219. The Myth of Having It All: What Successful Women Know

Speaker A: Welcome to the Boss Lady Podcast. Whether you are an entrepreneur climbing the corporate ladder or a work from home parent, you are a boss. I am Teresa Rand, an entrepreneur, mother, grandmother, wife and former CEO.

Speaker B: Uh, and I'm Jennifer Roberts, a wife, mom, and a woman who walked away from a corporate PR career to embrace entrepreneurship. Join us as we break down strategies, tools and techniques that will enhance your career and life.

Speaker A: If you desire to make, make your life extraordinary, to reach and exceed your personal and professional goals, and to learn from other strong leaders, then the Boss Lady Podcast is for you.

Speaker B: Together, we will embrace, empower, and educate each other.

Speaker A: This is the Boss Lady Podcast.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Boss Lady Podcast. Welcome back. If you are a, uh, reoccurring listener, we've got a fantastic topic for you today. If you're new to the podcast, welcome. Welcome. Hopefully you will find something valuable in our conversation today about the fact that, hey, you can't do it all, so what actually can you do?

Speaker C: That's our topic today.

Speaker B: That's it. You can't do it all. I know, I tried so many times. Why do we keep trying?

Speaker C: We keep trying and trying and trying. And even our last episode, you know, all the, all the other stuff going on in the background, right, about how to keep going when, you know, life's just not perfect.

Speaker B: It's absolutely not perfect. And we often get these messages that we can do it all. You see the social media feeds of these women that are doing everything, they're killing it with the kids and the family, they're killing it at work and whatever they do to earn a living, they're traveling all the places they're looking. Fantastic. And all of the, all of the things. And you're like, wow. But we all have to be honest with ourselves. You know, as we try to do it all, we find out that it doesn't actually work that way. And we have to figure out how we're going to survive some of these overwhelming expectations that come with our career, our family, leadership, relationships, caregiving, and figure out how we're going to get them all working in some meaningful capacity. Because.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: You can't cut one of them out either.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: It doesn't say, you don't just cut one of them and say, well, I'm just going to focus on these two.

Speaker C: Right? Yeah, I'm just not going to worry about those kids over there.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: I'm m not going to worry about that job over here. Yeah, that doesn't work either. But I think, and I don't think we know from surveys and, um, statistics and all that. Women have an extraordinary amount of responsibilities. Now we can say we bring that on ourselves. We don't, whatever, we won't get into that. But we really have the equivalent of two full time jobs. If you work outside of the home and then you're still trying to manage your home as a single mom or a single human or a married person, we still tend to take on the majority of the household stuff as well. I just finished reading a book called the Husbands and when I immediately sent it to my oldest daughter who's married with two young girls and said, you know, I hear these conversations, conversations in your household where, you know, my son in law's saying, well, I do, I do this, this and this. And she's like, how do you pack the lunch? When did you make the last doctor's appointment? When did you call the plumber? You know, we just don't, we don't really divide and conquer as much as we should. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's so many husbands out there that are willing to pick up the load and I think there's some socialization for them too to try and figure out how.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And I don't know that they've been socialized to do that and maybe not a whole lot of role models in their life that showed them.

Speaker C: Right. Agree.

Speaker B: How to pick up some of the mental load.

Speaker C: Right, agree. And one of the things the lady in the book, he said, well, I'll do whatever you tell me, just tell me. And she's like, but nobody tells me. I just know the clothes have to be washed and dinner. Nobody gives me a list. But you know, we gotta meet halfway. Right, Right. One book I read, I can't remember now the name of it, um, drawing a blank, but oh, Athena Rising and it's by two men and how men can be mentors to women. And they talk about doing a, like on Sunday night you have a conversation, who's doing what this week? Who's gonna take out the trash, who's going to, you know, get Johnny to soccer or Susie to soccer, whatever. So that every week we literally lay out who's doing what as opposed to just assuming. Because then they don't do what we assume they're going to do and we get mad.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And then we just say, I just do it myself.

Speaker B: Right, Right. And you know what's so interesting too, we this year we took on, and we've talked about it a little bit on the podcast here and there, but we took on a, ah, new idea this year and we launched our first Women in the workplace survey in our local community in Volusia and Flagler counties. This is the day, primarily the Daytona beach area of Florida. And we asked women in our community what are the biggest stressors that you face? And one of the things that came out of that was being able, not being able to do it all and not being able to find that work life balance. So where are all these expectations that we all have?

Speaker C: Where do they come from? Right, yeah. Uh, you know, I wish I had the answer to that question. I know.

Speaker B: And I do think, is it.

