128: Burnout, Boundaries, and the Power of Asking for What You Need - with Leslie Forde, CEO and Founder of Mom's Hierarchy of Needs

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to Women in B2B Marketing, a show where CMOs, VPs of marketing and all strong women leaders in B2B discuss their top tactics, strategies and tips for building high performing teams, leveraging trends, and ultimately rocking their marketing careers. Made by and for women. Insightful for all. I'm your host and 15 year B2B marketer, Jane Sarah. Let's dive in. Foreign. Hi everybody. Thank you for joining us for a new episode of women in B2B marketing. I'm super stoked for our guest today. We have with us Leslie Ford, who is. I could list off a bajillion titles for her right now, but I'll stick with a few for right now. CEO and founder of Mom's Hierarchy of Needs, author of the newly released book Repair and Self Care. Definitely. I'll put link in show notes here. Everyone should read this and strategic advisor to HubSpot. We're going to talk all things parenting women in the workplace with an actual marketer. So it's kind of a break from the usual B2B talk, but she is a B2B marketer, so welcome to the show, Leslie. So excited to have you.

Speaker A: Oh, um, I am honored to be here. Thank you so much for holding space for this conversation.

Speaker B: Yes. I'm so excited before we get into your background because I definitely want to hear all the details. We could spend the whole episode on that. But how I found you on LinkedIn. If everyone has heard the book Hype Women, it's a book that came out this year, so it's around the same time as Leslie's book as well. And what is her name again? Leslie. I don't want to butcher it.

Speaker A: Erin Gallagher. Erin Gallagher, author of Hype Women. And her company is also named Hype Women. So yes, it was just incredibly good fortune that I've been kind of following her on LinkedIn for a while and just appreciated how candid she is. Doesn't hold back, doesn't avoid saying the hard thing. Just puts it out there in such a, uh, bold and refreshing way.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So I had an opportunity to join one of her dinners called Fairway Dinners. And, and in that moment, it was the first time I had met her in person and that was just over the summer. So that's what kind of led me to get a chance to meet her to pre order her book. She created space at that dinner for all the women around the table to ask for something.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And how often do we get to do that? We don't. So it felt really empowering to be able to ask for what I needed in terms of support and in my business. She asked if we would pre order her book. It created the space for me to ask if the attendees could pre order my book. And then that night I sent her a little note with a little pre order copy of my pre order receipt for her book and I said I pre ordered it and wow, I would love to interview you for my site at some point. So it just opened up this door for me to learn even more about her work and to have an opportunity to be a hype woman and share her work.

Speaker B: Yes, I think all listeners of this show should if they do not already follow her and you Leslie, as part of the hype women movement. It just m makes so much sense for every listener of this show. It's all about women supporting women, lifting each other up as you said, creating that space for each other. It's beautiful. And she's badass. Like the posts she writes are very raw and just they get you in the heart. So I love that be through her. She's living and breathing hype women. She was hyping you on LinkedIn then that's how I found you your book and wanted to bring you here. So love the circle of us lifting each other up.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Yay. So Leslie, tell us how did you get into the world of marketing and then how did you transform and evolve into all that you do today?

Speaker A: It's originally through research and so I'm going to go way back, even pre resume. I started working in high school and the originally in retail sales. Right. And it was my kind of way to make money and way to kind of gain some independence. But I also as a teenager I discovered market research and telemarketing and that it paid way more than retail sales. So I was that young person doing the mall intercept surveys in high school and college and conducting telemarketing surveys for research company and then later coding SPSS surveys. So I was just really fascinated by the human condition and market research was my entry point. It's how I paid my way through school and it also kind of allowed me to get into my first post grad role. Later I became a product manager but they hired me as a market analyst because of my research background and it gave me that insight, you know, into how clients or consumers at the time. Because I started in consumer marketing. M actually I guess B2B2C because I worked for Bausch and Lom huge organization. I worked in the contact lens division. So even in that early job Although a lot of my work was to understand consumer behavior and to make the products more attractive and visible and meeting their needs more. We also had a channel strategy because consumer lenses are not sold directly to consumers. They're sold to medical officers and through large retailers. So I had that first entry point into B2B2C marketing and I just fell in love with it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, uh, it's so interesting. And how did you move from the world of marketing into like writing a book and creating your own company? Becoming a founder can tell us a little about that path. I like to, like you said, creating space. I also like to share information and kind of create new paths for the listeners and for myself to learn all the different ways we could earn a living and help people and find our purpose.

