Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Stuff the ham. Merry Xmas Smart Women.
On the other side of the fence, the bad people are kept out. We've got good boundaries around our traditions. Don't tell me I can't say happy Christmas.
Speaker 2:You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur, jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones. I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and, as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind.
Speaker 2:I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I'm recording and you are listening on this day. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Well, hello, smart women, and welcome to episode 23 of why Smart Women. And here in Sydney, australia, it's very, very close to Christmas and, for anybody who is listening on the other side of the world, our Christmases are absolutely boiling hot and today we have been swimming at DY on the northern beaches, and it's absolutely beautiful here at the moment with superb weather. And I'm joined today because we're moving into our new apartment, and I'm joined today by my husband, david.
Speaker 1:Yes, g'day, g'day, g'day. I'm allowed to be here because we're moving into the apartment. Is that the rationale you are?
Speaker 2:allowed to. But why did you say g'day, g'day, g'day, like I don't know? Some sort of Paul Hogan impression?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I was following your lead around you know, here we are on the northern beaches of Sydney with our hot Christmases, while you in other parts of the world have cold ones. Yeah, but I didn't say it like that.
Speaker 2:I didn't go, we're here in Sydney, Australia, I said hello.
Speaker 1:Hello.
Speaker 2:We're here in Sydney, australia, I think. What hot Christmas, anyway. So, as I said, it's nearly Christmas and we're about to move into our apartment, so the downsizing is nearly complete. We're both a little bit on the tired side and we're pretty injured from all the lifting on the tired side and we're pretty injured from all the lifting. And I thought we'd take the opportunity to talk about um boundaries and specifically women with boundaries, and how, when our boundaries are crossed, um we respond or react, and the societal judgments around that, because there would appear to be plenty Can I just ask Kat, what has that got to do with Christmas?
Speaker 2:What do you mean?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean you were saying, you know, in Sydney it's almost Christmas time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so we're going to be talking about boundary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think that.
Speaker 1:I've never really associated you to be talking about boundary. Yeah well, I think that I've never really associated Christmas with boundary. I mean, I don't think there are any Christmas carols that have references to boundaries in them.
Speaker 2:Could you try and sing one? Okay, okay, go.
Speaker 1:On the other side of the fence, the bad people are kept out. We've got good boundaries around our traditions. Don't tell me I can't say happy Christmas.
Speaker 2:That was so shit.
Speaker 1:I know, I know it was.
Speaker 2:What about? We wish you a merry? What about what?
Speaker 1:was that we wish you a merry boundary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go on, go on.
Speaker 1:We wish you a merry boundary. We wish you a merry boundary. Do not cross this line.
Speaker 2:That's good. So there you go what it has to do, okay. So there's two things around boundaries, and for women especially, I think, as I have said previously and I've also said in my books, women have a tendency to take responsibility for other people's issues, and I think the relevancy of that is Christmas time, when often families are thrown together and you have people from far-flung places arriving on your doorstep. So I have a number of my friends who have relatives coming from everywhere and what happens is, to a greater or lesser degree, there are issues with these family members. And how do we navigate those waters? I think is what I'm talking about. And how do we navigate those waters in a manner that we don't get taken advantage of, that we do set boundaries, but that we don't also create drama, and I think that's quite an interesting line to walk, wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 1:David, yeah, look, it's the whole who's going to look after Nana conversation. You know, has she? Has she taken her pills? You know, maybe you can take care of, you know, crazy uncle Frank and make sure that he turns up on time with the, with the prawns that he said he was going to get from the Sydney fish markets. Yeah, but taking responsibility for other family members' sort of character quirks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, character quirks and I think also I know that many people talk about the distribution of labor um around christmas yeah and how do you make sure that? Because some people um are not happy about contributing financially as well and some people are not happy about contributing, um in the sense of, you know, physically helping, how do you take care of yourself through that? And the other thing is, do you take on family members in a Christmas setting who have political opinions and ideologies that are antithetical to your?
Speaker 1:own. Oh, that conversation.
