things I do and I don't really want to like promote them at my event and I get that there is, the competition in business is real right, that's real. But I think we're missing something when we lean into competition above collaboration. And so I just kind of want to speak to that for a minute Because I think and I don't just think it I've at least had the experience in this work with Women United Eleanor, by Women United in our county you know it's not a little town, we're talking San Joaquin County. I've had enough experience there and in my own professional successes and, more importantly, failures that I've learned the absolute criticalness of collaboration, the absolute necessity of relationships for any level of success. And so I don't blame people who lean into competition and I'll come back to that, to competition, and I'll come back to that. I just really want to plant the seed and offer the invitation to check that and veer towards collaboration whenever possible. So let me go back for a moment, because competition is real.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say that a lot because it's true, right, but I think the level and the degree and the areas in which women get competitive is unnecessary and toxic, and perhaps the chains like on ourselves. We're putting ourselves in a very tight box, right, we are the patriarchy. That word makes you cringe. If you're like I don't know, don't get that, that's fine, that's fine. I'm not going to dive in, but we're playing out old stories, right? So, like, let me just my history geek side here. Let me just take you on a little journey for a minute.
Speaker 1:In many communities around the world, thousands of years ago, social structure looked different. In many communities I'm not saying everywhere, but in many communities social structure looked different. Men and women's roles, gender roles, gender treatment, identification, like all these things were just different, right? Women had I'm not saying that they were all the same, like there's men and women, but like women had respect for their things. They were the fire tenders, they're the healers, they're the womb. Like, they're the giver of life, like women are respected and revered. Their leadership is needed at times, like and not just because they need to fill a spot, but because of the nature that it is to be a woman is needed. The gentleness, the firmness, like the blend of all that it is to be in the feminine. To have that running through you is divine and respected, the same amount as the divine nature of men and all they bring and all of their unique blend of masculine is divine and needed and respected. Right, think yin and yang, like that balance that is egalitarian.
Speaker 1:That approach to community has existed in many societies throughout history. I mean iroquois, egypt, egyptian, african. But something happened, right, because I don't look like that much anymore and one of the things that happened, one of perhaps the biggest things that happened and I talked about this in previous episodes is we'll call it the agricultural revolution. It's when we go from like, let's say, hunting gathering to farming and, long story short, over a period of several hundred years, women went from being egalitarian and like co-creators in society with men to moving and like living in, like this village space where women are connected and collaborating and working together and raising each other's babies and, you know, tending to all of the things together. There's, it's a village, right You're? Oh, it takes a village. Well, like they actually had one concept. They, like you know, they had a community of women and they were connected. They needed each other.
Speaker 1:But when we move into the agricultural revolution and farming becomes the way, now you have farmers going well, this is my land that I'm farming and you have private property for the first time and part of that property now is your animals or agriculture whatever the thing is that you're is your. You know animals or agriculture, like, whatever the thing is that your product, right, but also your children, because they're help. You can marry them off. Like you know, children are collateral, children are an investment and women are the bearer of children. So wives becomes a real big thing. Proof of paternity matters, these things all start to matter. That didn't matter before.
Speaker 1:And so now we take women out of the village into their private homes and over time and I'm not saying this is necessarily the intention of everybody. There's a lot of layers here, but I'm just summarizing for the sake of time. Over time women stay in their homes more for a lot of reasons Dot dot dot and men are out more. So women in turn, over time get left out of things like lawmaking and religious cultivation and things like that. So now women go from having autonomy and being revered and valued and having respect and position in their societies to not having any of that.
Speaker 1:So if I'm a woman in that situation and my husband leaves me, it's life or death for me and my children, right? Like? I mean, we've all seen shows or movies where the man in like the 17th century or something is leaving the woman and she's like whatever, will I do? What village will I have to move to to be a spinster and live in? You know squalor? Like, is that a thing? You know what I'm saying? Like, right, they're like what shall I do if he leaves me? That's real, that was real. And so women's competition among each other became fucking real and critical. Like my man thinking that Sally down the way is looking good, and like, you know, my life's at risk here, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so things change among women, right. And then we fast forward. Let's just take a giant leap like several hundred years. Let's just go to, like, you know, our hundred years or so ago that we can kind of imagine like. Go to like the 1950s, where post-war era in American culture is very like keeping up with the Joneses, right, becomes very materialistic, becomes very focused on like women's, like everything, everything, not just women's fashion, that was always a thing. But now we're talking women's like I mean I just think about some of those ads, I mean women's everything. Now we're talking your appliances, your cars, your house, your hair, how you're shaving your legs, the smells of your body douching, like all this stuff, all of the ways in which women need to improve themselves, becomes a thing and we're competing on all sorts of different levels of different things and it's all very materialistic, right.