Speaker A: Absolutely. As you well know, depending on what discipline of marketing you're in, and I've been in several, there's a lot of communication. So I was always a writer, but I was typically a marketing writer or a business writer, uh, a presentation writer. And I was the go to person for writing projects in all of the organizations that I worked for. So I had that interest again going way back childhood. I wrote poems, I wrote books. It just didn't feel like a responsible career path to pursue my creative interests. And so I wanted to kind of go into the corporate world and wanted to kind of use my business skills skills. But I had this creative energy at all points. And when I started this, I guess, movement for mom's hierarchy of needs and I just became obsessed with the challenge of why aren't mothers taking care of ourselves? Why aren't we growing professionally in the same way that we do pre kids? And why are there so few mothers in senior leadership? Like what's on, going, going on with that? So that became an obsession. And it was a different type of communication. I mean, I was working full time for quite a while in the beginning.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But I was no longer behind the veil of a corporate brand. I was writing as myself and I was writing about a problem that I had experienced and a problem that I saw that had economic and macro level implications. But I had to kind of find my own voice to engage with mothers and enlist them in wanting to solve the problems for themselves. Because many of us, um, experience this challenge. And I had to also enlist employers, leaders, organizations in wanting to understand how they could play an active role. So that was kind of my entry point to writing in a persuasive way and writing in a much more personal way than I had in many, many Years.

Speaker B: Yes. Uh, I love that because it just happens organically. Right. You have these moments of realization like this is a problem or a challenge. How can I help draw attention to this at the very least and help solve it for individuals?

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: I'm gonna pause and roll back a little bit into marketing and then we'll come back into the greater picture. And I'd love to talk all about your book. So you've worked across, uh, as you just mentioned, product marketing, partnerships, strategy, research, workplace wellness, all of this. So looking back has is the through line. You kind of just mentioned this, the through line here, that research and communication or what do you think connected all

Speaker A: of this research and really understanding what made people tick, understanding the human condition, what got people excited or what made people fearful or what made people happy. And once I kind of started to understand that, I really wanted to have influence on opportunities in the world to make things better. So I was never the person who could go and work at the widget company, if that makes sense. Like yeah, I worked at Bauschalom because I was actually born with low vision. And then I wanted to work in vision correction. And then later I worked at Xerox, but their adaptive products technology division for people who are blind or had low vision. I wanted to work. And later at the kind of early stages of the Internet, I worked for a company that was kind of democratizing search and making high quality like research articles available on a pay per use basis. So every organization I had some. And then later, for the past 10 to 15 years, childcare, elder care, children's early childhood education, parent tech. So I mental health. So I've been in this space on the system side in my kind of corporate life for the past over 10 years now. But all of these products or service areas touched me personally in some way. I had some real motivation to be able to influence how people thought about it and understood it. I don't know if I would be an effective marketer for a widget or for something that I didn't have. Some personal statement.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you have to feel that passion. Absolutely agreed. That makes the best marketers. When you truly believe in what you're marketing, it goes so much further. So it sounds like impact. You've always been driven to mission focused and impact focused organizations or brands, et cetera. So that makes sense. Speaking of, so you run and correct me if I have any of this wrong, you've run the longest running national parent study on pandemic and post pandemic mental health. What is a finding that our listeners here should understand and know about here that we might not know. Is there anything surprising you can share with us?

Speaker A: Well, it's probably not surprising to any caregiving woman, but, um, my study is 97% women, so I'll caveat that. So it's very heavy with a small percentage of brave, uh, dads who shared their stories. But mothers were not doing well pre pandemic. And as the infrastructure that parents rely on the most, childcare for many of US, elder care, K12 education, health care. As those huge institutions have been really destabilized and capacity constrained in the past five plus years, what was already kind of, ah, a growing crisis in mental health, physical health, disconnection and disengagement in the workplace has only worsened. So we're at this inflection point where I don't know how low the floor can go, but a lot of mothers, right, are just not feeling like they are living the lives they had signed up for that they wanted. We add, of course, macro stressors that are happening right now. So a lot of people are struggling with the political climate, the social climate, financial climate, and economic hardship. So all of that is swirling. And I think underneath all of those kind of unfortunate stressors, there is this, like, uh, indefatigable spirit of mothers and our, like, collective power for compassion, for social change, for community building, for care. It's in there that mothers have this really powerful voice and place in society. We struggled to be able to exercise our voices in a way that serves us and gives us access to the resources that we deserve.

