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Beyond the Maternity Leave: Navigating Motherhood and Career Ambitions · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm a working mom with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In this show, I'm honored to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Shy away from the real talk?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: No way.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Money struggles, growth, loss, boundaries and balance.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: We cover it all.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED Talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, make sure you're cosy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: This is the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Ready to find your perfect job?
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Now back to the show.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Today I'm chatting to two co-founders, and sisters as well, pauline Brooks and Clara Emanuela, who are the co-founders of Moderna Media and are going to be talking to me today about their new venture, work Well, which offers a unique blend of wellness programs, career development resources and community events and perks, all tailored to meet the needs of modern working mothers.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, both of you, for joining me today.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited to learn more about you both, your business and, obviously, how you um.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: You know, set up the business as well and run it around your family.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for chatting with me.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having us.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: We're so excited to be here oh no, absolutely so.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Give me a bit of an overview about work well and what you do, who you support and how you help them.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, workwell is really a labour of love In its essence.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: It's a learning and development platform, for you know, dedicated to transforming the lives of working mothers, who are redefining success on their own terms, redefining success on their own terms, and we are looking to create a modern resource that provides the structures that women need to flourish in both their lives as mothers, as women, and as working professionals so what structures do you think those are and you know?
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: have they been met?
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: How are they not being met?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: we've always said that well-being and self-care truly are at the heart of you know, ensuring that women can thrive.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've always had this.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: You know, claire, and I always joke about this where it's oh, you know it's, it's more than just about bubble baths and you know getting your nails done and that sort of thing.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Green juices going to yoga class.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: We always say that you know those things are amazing, they feel good, they're wonderful, but they're really just a really smaller part of a larger story around wellness, well-being, self-care and just your holistic health in general in all different ways.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And so we always say that you know the structure and support that women need to thrive really centers on well-being and what that is.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: It's really unique for everyone and it can look different at different times of people's lives and there's just not enough support and resources there.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: You can see how many women are struggling with childcare issues, struggling with their mental health, struggling with their relationships with their partners or with friends, feeling isolation, all these different things, and that's what we're when we talk about wellbeing and centering that.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: It's like how can we find pillars of strength to kind of shore up those parts of your life so that way you can go to work and you can do it in a way that makes sense for you and your family, and then you can actually go home and be present with your kids and or you know whatever mix that looks like when you're if you go home or if you're working from home or if you're, however, you're working from the beach, whatever you want to do and doing it in a way that makes sense for you.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: So, exactly so.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: I think what we really emphasize is creating those priorities and really having setting aside time, energy, to think about what it is that you actually want, how you want to work, what are your priorities?
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: And oftentimes, when women, obviously when women become mothers priorities can change and it's, you know, that kind of that maternity leave time is a really fruitful time to kind of think about what it is like, how your priorities have changed and how you want this next chapter and phase of your life to look like.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Because we always talk about I think the rhetoric at the minute is a lot about going back to work right, Going back, bouncing back, getting your body back, you know all those sort of things.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: I want to get back to myself, but actually we have, we say it all the time and we say it in our programs and the work that we do it's like there's no going back and this idea of trying to go back probably the thing that's keeping you stressed, keeping you burnt out.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, I just want to be like the person I was before, but that person is gone and that's.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: You know, it's quite bittersweet, but once you mourn that, the saying goodbye to that person who you were before and start embracing and designing and having intentional time to create and design your life with intention, this new person that you can be, like, that can also be really exciting and wonderful.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: And we have this narrative around working mothers that's filled with struggle.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: It's like so much sacrifice, so much struggle, when actually what if it could look a little bit easier?
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: What if it could look a little bit more fruitful?
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: What if it could look a little bit more fruitful?
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: What if it could look a little bit more fun, more vibrant, more meaningful, more purposeful, more intentional?