Speaker 1:And so again, think about this whole thing of oh, sally got the new. Did I say Sally twice already? Why is Sally Whatever? Sally got a microwave or she got the new vacuum. It's the great distraction, right? Like, well, look over here, look over here, don't like use your brains, sorry. Anyways, not sorry, not even getting into like the conspiracy around that.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to focus in on, like, where our competitive nature is coming from. And again, competitive competition is real. Right In nature we see competition for resources, sure, but the ways in which women are competing are foreign to our wiring and that's why it feels so shitty to be in villages, in prides, in packs, in tribes, like look at every other female species of, like, every other creature, what are they doing? How's that going? Like, look at them, it's all the women together birthing their babies, holding shit down. They have a guy around for protection. If he slips up and stops doing his job, which is basically like make babies and protect us, then they kill his ass, right, like he's done.
Speaker 1:Next, who can do this better? It's pretty vicious for dudes out there, but not in this world. We are so busy cutting ourselves down that they don't even have to try that hard. Right, like every other species, men are like the fabulous, brilliant, beautiful ones Like look at me, look at me, don't you want some of this? And here it's the women doing it. It's pretty funny in some ways and really, you know, confounding and kind of sad sometimes in other ways, because it is the great distraction If we keep ourselves small, if we're doing this to each other, to ourselves and to each other, we're never going to earn back the respect that we once had and that we secretly deep down crave Because we know it's our birthright and we haven't had it for so long and we feel that internal tug of war of what we know is truly ours in the absence of it.
Speaker 1:And so when I talk about collaboration, I talk about leaning into what's really true for us, what's really needed for us. If I go back to that example of the gal I was speaking with today, you know she was again resistant to the idea of connecting with organizations who do similar work. And again, competition's real right Like business is business. I get that, but I've been a solopreneur for 13 years and been utilizing all of that experience and leveraging it into Women United and I've been doing that for two and a half years. It into Women United and I've been doing that for two and a half years, and my approaches have shifted between that in that time and it has been a complete game changer. And, rather than going out and just trying to promote myself to anybody who would listen, I just started finding the heart of what I wanted to do, the impact. I wanted to make the change I wanted to see and building relationships with other people who felt that way, without asking them for a fucking thing.
Speaker 1:Every time I hear about a woman working at a business a for-profit, a non-profit, who's starting a business, who wants to start a business, who is new to her role or wants to, you know, change the whole script, whatever it is who's in any way passionate about serving the women of our community, who's in any way passionate about advocating or empowering empowering, advancing women I'm like, let's hang out. I'm taking them to lunch or dinner or scheduling meetings at their office. Whatever I can do, I want to meet you and there's that initial part of me that's like are we stepping on each other's toes? And, to give this woman credit, the one I was on the phone with she was very like. I'm fine with it. I know there's plenty of people. I just worry that they're seeing me as competition and I get that. But if you remove it from your lens and just genuinely come at it like we're going to change the world and we're going to do this together, we're genuinely, come at it like we're going to change the world and we're going to do this together. We're going to do some epic shit together. Like I want to get to know you, to know if our areas overlap enough to like link up and do some epic shit. And that approach has been so powerful because not only do I have a list of allies for myself and resources for other people, somebody like this gal today calls I'm like oh, you need to talk to so-and-so, and you talk to so-and-so and you talk to so-and-so. Like I'm helping build those connections because I want what she's doing. If she's successful, she's going to like empower so many women and give women, so many women positive experiences and make them feel like they have ownership of their lives and their mothering. I mean, she's going to do amazing work in the world. I am so freaking happy to give her some stuff, to give her some resources to make connections for her, because I'm not like I cannot change the world alone. Yes, I have my unique set of skills and I have my like business and there is plenty of space for that.
Speaker 1:One of my mentors, kitchen Witch Gourmet Janae. I remember I'll never forget one of the things she used to say to me when I was like brand new. I just like hunted her down and was like can you teach me God? Oh the brazenness, but I guess I still do. I don't know, but that was crazy, was crazy. I was like hi, I want to be your friend and your fan and your student, be my friend. Oh, so creepy. Um, but she was so kind enough to listen and to take me under her wing and one of the things she said to me that I think is so important, especially for women coaching women, coming up behind them. There is plenty of room at the top. It's the bottom that's crowded. There's plenty of room at the top, and if the change I really want to see in the world is for women to come back into the yin and yang, to lean into their divine nature, to be revered for it, respected for it, safe in it, if that's the change I want to see in the world, then there's plenty of room for me to link up with every other woman who wants that and have my space in it too. There's plenty of room. So one of the things I told her was meet these people and find out where they leave off, that you pick up Like what's, because now you're creating a network.