Speaker B: Yes. This kind of ties back to what you mentioned about how we, we rarely get the opportunity or take the opportunity to ask for things. I was at an event earlier this year, a Wednesday women event, and they always ask for. It's a group of women that get together at dinner and at each table you have a give and a get. So what can you offer everybody at the table and what would you like to receive in return? And I always, every time I'm in a space like this, I struggle so hard with the get with the ask, just like you said earlier. Like, but it unlocks like somebody asking you to do this and what other people are saying just opens it up for you.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And we need that. Like, we need environments where we feel that the permission is there and the psychological safety is there because there's vulnerability for women in asking for what we need. And the more practice we get, the more opportunity we get, the more support and like, championship we get. Like, it starts to get easier. And again, it starts to unlock that power that we have that feels so untapped.

Speaker B: Yeah. And uncomfortable at first, but you break through it. You also mentioned, I think this was in the LinkedIn post, that burnout has become almost a default state for a lot of us. For high achieving women specifically. Is this something that is part of that, that is part of that study or what early signs do you see or should we keep an eye on?

Speaker A: That's a really great question. It is embedded in the study and I'll kind of explain how something that I look and examine in the research study is. I ask the question in different ways, but like basically, how would you rate yourself in each of your roles? Right. As a parent, as a worker, as a caregiver, to elders, as you have those responsibilities as a caregiver. Right. And I ask as a caregiver to yourself. So, um, one of the markers that's a hallmark of the study and something I really examine closely is that self care stat. So in the way that I define it, like in the mom's hierarchy of needs world of self care, it's things like sleep and movement and stress management, nutrition and healthy adult relationships. It's all those top of hierarchy activities that help us manage cortisol in our bodies and help us improve our mental, physical and emotional health or maintain. Yeah. So when I ask women, moms in particular, how they're doing right now, it's trending around 79 to 80% who say they're doing terribly or not as well as usual. Wow.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: At self care during the height of the pandemic, there was a point in the very early stages where it was lower than it is, uh, like it was better than it is now. Uh, there was a point where it was worse, like shortly after, like the conditions were changing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But if you're not able to care for your preventative health, that has a really corrosive impact on your work, on your relationships, on your children, on everything. So I see that as a really important kind of precursor to burnout. I also tell people, and I tell employers this especially. Right. In my work to support caregivers in the workplace and with employee resource groups which are often volunteer run. Often volunteer run by women. Don't get me started.

Speaker B: Yes. So true.

Speaker A: Right. Like, exactly. You know, you know who's there as a volunteer, whatever. It's uh, us with our hands like waving, saying, yes, let me do that free thing. But I tell everyone that in this environment and even before, if you feel like you're doing terribly at self care. And you're doing terribly as a mother and terribly as a daughter and terribly as a partner or a wife, or terribly as a caregiver, again to siblings or to your community. Like something will change. You will blow something up. It might be where you live, it might be your marriage, it might be your job.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: But you will find that feeling of doing badly at everything, like excruciating, and you will blow something up to change it. So to me, that's the marker that I look at. And even when I'm running, like employee studies and research that kind of mirror my big study, I'm looking at how do people feel about their roles and do they feel effective? Do they have that sense of self efficacy and self trust? Because if that's there, then people generally feel like they have the toolkit to manage things that come up. But if it's not there and they feel like they're doing badly at everything. Right. It's just that lack of confidence, that lack of self efficacy starts to really harm people's well being.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's as you're speaking, I'm like, I definitely have those days and my answers to those questions vary hour to hour, if not day to day. But it, I think especially now, which your study seems to support, is it feels like everyone I talk to is overwhelmed all the time. Right. There's this feeling of overwhelm, like you said, there's macro things like the political environment, the economy, like social injustice and then. And things in our own families. Right. And our work and feeling like we're not doing well in any aspect. So it can all become quite heavy,