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: So we're trying to help support women to be in that space and there's a side of supporting women.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: But then also, you know, what we seek to do is to educate corporations and companies about why it's important to ensure that their women you know that their women or their mothers going back to work have these resources and create flexible situations to kind of change the culture we're changing the culture.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: We're changing the game here.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: It's a fresh approach to being a working mom and going, you know, propelling yourself forward into work as a mother, Rather than kind of saying I want to go back, yeah.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I like that and you know, I think that's so true.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I just I feel like I am a completely different person in some regards.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: You know I still think there's some core me that's there from before kids to now.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: But I think you're so right.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: It's always like you know getting back in shape, you know back to work like you used to work, and then nobody can ever live up to that expectation.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's like you know, as you just said, I think that's such an important part.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: There's the core pieces of you which you're going to have forever that you can, you know, hold on to and make sure that you prioritize and can feel good about.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: But then it's like my body is not going to look the same and my sleep isn't going to be the same, so I might not be able to do the same things that I used to do.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: You know, and that's also okay, it's tough.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: There are definitely going to be challenges.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: I think we're not going to sit here and like sugarcoat everything and we don't want to minimize the hardships or the challenges that you know that come when you become a mother, because they come aplenty.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: But we have one child each, so you know we're mother life, you know exactly.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: So you know, we know how difficult it can be and how hard it is.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: But that's why we think it's important to really create a structure, a framework, to really create a structure, a framework to build the resilience, yeah, so that women aren't kind of feeling yeah left behind and feeling like it's all about sacrifice and having to constantly.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: You know constantly, the choice like which is the the least, worst choice?
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: yeah, you know in terms of do you know what you mean?
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: And there is this whole thing.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I think that women often put themselves last, don't they?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: and actually then it confesses her and it can, can start resenting it and absolutely and then there's this like narrative around oh well, if you didn't want that, you know, then why did you choose to be a mother and all these sort of things?
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: And it's like, no, no, no, I mean it's to be this way.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: It's not about I love my kids or I love my work, and you know this.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: This kind of um, it's polarity between working moms and stay-at-home moms, and if I choose to go back to work or if I have to go back, you know all this type of that's not what this is about.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: This is about what do you want?
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: What do you want to do?
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: How can you be intentional about your life, whether that's you know, because work is going to look different, even like when you do go back to work.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: You know that can look so different flexible working.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: You know the future of work.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: You know, that's I mean in terms of what you're doing with investing in women.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: More and more you know opportunities are being created so that women can work in different ways it just it looks different whether you're working part-time, whether you go into the office because you need to get away from the house and you just need to do something, whether it feels better for you to be back at home and then your kids are nearby, whether you have a nanny at home, whether you send your kids to nursery, whether you are homeschooling.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: All of these are different ways of working that you can flex.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: So there's just these binary ways of thinking about.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: It's either back to work or stay at home, or that I'm, you know, full-time and I'm only focused on my career.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Like we as women are so multivariate, just in general.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Anyway, that's one of our strengths and so you know, to have multiple passions, have multiple things, and so, you know, be able to flex when those things, you know, like I need to focus on my kids right now, I need to focus on my this one project that I have right now, you know, I need to focus on my health and my mental health right now.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: All those things can flex in a day, let alone a month or a year.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, we're trying to figure out the structure and the tools, as Pauline said, to build resilience around that and to give women a little bit more confidence and a fresher perspective, rather than just oh yeah, going back to work.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: But actually this is a new lifestyle.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's exciting.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, I know um.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: I've always said you know, when people ask me what I do, and it's like you know I was like oh, what you know?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Are you a working mom, are you a business mom?
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: What are you doing?
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: and I'm like oh, you know, I'm a full-time working, stay-at-home mom do you think it's a bit in like a pr sort of extra, just working motherhood in general, like you know everyone and you know it's tough and I don't want to take it away, but there seems to be like this collective thing.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: When you go on instagram, everyone's saying how you know awful it is, it does feel a little bit like that and then that feeds into like what employers think that is.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: You know exactly, they're not as committed and stuff.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And actually in my experience I've been such a better like worker since having children.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I'm so productive, confident and I've enjoyed being a mum as well not all the time, it's always, sometimes tough, but I have enjoyed it exactly and, and that's the thing I mean, I think a lot of what drove us as well to create this initiative is that we you know we did we used to work with a lot of freelancers as we were working with different companies and in our subcontracting work, and a lot of the women were, you know, they would constantly say that they were freelancers, terrified of, like you know, they didn't know if they even wanted to have children, because they were afraid of losing themselves.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: They were afraid the sacrifices that they would have to make.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: They were afraid not being able to be able to hold both.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: You know, they wouldn't be able to be freelancers, they wouldn't have the time or that they would.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: They wouldn't have the capacity to take care of a child in the way that they wanted to.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: And it's just that's sad and, as you said, there needs to be kind of a fresh PR movement around this, because it's you know, I'm hearing your sweet point and it's like, yes, those things can be true and I'm sure it happens to a lot of women.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: It's happened to us, you know.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: We definitely have experienced that.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: However, when you get intentional about designing your life, about designing your work style, about choosing what your priorities are and not even necessarily throwing the rest of it away, but being able to flex what you need and having that and figuring out your ability to do that, building that muscle, then it becomes a little bit easier.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: You grow as becoming a mother, you get easier and you get.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: You grow as becoming a mother, you get more confident and you develop, you continue developing your skills in whatever field that you're doing, and you develop your muscles and being able to juggle these things to manage it all.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: I you see it all the time where you know and women get asked this question men never get asked this question and it's like, oh well, like how do you juggle?
