50: Why Jill Wrote A Book About Big Buts

Feeling like you’re supposed to follow one path in your career can make every unexpected turn feel like a mistake.

That’s something Jill Salzman, discovered through her own unconventional journey. After starting multiple businesses, raising kids, and navigating countless “but…” moments in life and work, she realized those detours were actually the most important parts of the story.

That realization inspired her to write The Big But Book, a graphic novel exploring the fears, excuses, and self-doubt that often hold us back from pursuing what we truly want.

In this episode of Women & Work, Jill shares why embracing your authentic self—and even your messy career twists—can lead to stronger connections, more meaningful work, and greater success.

What “but” has held you back from doing something you really want to try?

Struggling to find the right child care for your family? Watch a video interview with your ideal nanny at https://www.momsub.com/child-care-options

Check out all of Jill’s books at https://jillsalzman.com/media/

#WomenInBusiness #EntrepreneurMindset #WorkingMoms #CareerGrowth #WomenAndWork

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I was scared tremendously that I didn't know what I was doing, which I think is how every business how every mom starts out. Forget business owner. I didn't know who I was. So I thought I had to play the part of a very dramatic business person who sat up straight. I would flat iron my hair, I would wear black, and I would. I think I wore business suits at one time, which is hilarious. And I played a part. I just thought that I was supposed I wouldn't be taken seriously if I didn't do all of those things. And slowly but surely we peeled those layers off of me. And I noticed many years in that the more I became myself, the more I attracted the right people. The more I attracted the right-I would say the right customers, but I also think this applies personally. The right friends, the right people in my life. Uh I started to make more money. Uh it all works in your favor to become more of who you are.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Welcome to Women and Work, the show where we take an inside look at how women are overcoming our own unique challenges as we grow our careers or build a business while nurturing relationships and family. I'm Diane Mocha, founder and CEO of Mom Sub, the childcare app that connects you to a substitute mom. And I want you to know that work can fit your life. Each week we meet a woman who has done that. Today I'm with Jill Salzman. She's a powerhouse. I first heard of Jill when a friend told me to check out her podcast, Why Are We Shouting? Jill used her podcast to describe the things she had done wrong while running a business and what she learned through funny stories because humor is Jill's oxygen, and community is her blood type. That's why she created the Founding Moms, a network of groups run by entrepreneurial women to help each other. And I became one of the leaders of a local Founding Mom group myself. Thanks for being here, Jill.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

My pleasure. It is so good to be here with you.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Awesome. Well, you've had a lot of twists and turns in your career. Before the Founding Moms, you started two other companies a music management firm and a business that sell little bells for babies. So you always knew which way your infant was heading, right? Right. And then you've put out two business books, uh TED Talk, and many other speeches, alongside greats like Richard Branson, shared a stage with him, a ton of media experiences, and you put out two kids, right? Gave birth to two girls who one of them still jingling around your house, right? Um and now, but wait, there's more. There's the graphic novel, the big butt book. Yeah. As in, I got a law degree to be a lawyer, but right? How many women understand that, right? Those kind of butts. So I want you to tell us the biggest challenge that you faced through all of these endeavors, specifically because you are a woman. Becoming myself.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

I did not know that was the goal. I didn't know that was the journey. I, in fact, used to hate the word journey. Uh, and I realized launching business after business after business, the number one way that an entrepreneur succeeds in this life, in my opinion, is that you discover who you are, you discover what you need, what your boundaries are, what your limits are, uh, how not to burn out as a mom, how not to burn out as a person. So every business that I launched, which, as you mentioned, was entirely different than one another, I learned something new about myself. I learned a lot about myself just in exploring the ways that I run a business and the way that I've uh sold businesses, started businesses, failed at so many things. So it's it's continuing to be an evolution of who I am.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Do you think that it's different for a woman than it is for a man that maybe has a more, I don't know, straight path, you know, that a woman sort of feels this need to meander because there's these other things, you know, are you gonna have kids? Now what are you gonna do now that you've had kids? You know, there's more decisions.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