Speaker 2:Well, it's pretty relevant, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 1:I reckon it's worse. What would be happening in the United States at the moment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, can you imagine? Can you imagine it's bad enough here? I know we sort of have people in our environment because we're clearly, you know, anti-trump. We have people in our environment. Well, they just come into my environment casually, I don't even know them very well, and then crow about the Trump win. And I'm always evaluating do I take this on? Do I expend emotional energy on this or do I not? And a lot of the time I just don't.
Speaker 1:Good choice, I mean, I think what I've really learned in the last few months is that, you know, it's just the degree to which people who look and sound like us think in ways that are completely different. You know we are living in different worlds, literally, and there are some people who think that the greatest disaster imaginable has been averted, that World War III is now not going to happen.
Speaker 2:Because the Democrats didn't get back in. Yeah, because the Democrats didn't get in.
Speaker 1:Because our guys will be in the White House and will take care of things.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes the areas for potential friction between people are large and ideological.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And sometimes they're just tiny. They're just tiny little things that you have to think to yourself. It's a constant evaluative process, isn't it? Yeah, think to yourself.
Speaker 2:It's a constant evaluative process, isn't it trying to preserve your own mental health and sense of self and not get involved in endless dramas and at the same time not be taken advantage of and sort of be assertive? And I think for women it's. It's really difficult for everybody, I think, that evaluative process, but I think for women especially it is quite difficult because of that socialisation around. We should be nice, we should be kind, we should be good, we should be the peacemaker. Not all of us, but a lot of us yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you think that that expectation that women are going to be all of those things is increased at Christmas time?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I think it is increased when there is any sort of coming together, of when there's an increase in family socialisation, and of course that's inherent in Christmas. So yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 1:I think about my mother at Christmas time, oh yeah, and it was an enormously stressful time for her.
Speaker 2:I could see.
Speaker 1:Because in her head there were all of these expectations that she had to meet. You know she had to keep grandma happy. She had to make sure that the children were occupied. You know she had to make sure that the glaze on the ham was perfect.
Speaker 2:Was that actually true? About the glaze on the ham? That was my memory that there was, and that's so interesting, isn't it, that I can distinctly remember being at your parents' house around Christmas and, of course, because I come from a Jewish background, we never even had ham, so I had no relationship with ham glazed or otherwise. Um, but yeah, I can remember the heightened sense of stress around the the time it took to glaze the ham and what do you think the expectation was about?
Speaker 1:because it's just that, yeah was about, because it's just that, yeah, I look at. Maybe maybe spelling it out is the only way to answer that question, but it sounds really, really obvious. You know, christmas is supposed to be a magical time for everybody yep and if you're the one who's providing the you know the meal yeah, then the meal will be that very, very special meal meal yeah. I think that that's an expectation on its own.
Speaker 2:And what's the internalization of that? Where does that sense of if I don't provide this really good meal, what's going to happen?
Speaker 1:It unlocks the floodgates of emotion that are associated with failure Right, and it's even worse when, when it's family and I actually think um, you know, I I notice a phenomena when we come together with people who are supposed to be our friends and of our tribe, and sometimes you see really good behavior, but sometimes you see behavior which is surprisingly poor. You know, reactive, punishing, punitive. You know how dare you do that?
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 1:I see it when we have a, you know, a local derby, when we play football.
Speaker 1:Now I you know, I know you hate it whenever I talk about footballing please do go ahead but it's funny when when, like like in in my football club, in a division there's the A team and the B team and it doesn't really follow that the A team is better than the B team. You know, at any season it could be one way or the other, but when the A team play the B team in the home and away competition, those are often the most aggro games, you know, where people lose their cool and behave badly, which is not that dissimilar to what can happen at Christmas dinner you know yes.
Speaker 1:People come to Christmas dinner and then people somehow end up, you know, erupting into these terrible dramas. Yeah, and I think it's because we are people who are supposed to be of our tribe that they should know what the rules are. They should know what the expectations are who should?
Speaker 2:who should know the?
Speaker 1:you know the attendees the christmas attendees.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the christmas attendees and also I'm I'm talking about, you know, the other guys from the same football club. When we play together, there is an there's this kind of tacit expectation that everybody knows the rules and and if? Then if anybody transgresses, like if anybody does do a slide tackle, or if, or if somebody does tell an off-color or a political joke, right, we get even more upset, because there's this other expectation that they should know better. Right, they shouldn't be doing that here in this moment, you know.