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: it all how do you make it work?
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: How do you, you know, you know, get them to soccer practice or to football practice and to, and also like, make the meeting?
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: And women are always just like, just, I just make it work, I just do it, and it's sort of like, okay, well, like how, really, how do you want to do?
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: How do you make that work?
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Like it's always it's gonna different for everybody, but how can we do that without the oh, I'm so tired, oh it's so difficult, oh it's so hard, but actually saying, actually, this is an opportunity here to do something, to live life in a way that I want to, especially for self-employed women.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: I think which I think you know, elizabeth, you know this in your work that you do Like the way that women work is changing.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: It has to look different.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: It can look different and moving into self-employment or even just if you're in a corporate role and it's more flexible, having the space to say, having the confidence to say, oh, like, this is what I need to do, it's like, yeah, you can do that, you can, you can make it for yourself, you can choose that yeah, it takes a level of confidence, doesn't it, to be able to say that yeah and when we hear more women doing that, it's like yes, that's possible.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Actually, you should be demanding this.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Actually like these are the scripts that you can use to talk to your boss or talk to your clients to say this is what I can and can't do.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: You know, these are the things that we talk about in our programs and in our work and a lot of things that we found as well is.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: You know, it's easier to me to create the boundaries right, like it's easy to say, okay, you know, this is these are the boundaries I'm going to hold and this is what I'm going to do.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: But then, when it comes to actually holding those boundaries and communicating those boundaries to your stakeholders, your clients, you know, that's where I can kind of feel a little bit like, oh well, I don't want them to see me as somebody who's, you know just a mom, yeah or not?
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: you know like I need them to know that I'm committed and and that's where you know it can kind of become really difficult, and so, and that's what I, that's what I've found in terms of my, in terms of my journey but, having that confidence to really to be confident about your boundaries, you know, and to explicitly just hold them and be confident in doing that.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's why that's where we kind of that's why work well was kind of birthed out of because, like Pauline and I, we work together so we have each other right, and we both luckily became mothers, you know, in close proximity and in the same time, and so we were able to communicate about the struggles and the needs and the things that we were going through.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: But not everyone has that.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Not everyone has their sister and business partner who's going through the same work experience at the same you were both working together, weren't you for the same employer?
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: yes, exactly, so we were able to.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: So we understand how important having that community around you is.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: We talk a lot today or I think there's a lot of talk today around the village.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: You know the village and the lack of the village and how you have to buy a village or you have to create your own village or if you need to connect with people around you If you don't have your, you know whether it's parents, sisters, aunties, friends, you know whatever, anyone else doulas, anyone who you connect with to help you through the journey of motherhood.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: But we've also found that there's a lot of space, a lot of support, a lot of networks around pregnancy, postpartum.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Thank goodness there's a lot more work around and spaces around the postpartum phase, in that fourth trimester.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: But when then you kind of like left to your own devices.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: You are right, yeah, because it just really is all the baby groups and things like that there's all that you know and the nct and you know like, and then it's yeah, and then your baby when you go back to work, and then you're like, oh yeah, exactly actually I found in my journey going back to work and I went back part-time and I had my daughter in nursery two days a week and then, and then I slowly started adding days and I found it was such a tough transition.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: It was such a tough transition for me to go back to, to go back to work and start picking back the work up and try again, as Pauline said, like trying to act, like I was super committed and, you know, saying yes to everything and I was working as a contractor for a corporate organization and yeah, I mean I was.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: I was up so late, like barely getting sleep, you know, trying to be the best mom that I could be, trying to be the best worker that I could be really struggled with my boundaries and saying no and being able to like shut my computer off at you know five o'clock, so I guess it was like 445.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: So I could run to like do the nursery, run and pick her up and then on the days when I had her at home, you know I would still be answering emails and I would still be doing things.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: And there's this fantasy sometimes that we have around oh, just work from home and like work around your baby's nap times and it's just kind of never that simple, especially when they're really that young.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: And I didn't.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: You know, it definitely hit me with like a ton of bricks the reality of like of doing that and the sustained difficulty of that, and I was like, is this how it's supposed to be?