Speaker A: for lack of a better word, a hundred percent. And this is where the self care piece, Right. My ministry, Health for Mom, is so critical because we have to pour into ourselves, we have to refuel, we have to look for every opportunity. It doesn't have to be extensive and it doesn't have to be a vacation. Actually it shouldn't be a vacation or something that's infrequent, like little things in the day where we can pour into ourselves and uh, that positively impacts how we feel. It positively impacts what we expect and how we anticipate and want to be treated by others. So I think there is, it's not the answer. As in there's so many complicated reasons that work and life and wellbeing are elusive for mothers. And a lot of those answers are public policy answers.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Spoiler alert. Which I kind of reference in the book. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I work in the Systems of employment and the systems of work, because that's a big piece. You can be the most Jedi level boundary setter in the world, but if you get the hairy eyeball when you want to pick up your kids, right. Uh, everything unravels. So it's finding those places where you can apply those little positive interventions in your life and that begins to help you refuel, reset, heal and come to the clarity that you need whatever adjustments you need to make or want to make in your life or career.

Speaker B: I have a kind of a two part question here. Where do you recommend women start individually on their own self care and then what can we do as leaders in the workplace for our teams to support them or our colleagues, kind of ourselves and others? What do you recommend? Where do we begin?

Speaker A: It's also a great question. I know this sounds really basic, but I think sleep. Sleep, right, like for moms, sleep is the thing, thing that we don't get to and that we don't do, but yet it's so important for long term health. The whole third section of my book is about health span for moms and actually making this movement which like you've got men out there like climbing the Himalayas for the bright salt and they're taking their cold plunges and, and we're just like cleaning the counters and picking up the Legos and we're just like left out of the whole thing. So I do feel like sleep is foundational, movement is foundational, time outside is foundational. And uh, even if it's just like a few deep breaths with the door closed in the bathroom or splashing the water on your face, it helps.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: You know, I've interviewed so many great clinicians and experts and I poured a ton of their insights into the book in addition to my research. But yeah, like those little pauses and those little breaks and the rest and the movement, like they really do give you energy and you need sources of energy to keep going. So that's critical on the personal side and don't feel daunted by it for everyone who's listening. If you're a caregiving woman out there, like give yourself a five minute like goal. It's like, hey, I'm going to just take some deep breaths for five minutes a day. So start with five minutes, put a block on your calendar and have it repeat every day for five minutes at a time when you typically have coverage or where you typically are able to pause. Like find something that's fueling and healing for you. So I think that's really critical. It has to be daily. Ah, I tell people, you may love climbing the Swiss Alps, but it can't be that unless, um, you live in the Swiss Alps, it can't be that. It has to be something you can do.

Speaker B: I love that.

Speaker A: The other one on the workplace side, I think just being really transparent about deadlines and expectations is a huge opportunity for managers. Everybody wants to be excellent at everything. So if you hand over that project, people will break themselves in half to do it as fast as possible. And if they have 15 other projects that they've been given, they're not necessarily going to raise their hands and say, I, uh, have 15 projects and which one's the most important? Uh, they're not going to ask because again, the psychological safety isn't there. So as a leader, I tell people, just communicate. Hey, this new project, I realize you have a lot on your plate right now. I'd really love to see it done by the end of the year if that's feasible. Because it's not high priority. Or, or let me give you another scenario. It could be, ooh, this new project is really time sensitive and high priority. Those other five projects that you've been assigned, put them in the deep freeze. Let's revisit them in Q1 because for now, this has a more meaningful impact on the business, or this has a more meaningful impact on year end or revenue or profit or whatever your targets are. So just having that type of dialogue frees people to prioritize accordingly to reclaim some discretionary time and some agency over how they do their work and what work gets done first.

Speaker B: Yes, I love that because, uh, we often talk about managing up right and like saying to those above us, okay, if we add this as a priority, it has to shift this. But not everybody, A, is aware of being able to do that or B, has the confidence to do that. So flipping it as managers and us being super aware of limitations of bandwidth of our team and voicing that, giving them that permission, right, to be able to say, to push back. Like, uh, I think one thing I try to say to my team, but I can do a lot better at this, so I'm writing this down is I try to say, like, okay, this is what we need to do. Push back if you can't do this, like to let me know if there's a problem, let me know if there's a challenge, like give them that permission so that they don't just add it to their list and stay up all night working on these things.