Speaker 2:So does that okay. So you think, it's a.
Speaker 1:It's about expectation.
Speaker 2:Look, it's definitely about expectation and I think for everybody listening out there, it is really worth, I think, analyzing your own relationship with expectation and failure, and it's good to remember that the amount of focus that we think is being aimed at us is often um incorrect yeah, right, yeah, people don't care that much and I say this to, to people that I coach all the time.
Speaker 2:You know we get this sort of what will people think? And and you know I, you know I've done this and I feel like a real failure and I've let people down and whatever. And I keep saying to them people's attention on you is way less than you actually think. It's a spotlight effect. You know that classic thing I've spoken about it before in the podcast you walk into a room and the room goes quiet and there's a natural assumption that it's to do with you and there could be a million other things, but we're so hyper aware of the potential of, um, unhappiness, not unhappiness, that's not.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, well, you know, perceived failure the perceived failure we've done something wrong or someone's unhappy with us, that we, we, everything we. I can't support that yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1:Look as you're talking about this, I do remember one christmas where my poor mother had made the mistake of buying the christmas turkey from a colorful character. Um, he was the, the local school. He was the school janitor his name was mr bradley and he came to mum one day and says you know, I've got got a great deal on a christmas turkey and, and so she bought this Christmas turkey from Mr Bradley.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then on Christmas Day, the turkey had been in there for two hours, three hours, four hours. The scheduled time for Christmas lunch had come and gone, which is a terrible failure of domestic project management. I mean my poor mother. And then the turkey had been in there for, I think, six hours.
Speaker 2:Hardly dented the sides of it.
Speaker 1:Hardly dented the sides of it. And then we had a closer look and we worked out it was a swan. It was that Mr Bradley, or his providor, had gone down to the local lake, knocked a swan on the head and was selling them off as Christmas turkeys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do remember that.
Speaker 1:Now, the thing was that when we worked this out, I mean everybody laughed and it was just. It was funny and tragic and silly, and in no way was the responsibility for this event, you know, to be laid at my mother's feet, and yet I knew that she still felt.
Speaker 2:She was mortified.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that she'd let everybody down. And so again the expectation that we think other people have of us.
Speaker 2:Yes, is not true. Yeah, it can be, and that sense of just rolling with it and that relaxedness, because that's where the joy is right. You just go Because we would have to say, over the past eight weeks things have gone fairly haywire with our moving. You know bits and pieces.
Speaker 1:Well, one or the other, I mean either haywire or, absolutely serendipitously, a line.
Speaker 2:You know we've been incredibly lucky with some of the lines, yeah, but I'm saying mostly when things have gone awry, we've laughed.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that being able to go, that happened, that went wrong and laughing about it as opposed to that happened. People are going to judge me and then getting back into that sort of self-flagellation around failure. I think, um, people's the notion of failure and people's judgment around your perceived failure is just crippling for so many of us yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I had a really good talk to these group of women I had dinner with last week felt, to greater or lesser degrees, that they were being taken advantage of by members of their family and taking too much responsibility, and we talked about the idea that we have to strongly entertain the idea of saying no and then entertaining that possibility that maybe people may think negatively of us, or maybe they won't, or maybe they won't like us, and then noticing that you can actually tolerate some, that you can actually tolerate, um, some potential or perceived negativity. It doesn't all have to be nice. You don't have to be nice all the time. And this happened to me.
Speaker 2:We had a dispute with the people that were storing our furniture, which is being picked up today because we're getting our place tomorrow, and, um, I emailed them and said can we pick it up? The removals would like to come on friday. And he said, no, it's not. And he rang me and says it's not possible, we're not, we're not open, um, we can only do thursday or saturday. And I said, well, that wasn't in the original agreement. And da, da, da, da, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And then, um, well, that wasn't in the original agreement and da-da-da-da-da, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And then he told me that they unfortunately wouldn't be able to help us on the Friday, which is today, because they were having a Christmas party between 11 and 5.
Speaker 1:Now today, that's a very long Christmas party.