I can only speak for myself. I hate to genderize, but of course we have to genderize mostly because I think society puts on us, hey, you're expected to go and have kids. Not do you want to have kids? Uh, hey, when you have the kids and you want to be working in the world, you're gonna have to take care of all of it. Uh and I don't want to speak for every partner that is a male in the world because a lot of them are very supportive, but a lot of them aren't. And so uh I do think there's an uphill battle that we face that we don't talk about enough. So I'm glad you even asked the question. Yeah. It's it's rough out there.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

It is. And and what are the things that you found in figuring out who you were? Like, did you start at a place and have to go like all the way around and sort of come back to the same place? Because you have some core attributes, I think, from listening to many of your podcast episodes, right? You know? I feel very much like the average person.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

I I don't think I started from a great place. I was I was scared tremendously that I didn't know what I was doing, which I think is how every business, how every mom starts out. Forget business owner. Uh, I didn't know who I was. So I thought I had to play the part of very dramatic business person who sat up straight. Uh, I would flat iron my hair, I would wear black, and I would, I think I wore business suits at one time, which is hilarious. Uh, and I played a part. I just thought that I was supposed I wouldn't be taken seriously if I didn't do all of those things. And slowly but surely we peeled those layers off of me. And I noticed many years in that the more I became myself, the more I attracted the right people, the more I attracted to the right, I would say the right customers, but I also think this applies personally. The right friends, the right people in my life. Uh I I started to make more money. Uh, it all works in your favor to become more of who you are, but I think we all start out with, who the heck is that? I don't I don't know. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

And some days I still don't know. And that's interesting what you say about, you know, the way that you presented yourself and even how you dressed. Because there are still women, and I hear stories of that they're in the workplace and they're not being taken seriously and they're not getting promotions. And when they change some of those things, or they even have a a mentor who's a woman who's further ahead that says, you know, maybe try not wearing this, you know, don't wear the leggings to work, or do do this instead, or, you know, let me help you where you should shop. And and then they actually have an impact from them that is seen as positive. They might have gotten the promotion, they might have gotten more money, but is that serving us if it's not feeding our soul?

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Well, to your point, what's your goal? Because my goal was always to make as much money as humanly possible while being there for my kids, while really leaning into being myself. So, fun story of how I discovered this. It is sort of like a light bulb moment day that I had because I was in my flat-ironing era uh of wearing all black, and I overslept one morning, and I was running into the co-working space where I was working in downtown Chicago, and I didn't have time. So I didn't have time to flat iron my hair. I didn't have time to think about the clothes I was putting on, and I had forgotten uh there was gonna be an interview later in the day, and I was gonna be on camera. Just completely left my mind because you know, you're in the race to get out of the house. So I threw on some patterned leggings, I didn't do my hair, I get to the space, I walked in, the first person looked at me and said, I love your leggings. And I I realized what I was wearing and thought, oh my god, I left the house like this. And then somebody else, literally all in one day, somebody else said, I love that you have curly hair. Is this your real hair? Because I'd been flat ironing. So the more I went through that specific day, the more I realized this really resonates with people, and I think this is very weird because I've always been told to do the opposite. So I sort of took that day as like a welcome sign, sort of like, you know, hang up your hat that is the very pro hat and do whatever you want. Go ahead and just be who you are, because people clearly love it. Uh and so I just started experimenting. I wore more patterned leggings. I don't know if you remember them from back in the day. Uh I decided to stop wearing regular, boring old glasses. I let my hair go. I sort of became the woman you're not supposed to be in a professional setting. Uh and I think a lot of women would uh flinch at suggestions of doing this for themselves. But I am living proof that it's been an extraordinary way to stretch who I am publicly, because that's who I've always been.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

