Latest / CEOs and ABCs / Claude Silver (VaynerX, Organic, Publicis) The World's First Chief Heart Officer wants to throw away the term 'work-life balance' #054

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Claude Silver (VaynerX, Organic, Publicis) The World's First Chief Heart Officer wants to throw away the term 'work-life balance' #054 · CEOs and ABCs

• 0:00
  Kevin Rice: Welcome to CEOs and ABCs. Real stories from execs who lead at work and show up at home. Career moves, parenting, wins and fails, and everything in between. I'm your host, Kevin Rice. Here's today's episode. The world's first chief heart officer wants to throw away the term work life balance. We have a special episode today as I'm joined by co host Jennifer Katula. Today's guest is Claude Silver, the person Gary Vaynerchuk tasked with being the emotional framework of VaynerX. Claude believes in being of joyful service, both as an executive and a mother. So why does she think the word balance is bad branding when it comes to bridging those two worlds? Let's get into it. Claude, thank you so much for being here today.
• 0:41
  Claude Silver: Great to be here, Kevin and Jen, thanks for having me on the podcast.
• 0:45
  Kevin Rice: So your career has been anything but conventional. Leaving college, spending 93 days at an outdoor wilderness program, starting a outdoor adventure surfing school, and then working your way up through the agency world. Very familiar names like JWT Publicis, and eventually becoming the Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX. So when you look back, what's kind of the through line, the common thread that brings it all together?
• 1:13
  Claude Silver: Yep. The red thread is very simple for me, which is always being of joyful service and facilitating growth and change. And I knew that from a very early age. I didn't have the words for it. I didn't have joyful service. I've always known I'm, I'm a person of service and that brings me a lot of joy. The red thread, though, of facilitating growth and change is something I landed on, I would say, coming out of Outward bound after the 93 day wilderness leadership program and understanding what teamwork is all about and understanding that on a team we each have different roles and what my role would most likely be just based on my own characteristics and personality. So yeah, I would say it's. It's just working for others is very important to me. Working with others is very important to me. There definitely isn't an I in my name, nor is there an I in, in what I do. It's really based on the collective.
• 2:11
  Kevin Rice: Sounds like that's a big part of your job is to bring empathy into the organization and you've shared some wonderful stories about what that actually looks like in practice. I heard a story about an employee who was a recovering alcohol and you helped get them off of an alcohol brand because it was detrimental to their, their emotional health. And then another one where an Employee was struggling with depression and rather than follow the typical HR playbook, you really spent time with them to understand them, allow them to be heard, and created this beautiful moment of healing for that person.
• 2:43
  Claude Silver: Yeah, and for me too, by the way. That was a great moment for both of us.
• 2:47
  Kevin Rice: Absolutely. But have there ever been any times where the needs of the business kind of made you feel at odds with that mandate? And how did you toe the line?
• 2:56
  Claude Silver: Yeah, always, I want to say always. There's a, there's a juggle. Not a struggle, but a juggle. Because we are a for profit business as much as we call ourselves internally the honey empire. So honey people doing the right thing, really looking after each other. Empire, obviously is the business success that is, that is not all the time equally weighted based on what's going on in the world with our clients, the administration, all kinds of things. And so one of the things that I've really had to work on as a leader myself and thus bringing that forward to our folks is the relationship between accountability and empathy. And that's something that's really, really important because we are accountable to our jobs. We signed paperwork, we shook hands and, and we agreed that the company is going to give you growth and at bats and wonderful opportunities and reward you and recognition, all of that stuff. And you're going to give us your incredible energy, your curiosity, your smarts. And so I'm always thinking about, are we keeping our promise and where we're not keeping our promise. How can I retrofit that in some way? Not, not fib, not lie, but just say, yeah, I get it. I don't know what's going to happen right now. I recognize that you're. Your table mate has just been let go and I know that everything is good here, but I recognize that you've got some feelings around that and meaning, like everything's good here, you're not going anywhere. But there's always those struggles and juggles and we move very fast, like change. We're romantic about two things, how we treat people and that we always change.
• 4:38
  Jennifer Kattula: One thing that strikes me as you're talking about that is in order to be empathetic and connect, you need to create space for it. And that sits in tension with how fast Vayner X is moving. But also the world, yes, the, the industry, we're in it, everyone's moving so fast. And I think oftentimes leaders feel this pressure to just keep moving fast and will sacrifice the empathy and the connection. And I don't know if you're Seeing anything like that in your world but also across the industry right now, I
• 5:17
  Claude Silver: do think in some way, shape or form because I work for Gary Vaynerchuk because it's an independently owned agency, because he is so people forward. I can't compare apples to apples. I know where I used to work and I can compare that. But we are a little bit different and we have so much autonomy. Each and every one of us has so much autonomy to create what we want to create. And as I always say to everyone that joins the company, you're now just as responsible for co cultivating this culture as I am. And that is going to happen in these little pockets. Like it's not going to happen at the all hands or foosball table. It's going to happen when you get on screen and you say, hey, how was your weekend? I noticed on Instagram you got a puppy. I binged the show. I did this, I did that. So connection is key. That our connective tissue across the globe is what keeps us so strong. And it is. We're humans. We're humans. And so you're right, a lot of leaders are going to want to push on through, get that touchdown, not even celebrate the touchdown. Go, go, go. And so one of the things that I'll talk to them about is let's stop and figure out why you don't feel like you can celebrate the touchdown yourself and then your team, because your team is feeling all of your energy. And so if you're not able to stop and say thank you or stop and really have a moment, they're picking up on that. And we know already that people are leaving companies because of their managers and a lot of leadership. But also people are leaving companies because they don't see any growth. There's no growth for them or no one has sat down and said great, I can see that you want a promotion. Let's work these next nine months on X, Y and Z. I will have accountability and check in with you once a month. I expect you to be working with a whole village while I'm not working with you. So that back to what you the question you asked is it's it really it is a goal for all of us. I think especially I can only speak at Vayner to understand our own self awareness, our own ability to regulate our emotions and remembering that as leaders we work for them, they don't work for us, we are working for them. So when you leader don't stop to take that touchdown, you are also teaching them some real Bad habits. And there are moments in time to celebrate or to just say, all right, it's four o', clock, everyone turn their laptop off. There's so much power that, that teams have. And it does take sometimes someone not in the top tier role to say, hey, can we just like stop for a second and just high five each other? You know, virtually.