Speaker A: Exactly. And you know, I think technology has also really enabled us to schedule send. You might be working at midnight, and you might love to work at midnight, but your team does not need to know you're working at midnight because then they will think they have to be available to you at, at midnight and they will think that they have to do the same. So, like, schedule send during business hours. I realize this gets a lot more complicated with global teams, but some, um, technology is even smart about sending it during the business hours of the team member when you're dealing with a global team. Because I have several clients that have that technology.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So, um, you know, finding a way to model that there really is off time and that the expectation of the role is not that you're available 24 7. Because not only is it unhealthy, it's actually unproductive.

Speaker B: So true.

Speaker A: Um, we're kind of conditioned to think, oh, well, let me just push self care aside so I can get more done. But the reality is there is no finish line to the things on your to do list. Right. There is no end to those things. So you will always be pushing off self care if you approach it through that lens. And there's so many great studies, not just, you know, I mean, so many great studies that validate, uh, breaks, time for deep work, time for rest, just having a decent night's sleep. All of those things improve clarity and memory and strategic thinking. Everything that you really want your team to be able to deliver as part of their work is on the other side of their ability to care for themselves. So, um, if you show them that you are doing it, they will feel like it's okay to do it too.

Speaker B: Yes, yes. Leading by example. I love that because of your amazing career and different paths that you've taken. You've been in rooms with fellow founders, fellow authors, fellow marketers, your teams at even, uh, like outside of what you've done. Right. Physicians and other researchers. Working moms, probably not working moms, so. Or sorry, I shouldn't say not working. Not getting paid to work moms. Unpaid working. Unpaid working. 100%, yes. So is there any similarity or common thread that you've seen throughout for women in all of these positions? Is there any common trend that you've identified?

Speaker A: Well, something that we touched on a little bit earlier, like we're socialized, most of us are socialized to be accommodating and to be helpful and to be perfectionistic. So it really kind of forces us to over index on, um, those traits because the praise feels Great. Receiving all those atta girls and like high five. Like it feels really great. So yeah, we over index there and it often means we under index on self investment, that is well being and self care, that is learning and growth, that is interests and fun. You know, all of the things that help make us feel great and feel well rounded and help us frankly nurture our ambition and nurture our growth. Because if you're just drowning in like again, cleaning the counters, picking up the legos, doing the diapers, scheduling the camp forms, like if you're just drowning in that stuff and then at work you're tactically going from project to project to project to email to project, it doesn't give you the space to be your most expansive leadership self. And we need the space to be able to inhabit that version of ourselves. So you have to like take some of the little things off your plate. Now I realize that's hard, uh, but there's lots of ways to do it at work. Some of it is through group advocacy. You may not have the psychological safety to set a boundary for yourself, but maybe as a team you can all advocate for a different deadline. Or the employee resource group of parents or caregivers might help you negotiate the fact that the staff meeting is always during pickup or drop off or something to that effect. So find your path to get work off your plate. That's my whole second section of Repair with self care.

Speaker B: Oh, I can't wait to read this.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, the whole book, the whole section 2 is ease your workload. And that's at work, uh, that's at home. That's everywhere. Because frankly we have to do less to be able to put energy toward the right things and to be able to have space in between activities and commitments.

Speaker B: Yes. I think I'm going to buy a hat that says do less because if you do less it comes out so much better. Uh, right. I'm going to get some merch.

Speaker A: It does. And it's like, and we go through periods of our life where everything's on fire and you. Oh yeah, right. There's times like everything's on fire. You can't do it. Something's wrong with a kid, something's wrong with a parent, something's wrong with your own health. Right. There are those moments. But if you have this intentional focus on reducing your workload and making sure the other people in your life are starting to support you in that, that helps.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: It's not immediate, but it helps.