Speaker 2:That's a long Christmas party for a storage unit. And today anybody will tell you is the biggest day of settlements, probably in the year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. No, it is. It is the biggest day of settlements.
Speaker 2:So people are just all over this great city of ours trying to move their furniture, get it out of storage, move it into their apartments, get it out of storage, move it into their apartments, and he's anyway. When I said to him that that's fine if you want to have a Christmas party, that's okay, but you need to leave someone at the storage unit so people can actually get in, he said that wasn't going to be possible. And then, as I have said before, I do not like arguing. I'm not combative by nature. I am very much moving in. I will move into being conciliatory first, but I had to majorly push back and say your business model is terrible. You're not actually servicing your clients. And I had to have a go and I knew that on the other end of the phone he was thinking my God, she's a bitch, why do I have to do? And then, of course, I got to the. I began thinking about the fact that if that was you that had that conversation, You're talking to me now, you, yeah, david.
Speaker 2:Not the dog, because the dog can't speak, and has absolutely.
Speaker 1:I thought you might have been talking to the audience.
Speaker 2:No, you David, Okay, me, you David, not Ryder.
Speaker 1:I'm talking to the storage guy, the manager of the facility.
Speaker 2:And using a firm tone, that I think the acceptance around men pushing back is different to women and that possibly, men pushing back comes under the banner of just being a strong male and a woman pushing back comes under the banner of, well, she's a bitch. And of course that's cognitive dissonance for you, because our brains, when we think about a strong, leader-like person, our brains, without analysis, will come up with a male. So if a woman moves into that role of being assertive, we have to somehow make her wrong and it really irritated me. It really irritated me but I did it, I pushed back and that in those moments I don't care if they like me, I did complete irrelevancy to yeah yeah, right, it's yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think I think, for all the women listening out there over this christmas period, just entertain the idea that being liked is not the be-all and end-. Being kind, being generous, being considerate is fantastic. Not creating drama not, you know, being an incendiary force in a conversation is really good, because we don't like drama. But at the end of the day, it's not always up to the woman to make everything all right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you may not speak well, I was gonna say, and it also might not be the expectation of you, yeah, that's. It could be perceived expectation yeah, that's right you know you make it and I know that making a comment like that, it's a general comment and for some people the expectation is real. But if I do think about my mother, you know her crippling.
Speaker 2:God bless your mother, by the way, Sorry. God bless your mother. She's an awesome human being.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and so much of the pain that she experienced on those occasions was actually self-inflicted.
Speaker 2:Yes, internal yes, that's right, and no matter how much.
Speaker 1:And that's not her fault either, that's right.
Speaker 2:She was brought up in a certain environment, tightly held tension that some people get around perfectionism is just so unhelpful to themselves and everybody because everyone feels helpless around it yeah we all wanted to say to her it doesn't matter yeah, yeah like a swan's hilarious yeah like.
Speaker 2:You know where's the signet. The swan's hilarious like, but it's not. When you're that tightly held around expectation and the externals are so critical to your sense of self, it's very, very hard to reassure that person that it's okay, that actually we didn't, we don't disapprove and we would have been just fine having a sandwich like nobody cared. It's the stuff of novels and plays, really isn't it.
Speaker 1:It is the stuff of novels and plays, but in our own lives I'm actually pretty certain that there's a way of approaching that expectation and uncertainty that might be worth Do it Go on say it describing because we're in it right now.
Speaker 1:You know time of recording is 25 minutes to 2 o'clock, at 2.30,. That's when the settlement is going to go through. And when settlement happens then we can get the keys. So then when we can be ready to receive the removalists and all the you know, the furniture delivery companies that are going to be arriving tomorrow that have been locked in.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That have been cemented in. You've been absolutely certain you will bring the stuff around at this time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, in the last couple of weeks, our relationship manager with the bank expressed some doubt as to whether the settlement would actually happen today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it still might not. It still might not In 55 minutes, in 55 minutes, 55 minutes. We're on countdown listeners.
