Prepare To Launch U Blog

Kelley and I met in the summer of 2016 at a women’s conference where we were both keynote speakers. Up first, I shared colorful stories of career-returners meant to entertain and, most importantly, to inspire. Kelley followed, and led us in a powerful partner exercise on strengths. She knew her topic well and was an ebullient, engaging presenter.

But I thought her content was “fluff”.

A couple of weeks after the conference, Kelley called and suggested we meet for lunch. At the time, I was at a crossroads.

For years I bragged that whenever I chose to, I could jump back into the workforce. Who wouldn’t want an experienced marketing communications exec? I knew enough about social media and SEO to wing it in the workplace. Plus, I’m a quick learner! With this mindset, last fall, I pulled together my resume and joined LinkedIn. Sure, I’d have to take a step back from where I was on the pay scale, but I didn’t have any doubt about my ability to land a position. I was relaunching! I was eager to return to the ranks of the working. What I soon learned, however, is that job hunting is completely different now than it was 20 years ago and I simply did not have the tools to navigate this new process on my own.

Relaunching into the workforce after eighteen years as a stay at home mom did not turn out as I’d envisioned.

If you work in a ‘helping’ field, every once in a while you really fall for a client. (Actually, for me it happens all to often – but, anyway …) A delightfully warm woman named Regina came to me recently. After a robust, two-decade career in NYC publishing (plus a few years home with her sons) she was anxious to pivot in a new direction. Before talking job search or résumé, however, I dug deep to understand her motivations for the pivot, and her priorities for the job she would ultimately take. (This, students of our Prepare to Launch U course know, is essential foundational work that is often overlooked).

Regina was crystal clear: her #1 priority was to learn to construct and design good digital content. Her reasons were thoughtful and well-vetted. She had a vision and needed help executing it. A decisive person myself, I love helping clients who know what they want, get it. Regina and I were off to a good start.

“Putting myself last is right, honorable or just the way it has to be.”

This mindset myth is killing the talent, the gifts, the creativity and the power of women on a daily basis. It is that clear-cut. I see it in the clients I work with, the students we teach at PTLU, at my speaking events and also in most conversations I have with women. Living with this mindset myth is a lie that women tell themselves. You see, when you live in a place of constant deprivation in sacrifice of everyone around you, you are giving the world a depleted, exhausted version of who you really are and everyone loses.

Consider this, the speech they give you on an airline flight before you taxi down the runway, “Put on your oxygen mask first. Then, assist those around you.” The reason behind this safety procedure is that you are of no use to your children, your spouse, your elderly parents or your neighbors if you’re not breathing yourself.

Published in 2017 and widely promoted last year, Sheryl Sanberg and Adam Grant’s book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy, has a pretty bold title. Heck, any one of those things in the tag line can be singularly daunting, and they think I can accomplish all three?!

But that’s not really the point. The point is, and it’s a good one, that we have fuller, richer and, yes, more joyful lives if we can face our challenges head on and smiling.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.

I have often called myself an “accidental businessperson”. I majored in Literature and planned to go to law school. Despite taking full advantage of my school’s liberal arts curriculum and studying everything from Biology to Middle Eastern Relations to Computer Science (in addition to the full canon of essential American and British Lit), I didn’t take one business class.

Between undergrad and law school, I planned to bike cross-country with my roommate Gail. Unfortunately (much more so for Gail), our travel plans were thwarted by the broken femur she sustained in a car crash just weeks before graduation. Unprepared to apply to law school and still hopeful Gail would recover in time to resume our trip, I set out to find an interim job to occupy me for the six months of Gail’s recovery.

When I launched my first business, Be You Bravely, after years of being a stay-at-home mom I was terrified. I was taking a leap of faith, pivoting from the world of education into an arena that was, well, not so defined. I knew what I had to offer had great value, life-changing value actually, but the success of growing a viable business was not certain and that uncertainty was terrifying. During those early days there were many moments when I said to myself, “Kelley why did you not just go back to education?” A job in education came with benefits, a steady paycheck and a predictable schedule. Educational consulting was an even better option with lucrative pay and plenty of client connections. This business I was launching came with none of that. The personal risk was also overwhelming. I was in an extremely defined role at home. I did just…

“What can I do to help?” These words spoken from young lips are music to any mother’s ears. I have four children, 22 nieces and nephews, and 9 godchildren, so the odds are favorable that I hear that phrase on occasion. It always warms my heart.

We hosted 40 for Thanksgiving last week. The shear number of our gathering is testament to our many blessings and our many reasons to be thankful. Twenty-seven of our family stayed overnight, and 17 of them were “the kids”. (I use quote marks because some of them are technically adults now). As I savored many moments of “Aunt Susan, how can I help?” I pondered the significance of their question in the context of my work.

It’s Girl Scout cookie “close-out” season and I’m all in. Outside polling stations around the country last week, boxes of last year’s cookies were selling like hotcakes. And they taste as good as they did back in January! I know this because, yesterday, I polished off the remainder of a nearly full box of Samoas in Kelley’s pantry. Gross, I know, but is the Samoa not cookie perfection? Shortbread, caramel, toasted coconut, dark chocolate. I am weak in its presence.

The scouts are marketing geniuses. Whatever doesn’t’ sell in spring, they pull back out during the dark days between Halloween (which primes our sweet tooths) and the holidays (where sweets are abundant), when the days are darker and our clothes are baggier.

For years, I looked forward to the arrival of adorable clipboard-carrying girls dressed in their green uniforms, badges aplenty, towing their red wagons of ‘samples’ and cheerily asking for my order. I didn’t disappoint; over the years I even noticed an asterisk next to my address on the order form suggesting that my generous orders were well documented.

Not every homeowner was generous or even friendly. My neighborhood girl scout, now 21, reports that she had doors closed in her face, angry admonishments for disturbing the peace, and even raging dogs released in protest of her visits.

“It was all good training,” she says now with the wisdom of a young adult. “Rejection stings, but we deal with it and get stronger from it.” How true.

When we were newly married, Bob and I saw the play “Defending the Caveman” with some friends. Caveman is a one-man comedy that explores the innate differences between men and women with hilarious clarity.

Its premise is simply that we have been primally wired since pre-Neanderthal days in gender-specific ways that have stood the test of time.

Men descend from hunters who spent the better part of their days hiding in trees, focused on the singular task of finding an unsuspecting mammal that might become dinner.

Women descend from gatherers, who spent the better part of their days watching over children and completing any number of concurrent tasks like planting and harvesting vegetables, collecting water, preparing food, cleaning huts, building fires, whittling, sewing, cooking.

In short: Men are wired to do one thing at a time. Women are wired to multi-task.