And you kind of went through, I don't know, what I might call a wacky stage or something. So when you did these podcasts, you were always in different images with your hair and and crazy outfits and crazy colors. And and I would imagine it was a lot of effort. Like, because every time you're like, I have, and maybe I'm wrong. I have to come up with, you know, some new idea and something, you know, that's gonna be wackier than the last, or at least it's wacky. And I heard once that Oprah wanted to stop doing Oprah magazine because she said every time they had to do a shoot, it was like a big ordeal, you know. It was like, you know, weeks or months in the planning, and then like, you know, days in the in the making. And she's like, I'm just tired of all that.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Like, oh, that's so interesting that you bring her up because she's the reason that I would always put my own image rather than just images of women at work in because I read once that the reason that she had to do those shoots and put herself on the cover every time was because they always made more money when she was on the cover, because we all got to see Oprah and that's who we wanted to see. So I thought if I'm the brand, I'm gonna put myself out there. I had an entire basement full of costume wardrobe. Uh, I thoroughly enjoyed getting dressed up for all of those podcasts and appearances. There was a series also during or right before the pandemic where I would do Facebook Lives from my bathtub. I don't know if you remember that one. Uh, I went through a lot of experiments. I tested out a lot. No, it was never a drag to do that, but I really wanted to sort of become a cartoony version of what I was suggesting you do, which is business doesn't have to be boring. So go ahead and have fun. Dress up, be yourself, even be more ridiculous than is comfortable for you. Because that's the way you're gonna sort of shake off the professionalism, the the perceived professionalism that you don't have to do to make money, to connect with people, to relate to them, to invite them to conversations, to buy from you, etc. Um, so I I fully recommend wearing more feather boas to anybody listening.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah. So that lesson that you learned that one day you were sharing that week in and week out through these episodes of saying, just be yourself. Because look at even if yourself is as crazy as this, it's okay, right? You're listening to me.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah, I want it to be the extreme for you because if I was the extreme, you knew you could be a little further out into the wild, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Oh, well, I'm not that crazy. Exactly. And look at where Jill is. Don't worry, I got a lot of that too. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So I want to go back a little and talk about what you thought your career was going to be when you were young. Did you have, you know, a grand plan? I just interviewed someone who said, I'm a Virgo and I always plan everything. Of course, when you're an entrepreneur, it doesn't always go according to plan. It's very Virgo. But did you know, like, I want to do this and I want to do that? You got a law degree?

SPEAKER_01 12:02

I mean, you're the one that rattled off my different businesses at the beginning of this. Uh absolutely no plan if that wasn't clear. No plan at all. I was in law school in Los Angeles, uh, and I went to law school because my then boyfriend wanted to go to law school, and I thought, okay, let's do it. So I, throughout law school, knew this is not for me. I'm not gonna be. Oh, you didn't finish. No degree. No, no, no. I did finish. You did. Oh. Oh, I definitely finished. Okay, I want to make sure. I had the degree. I did not, I never practiced. Did you intend to? Uh no. I kind of, I'm one of those weirdos that loved law school, but I knew leaving, I wasn't gonna do that. But what am I gonna do? And so I remember calling a girlfriend and saying, you know, I'm thinking of starting my own thing. What does that look like? And she said, I don't know, but that is very you. So I think I've always sort of what is the expression? Drum to the beat of my own drum? I don't know. Yeah. So I ended up launching my first business, other other than the Lemonade Stand at five, uh, which was a music management company because I had worked in New York before law school uh for a record label. And I loved it. Who doesn't love the music business when you're fresh out of college? So I started to manage bands in Chicago and had no idea what I was doing. And thought my only goal was to pay my bills. So I sort of figured things out as I went, you know, sort of making a ton of mistakes. Some of those poor, poor first clients who I wish I could go back to and apologize to. Anyone famous? Uh not of my management company, but well known enough in Chicago that I will not be naming them today. Uh I'm gonna find out after. But uh, I walked through that company, learning enough about uh doing your own publicity because I would do them for my clients, doing the bookings that I realized when I launched my second business, which was selling baby jewelry. Which what? But I I got a lot of compliments on my baby daughter's new gift that we had received from family in Thailand. So I called my aunt, who then lived in Thailand, and said, Ship me a whole pile of these. We don't have them here. I think I need to sell them because my music business isn't making so much money. So I was running two businesses at the same time. Talk about no plan. And then when I was pregnant with baby number two, I just panicked. Like, how how do you run two businesses with two babies in a tiny home office? It was very unrealistic, and I knew absolutely nobody who was doing that. So that's when I decided I'm gonna go to meetup.com and I'm gonna start a little meetup, self-serving, so I can ask other women who have businesses and babies to come and meet with me and tell me how they're running their businesses. Because will I survive this? Am I crazy? Do I shut everything down? So we met up in a cafe, and about 20 women showed up, and my jaw dropped, and we all agreed to meet up every month. And about a year in, I went, There's something here. Maybe I'll launch a third business.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Because you're just not busy enough. I'm not busy enough.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Well, I closed up the first business. Because who needs to sleep? I sold the second business, and I think I filed two years in for the the trademark of the founding moms. Okay. And then I did that for 13 years. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