• 8:00
  Kevin Rice: That's, that's a really great example of like authentic leadership. Right. It doesn't always have to come from top down, bottom up, or horizontally as you're talking. This kind of human connection within the workplace, that takes time. And in my role as president of a agency consulting firm, back when I was leading the company, I was responsible for margin. And so all I looked at was utilization every single day. And when our HR team would create opportunities for that connection, I'd be looking at it from a spreadsheet and saying, wait a minute, this is going to push down my utilization. So for people like I was, or people that are still in that sort of mode, can you make the case for them that this is important? And in fact, by making time for connection within your employees and teams, that's actually going to benefit the company?
• 8:50
  Claude Silver: Well, it's going to benefit retention of high performers. And that's something that you want to really, really maintain. I mean, that's the thing. You need your high performers. That person leaves, you've lost their ip, you've lost all of the credibility, all of the work that they've done. Then you have to pay. You want 33% more to find another person from the outside onboard them. So my first answer will always be, we're in the business of retaining folks and retaining our high performers and growing from within. That's how we're going to do it. That's how. That's a very, it's a very special agency. We do things differently than the other agencies I've been at. The other thing is a happy employee, an employee that is feeling recognized that they belong, that there is growth, that someone cares about me is going to stay. And again, that is what we want. And we have people that look at those numbers. But I will tell you that because our ethos is so people forward, not, not entitlement forward and not coddling forward, but growth oriented. It's very, very rare that I come up against a. Well, our contribution margin. Our contribution margin. Our contribution margin. Because there are times that you need to make an investment in a person or people or a role. There are times where you just need to say, I can see that we're going to make up for this in Q4, you know, you gotta balance things out. Again, it's very difficult to do that if it's not your own company and if you're working for a CFO who has blinders on and the numbers don't lie. And I, and I really, really get that. And I appreciate that someone is looking so diligently at the books and humans are living and breathing. Numbers are not that utilization sheet can vary up and down like the stock market all day long. And especially this is one that gets me all the time when I see a utilization sheet and I, and I see that someone is scoped 10% on a project, what does 10% mean? How are they actually going to fulfill 10%? You know, that's not possible unless it's literally an hour out of a five day work week. And an hour does what? Nothing. An hour, nothing. And I learned that a long time ago when I worked at Organic and I reported to our coo. I decided I would be like a creative resourcer for a while and I wanted to figure stuff out and I would put 25% down and she would say, Claude, no one works 25%. Now maybe they do, maybe they don't, but 10%, no. And so whatever that utilization number, if it says 10%, we gotta just throw that away. I think in today's day and age we have to be aware and accountable for also we're working with different generations. And I know they say that about all of our generations, right. But Gen Z and Gen Alpha are very different than, you know, a Gen Xer like myself who just plowed through, didn't talk about any issues, wouldn't even say I needed to go to the dentist. You know, hopefully I can get a dentist or a therapy appointment on a Saturday. And times are different now. So I think there has to be some kind of stretch, some kind of flexibility at times. Not every day.
• 12:14
  Kevin Rice: I understand I could have used that message about 10 years ago, Kevin to that point.
• 12:19
  Jennifer Kattula: I think times continue to change though. Even what work looks like in 2026 is so different from what it was in 2016. So I think just having the awareness of and openness and trying to look at things from different perspectives is what I'm learning from this conversation. That we're constantly learning and things are constantly changing.
• 12:42
  Claude Silver: Constantly changing. And then we've got AI and we've got that anxiety and we've got mental health and wellness and all of this stuff. It's, there's a lot to think about during A day. And so you bite off what you can. And if Gary was sitting right here, he would say Claude's the emotional framework for the company, for the, for VaynerX. Which is a wonderful thing to say. What I understand that to be is, is. I do my best to set the tone and tenor for how we behave. What is greatness, what is a non negotiable when it comes to behavior, what is why cynicism can destroy a culture, why we need to make positivity louder, why we need to remember that we are all going the same direction with different lived experiences and we have to allot for that. The three of us on the screen look, look alike. You and I don't have to think about certain things that other people have to think about when they walk in that building or they turn on their laptop. And that's a real big entitlement that I have and I have to be aware of that. And so when I'm also talking to the CFO and he or she is saying, well, you know these three people, well, maybe we didn't meet these three people where we needed to meet them. Maybe they told us that they needed an accommodation in the beginning. Maybe this is the wrong role for them and we should put them over in strategy because they're much better anthropologists than they are client people, those types of things. And so putting, being aware, focused, putting people in positions of strength when you can, is so important.