Speaker B: Yes, yes. I really, I love that. Because in an age where in marketing especially, we're hearing do more with less day in, day out. Anything that is pushing me towards doing less, I embrace.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And as a leader, like, there might be that incredible woman on your team who hasn't had all the experience yet, but she is hungry to grow and she wants that promotion. Like you might be able to say to whoever. You know what? I know I've been attending these meetings every week for the past however many years, but wow. I have a rock star on my team who is ready and I would like her to attend the next couple. And then let's talk about it. I think she can report back to me. She gets to be at the table with other leaders and she gets to contribute in a new way. And frankly, I. I will use that extra hour of prep, an hour of meeting time that I get back to do the next strategic thing that's even more important. So, like, be comfortable suggesting. Because it's both advocating for someone else on your team. Exactly. And it's giving you space to free up. I read a book and have interviewed the author, Daisy Augur Dominguez. She wrote Burnt out to lit up, which is really about kind of like manager burnout. So I love that. Right. So, like. And, um, when I interviewed her, she talked a lot about delegation. And again, I think because we're so conditioned to just do it yourself, just work harder. Freeing yourself to actually give other people on your team meaningful work and a clear enough picture of your objectives so that they can meaningfully take the work over is often underutilized.

Speaker B: So true. And I love the ability that you mentioned of being able to bring someone else, especially if it's a woman, into the table, into the fold and get them that seat and that attention. Right. That focus, that proof that they are really great at what they're doing, that helps not just you by alleviating some of your tasks, but it helps them shine. I love that. Ugh. You also mentioned a few times, psychological safety. So I want to dive into that before we wrap up. You've helped companies design management training, things like that, around burnout. Psychological safety. What is the number one thing, if you were to give advice, I know it always depends, but what is one thing that we can all do today or soon to help improve that environment and the psychological safety of our team?

Speaker A: I think an underutilized strategy that I share often is being really faithful to holding one on ones with your direct reports. You'd be surprised how many managers abandon one on ones when they're busy, when things are Just it's like the first thing to go. But it turns out that people will not confide in you about their struggles unless you are one on one. They're not going to tell you in a group meeting. They're certainly not going to tell you in an email. And if someone's disengaged, like I've had employees over. I mean I manage people in corporate settings for over like 20 years. So I have people who had high risk pregnancies who needed extra space and time for appointments. I've had yes, an employee with a terminally ill spouse who needed a lot of support, but she didn't want it to be visible to others right away. Yeah, I've had bipolar employees, employees who've had to be hospitalized. Like people have things happening in their lives and humans, humans. And they'll share it with you and you can help them problem solve or avail themselves of benefits or resources only if you created a container where they can have that conversation with you. And it's not going to be in a group meeting. So I encourage leaders to keep those one on ones on um, the calendar. Ah, yeah.

Speaker B: Even if they're shut point. Yeah. Oh true. Because I know we all love canceling meetings. Right. If we can get rid of a meeting on our calendar, we're like, ah, like free time. We can actually do something and attack that to do list. But you're right, I think one to ones are the first to go. And I see it more frequently as people move up. Right. So as they move up to the leadership team, executive team M, the one to ones tend to get more infrequent. Is do you see that as well or is that just like subjective?

Speaker A: Uh, no, I agree.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I think that that becomes also frankly people internalize that. It's like, oh, my manager's not spending as much time with me. My manager must not think time with me is as important as it once was. Or my manager doesn't see me in the way they used to see me. Right. People interpret the messages they're receiving in lots of different ways. And the only way to ensure that there's transparency and alignment is to have conversations. And even it's okay to say, wow, it's been conference season and I've been to, you know, a lot of events in the past quarter and I realized that's impacted the cadence of our one on ones and I'm not happy about that. And it wasn't intentional.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Address it. It wasn't intentional. It's not about you. What I am going to do however, is make sure that they're back on the calendar. And even if I'm traveling, maybe we do like a 15 minute check in and M by phone. Right. Where you can at least touch base on critical things. I also tell managers, start the one on one by asking people how they're doing. Yeah, right, agree.

Speaker B: Just launch them into it.

Speaker A: Buy, don't launch into the business. Like find out how they're doing. I think people are, they're craving connection, they're craving spaces where they feel like they belong and people are feeling less and less visible, especially a lot of women. People are feeling less and less visible. And so having that again container at work where someone feels like they can be their most excellent, but they can also be vulnerable. They can also still be a student and a learner while they're also developing skills. It's really huge and it's powerful for people.

Speaker B: So true. And words matter. When you mentioned this, like starting a one to one with the question asking how they're doing again, embracing the human side of things. I remember a former manager of mine way back used to ah, start our one to ones with what's going on and that was the opposite. Like I think it was intended to be what you're saying. Right. And checking in with me. But I took it as oh, like this is going on and I'm doing this. And it felt like a fire drill and I had to report everything. Like I don't know, it gave me that urgency and right away work. But I think he intended it to be checking in on me. So choose your words wisely and I think how are you doing? Is so much more warm and inviting.