unknown 15:23

Long time.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

I want to hear about the support during that time. Were you married? Was your husband one of those guys that, you know, was very helpful? One of those guys. Well, he's now an ex-husband. Okay. But at the time, so he's one of those guys.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

No, he was so supportive that he's the one who said, why don't you start your own thing? I think everybody in my orbit knew I was not meant for corporate. I had worked for several years in corporate, but we all knew this was not for me. So he encouraged me to start off uh running my own business. So when I had the music management business, he was also a musician, so that helped. Very supportive. We shared duties, what do we call those? Tasks in the house uh very, very evenly. So for a time it was great. We were two working parents, but there was enough support. I lived far from well, we lived far from both parents. So there were no grandparents in town. So I'm not gonna say it was easy, but I guess it was easier than single parenthood. Those single mamas out there doing what they're doing. More power to you. Uh, but I liked to work a lot, so I did. Um, and he was really helpful. And so I'm not gonna complain. Could we have used a lot more support around us? Yes. And I actually, now that you're asking, I'm realizing for the first time, not only could we have used support around family, but I could have used support around business and didn't know anything about delegating for a good ten years. Wow. Yeah. Trying to do everything yourself. Everything.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Because I was good at it. It was fine. I'd be fine. No one's gonna do it like me. No one's gonna do it like me. I have all the control. Wow. And still, like you said, having that standard of spending as much time as possible with the kids because I've got these, you know, these babies and they need me. So tell me about what you did for childcare. Because you were an entrepreneur, did you just say, Well, I don't need childcare because I'll just do it when the kids are napping, and you know, and or maybe were you realistic? And then at what point did did reality slap you in the face and say, Okay, if I want to progress in this business, maybe I do need to hire someone. And and what did you do for children?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

I want to talk about this in terms of age brackets because when they were babies, there was a lot of sleeping. So I was able to do quite a bit. And what I realized along the way was I really welcomed their naps because that was a moment I could do something. And when they needed to be fed, it was a very welcome break. So I sort of worked my routine into their schedule. I want to say from the ages of two to five, those were the you are now an intern at mommy's company uh years. So I would stack up pieces of paper, I would give them pencils, and I would say, I need this drawn by five o'clock. And they would, you know, sort of participate in a way that they thought they were helping mom, and I was just having them color or they had a lot of fun with a stapler. So we had hours of stapling on certain days. When they were two, any fingers get stapled. Well, maybe I waited until they were four. But they they ended up sort of being around more than one would think. And I liked to include them a lot because then they also got to see, well, what's mom doing? She's not ignoring me. She's actually doing something that's making her happy. Uh and then I think around the age of five, for both of them, I realized this is a lot. Uh well, they went to kindergarten. I think actually, so I mean the year beforehand, I finally decided to put them in preschool. Um, and I went through, I think, 12 months of massive mom guilt that I was giving up time over preschool? Yeah. No, not preschool. Um, daycare. Daycare. I'm using the wrong language. Okay. It's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

It's been a minute. See, isn't that funny how the mom guilt comes from daycare but doesn't come from preschool.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