Speaker 1:We are on countdown and there's definitely part of my psychology that can go in the direction of oh my God, if this doesn't happen, then everything will be absolutely ruined.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:And we'll have nowhere to put the beds and we'll have stuff building up on the sidewalk and yada, yada, yada yada, yeah, yeah yeah, and I've got the banker talking about well, maybe you should have a plan B, and I cannot imagine a plan B and I could feel the tension rising Sure. And then I just thought hang on a second, a plan B. Okay, if you're saying we have a plan A, which is it goes through and everything's fine.
Speaker 2:If that doesn't happen, well, you know what We'll actually deal with it then and that's what you said to me last night If it doesn't happen. Let's look at that as opposed to building tension around it and sort of holding against it?
Speaker 1:Yes, holding against it and also unsettling other people who are part of the chain. Yes, that's right, because then they've got to think about it overnight. And what are we?
Speaker 2:doing.
Speaker 1:Yes, Now what we have learned is that we cannot rely on the kindness of strangers, but we can rely on the kindness of our network of friends. Our network of friends have been totally awesome, totally awesome and I think that if we were in that extreme and unfortunate position tomorrow of not having the keys, People would be nice to us. I think we would be able to find our way through. And again, it's a first world problem we don't have bombs.
Speaker 2:And that's an interesting thing, isn't it? There is the balance between because my tendency, when things start going south, is to automatically go well, we're not in Gaza. We have got running water and we've got electricity, we've got a motor vehicle, we've got a network, we have family, we're okay. I know that the psychologists will say that that mental pivoting doesn't actually work, because all you're doing is trying to avoid the current problem. And for me it does. It actually does work because it gives me perspective, as long as I'm not trying to suppress the feelings of disquiet that arise when things are getting uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:That's right, you make room for both.
Speaker 2:You've got to make room for perspective. That's right. And also at this moment in my particular life I'm uncomfortable and it's causing me stress and it is that interesting balance and only I think an individual can work out how to do that. But I think you have to entertain both, because if you lose perspective on it, then you're lost, but if you try and negate the way you're feeling by being Pollyanna, you're also lost.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's an interesting balance. I mean, I can feel myself, I can entertain absolutely the frustration, the humiliation, the feeling that, oh, we should have chosen other suppliers, or we shouldn't have, we should have done it at a different time of year. I mean all of those thoughts and feelings.
Speaker 2:They're all lined up, up, ready to go, you know but at the moment they're actually not necessary.
Speaker 1:No, so we don't need to put, I don't need to call them on stage yeah, we don't need to call.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we don't need to call those thoughts. On stage we're just going to let them stand in the wings and just we know that they're there, but they're just standing in the wings because, because we have to go and pack up our stuff and I'm sure everybody is very busy with their pre-Christmas prep. Thank you, david.
Speaker 1:Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Oh, my pleasure.
Speaker 1:No worries, love.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all right, dave. It's all good. It's all good, dave. So just to reiterate, smart women out there, you are not responsible for other people's behavior. You are not responsible for other people's feelings. You are responsible for your own behavior.
Speaker 2:So you know, if you can feel there's tension arising over Christmas, it's perfectly within your rights to go and take a stroll outside. You know, have a drink, do what you like, remove yourself from the situation or, if you feel that it warrants your attention and it warrants your focus, you can dive right into it. But don't spend your time fighting battles you can't win. Don't do it. Take care of yourselves. Thank you, yo-yo, for shaking in the middle of me speaking. Yo-yo for shaking in the middle of me speaking. So, take care of yourselves. Have a very, very, very Merry Christmas from myself and from David, and from Harry, a wonderful producer. We are going to take two weeks off over Christmas, new Year, where we will be repeating a couple of very, very special episodes that you may not have had the chance to listen to. Please tune in, stay safe, keep your critical thinking hats on, have a lovely new year and we will speak to you. I will speak to you and maybe David will speak to you.
Speaker 1:If I'm lucky.
Speaker 2:If he's really lucky.
Speaker 1:If I'm well behaved, if you're very well behaved over Christmas at the Christmas dinner table.
Speaker 2:I will speak to you in 2025. Happy Christmas, Happy New Year. See you soon. Bye.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in to why Smart Women with me, Annie McCubbin. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, in a car park, in a bar or in your own home, please, please, respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny.
Speaker 2:This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women. See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, Annie McCubbin.