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: And Pauline's daughter is two years older than my daughter and I was seeing her starting to navigate the, going to school and the.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: You know it's like, oh, this is only going to get hard to when I have to pick her up at three o'clock rather than six o'clock, you know so.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: You know, I think I had the benefit of having seen my sister's experience with that and realizing, ok, no, we've got to make a change.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: You know, we've got to do something different.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: I've got to get more support.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: I've got to get more confidence and communicating my needs.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: I've got to set up my priorities.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Like I'm doing a million different projects and saying yes to everything.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: I've got to build up that emotional resilience.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I've got to start doing things for myself again.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: You know, like when I went back to work, it was, and then taking care of the baby, and it was just like where's me.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Where's me?
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, I needed to take my time to take care of me, and we have a little motto in our work where it says you can't pour into others until you fill your own own well and then you can outpour into other people.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: So you know, I needed to fill my well.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I needed to fill how do you fill your?
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: well then, but that's, that's our framework.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah so we don't.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: We do the framework then, and many people we have our six well-being pillars and um.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Those are nourishment, learning and development, emotional resilience, play money, mindset and connection.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: That is six right and like and all and those six things we kind of feel form the core of what self-care is for you, you know, for working mothers, and we really focus on those six pillars and seek to really develop skills and practices in ensuring that those needs around those pillars are being met.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: And so then we have what we call our well method, which is a four-step process.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: So it starts with auditing and assessing where you are in each of those pillars.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: So you know, I'll use myself as an example because I love talking about it.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: So at that time, so for instance, when I had just kind of gone, just gotten back to work and I, you know, I was kind of struggling with everything, I was kind of at my, I would say, breaking point around that and I would say my emotional resilience was kind of like really, really low.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: You know, let's call it like a three or four out of 10,.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: You know, my connection with others was probably pretty good, you know.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: So maybe like a seven or eight out of 10.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Nourishment, really low.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: I wasn't, was not drinking my water, I was, you know, I was not taking care of myself, barely eating breakfast, you know.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: So it's definitely I would probably call that like a one.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: So you know, you kind of rate yourself, rank yourself, do an audit of all of those things in those different areas.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Then the next step is to envision and design.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: So this is such like such a fun part of the process and it's like you can do this in a million different ways.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: But we would recommend doing a vision board.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: We would recommend doing we have an ideal day exercise where you go about doing your ideal day, like how you wake up, what do you see, what do you feel, where are you, who are you with, how do you spend your time?
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Then do that for your ideal week or your ideal month, your ideal year.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: What is around you?
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Really get contextualized and make it super specific.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: You know, who do you see when you wake up?
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: How are you spending your money?
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: How are you spending your time?
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Where are you traveling to?
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: How often do you travel?
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: What sort of work are you doing?
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Are you working?
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: What days do you work?
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Where are you working?
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: That sort of thing, those things.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: So you kind of develop the vision for yourself and then and hopefully, hopefully and sometimes this can be a really difficult part of the process for people because what happens is people go, well, I can't do this.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: I mean it might be nice to think about, but not me Like how am I going to?
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: How?
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: They try to think about the how and stop themselves before they even give themselves a chance to envision something beautiful for themselves.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: But we just we try to really encourage people five minutes or an hour, however long it takes for you to just believe that anything could be possible.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: So create that vision for yourself, or envision and design that for yourself.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Then the next step is to create and cultivate habits.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: So out of those different habits, so you're looking at those, your wellbeing pillars, where are you ranking in them?