It well, that's because everybody else is doing it. So it's okay. But I had an opportunity to have them at home. It wasn't that they were legally bound to have to go to school.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Uh but you know, giving up that opportunity, however you want to think about it in the guilt way, was so financially you didn't you didn't have to earn an income through your business. Oh, I did. Oh, you did. Oh, I did. Okay. Yeah. So there was no way I was gonna stop working. So you didn't really have a choice, you know, when you say, Well, I have this opportunity, be with them. You're correct. Technically, I didn't have a choice, but I I thought I did.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Right. It's not real.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

It's emotional. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'll do it when they're like you said, okay, they're not napping as much now, but they go to sleep at eight. So I'll do it from eight to midnight, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:55

You know, I'll just be the mom and they didn't sleep for a lot of years. Yeah, which I very much regret. But that's how we learn, that's how we grow, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:06

So you set a nice cap on it. You said daycare will will work, and I can get this work done because they're not napping anymore.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

I mean, the amount that I spent giving myself a hard time about daycare would match the level of joy that they got from going to daycare. They loved it. So there's also a learning curve in there. Too many learning curves. When do those stop? That's what I want to know.

unknown 20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

And then when they went to school, you were the one doing the pickups and the drop-offs? Yeah. Well, I would share it with my husband. Okay. Yeah. Oh, so he was very involved. He was very involved. And then how long has he not been part of so well I was divorced in 2015?

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Oh, so 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. And so there were years of single motherhood where I was working. And I think because I included my kids the whole time along the way, I didn't shy away from telling them what I did for a living, what I was working on now. And I did a lot of checking in with them because of the guilt about do you know how you feel? What's what's going on? You see that I'm busy. Are you okay? I think the only hard time I ever got was, of course, in the early days of just staring at your phone. And we all didn't know yet. Don't do that all day long. So they would sort of, you know, come and push the phone out and say, Mom, I'm right here. Uh so I had to learn that the hard way early on. But um Yeah, I don't I don't know. It was it was always really great. I realize in hindsight, I didn't know at the time. It was just a feeling I had to include them. But I think a lot of parents leave their kids out of it. They don't want to burden them, they don't want to make make too much of it to put the responsibility on the kids. I never understand that. But uh I highly recommend you you share if if you're not.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

If you're running a business, find things that they can do, even if it's not really something that the business needs. But they feel like they're contributing. And then they stay busy and you're kind of co-working side by side. Yeah. Right. And then you can get a little more done than um than you would if you were just like, okay, I better, you know, take you out on a bike ride now and instead.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

And we had great instances of proof of that really working in our favor because at age nine, my eldest wrote a little story. And when she was done and I said it was great, she said, okay, I'm going to sell it for five bucks. And then years later, I corralled all my kids to write a kids' newsletter. So we had the founding kids newsletter going for a while. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. That's why I remembered that you had two girls. So little entrepreneurial kids who I don't know if either of them are going to start their own businesses when they get older, but hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Was it important to you that you did, you know, that you at least did half of the pickups and the drop-offs? Very okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Very important to me. And I think that's pretty much why post-law school I started my own business. The impetus was I want to be home for the kids. I don't want anybody to keep that from me. So what can I do at home to get going? Did you have kids then? I had my kiddo about a year into starting my first business. Okay. So I launched it knowing a kid was coming at some point.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Okay. Yeah. So you're like, this is in my future. Yeah. And it's actually, I know when it's going to be there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

I mean, it sounds very planned. Maybe that part was. But I I I mean, I'm one of those who knew since I was little that I wanted kids. So that you wanted kids. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

More so than even your own business. Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Like babysitting in the teen years. Yeah. Yeah. I knew. I knew I wanted to be a mom and really didn't have any interest in entrepreneurship. It kind of happened on uh by accident. You know, I was working in media. Yeah. I told you I worked at a CBS station and I was driving, listening to audiobooks, and I listened to one called Rich Dad Poor Dad. A lot of people get into a real estate business because of that. Yeah. And so I was like, oh, I could do this, and we need a little extra money on the side. Little did I know. The whole trajectory of my life.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

I've never heard any entrepreneur I've met say, I intentionally started this. It's always a by accident. It's always an oops, I landed in this situation, which I think is different than this generation because they all want to be YouTubers and they all want to start their own thing online.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