• 14:21
  Jennifer Kattula: Also this is the CEOs and ABC's podcast, so we're, we're really curious on that intersection of parenthood and an ambitious career. So where were you in your career when you had children? And was there a difference in what you expected and what actually happened?
• 14:40
  Claude Silver: Yes, a thousand percent. So I am a, I am a much older mom. I have a 5 and an 8 year old. My partner had them, not me. I was already past the age. So I have been a mom for eight years. You could tell me anything about parenthood, anything about motherhood, and I would not know what it was until the moment they appeared. I would not know that my heart had an entirely separate chamber. I would not know that the back half, the back nine that I'm on is going to be even better than the front nine, you know, and I think partially A because of the love, B, because of the challenge that I have as a working executive to also find synergy. I don't say balance synergy in my world. And then one of the things that is really important is to live by example. And so the Way I show up in life is the way I show up at home. And I have to tweak some things because I recognize that a 5 and an 8 year old aren't really going to understand my emotional metaphors when I'm talking about different feelings and whatnot. So I have a lot of learning to do as a mom.
• 15:54
  Jennifer Kattula: You are fluent in eq and I'm curious where that came from and if having dyslexia was part of becoming fluent in eq.
• 16:08
  Claude Silver: Yes.
• 16:08
  Jennifer Kattula: And if you can tell us a little bit about that story.
• 16:11
  Claude Silver: Good one. Yes. It was always a feeler from a very, very early age. And I didn't know it was intuition or whatever, but I could pick up on other people's what I thought was feelings or moods or whatever. And I can remember even being five and that happening. And then I can remember, you know, being out for dinner and feeling like I could tell what might have been going on in other tables. Now I don't know if I was right or wrong. However, what I will say is I grew up with very generous people. My parents, my Nana, who I talk a lot about, had an enormous spirit of generosity and of service. And Nana would leave every interaction as well as her answering machine. She didn't have a phone like us, you know, beep, would you do me a favor and have a peaceful day? And that's how she would leave every interact, Trader Joe's, the bank, the flower shop, whatever it was. So I was really trained by her in many, many ways. And having dyslexia and knowing and feeling, I would say feeling and knowing because I thought I was dumb until I was about 33, 34, kept me from a lot of opportunities, but it also gave me extra feelers with my fingers to know that I'm not the only person that thinks differently or learns differently, that everyone is out there with something. Now I didn't know what all of those somethings were called, but I did know. And I, thankfully I got this earlier in my, in my, my experience was I'm not, I can't be dumb if I have this type of knowledge because I really did think I was dumb. And that's what it. Back in the day, there wasn't a whole lot of, there weren't a whole lot of tools for dyslexics, but it gives you a lot of empathy for the way that people think and feel and for the other way. As I was saying that there are people that walk into the workplace that don't look like us and they have an entirely different challenge that, of course, I would like to eradicate. Of course I would like to say everyone's got psychological safety here and everyone belongs, but I'm not in their shoes. And so, again, dyslexia, going through a lot of, like, being a reform codependent like this. These are things that have given me a lot of understanding, I would say, of human behavior and the delicious, wonderful mess that we all are. And we are, you know, we are. We just hold it in, you know, it's true. It's funny. It's like, it's not until you open your mouth that someone can slightly start to perceive what kind of inner work you've done. Right? And that's, to me, a fun puzzle.
• 19:00
  Jennifer Kattula: The inner work is like. Is the most important work to do. I. I think that's the piece of advice I give all the time to. To younger people, is like, do the work on yourself. Yeah, learn yourself. You are going to be with yourself your whole life. And the more you can learn, the more you know. Yeah, say the more you know.
• 19:23
  Claude Silver: Psa. I say it too. I say, if you haven't started that journey, start now. Like, don't, Please don't start on your last breath. Start now. And as all of us know that have gone through that journey, there's nothing easy about it, but try to keep an open mind, keep curious about it. And there's so many people and wonderful, wonderful things that we can learn from others.
• 19:46
  Kevin Rice: We've talked a lot about bringing humanity and heart into an organization, but is there ever a cost to leading with heart at quarter?
• 19:55
  Claude Silver: Yes. If you do not balance it with accountability? Yes, you can create too much entitlement, too much empathy, too much coddling. And so then you are, in fact, you know, rewarding the eighth place trophy, and things get very soft. One of the things that Gary and I recognized as soon as we went into Covid, where we kind of had some time to think, was he and I are both really, really nice, kind people. And so we never wanted to have candor. We never wanted to have to be the bad sheriff or anything like that. And so we created a culture that had more entitlement than not, which meant eighth place trophies were great, which meant, yes, sure, you're a bottom performer, but let's still give you a merit increase and not give you the truth. And that really, really changed. And I would say coming out of COVID in that last kind of year or so, we really focused on becoming much more of a culture of feedback. And now I would say We're a culture of accountability where it's a part of our core competencies for everyone.