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Find the one that, find the one or two that like kind of the lowest step.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: That's kind of where you need to pour into and see how you can map those well-being pillars into your goals, like into that vision.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: So it's like okay, for me it might look like oh, you know I am, you know I go and get a facial.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: You know every week or every, you know every two weeks.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: And I go and get a facial.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: You know every week or every, you know every two weeks, and I go and I do those things and it feels really good.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: I make myself a really great breakfast to nourish myself.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: If that was in my beautiful vision for myself, then maybe you know, if my nourishment area is really really low, then maybe it's like, okay, well, maybe I'm going to start making an intentional choice to just wash my face at night, you know that's something that I was not doing.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'm just going to make sure that I don't have to go and, like, get a facial.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: I don't have time for that right now, but what I can do is just, by myself, go to the boots and go get some really simple face wash and make sure that I'm taking five minutes out of my day or get the nice one for yourself.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Go to Liberty and get the nice face wash or you know, and treat yourself.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean Just building those habits and those things that you can build on.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: So, like we kind of work throughout this in terms of the in our program and helping people kind of develop these things and supporting them to kind of create practices for themselves.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: And for me that's self-care.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Literally, washing my face at night and being consistent on that is self-care.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: It can be creating boundaries for yourself.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: That works.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: But the other thing that I did was I put out of offices in my calendar so that no one could contact me on the days when are the times?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: And I had my daughter with me and that made a huge difference and that was self-care.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Like it might not be, it doesn't sound, you know, sexy when it comes to putting those out of offices in my diary.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: That made a huge difference when it came to learn, and I've used that time to not just to be with my daughter but to develop other skills, like pour into my hobbies, just rest, you know, like watch Netflix and chill, and so having space and time and to prioritize my life made a huge difference and then it actually helped lead me to make better choices.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: So that way I felt a lot more freer and it helps my work career.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Now I feel so much more free, I feel so much more in control in.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: I feel like, you know, I can make different choices and, yeah, it's made such a huge difference over the course of I guess it's been like about a year, a year and a half since I was at that place, but it's like, oh, actually that was really simple, you know, it didn't require.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: You know, for me, taking a bubble bath means nothing.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: I don't want to do that, it's not interesting to me, but having the space like having an out of office, when I see my out of office go on, I'm like, oh, that feels so good and, you know, being able to communicate that to my clients and to my you know the people that I worked with at the time with confidence, knowing that, having that belief and knowing that it's not detrimental to your career.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Step three was creating and cultivating those habits and then step four is reflecting and scaling.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: So continuing to do that, continuing to build and connecting with others, to do that too.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: And, as you know, pauline says like, yeah, like, oh, you're putting that in your out of office, oh, I'm going to put that in my out of office.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Oh like let's like meet up, let's do's do something like.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: So now, like our Fridays are just such like wonderful time together exactly we have a kind of like no work or like minimal work.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Friday no work is kind of hard.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Friday is always a quiet day as well.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I find not many emails it just lays, and this is more so during the school term yeah, um, but um, yeah, but we meet up and we do something fun, and so this also goes into that.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: That pillar of play and I think this is one that oftentimes, as women, we kind of forget to to play, to be playful.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: I think play is such an important thing to have in your life and we ensure that our kids have it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: You know, we ensure that, like we set up the play dates and we ensure that our kids are able to just let loose and play and I think that adults need that as well and so we think it's an actually really important pillar in our framework, in our as our well-being, one of our well-being pillars, and we just do something fun on a Friday.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: What's play then for you?
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Because I'm now getting up thinking I've been doing a play, so I need some inspiration.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Dancing yeah, you know what I mean like karaoke doing, playing, like trying some sport, really like a new sport, that I'm being really bad at it.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just laughing and you know so my husband and I sometimes will do.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: We used to do things like squash together, or that's like the one where you would be in badman that yeah, no, yeah, yeah, badman, yeah.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: But now there's like paddle and ball at it pickleball.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: There's a lot in there.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: You know, just be bad at something, yeah, learn a new.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: You know, learn something new and just not have any kind of well, I need to be the best at this or I need to, you know, reach a certain goal with this.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: I just want to do it, to experience it and to have fun, and you know who cares if I look ridiculous doing it yeah, so yeah, things like karaoke dancing, like we'll do.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Well, sometimes we'll just meet up at each other's houses and put the music on.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, get some really nice desserts in.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so just dance.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: We love to go, for we try and go to like a really nice restaurant, but like we couldn't take the girls.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we love doing that.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we love doing that.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: We love doing that.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, some place super fancy, but you know, every once in a while.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: So or fancy, but you know, every once in a while.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, we have our little play date.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're definitely like foodies we love to like have, like just go and like get pistachio desserts and like we know all the pistachio in london, so like pistachio croissants, so I mean it's like it can literally it can be as fun as like, yeah, going to a fancy place, going and doing, taking afternoon tea at the shard or something like that, or as simple as just dancing in your living room, like, and everything in between, like whatever it is board games like I've started playing jenga again oh that's a good idea you know, just having fun.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: We put it in the diary.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we put it in the.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: And this is the thing you have to like, create the habit of it.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: We put it in the diary.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: We make it real for ourselves, non-negotiable, yeah what about the money mindset?