It's cool to be a founder now. It's totally cool now. Yeah. You know, they look at everyone in Silicon Valley. But so many moms do it because they realize, well, I don't want to be just hemmed into this uh schedule that somebody dictates to me. I want to create my own schedule. And you did that right from the get-go. And have been doing it the whole time. And and still, you've got one at home now, still. Yeah. And you've got this new business as a coach. But before that, we're going to talk about the big butt book. I love it. Graphic novel about the detours that shape us, right? Because we all say, Well, I'm going to do this, but I want to do this, but, you know, I need to do this, but. Yeah. And so how did this come about? You had two previous books.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

I did. And those were full sentences with page after page of chapters. This is my very first graphic novel. I wanted to, well, actually, it is tied into my new business, which is coaching, full-time coaching, which I'd actually been doing for a very long time, even through running The Founding Moms. And when I decided to go full-time after I sold the Founding Moms, I realized, you know what? I keep reading these amazing coaching books, but they're all very serious. They all take themselves so seriously. And I kept getting this feeling that if I was to become a professional full-time coach, I would need to talk to you like this. The black pack with a kind of right, right. Like that famous SNL skit. I'm not going to mention the NPR skit. Anyway. Oh, with the two women. Yes. So I realized I want something that reflects what I've been about all along. Humor, fun. Like we can have a good time. And it's much more fun to take a look at all of the fears and the blocks that are stopping us from moving forward by realizing we're not the only ones. And in fact, once we know them, then we can actually go and do the thing we want to go do. So I decided to take a lot of the different butt excuses that I heard from clients, but I don't have enough time, but I don't have enough money. But I don't have enough sanity, whatever I would hear. And I sort of um amalgamated it into five different fictional characters that all, you know, they're all so crafted in a way that I'm a little worried that when people read the book, they're gonna find a character in there and go, is this about me? I'm waiting for clients to send me those those notes.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Oh, your specific clients to say, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Because everybody can read themselves or find a piece of themselves in these characters. So I I wanted it to be a graphic novel. I worked with an illustrator for a year to create it with me. And then I created some customized colored pencils because why not color it in? Yeah. Coloring book for adults.

unknown 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

So you definitely take a different approach than traditional. I sure do. And I love that. I sure do. And there are so many coaches out there right now.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

There are so many. So many. I am with you. There are maybe too many of us. Yeah, there are a lot of us.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Yeah. But how are you, you know? I mean, other than you're you, which is different, but we're all different, anyways. And you're you, which is even more different because you put it all out there. But are you doing something different? Is the way that you approach things, did you? I know you said you didn't want to necessarily do everything buttoned up. But did you like this? Did you get the certifications? I did not. Did you go through the programs?

SPEAKER_01 27:54

I did not. I'm going through some programs right now. Programs, huh? I view coaching as a path to constant forever learning. So I will always be taking courses and programs of many different kinds to shape how I coach and who I am. Um, how I'm different, I I don't actually think I'm doing a lot differently than other coaches. I think the difference between all of us is that we have very different styles, very different ways of approaching problems. You'll meet very practical, tactical coaches whom I actually would call consultants because they have fixes for your problems. Uh I don't view other coaches that way. Coaches know that you're good to go and you've got all the answers. We just need to work on you seeing that for yourself. And so a lot of different coaches have different ways of peeking in, lifting the hood, asking questions to guide you to a place where you can go, I never thought of that. And then you see the whole world differently. And then you you could never be the same. You can never act the same because you see the world differently. So I feel that's my job now in coaching. And the way that it's different truly is how you're gonna feel when I'm doing it with you.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

It's the experience. And are you do you have a certain type of person? Are you coaching working moms? I sure am. I mean, are you never not gonna coach working moms?