• 21:01
  Kevin Rice: That kind of brings up the idea of radical candor to me and ruinous empathy and what that can lead to. How did you actually make that shift at a large organization? Because it's one thing for you and Gary to recognize this is a problem, another to change it across. Now there's thousands of employees. How did you actually create that change across such a large organization?
• 21:21
  Claude Silver: It hasn't been hard. We call it kind candor, not radical candor. We're not radical, we're kind. And so I always say, and we do a lot of feedback training in terms of giving, receiving and writing feedback. But the kindness comes in the connection. The kindness comes in the high touch. The kindness comes in knowing the individuals on your team and what they might be going through and then being able to have those honest conversations which are not necessarily about correction. They're about connection, relationship building. And hey, it's my subjective opinion that this needs to go much, much further as a creative ideation idea, right? Or whatever. Numbers don't lie. So if you're working in Excel, that's a little bit different. But the kind candor, it's connection rather than correction. And that's what I say. So how did it happen? Gary came up with kind candor. He started talking about it ad nauseam internally and externally. And it is just what it is. That's what we call feedback here, is kind candor. And so it's not perfect at all, but it is, I would say, the majority rather than the minority now. And also because my task for the first several years was to create a HR department, which I call People and Experience, I was able to create that in an image that I thought people in the experience department should be, which is not police, not in the NO department. But I trained them and had them train multiple years in psychological safety, creating and holding space, compartmentalization so that they don't leak out. Right. Coaching. They've all. Now all the HRBPs have been trained as coaches. So because what was happening is we were therapists and not trained therapists. And even today I had a conversation with one of our VPs who's a business partner and she was saying something and something and I said, I just got to stop you here. Like, it's not your job to protect that leader. It's your job to inform that leader, but you're not going to protect that leader. That leader is strong enough to know the truth. And then I also Said I don't want you to get caught in managing that person again. And that's sometimes, that's sometimes what would happen. So these are, I'm just giving you antidotes of things that we've done to really, to bolster, to scale. I'm only one person to scale, if we want to call it empathy, to scale our culture. And so when I started the People and experience team, I did a couple things at first, the first one was remove the need for college education because I didn't want that to be a showstopper. And I was very clear we had to diversify the floor. I took away the term culture fit and it's skillset fit and culture addition because that's what it is. Culture fit means nothing to me other than someone's going to be out and someone's going to be in and that's not fun. I found people who had similar DNA and they're culture champions, they have a full time job. But I know if someone is hurting in Amsterdam, I can call upon John today and say, hey John, would you mind just checking in on Marie over there? I heard she's having a hard time. So that helps scale the whole ball game too.
• 24:37
  Jennifer Kattula: Something you said just now, you train your HR leaders in coaching. I got certified as an executive coach like eight years ago and it was completely life changing for me and how I showed up at work because I realized I was bringing everything, my history into work, into all of my relationships for that matter. And being able to see it sort of from the outside. There's a lot of analogies like go up to the balcony 50,000 foot. But it's such an important skill as almost like a meta skill for all of those things that you were talking about.
• 25:17
  Claude Silver: Thousand percent. And it is literally helping someone understand they have this wonderful thing called responsibility of themselves and how wonderful that is. And that's, I'm saying it with a smile because it is wonderful and I understand it's a challenge, but that's our expectation here and we have, as I said, core competencies, accountability, communication, leadership and growth. Mindset. For every level you are, you're gaining expertise in that and experience.
• 25:49
  Jennifer Kattula: That's great. Connection over correction. How does that show up at home?
• 25:54
  Claude Silver: Well, connection is all we're doing. And then the correction comes with like a choice and a consequence. You made this choice, this is the consequence. You made the choice to hit your sister. This is the. So now we are going to connect. You're going to figure out the, the correction is on you not Your sister. You know why? And, and sorry, after the fact is not okay. Cause you already knew not to do it. But we do a lot of the consequences and the timeouts. We do timeouts. I mean, it's. It's not easy. It's so not easy.
• 26:27
  Jennifer Kattula: We did em this morning.
• 26:28
  Claude Silver: Yeah, exactly.
• 26:29
  Kevin Rice: I mean, it's.
• 26:30
  Jennifer Kattula: For us, it's like two minutes. Yeah. It's just sometimes you. They just need to be separated in the morning because they come out of their rooms just with all the energy of a hundred people.
• 26:42
  Claude Silver: Yeah, yeah. The clothing and the food and all of this stuff and it's. It's a lot. So. Yeah. But I mean, I'm learning too at that same. I. I need timeouts. I mean, I need time. I. And I'm the only one that can give me a timeout. But I need to be very aware of like. Okay, Claude, you need to just chill for a second because you are activated right now.
• 27:05
  Jennifer Kattula: Absolutely. I think kids have actually shown me my own triggers and my own inadequacies as a person. Like, they really kind of put a mirror up in front of you and like this is. These are like your problem areas.
• 27:22
  Claude Silver: They really do.
• 27:23
  Jennifer Kattula: Yeah. That like learning experience of.
• 27:26
  Claude Silver: Of.