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: because you that was that pillar that you mentioned.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: It looks like an interesting one that is an interesting one, and I think financial autonomy is something that obviously all women should have and, as mothers, we should have.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: But you know, we think that there's.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: You know there's making money and making sure that you're giving yourself opportunities, so like learning and development and making sure that you're growing in your career and that sort of thing.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: But there's also the mindset of like holding money and your relationship with money, and this is something that we've been really working on in ourselves and and we have we work with people who are experts in this but just like your relationship with money and removing those kind of like money blocks and limiting beliefs around money and how you make your money and that kind of again, the rhetoric around struggle and making money is hard and sacrifice and so you know a big part of our program is kind of the energetics around.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: You know wealth creation and your money.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: You know your relationship with money.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: And I think there's for women, especially in this country, in the uk.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: You know, you see all these horrible statistics.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: You know for when.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: You know when it just comes to like the gender pay gap, when it comes to you know when you do go back to work and taking lesser positions or positions that stay the same, when you see, you know other colleagues, you know male colleagues who have moved forward and moved ahead, and and then the choices that you have to make, you know, or that we choose to make as mothers.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: You know when it comes to family planning and you know having to stay in a certain place or what that looks like when we become mothers and the roles that we can take when it comes to traveling.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, I experienced this quite a bit.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: In addition to working with Pauline on this project, I also work as a voice actor and I do acting work myself.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: And I remember telling my agent after I had my daughter, like don't put me up for anything that requires me to be away for longer than maybe one night.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: You know, and that's like I would get calls sometimes like, oh, should we, can we put you up for this job?
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: You know it's filming in New Zealand and it would be a really, really big opportunity and you know it's like the answer is no.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: You know, and I see a lot of my male colleagues and male actor friends who are doing amazing.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, you're a series regular on that television show and you just you're going to Cannes and you're doing that film and it's like I'm, I'm still here.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: You know I'm doing my thing and I'm doing this one day project and you know it's it can be really difficult to see, you know, things moving forward ahead of you.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: But I think again, I kind of just it doesn't phase me.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I really try not to let it phase me because, one, I'm working on my own learning and development, that learning and development pillar of like figuring out the steps in my career, what that looks like.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: It's a marathon, it's not a sprint.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: You know the years where I'm, you know I'm in my family planning stage and my family building stage, like they're very precious to me, they're very, you know, like I, as Pauline says, you know, when we first started it was sort of like, gosh, do I even want kids?
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: It's going to slow down my career, like I don't know.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: You know, and I experienced several miscarriages and so you know, now I just feel so grateful that I get to have this.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Like I get to have this time with my daughter and I'm so like I love it and like she only just adds to my career and if it's going to take a little bit longer or if it's going to look different, it's like that's their path.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: This is mine.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: I can still be in my learning and development stage and I can still be in my money, my, I can still make money in a million different ways and I think it's like allowing yourself to kind of remove, you know those, remove those kind of like old stories and those old patterns that keep you limited and like how you can make money and how money can can be, how money can come to you, and things like that.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: We are told these stories as women that it has to look a certain way that you, you know you have to work and it has to look this way to be able to make money, or you have to be at stay at home mom, and that's the only way that that looks like you know to earn money.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: You know through your partner.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, there's a million, there's a million ways to make money and money can come to you.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Money comes to me in a million different ways, you know, and so, just like again, like the energetics behind that, finding different ways to let go of the stress, these old stories that we've been told, these old narratives and these old limiting beliefs, and give yourself just as we said, like, give yourself a chance to believe in anything that can be possible, and you can do that with your kids, with joy, and, yes, there will be work.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: But we, as you know the name says, we think that you can work well rather than just working hard or working smart.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: You can work well and you can still get the same, if not better, results.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Tell me through how you support people then.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: So you've set up this platform and it's available for individuals and employers, is that right?
