Latest / Leading By Example: Executives Making An Impact / Kathleen Griffith - Founder of Grayce & Co, Author of Build Like a Woman

Transcript

Kathleen Griffith - Founder of Grayce & Co, Author of Build Like a Woman · Leading By Example: Executives Making An Impact

0:07
Speaker 1: Ninety percent of who we are is completely subconscious.
0:10
Speaker 2: It is all buried under the surface.
0:12
Speaker 1: And in my opinion, to be a great leader, you
0:15
Speaker 1: have to uncover all that lies underneath, What triggers you,
0:21
Speaker 1: what excites you, who you really are as a leader,
0:25
Speaker 1: who you really are as a person. And I think
0:28
Speaker 1: part of the problem is that so many people are
0:31
Speaker 1: leading others without truly knowing themselves.
0:36
Speaker 3: Those powerful insights come from Kathleen Griffith, the visionary behind
0:41
Speaker 3: the best selling phenomenon Build Like a Woman, a book
0:44
Speaker 3: that's transforming how women approach entrepreneurship. When Barbara Corkran called
0:48
Speaker 3: it equal parts heart and hustle, she captured the essence
0:52
Speaker 3: of not just the book, but Kathleen herself. But before
0:55
Speaker 3: she was leading thousands of women along the path to
0:58
Speaker 3: launching their own businesses, Kathleen was climbing the corporate ladder
1:02
Speaker 3: at an ad agency, feeling that familiar sense of intuition
1:06
Speaker 3: that there had to be more. Her story is the
1:09
Speaker 3: journey from corporate burnout to entrepreneurial breakthrough, but Kathleen unpacks
1:13
Speaker 3: the raw truth about what it really takes to build
1:16
Speaker 3: a business on your own terms. I'm furnished to RAVI
1:20
Speaker 3: and this is leading by example, executives making an impact. Kathleen,
1:28
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show. Welcome to leading by example.
1:31
Speaker 2: I'm so glad to be here with you.
1:33
Speaker 1: Good way to start the day at an eight am
1:35
Speaker 1: for me, So glad to start it with.
1:38
Speaker 3: You eleven am for me. So you're really putting in
1:41
Speaker 3: the effort here because I've at least had my coffee. Well,
1:44
Speaker 3: I feel like you're an early riser. I feel like
1:45
Speaker 3: you've had a lot of gay already.
1:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, you nailed that. I'm a part of the five
1:49
Speaker 2: am club.
1:50
Speaker 3: So, oh my gosh, crazy. Well, speaking of you know,
1:54
Speaker 3: I've known you for some years and I've been watching
1:57
Speaker 3: you build this incredible busy and thought leadership. You've architected
2:03
Speaker 3: this so beautifully for yourself and for everyone who is
2:06
Speaker 3: in your orbit. You strike me as someone who has
2:10
Speaker 3: been just extremely proactive, strategic and early riser. You've designed
2:15
Speaker 3: your career the architecture of it. So, speaking of like
2:18
Speaker 3: you know, getting up early in the morning, I'd love
2:19
Speaker 3: to start off just by having you take us behind
2:21
Speaker 3: the scenes Kathleen of what a typical workday or work
2:26
Speaker 3: week looks like for you. And while we're there what
2:29
Speaker 3: is something that someone who doesn't know your work closely
2:33
Speaker 3: would be surprised to discover about your leadership style or
2:38
Speaker 3: how you lead.
2:40
Speaker 1: So there is no typical work week. Each week is
2:44
Speaker 1: filled with very different things. So some weeks I'm doing
2:47
Speaker 1: public speaking, I'm on tour doing that, I'm doing book
2:50
Speaker 1: signings for my new book, shooting television, producing television.
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Speaker 2: Brand consulting, recording a podcast, doing media. So it is
3:01
Speaker 2: all over the place.
3:03
Speaker 1: And what I discovered is that I really needed rooting
3:07
Speaker 1: habits to ground me, so there was some foundational consistency
3:12
Speaker 1: in each day. Otherwise you just feel like this ping
3:14
Speaker 1: pong ball that's all over the place. And I don't
3:17
Speaker 1: know if you know that feeling where you're just spinning,
3:20
Speaker 1: you feel.
3:20
Speaker 2: Like a whirling dervish.
3:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it can happen really easily, right, Like, it's very
3:25
Speaker 1: easy for that to take hold. I think when you
3:27
Speaker 1: even have a few days like that that are just
3:30
Speaker 1: not consistent. And so I do something. I call it
3:35
Speaker 1: the sixty minute prime. And what I do is every
3:39
Speaker 1: single morning, I do three things. I sweat, so I
3:42
Speaker 1: move my body for twenty minutes. I have sustenance. So
3:47
Speaker 1: really good greens and nourishing things in the morning to eat,
3:51
Speaker 1: and silence, So twenty minutes of silence. I practice TM
3:55
Speaker 1: and also MBSR, which is mindfulness based stress reduction in
4:00
Speaker 1: and that might be something that's surprising to people. Meditation
4:04
Speaker 1: is a huge part of my life and it is
4:09
Speaker 1: one of the things that I attribute most to the success.
4:13
Speaker 2: That I've had. It's a game changer. I could wax
4:16
Speaker 2: poetic about it forever.
4:18
Speaker 3: I love the alliteration sweat, sestenance, silence, the three ses. Yeah,
4:24
Speaker 3: twenty minutes of sweating. I mean most people are like,
4:26
Speaker 3: I got to put in an hour and a half
4:27
Speaker 3: in the gym. No, you're very efficient.
4:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, when it becomes overwhelming, right of like it's
4:33