• 27:26
  Jennifer Kattula: Oh, yeah. Oh, I am like this. Okay, well, I, I have work to do too. I mean, we all got to the point in our adult life where we realize our parents are real people. And I am realizing I am such a. Sometimes I feel like such an average parent, you know, because we're all learning.
• 27:44
  Claude Silver: I know. I. I'm with you. I'm with you.
• 27:48
  Kevin Rice: Hi, Kevin here. If you're enjoying this conversation and you know someone else who's working to grow in their career while staying present at home, I'd really love it if you could share this episode with them. It's one of the best ways you can help us and help more leaders build their careers in a way that their proud of without missing the moments that matter most.
• 28:06
  Jennifer Kattula: One thing I remember when I became a mom, which just like created so much empathy in me, was what happened before I was a mom and when I was managing people. And I always was wondering why the drop off in commute time with parents, they couldn't multitask. And I didn't really understand it, but I didn't put. I never pushed back. I just questioned like, I questioned the multitasking. And then when I became a parent, I realized, oh no, you. You are not multitasking. You are 100 focused on your child. And that is. It's completely impossible. It's not something you can even ask a parent to do. So with that as a backdrop, how did becoming a parent actually change your leadership philosophy in the workplace or things that you were doing, even really tactically?
• 28:58
  Claude Silver: Yeah, I really relate to what you said. So not being a mom, but being. I was. I have two nieces, so understanding a little bit of the caretaker, caregiving role, I can fully tell you that as empathetic as I am, there was no. I was nowhere near empathetic to a parent that had to go take their kid to a pediatrician or kid had to stay in daycare or they were sick or they were fever or all of this stuff. I. I did not know the magnitude. I did not know the magnitude of the emotional invisible weight that parents carry and that we're doing our job and we're doing it as effectively as we can. And when we start to turn on our laptop, we can multitask, but there is that emotional wait. All right, who's picking up the kids today and what are they doing after school? What am I doing for dinner tonight? Okay. Do we have a birthday party this week, like, all of that stuff? So it has changed in that there might have been four sides to a diamond. Now there's eight sides. I really have to look at all of the different sides of what someone is bringing with them into the workplace and be as empathetic as I can be. And, of course, family first. Of course, take care of your children. You know, that was never a question, but. Yeah, so I would be lying if I said to you. There were times I. I didn't say it in my head, like, oh, half day, you know, Definitely.
• 30:25
  Jennifer Kattula: Did you make any changes at Vayner X because of this transition for yourself?
• 30:32
  Claude Silver: Yes. So by the time we had kids, we had a very loose parental leave policy. Very, very loose. I don't even think we had a strong secondary parent, so. And I was considered a secondary parent, so we had nothing that would look after someone like me. So we've made a lot of modifications, not only for second parent, but also for paternity, which is different than a second parent. So that's a big, big, big one. You know, we've. We've definitely leaned into nursing stations, and we're just partnering with, I believe, a company that is going to provide the pumps and everything so that a nursing mom does not have to schlep all of that into the office, which is fantastic. So those types of things have. Have changed. We've gotten very big with our bring your K day. I Mean we go, we go out now, we go, we have a great, great time which is so much fun. We have a parent CRG which we erg crgs which has definitely come alive. I think there are more photos being shared of the kids first day of first day of school than ever before. So. And that's something that I'm contributing to too. It's very, very important that I let people know at work that I have to younger kids and that I think it's very important to also find the empowerment within or have your managers, leaders help you find your voice if you need to leave. And if you're going to shut down at 4:30 and you're going to come back at 7, just make that known.
• 32:07
  Jennifer Kattula: Fair.
• 32:07
  Kevin Rice: I'm, I'm kind of embarrassed because when you describe all of that, I think back at my consultancy and even towards the end of it when we were about 250 people, I think, you know, we maybe had a closet for, for mothers as a maternity space for them to pump. And yeah, we just, we didn't put enough into that. And so I really applaud how much humanity and heart that you've brought to this like amazing organization.
• 32:33
  Jennifer Kattula: We'd love to hear a little bit about your daughters and who they are right now. What are they teaching you? What do they love?
• 32:40
  Claude Silver: Yes. So our 5 year old is named Edison, we call her eddie. And our 8 year old is Shalom, we call her Shashi. So I would say the five year old is crazy about crafts and crazy about just her imagination is going wild and so then she wants to create whatever that craft is. What I will say is sure did I think I was a creative person. Okay, a little bit here, a little bit there. But they really brought the creativity out in me. You know, imaginary play with the dolls and the American girl dolls and the Barbies and this and that, the toys in the pool, all of that stuff. The mermaids, the tea parties. I was a tomboy so I didn't have Barbie dolls. This has been so much fun for me. And as they've gotten older you can see how the toys and the games kind of advance and advance their thinking. So today for example, crazy eights, my 8 year old wants to play and it's gotten to the point where it's like, it's way too easy. So literally I'm like we gotta play Go Fish. She said that's too hard for me. So we started to play Go Fish this morning. It's not too hard. You know what's hard is them holding all those cards in their hands, that's what's hard. So they have, you know, they call me out, I would say on. I mean, first of all, they think I'm weird, and they think I have gray hair and I look like a grandma. That's another thing that we're working on, how not to call attention to people's facades and whatnot. But they are amazing. When I. When I say something that is maybe too rooted in eq, you know, they might look at me, or they just might say, mommy, you are just strange. Which I know is they haven't gotten it because I'm not speaking to them in a simple way. I'm expecting them to understand a metaphor of the caterpillar flying into, you know, moving into a butterfly. Not that one, but the other one that is so funny is because I'm a poor reader. Out loud. My daughter, who's 8 now, can read. So as I'm reading to her, she's, you know, my. My eyes go like this. That's just part of the way my dyslexia comes out. And so just the ability to laugh about that is so wonderful because it's just part of who Claude is now. So that's. That's really great. But I would really say the creativity, really teaching them kindness. We have a thing called kindness balloons. So if we see someone that just needs a little kindness in an airport or whatever, we're like, let's make a kindness balloon.