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: So what does it look like then, if you purchase the program or if you purchase the program on behalf of your employees?
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: so our work stylist program is our, our digital program.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like the flagship program that we have and that's a self-paced program that a woman can take because we know everyone's, everyone's life is different, exactly.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: So there's that but um, and that really goes through the the framework and the well method and there's also so there's like a digital platform.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: And then there's also group coaching calls where we can really go through the material and take questions.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: There's coaches, so the work side of it.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: And then we've also got a parenting or like our resident parenting coach to help with the motherhood side of things as well.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: So it's a really holistic program that touches on all of those things.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: And then, to take things further, we've also got the Well, like our WorkWell membership, which then gives you access to the community side of things.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Accountability.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: So you can, you know you have your accountability partners and you're really diving deep into really implementing what you're learning, what you've learned from the program.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Implementing what you're learning what you've learned from the program and you know you're really able to like not be so isolated and in creating that, those frameworks for yourself and yes, plain says, having that accountability, your accountability partners, having resources to be able to touch on, to having access to, like the parenting coach after the program is done.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: And then also that's where you'll find things like, like you know, our perks and benefits with our partners and jobs board for opportunities, and then also our money mindset coach and that sort of thing.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: So, you know, the membership is really kind of a thriving like playground of to be able to tap into the different areas where you need.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: We also just we're hoping to start these within the next few weeks, but we have kind of these coworking and crush events and our kind of bring your own baby events.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: So just, we really want to get to know people in real life.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: So, you know, and all of our events Bring together people in real life.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: And bring together women in real life.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: And the whole thing is that, like we're moms, like you know, we know how difficult it is to network.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Like I can't go to networking.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: I mean I'm like looking at the clock making sure before it's 445 because I have to go do the nursery runs.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Even networking doesn't work for us.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: So we've created kind of daytime networking events where if you have a child on your lap or in your arm or whatever, then you can come and we've set up, you know, childcare and so that you don't have to worry about the kids.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: But if you don't have the childcare, then you don't have to worry about not being able to attend you can still progress in your career and we're saying networking, but I think that's just like a catch all phrase.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: But it's really just like an opportunity for women to get together who are primed to start working and living in a different way, who might work independently, who might want to connect with people.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: So that's why we have our kind of co-working and crush events, so it's like you can get an hour to do some focused work while we have, you know, some lovely babysitters looking after the little ones and but also our BYOB bring your own baby events, which is kind of more where are the co-working and crush spaces?
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: are they in london or are they?
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: They're in london at the moment we're taking over the world, yeah exactly.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Well, we do want to get out further to the home counties and in other um, you know parts of the country, so, but we're starting in london because that's just where we are and that's what we know at the moment.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: We know venues around here and, as we see that there's more interest, yeah if you are interested and you want to take it to your city, we'd love to like here.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, absolutely so, um, if you have a newsletter then that people can sign up for to get yeah, we do have news.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: We'll definitely make sure that it's linked and that you have access to that that would be really helpful because obviously you know you probably run them on a certain date.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: So it'd be good, you know, interesting to know when they're wrong.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: So how can people connect with you?
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: find you learn more about work well yes, people can find us at on instagram and on tiktok, at work.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Well, w o r k w e double l?
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: E, so work.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, very lovely and modern and fresh, um, so you can find us there, on instagram and on tiktok.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: You can find us on linkedin, oh yeah, you can find us on our website at wwwworkableco, or you can find us on linkedin and our from our parent company, which is the moderna media yeah, lovely.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Well, we'll put all those links in the show notes.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: If you send me the newsletter link as well, we can put that in, because I think that'll be really helpful for people as well.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Um, but, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: It's such a pleasure, obviously, to chat with you and learn more about work well, thank you so much, liz.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: We've just completely enjoyed this conversation.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you, it's been a pleasure thank you for listening to another episode of the work.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: It like a mum podcast.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.