Speaker A: It's calmer. Also sometimes if you feel like there's friction, I think I may share one of these. I might have shared some example of this in the book, but I had a leader where it became clear to me within a few months, like she wasn't reading the status reports. I was writing, uh, like I was just writing, you know, I'm a writer and I'm just, yeah, elaborate and long and detailed and oh, look, look, look, look. And they all these things and I'm cross referencing. I knew she wasn't looking at it because we'd come into our one on ones and it was clear she hadn't read anything I'd sent her. So I finally kind of mustered up the courage to say, hey, I don't want to over communicate or under communicate with you. I realize your time is really valuable. It's not clear to me that the current status report is working for you and for I to keep his. Like, how do you like to receive information?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Do you even want a status report? Would it be better for me to leave a voice note? You know, what do you need? So I opened it up and it was a really fruitful, like she responded really well to it. But I was nervous to ask.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because it just felt like the rule. The rule is you do a weekly status report even.

Speaker B: But if it's not looked at.

Speaker A: Even if it's not looked at, time suck. I was so happy to adjust it because she really didn't want something that long form. Mhm.

Speaker B: Always see the. I feel like so many of the world problems could be solved by open, honest communication and just caring about each other and checking in. If we had more of that everywhere, we'd be in a much better place.

Speaker A: Basic, basic humanity. Yes.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: It's crazy.

Speaker B: Like, why can't I say this to my husband all the time? I'm like, why can't everyone just be a good person?

Speaker A: Yeah. Oh yeah, it's. Ooh. That's a good question. There's so. There's a lot, there's a lot underneath that. We could talk about that one for a while.

Speaker B: Yes. Next episode. Well, Leslie, this has been amazing. You made me, if it's even possible, want to read your book even more than I did before we started. So I will link to that in comments and I will show you the order receipt after this call. But if. One last question to end with. If you could go back in time to little Leslie just starting out telemarketing, what would you tell her, knowing all that you know now?

Speaker A: Oh, uh, I would have told her that taking time to care for herself is part of growth. Because I was so ambitious and focused on growth, growth, growth and frankly, stability. Right. I was looking for financial stability and I just equated that with overwork. And if I had told myself then you know what? Keep dancing, keep writing for fun, keep doing all those things that you love because they actually make you a more powerful and authentic and happier leader over time. And frankly, someone who generates more innovative ideas. So I wish I had known that back then.

Speaker B: Mhm. Like you can be driven, but what helps you get driven is finding what lights you up, what gives you that calm and leaning in towards that, doing more of that.

Speaker A: A, uh, hundred percent. Because I burned out. Even before I had kids. I had my first major episode of Burnout and it was because of the style in which I was accustomed to working.

Speaker B: Yeah. That or I bet you have big feelings on the 9, 9, 6, that, uh, trend that's going on around now, so.

Speaker A: Oh, I had not heard about this.

Speaker B: So nine. It's nine working nine to nine, six days a week.

Speaker A: Oh, dear. Yeah. I mean, I did. I mean, I did that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It was not. It was not intentional.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I did that. But it's. You don't feel good after a while. It's not a sustainable way of working. So I think sustainability far outpaces or exceeds the benefits of a short, energetic burst of intense work. Depending on what kind of work you do. You need the ability, especially in modern work, being able to think about what you're doing and provide the context is just as critical as cranking stuff out.

Speaker B: Yes. Room for strategy.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: And those ideas to come in. Agreed. We could talk forever. Maybe we'll have a whole nother episode on 996 one day.

Speaker A: But yeah.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for joining Leslie. Where is the best place for everyone to connect with you?

Speaker A: Momshirarchyofneeds.com it's like where all the information is all the resources for moms. I have a wellness app, time check. There's information about the book, tons of articles. Join the newsletter. And if you're an employer and leader, that's also where all the employer services information is too.

Speaker B: Perfect. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. For every listener, connect with Leslie, buy her book because it's amazing. I already know just from this conversation. And I'll put all the notes, uh, the links in, in show notes. So share with a friend rate review. Get us in front of even more women. So thank you everyone. Bye bye.