Speaker C: I, I don't know. Do we put it on ourselves? I do think society has played a role. You know, men, in my experience, men are doing more than they did growing up. I don't want to. This is not a slamming man. I see my son in law doing and my son doing a lot more than maybe their fathers did. So they are stepping up to the plate for the most part. But we're still doing the majority.

Speaker B: Right. And I think sometimes too. I've noticed that as I get older, the mental load has more of an impact on me than it did when I was younger. Yeah, I, and that's like a new feature. So welcome to the 50s because this is what I'm learning.

Speaker C: Well, and then when you start getting to your 60s and beyond, you're like, screw it, I don't care anymore. Well, I gotta take them out. I don't care. So it starts to get better on the other end. Good.

Speaker B: Because, uh, that's, that's part of the thing is, I've noticed, I mean there's been some, if you heard our last podcast, I won't go over it again, but I've got a new layer of mental load in my life and caring for, um, an ailing parent. And so the mental load is extreme. And I find, and one of our, uh, therapists, boss lady of mine, just validated for this to me. She was texting me, checking in, uh, on me and how I was doing. And she said, you know, when I did this for my parent, I had to rest more. I found myself wanting to take more naps, I wanted more sleep. And I just couldn't, I couldn't help but wonder if that's part of that mental load conversation. Just wearing me out. It physically wears me out.

Speaker C: Yeah, uh, yeah.

Speaker B: And uh, it's a, it's a real thing to try and do more mental load than I think some of us are, are capable of doing.

Speaker C: Right. And I think we also are Our own worst critics, you know, that we're. We. Whether we admit it or not, we all play a little bit of the comparing game. Well, if she can do all that, what's wrong with me? Right? And we. We just have to take social media out of it because we don't put. Well, most people don't put the bad stuff on social media. It's all the happy times and the good times. And, you know, look, I'm traveling and look, I'm. You know, I've got a great new outf. I look good. I'm working out, you know, all the things. So we. We have to not assume that's reality. Yeah, everybody's got stuff. And it's, um. It's okay to feel that it's okay to say. And I, um, had coffee not too long ago with a pastor friend of mine, and she said, you know, it's okay some days to just say, I'm out. I can't. I can't do it today. You know, to your point, I need to rest. I need to, you know, so we. I also see or have seen and see some women do like to play the martyr. Um, and they don't really want help because then they can't say they do it all. So those are just questions to ask yourself and. Right. Am I asking for help? Am I willing to accept help? Am I comparing myself to others that I think are perfect? Because nobody is. Yeah, but we're expected to do a lot.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: We expect a lot out of ourselves. You know, I do a talk on, um, called Superwoman is a Myth, and it's one of my most fun talks because we. We think we can do it all. Like we're superhuman and we're not. Yeah. Something's got to give.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So how do you decide what gives? Especially in this point of life where you're dealing with, you know, extra, extra.

Speaker B: Yeah. What gives? Uh, I feel like a little bit of everything gives. Yeah. Ah, it's not one thing, like you said, you can't cross off the family. Um, you can't cross them out of the list. It's everything gives. So when I used to cook more nights a week, now that's not happening when I, you know, um, hang around. And, uh, the other thing, too, is the me time evaporates. Right. The time that I used to just decompress with, um, Netflix or something or a book or whatever, that falls away. And I think that's maybe some of the tiredness that I experience too.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: So you're not decompressing and.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Um, those kinds of things. I. That's where I notice the gaps in time get filled. Like, I have this list of things that I need to do that are not work things, they're personal things. And it's like I can't get this list down because I. When I'm done for the day, I just want to go to bed, you know, Like, I just want to go to bed. Um, and so trying to figure out how to work those in and get those things, because they're not unimportant things, you know, they are setting up a new credit card so I can pay for my daughter's new apartment in Orlando, you know, at college. And, you know, just things. Right. Like, they're just things that have to get done. So I don't know. That's where I see. That's where I see the gaps. Um, where I find time. Right. To make up for these other things.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And for everybody that may look different.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker C: You know, there may be some things, you know, that you, you do differently, that somebody else says, well, that doesn't work for me. We have. But I think the key is we have to sit down and take the time to ask ourselves, what can I let go of? Uh, or what is it okay to do just good enough? What's it okay to do just good enough, you know, and not be excellent? Or for me, I find myself procrastinating sometimes, and then I get in crunch mode, you know, and then I bite everybody's head off because I'm in a hurry. Um, you know, I want to get it done. But I think we each have to just take a moment and ask ourselves what. What can go. What can be done less of or differently? Because here's one of the things I've always said. I don't believe there's such a thing as work life balance. I've been working for 40 years now, close to 40 years. And sometimes everything's going well at work and all hell breaks loose at home. Sometimes things are going great at home. No hell breaks loose at work. On the day. Days that they're both going well, I need to write those days down because they're few and far between. So I think if we start, Jen, with that expectation that it's not realistic to think we're going to have true work life balance. And I was a little bit surprised to see it in our survey. I was hoping maybe we wouldn't. But, uh, it was the very clear winner. The very clear winner was work life balance.