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Because I love you all. Uh I and others? I mean, are you having all a lot of people? I've got a wide range of clients. I have lawyers, I have um I have clients that have nothing to do with business, actually. I have clients with stage four lung cancer. I have clients going through divorces.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

So this is life coaching. So I'm not just business whole life coaching.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Whole life coaching. Because most people find me because my strong suit is business. I've built many of them, I've sold a couple of them. But when they come to me often with branding questions, sales questions, marketing questions, usually what's layered under that is something that's going on with them, the way they think about it, the way they're scared about X, Y, and Z, reflected in my book. Uh so it's it's sort of really neat to s to leave it wide open. And I have so many different clients that now come to me because they just know they're stuck and they don't know how to move forward.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

So we figure it out together. So it kind of comes back to that identity thing. So your strongest suit is actually on top of being a business owner and starting and and selling these businesses, understanding your identity and the importance of that. And being who, you know, authentic is the word that we hear a lot. Yeah. But, you know, living true to your authentic to your identity um is really gonna have an impact in your whole life.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

It's and so you're helping people because some people don't really know. I would say most people don't really know because you have to work on this. They've piled stuff on and and society's piled stuff on, and other people have piled stuff on so much. It's like it's like something's at the bottom of the pile, and that's your identity, but we can't see it because of all the other things that got piled on.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

And to add to that, yes, and I think a lot of people hear a lot of things throughout their lives from their families, from colleagues where you're this kind of person. You are this, you are that. I I have been told lots of wild and wacky things. I've been told I'm crazy. I've been told I'm a hippie. I've been told I name it. You name it, I've been told it because that's what people put on me as a projection of their own crap. It took me a really long time to realize that that's their stuff, not my stuff. Uh, and I I think a lot of people walk around thinking, oh, whatever you're seeing is confirming who I am, therefore that is who I am. And it's just not true. And so you have to sit with a professional coach to sort of explore what you think you are, what you've heard you are, uh, and how you really feel, who you really are.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

What's the essence of you? Does it evolve over time? Do you think if you knew the essence of you back in, you know, before you really understood the importance of identity or who you were, that it would be different? Or do you think there's this underlying aura? Ooh, that is a deep philosophical question.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

That goes back thousands of years. Okay, Diane. Uh I do think there's an essence that everyone has that's so incredibly, wonderfully fantastic. And I think that gets buried with responsibilities, with kids, with partners, with life. And uh so I think it does shift over time in how it presents, also because we're human beings with emotions. So I think those get in the way a lot. Uh, it's 2026, there's a lot going on in the world. This is affecting a lot of people and their essence of who they are. So, yeah, sometimes my work is working with somebody who just got lost and just can't find their way back out, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

So you've been on this journey, right? You've now embraced that word. Not a word I love, but we're gonna say it. Okay. And and learned so much. I mean, every episode was the things that you learned. But if you could take what you know now and go back to an earlier time and change one thing, the most critical thing, or the, I don't know, the most important thing, or the funniest thing. I don't what what's one thing you would change?

SPEAKER_01 33:20

I think uh I don't know how I would have been able to change this, but I would have paid way more attention to how I function in the world. Meaning I I worked in a sleep lab in college and I didn't really apply it to myself. And so I never slept. I burned out often here and there over the years. I overworked when that wasn't necessary, and I didn't know my rhythm. I didn't pay attention to what I needed, how I walked in the world, how I wandered through. And I'm not a robot. Did you know that? I'm not a robot. So I had to learn that the hard way. And if I had changed that, I don't know if things would have been better. They would have been different.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Wow. Yeah. Well, that will help so many people. So I thank you for sharing that and and your book that you brought and all that you do with your coaching to help others. And thanks to you for joining us on today's episode of Women in Work. If you were inspired by today's story, remember to share it with a friend, leave a review, and subscribe to meet our next amazing guest. If you or anyone you know is struggling to find the right childcare, check out MomSub's free webinar that guides families through the steps to find and keep trusted, reliable childcare at momsub.com slash webinar. That's momsub like us substitute mom. You can connect with momsub on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Our mission is for you to discover what you really want in life. Pursue it with intensity. Reach out for help when needed, right? We all need to learn to delegate and fulfill your dream, reducing your stress, guilt, and self-criticism, and increasing your calm, confidence, and clarity along the way without having to whisper. Remember, your career, your choices, and your success are yours to define. So keep pushing boundaries and spreading your love and encouragement to other women who need it.