• 35:06
  Jennifer Kattula: Okay.
• 35:07
  Claude Silver: All right. Now let's just give them kindness. And that, to me, is everything.
• 35:11
  Jennifer Kattula: I love that.
• 35:13
  Claude Silver: That is, like, everything. And so they're like, kindness balloon, Kindness balloon. And that is the most important thing. If that's the one thing that they've learned from me and to have a generosity of spirit, then. Then it'll be all good.
• 35:28
  Kevin Rice: I love the. The honesty from your kids. No filters, right? Have there been any moments with your daughters where maybe you did something that they didn't appreciate and they gave you that feedback and you realized, okay, I need to make a repair here. How do you think about repairs in your family? Because I know a lot of parents who, because they're the adult, they shouldn't apologize or they shouldn't make her in a repair. And that's something that's really important in my family. I'm just curious on your perspective. What does repair look like when somebody does something wrong?
• 35:59
  Claude Silver: Yeah, I mean, an apology and then giving the. Giving the. Any kind of information of why. So, for example, having your phone at dinner or looking at your Phone at dinner. Sometimes I just want to put music on. But having my phone at dinner is a no, no. They know that I'm not present. They know that we're both not present. So we do not bring our phones to the table anymore. But we had to work towards that. And when they said, you're on your phone again, you're on your phone again, oh, God, it was a terrible feeling. Terrible. And so I don't want to give an excuse if mommy's on her phone because I know what I'm doing on my phone, you know, and it's not always legit. It's not always. I might be looking at a text or email and so just explaining that I hadn't finished my day of work and I was really having some anxiety about this one email that was coming in. And now explaining that helps. And they understand anxiety. They both have, like, they're really extra sensory people. Like, they don't have anxiety, but they're really like. I think a lot of kids have sensory overload right now. But just explaining and being normal and human about that or when they're supposed to be asleep and they come in our room and we're watching tv. Well, why do you guys get to watch tv? Well, let's just explain that this is why we go to bed later. We've done our job for the day, those kind of things. But they're. They're so funny at calling me out on things.
• 37:20
  Jennifer Kattula: We have something in our house. We have. We call em, like our house rules. And, and my kids will call. Call us out all the time because they know them by heart. And actually that's good because it keeps us honest, it keeps us accountable. And we've decided that these are our rules for this season of our life. And they'll probably evolve a little bit or the language around them will probably.
• 37:43
  Claude Silver: The language. We did. One of the things we did about 18 months ago was hang those up. And one of them was we don't use the word hate because it was I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. No, I don't want that word around. We also don't use those other words, that bad words. But sometimes they'll sneak out. Oh, sh. You know, S H I T. And they'll say, mommy, you said a curse word. I know I did. It didn't mean to. It slipped out.
• 38:09
  Kevin Rice: I've been working on some of those things, specifically repair with my kids for the past year. And I realized that it really comes down to modeling it for them. And so I Had to kind of manufacture some instances where I would do something wrong. Good example is I used a curse word on purpose because I wanted to go through the process of apologizing telling him, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do this better, or here's how I'm going to do it better next time. And modeling that repair for them. So sometimes I'll purposely mess up so that they can call me out and then I can show them what it looks like to fix the situation.
• 38:45
  Claude Silver: Yeah, I love that, Kevin. I think that's so wise.
• 38:50
  Kevin Rice: They get a kick out of it too when I curse because it's so rare that it happens.
• 38:53
  Claude Silver: Yeah, totally. Anyway, kids have made my life so much fuller than it already was. And it's a real blessing and I'm, I'm thankful every single day. My partner said it's a non negotiable. We're having, I'm having kids. And I was like, okay, so Claude,
• 39:10
  Kevin Rice: you've spent a lot of years helping other people be supported. And then eight years ago you became a mother and the demands of you changed. But you're the first vice president hired at VaynerX. You were in a leadership role at the time you became a mother. Did you have times where the needs of the business and the needs of your family were pulling you in different directions or they were at odds or needed you the same amount at the same time? How did you manage that? Or what happened when there was that tension of work needs you, but my family needs you too.