Speaker B: Well, and I think that it's important to talk like we talk. You talked about trade offs. What are the things that can go. What are some things that can help you through? Um, I had to, I learned some really powerful lessons in business that I started having to apply to take care of my mom and the team of people of now eight people that are taking care of her 24, seven. And so how to delegate, how to get all the things that have to happen to her in a day in a notebook so I can teach others. Here's where you go for the answers. It doesn't always mean you have to call me. I don't have to be the, you know, I am the centerpiece of all of the. I get that. But how can I get it out of my head and give it to other people? So we established a calendar, we established a book. I call it the book. It's just a binder and it's got pages in there of, uh, this is what our day looks like, this is what our meds are, this is the emergency contact information. Just get it out of my head so other people can use it for reference. Um, and delegating was huge. Like I, I 100 believe the season that I've been in, in business for the past two years, where my word had, the year has been delegate has set me up for this point.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: To ah, try and get other people doing things that I don't have to do.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Setting up the systems so things can happen without me having to be involved all the time. Um, has been some trial and error. But that is something that's definitely helped, I feel gets some of the mental fatigue off.

Speaker C: Right, right. And we've even done that in our joint business, you know, by finally hiring a part time admin doing some things that were like, okay, who can do some of these day to day things so that we're focused on the big picture. And we did that a couple years ago. Um, because as your business was growing, my business was growing. We were like, okay, something's got to give and we don't want to give up our women's community, but we had to have some help. And I know there's probably women listening that saying, that's all fine and well, if you can afford it. Yeah. Um, but if you can't, don't underestimate the willingness of your friends to help.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker C: You know, somebody said to me one time, don't ever apologize for asking someone to help you. You're giving them an opportunity to give back. And most people see it that way. I mean, you think about the times you've been asked to help somebody, you don't see it as a burden. You see it as an opportunity to do something for somebody that you, you love. Um, so I think we can't sit back and assume, well, I can't pay anybody. Well, hopefully you have a social network, uh, of people that are willing to help, you know, instead of just the, ah, what can I do to help? When somebody asks you that, give them something, you know. Right. Let them help you. Let them bring a dinner, let them, you know, send dinner over, whatever the case may be. Um, but it doesn't always have to be paid help because sometimes when we're in the throes of these things, it becomes a financial issue as well.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: You know, if we got a lot of ancillary stuff going on, and I think the biggest thing, and maybe some of this comes with age, is as I look back on the different times in my life when it's been total chaos, either at work or at home, sometimes I just sit and remember that I got through that. I got through that time. I'll get through this time. Right. Whatever season of life that was, you know, um, and I think if we can just remember that we are really strong as women and, uh, we know how to survive and we'll get through whatever we're going through today and we'll have some balance. We'll have good days, we'll have bad days. But if I had to give one piece of advice, it's lower your expectations of real work life balance. Yeah, it's your definition, not anybody else's.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think too, the seasons is. So I learned that, um, when I first had children because I was doing all of this volunteer work and getting, doing, you know, career building and all of these things. And then I had a child and a second child and I was like, oh, my gosh, what in the world? I can't do these things anymore. And I was really sad that I couldn't do. I had to give up some of those things because I had new responsibilities. And it really helped me when I got the, uh, concept of seasons, that this is not a forever. Right. Children are great and fabulous. They're not a forever toddler stage Right. They're not a forever teenager. This will be a season. It will change and there will be something new that comes that will be a challenge or will be, uh, another thing to balance, and that's okay. But it's not always going to be this.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And that got Me, that's gotten me through a lot over the years.

Speaker C: That's incredibly important. Very, very important. Thank God they're not always going to be teenagers.