Speaker 1:Networking does not mean and I think this is an important thing. I always say this at our networking breakfast which, depending on when you're listening to this, might be coming up July 25th working breakfast which, depending on when you're listening to this, might be coming up July 25th 2024. So, but networking, I think, has a is very misunderstood. People look at it like they're using it to like climb the ladder right, or like get something out of it, or like rub elbows. It has negative connotations sometimes and I don't think networking is about climbing the ladder.
Speaker 1:I think networking I like to look at it like it's building bridges, like it's linking up, and it's like what do you do? What change are you making? What's your angle on this greater masterpiece that we're creating? Awesome, now I know who to send your way, because I can't walk everyone through every stage of their lives and I don't have like I can't for lots of reasons one, I can't lead people where I've never been, and two, that's just unrealistic for anybody.
Speaker 1:And so it's so important for me, both in as a woman in my own consulting and speaking business, like in in my own world, but also for Eleanor by Women United, for all of the nonprofits. It is so important for me to build these relationships with people, genuine relationships of how can I help you, what is it that you do? How can I support you and when can I call on you If I need this? Are you the person to go to? Great Like, how can we be symbiotic? Right, think about those animals in nature. Let's go back that, like the little birdie rides the, like elephant's back or whatever, and it's like I'll take bugs off your back as long as you keep me safe and provide all the bugs. Right, it's symbiotic.
Speaker 1:Everyone wins and so like and so like you know, again, competition is a thing I'm fully aware, but collaboration is just as important. We need each other and when we look at it like that, it takes the sting and the ick out of networking or out of meeting with competition right, or even just like showing up to a cocktail party take, take business out of it. Like if you're just going to like a bridal shower or something like that, there's going to be a bunch of women, some you know, maybe some you don't like, maybe some you think don't like you, maybe a bunch of people you don't know and you're like, oh, like you know, you're worried about what you're wearing, how your skin looks, how like good you feel in your skin, how old you look, you know, like, whatever it is, it's going through your head as you approach this social thing that you're doing just as a human. The invitation, the opportunity to switch up the thinking. There is not just me, me, me, I, I, I, and how I'm going to feel or how they're going to like me or how I'm going to engage, but like what are the odds of me spending time in the space of all these women? And like what magic awaits me in it? Who am I going to talk to? What connection am I going to make? How am I going to link up? What links are out there that I've never even anticipated, that are just like waiting to be made? And the change that we're going to make together is waiting for us to meet. Like what a more soft and gentle and positive and exciting, and for me it feels like authentic way of going into something.
Speaker 1:And so the point I tried to make to this woman I was on the phone with, and the thing I hope you walk away from this with, is what if we redirect those thoughts? What if we go, if we remove some of the layers of competition, if we call bullshit. Okay, let's just be real. If we can call bullshit on some of the superficial layers of competition and trade them in for collaboration, there are going to be so many more opportunities, so much richer of experiences that will open. So much richer I don't even you don't know what I'm trying to say right? So much richer experiences, I don't know. Good stuff awaits. Doors just open, like the possibilities open up when you just focus on that intention of collaboration or like here's the change I want to see.
Speaker 1:Let's play Like who's out there, who can I work with? And part of the other thing I mean we don't need to reinvent the wheel. We don't need to do everything alone. We're not supposed to. And just because you can doesn't mean you should. If you're great at going it alone, good for you. You've learned that, that survival and you had to survive and you learned that and I'm proud of you. But just because you can go it alone doesn't mean you should or should have to. Do you have to go it alone. And if you don't have to, if there's people around that you can link up with. That you can create with that you can support and build symbiotic relationships, true relationships with Like why not? Why not give it a go?
Speaker 1:So that's my invitation for the day Is to just stop that runaway train of thinking. If you notice it, when you notice it, see if you can call bullshit and Choose something else. Choose another thought, choose another hope, another belief that this might be great, and in ways that you couldn't possibly imagine. Just staying open to being surprised and delighted. I wish great things for you. I hope you have a wonderful day. I'll talk to you soon. Bye. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. I hope it served you well. Be sure to check out my ever-expanding library of free resources at robinangelipcom. I hope you have a beautiful day. Stay true to yourself and I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