• 39:45
  Claude Silver: Yeah, well, and that happens. I think that happens to all of us that are caregivers or parents. The first thing I'll say is, is what I did proactively for myself, which I hadn't done up until the moment our first daughter was born, was I set boundaries for myself and I don't start until 9 and I am done by 5:30. And if you need me, you can text me, but. And I squeeze the orange. I mean there isn't room in my calendar, which is okay, I don't mind. I have the adrenaline to go from nine a couple breaks to 5:30. But I'm very, very clear on that time. And I've been very clear for eight years, which I'm proud about because I was a workaholic, I will say, and proud to be one, which a lot of us do feel that, that praise, you know, oh, you're going to stay late. Oh, you're going to take that work on. For whatever reason, we, we all feel good. About that. It's fictitious, but another story for another time. And yes, there have been fire drills with people. There have been real incidents that have needed my attention. When those kids come home and they're knocking at my door and they want to hang out and the last thing I like to say is, hey, mommy's working right now. I can't come up and see you, but I have to. There have been work trips that I've been on that I've cut short to come back for a child that was not well and had a fever or had Covid. And you just kind of make the best decision I can with the knowledge that I have. I'm very lucky that I have support at work. I'm very lucky that Gary trusts me. I'm very lucky that I have a lot of equity with people and they know that I will do what I say I will do. So it's not a perfect science at all. But there are definitely times where I'm pulled and even now, a lot of our generation right now has, has aging parents. So there's the sandwich. I'm taking care of my, my brother and I are trying to take care of our 85 year old parents and I have young children and I have a big job and I just wrote a book. Like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of tugs and I have to be very honest when I need a timeout and there are times in my day, if I look at my week where I'm like, I can't, I just can't go the next three hours without a break. I'm going to have to move something. And I do.
• 42:05
  Kevin Rice: Can you give us a specific example of where maybe your daughter needed you, but there was a work commitment that needed you as well. Is there a specific story that would kind of bring that message to life?
• 42:16
  Claude Silver: Yeah, yeah, I have a couple of them. So I, I'm very fortunate. I get asked to keynote a lot of different conferences and, and whatnot. And there was one that was in Vegas, so that's already, what, a five hour flight from where I am in New York. And I left knowing my daughter was not feeling great. And we had a young one at that time also. And then there's only so much my partner can do. Yes, we have help, which I'm very grateful for. But I ended up going to the, the promoters and I said, I know that I'm your opening keynote. Is there any way that you can sub me and I'll come back tomorrow? Which I did. And close for you. So that's one example. And it was the right move because my daughter had like 104 and it's. I just want to be there also. Oh, I want to, I want to take care of her. The things I do is when I do go on trips, I do try to only stay away for two nights. That is selfish on my end because I want to be with them, I really do. And you know, I'm the breadwinner here, so they also understand I have to work. If you want to go to Disney World, I do have to sit down and do some work. I don't spell it out like that. But there's always, I think there's always going to be a tug because I work at a very fast paced company and there's all kinds of needs. And even the last trip I made home, my parents live in Santa Fe. The last trip I made home, which was in August and I was taking my, my parent to a lot of doctor's appointments and I had to not. I had to take care of this other thing that was important at work. It wasn't more important than my mom, but it was important at work. And so that meant I had to put her in an Uber and then meet her. Didn't feel great, but I had to do this resonates.
• 43:56
  Jennifer Kattula: Both of my parents passed away in the last few years and I was in that caregiving mode of caring for them while they're really sick and being a parent of young kids and having a big demanding job and like you, my peers and my manager at the time were so supportive and I. That makes the biggest difference is that they helped make it easy for me to prioritize my family during the really hard times. So. But what I hear from you also is ambition. You're writing a book, you have a big job, you're doing keynotes all over. And I, I'm sure you read the article recently from McKinsey and Lean in about the ambition gap. And I'm just wondering if you have perspective on that sitting in your seat and, and leading such a big organization and being at the center of it.
• 44:56
  Claude Silver: Yeah, I, well, first of all, thank you for, for noticing the ambition. I do. I can't imagine a world when I'm not curious or not learning something all day. And right now it's this computer is where I get most of my knowledge. Unless it's the kids. The what, What I will say is I do think there is an ambition gap and I, I think in the workplace I'm going To put the onus on the workplace that we haven't done the training and learning and development that we could do to really help someone or, or many people get excited about a path, get excited about a role. And I do think you do have to put your money where your mouth is, which is not just, okay, here's where you are and here's the delta to where you want to get to, because that's just a short term goal. But what do you want to do? What do you want to do with this one wild and crazy life? And I just had someone on that I was speaking to. I do a lot of one on ones now. She's 23, 24 is her first job. And she has so much excitement to learn and grow. And she doesn't know what she wants to do, but she knows she one day wants to own her own business. And so my job and responsibility then is to introduce her to three or four people who are going to excite her about other parts of the agency, whether or not she chooses to go and open up her flower shop. That's great. But in the meantime, I want her to really understand platform expertise. I want her to speak to the creatives. I want her to really. She's a sponge. And so if I see that and feel that in another person, whomever they are, I'm going to always do my best to connect them to other people who might continue to spark like that flame for them. So that is something that I know is part of my responsibility and I feel really good about that. I know it's not everyone's, especially if you are trying to retain business and expand the business. But I do have a concern. I will tell you, I haven't really voiced this before, but I do have a concern about the younger generations and what we've handed them, because I can tell you that I'm sure I have handed them along with many others.
• 47:10
  Jennifer Kattula: Hey.
• 47:10
  Claude Silver: Welcome. Waa. Here's how to burn out.
• 47:13
  Jennifer Kattula: Hi.
• 47:14
  Claude Silver: Right.