Speaker B: Oh my gosh.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Mine are grown now, but thank goodness they're not always going to. I had a friend tell me that they, uh, become teenagers, so we'd be glad to see them go when the time came. You know, one of the things that you talk about is that the goal is not balance, but alignment. Talk more about that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, you know, you have to decide what your values are. What are the things that are most important. And we already talked about what is. What are the things that are most important to you. And sometimes that takes time and reflection. You got to give yourself that and even a little bit to figure out what are the things that make me feel refreshed or make me feel better and how can I get even if I can't get as much of that as I used to and as frequently as I used to. How do I make them meet? Non negotiables. What are the, what are the top non negotiables that I'm not going to let slip? And align yourselves with that. Right. What, what are, what are those most important things that no matter what, the dinner doesn't get cooked? But you know what, I'm taking a walk the, you know, just thinking about what. Because if you are in a season like I am, when you're this, the hub in the middle of all the spokes, if you fall, all the spokes are gonna fall.

Speaker C: That's all.

Speaker B: And you can't let, you know you don't want that to happen either. That's, you know, taking care of yourself and aligning with that. I don't have as much time for self care as I used to. But there are some non negotiables that are not happening as often as they used to, but they're still happening. I'm trying to hold on to that.

Speaker C: Yeah. And two, one of the things that we talk a lot about is just setting boundaries and whatever that looks like. You know, don't let people in when you don't want to let them in. You know, you gotta say no sometimes. Um, or maybe you need to say yes sometime to something that you think you don't have time but would be fun. Going to lunch with a girlfriend, going with a walk for a walk with a girlfriend. You know, those type of things are always choices for you to say yes or to say no, depending on where you are and what's going on. Um, when you were talking about alignment, I remember when we did a goal setting class, might have been last year, that maybe it was after last year's conference. At the end of the conference, we did this and we had a value sheet and had ladies pick out what their top three or five values were. And then we had them do a time sheet of what, where they spend their time in a typical week, month, whatever. And I remember vividly as we were walking around the tables, women going, oh, wow. I say my priority is health, but over here, I haven't been the gym in a, um, month. Yeah, but yet health, my health is one of my top priorities. Or it's to get a promotion. But I didn't take on that extra whatever. But I saw, and I remember us talking about this visible thing of crap. What I say I value is not where I'm spending my time. Right, Yep.

Speaker B: That disconnect.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I think that's true alignment. Um, and if you're listening, we certainly can send you that value sheet. I've done it before on a podcast long time ago and a couple women reached out to get it and just, you know, it gives you a cheat sheet, if you will. If you're like, well, I don't know what my values are. You know, this is just a list of statements, some words to help you identify, you know, what are your values? Uh, you know, and it's not just the standard, you know, faith, family, work, whatever. You know, it gives you a lot of different things to think about and to narrow down what's really, really important. So I think our message in closing is don't try to be perfect. Nobody is. Give yourself some grace, that they're going to be good days, they're going to be bad days. And like you said, Jen, it's not going to last forever. There's different seasons of life. So this is not a pass or fail, right? Not a pass or fail. Yeah. Um, we gotta let some things go, add on some things that are just good for us and it just feel good, you know, I think last night we had 12 or 13 women together for our quarterly book club. And we actually do talk about the book. We had the author with us. Um, no alcohol involved, so it's not a wine drinking book club, but just listening to the women in that room talk and connect and that's so incredibly important. No matter what you're going through and, and for you, where you are now, taking the time to get everything taken care of with your mom so that you can be there. I think it's a time for, for you even in this stage to go.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And if you need some time to reflect and you need some time to step back or reevaluate some things, man, do I have the opportunity for you. The 2026 Women's Leadership Conference is coming up in September.

Speaker C: September.

Speaker B: It is June, but September is going to be here before you know it. So please, at the very minimum, mark your calendars for September 17th, 18th and 19th. We're going to be at the uh, Daytona Grand Oceanfront Resort in Daytona Beach. And um, this conference is always a win from the ladies that attend. And that's not my words, that's theirs, um, about what they can take away from where they're going to set their goals, what's important to them. It's just every year for some of them, a reevaluation of what's really important. And what am I going to prioritize. So we are going to do some more breaking down the Women in the Workplace survey. We talked about that today. There's going to be more of that. All kinds of great speakers talking about the work life balance topic, of course, since we know this is very important to you. So ladder network.com forward slash conference is the place that you can get more details on that and register. Registration is now open and you can get a better price if you register by July 15th. You get the early bird rate. So go check that out. Whether you are a boss lady member or you're not. The price does go up after July 15th, so please take advantage of that. We'd love to see see your face in person at ah, the Women's Leadership Conference.

Speaker C: And it's right on the beach so you've got a good excuse to come spend a few days on um, beautiful Daytona beach at a great resort. So we hope you'll join us and as we close today, we tell you like we always do, don't forget to embrace empower and educate yourself and others. Until we meet again. Take care,

Speaker B: Sam.