• 47:15
  Jennifer Kattula: Yeah.
• 47:16
  Claude Silver: And.
• 47:17
  Jennifer Kattula: And the speed seems to only be getting faster. Everything is getting faster. I don't think Covid helped us at all with allowing people to just absorb from more experienced people. Like, that's how I learned. I learned through absorption and observation. It's a meaty topic because there's just, there's a. There's a lot there. And especially for women as well, who are thinking about all the other things they might be able to do, they might want to slow down. There's a generational difference as well. So I appreciate your perspective on that. Yeah. Thank you.
• 47:55
  Claude Silver: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that too. Because we have more and more and more women in our workplace that are utilizing our infertility fertility benefits and freezing their eggs. And then starting later on, there's a lot more IVF usage. And all of that is great. And I'm glad we have that. And that's not going to be for everyone, you know, And I think what Covid showed us for sure was as soon as Covid hit and we knew we were all going to not be in an office place for a while. I'm moving to Wyoming. I'm moving to Utah. I'm going to Virginia. I'm going to get a house in the backyard. I'm going to get a dog. I'm going to get married and have a kid.
• 48:33
  Kevin Rice: You know, we saw going to make sourdough bread.
• 48:35
  Claude Silver: Yeah, exactly. And it was almost like there. There was an allowance by society. Then of course, we've. We've come back. And it doesn't mean that the behavior has changed or that the wants or needs have changed. I think the other thing that's really tough and I'm not sure I need to look up how this nomenclature came about, but like, work life balance is just. We just need to throw that term out the window. Work life balance. A is not true. B, it's life. Work is a part of my life. I spend a lot of time here, but I have a very vibrant life that I want to continue to participate in, as does everyone. And so work isn't the end all be all for me anymore. And yes, I can say that I have worked hard, but it's very true. It's not the end all be all. And if I had to change something, we could change the way we live here. It could change things so that we had more time and finances to go travel the world and the kids could learn that way. There's so many possibilities that I think we just need to be open to when we look at work as a part of life.
• 49:43
  Jennifer Kattula: Kevin and I emphatically agree with you on that one. Work life balance is. We should throw that word away. That is absolutely true.
• 49:52
  Kevin Rice: Propose a panel at south by Southwest called Work life balances. Bullshit.
• 49:57
  Claude Silver: I love it. Is that for coming up? Coming up in 27.
• 50:00
  Kevin Rice: Yeah. I don't think they announced who is selected until like November, but yeah, they did the voting and a lot of people showed up to support the topic.
• 50:10
  Claude Silver: Good. Yeah. Because it's a bunch of bs, but it is. We know.
• 50:14
  Jennifer Kattula: Just one more ambition question for you. I'LL just share for me. When I became a parent, the complete opposite thing with ambition happened. I thought I was going to nest and go into a 9 to 5 and, and, and stop growing my career like I would, I would cap out wherever I was.
• 50:33
  Claude Silver: Yes.
• 50:34
  Jennifer Kattula: And what actually happened was I got so much more ambition and so much more energy and more focus where I was. I have been laser focused since becoming a parent on the most important things and not worrying myself with a lot of other things that take could take my time and energy. I'm curious for you what happened if that same thing happened or was it totally different?
• 51:02
  Claude Silver: No, I mean I decided to write a book in 2021. It took me three years to write it. Like so here we are. Our youngest was born in May of 2021 and I had already started the process. So no, in fact Claude decided to take on an entirely different challenge of birthing something from scratch. And so I'm so with you and I'm not sure why, I'm not sure if I just got re energized but all of a sudden I was like, you're going to give yourself a challenge as an adult, as a dyslexic, which is my superpower to write and publish a book. And yeah, so I'm with you. And my ambition today is out the roof. The things that I want to do, the things that are exciting me, the, the you know, things I tinker with and kind of put on that back shelf over there.
• 51:52
  Kevin Rice: Is that ambition for you or is that also partially to show your kids what ambition looks like as your raising them?
• 52:00
  Claude Silver: Yeah, both selfishly, it's for me more, you know, I think also because I am a self proclaimed late bloomer and it took me a little bit of time to get started in the corporate world and to figure out what I wanted to do because I was very committed to figuring out myself in my 20s. That was my job. So I also am almost sometimes I don't want to say I'm behind, but I'm, I act as though I'm 10 years younger in many ways in my brain I'm 15 years younger that I, I can do this and I can do that and I can do that. However, to answer the question, one of the things my parents really, really taught us was work ethic. And I think it's extremely important to teach and translate to the kids in a variety of different ways. I don't think they're going to be sitting down with a laptop like we are when it's time for them to get roles. I hope they're doing something with their hands and and other people in the world.
• 52:54
  Kevin Rice: Thank you so much for joining us today.
• 52:56
  Jennifer Kattula: Thanks for the time, Claude. It's been wonderful to get to know you.
• 53:00
  Claude Silver: Likewise. Likewise.
• 53:01
  Jennifer Kattula: The way you talk about life and work is just is so resonant with me.
• 53:05
  Claude Silver: Thank you for having me. I've learned a lot from you.
• 53:08
  Kevin Rice: If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. CEOs and ABCs is all about helping you grow in your career and show up at home. We've got many more amazing guests coming up, so tap, follow and stay tuned.