Speaker 1: a sixty minute commitment or it's a two hour commitment,
4:36
Speaker 1: then I find that you don't have the consistency where
4:39
Speaker 1: you just knock it out every day. And more than
4:42
Speaker 1: anything else, I really needed that rooting because the rest
4:45
Speaker 1: of my life has now become so extreme.
4:49
Speaker 3: You've always been a mover. I was reading about how
4:51
Speaker 3: when you were a kid, your entrepreneurial spirit was well
4:55
Speaker 3: and alive. As a child, you sold candy in middle school.
5:00
Speaker 3: Take me back to Kathleen as a young girl, and
5:03
Speaker 3: how would your friends describe you back then?
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Speaker 1: I've heard that candy arbitrage is an early indicator of
5:10
Speaker 1: being an entrepreneur.
5:12
Speaker 3: Not lemonade, not let lemonade.
5:14
Speaker 1: No, everyone has a lemonade stand, but it is true.
5:18
Speaker 2: And if that's the case, I was a born entrepreneur.
5:21
Speaker 1: I had this little thing called the Snack Attack Pack,
5:25
Speaker 1: and so I'd put snacks in their candies in there,
5:29
Speaker 1: buy low, sell high. I'd wrap every single morning on
5:32
Speaker 1: the loudspeaker. Come and pick up your Snack Attack pack.
5:35
Speaker 1: Surprising enough, your hunger isn't coming back, Like didn't exactly rhyme.
5:39
Speaker 2: But I'd sell it.
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Speaker 1: And then I had all this pocket money, and I
5:44
Speaker 1: just love the sales of it. And then I love
5:47
Speaker 1: the freedom of having this money in my little pocketbook
5:51
Speaker 1: that I could then go spend on whatever I wanted
5:53
Speaker 1: and no one could tell me otherwise. And then life changes,
5:59
Speaker 1: as we know, and so I kind of took that
6:02
Speaker 1: innate entrepreneurial quality and shoved it down the drain for
6:07
Speaker 1: a very long time. But I would say that my
6:10
Speaker 1: friends would describe me at the time as a little
6:14
Speaker 1: force of nature.
6:15
Speaker 3: What was your profit margin on the snack Attack pack.
6:18
Speaker 2: We were doing good. I think it must have been
6:20
Speaker 2: seventy five percent.
6:21
Speaker 1: Cool.
6:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was up there.
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Speaker 3: And it signals that you had a mind for branding
6:27
Speaker 3: and marketing and advertising back then, not just you know,
6:30
Speaker 3: a sales driven or a finance driven, but you had
6:33
Speaker 3: it all. You were the whole package. It really it
6:36
Speaker 3: signals a lot.
6:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I always love to start with childhood because I
6:40
Speaker 3: don't think it's a coincidence who we become. I think
6:42
Speaker 3: there are clues as young as in your case, middle
6:45
Speaker 3: school and when you finally got out of college, you
6:49
Speaker 3: are getting ready for your first sort of corporate gig,
6:53
Speaker 3: and I was reading that in those early years, I think,
6:57
Speaker 3: as so many young adults feel, you felt very unseen.
7:01
Speaker 3: You are working on really big brand projects. You were
7:04
Speaker 3: given quite a bit of responsibility, but you didn't feel
7:06
Speaker 3: as though you had a true seat at the table.
7:10
Speaker 3: So looking back, was there anything that you think you
7:12
Speaker 3: would have done differently to experience more fulfillment on the job.
7:18
Speaker 1: There is this great study that came out of McKinsey
7:22
Speaker 1: that talked about seventy eight percent of women experience microaggressions
7:26
Speaker 1: at work, so you're kind of self shielding and contorting
7:31
Speaker 1: yourself so that you don't take up as much space,
7:34
Speaker 1: which in turn makes you not feel as seen.
7:37
Speaker 2: You know.
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Speaker 1: I think everything from just being interrupted to having a
7:42
Speaker 1: point of view restated, all the things that we've.
7:45
Speaker 2: Heard a million times.
7:47
Speaker 1: And I think the biggest piece that I would tell
7:51
Speaker 1: myself if I were able to go back, and I
7:54
Speaker 1: don't know how I would have cultivated this, would be
7:58
Speaker 1: to have spoken my mind more so in every single meeting.
8:02
Speaker 1: I just remember sitting there thinking, what's the right thing
8:06
Speaker 1: to say? What should I say to sound smart in
8:09
Speaker 1: this room? When I was in the room, which wasn't
8:12
Speaker 1: very often, How can I endear myself to this person
8:17
Speaker 1: who's more senior than me, you know, the laughing when
8:21
Speaker 1: something isn't even funny, the smiling even when you don't
8:24
Speaker 1: feel like smiling. And so i'd probably go back to
8:28
Speaker 1: those rooms and just say, have a point of view,
8:32
Speaker 1: your point of view, stand behind it, and let the
8:36
Speaker 1: chips fall where they may.
8:38
Speaker 3: But I was.
8:39
Speaker 2: Always monitoring in my own head and.
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Speaker 1: Kind of cycling through a million things that I should
8:46
Speaker 1: be saying, and so I never really said very much,
8:50
Speaker 1: and I'd leave every kind of interaction mentally exhausted because
8:54
Speaker 1: of the gymnastics that I was doing.
8:57
Speaker 3: The mental gymnastics. There's a lot of fear too, like
9:00
Speaker 3: to your point, you're going to say the wrong thing.
9:02
Speaker 3: I've been that twenty something year old who does speak
9:07
Speaker 3: up in a meeting mostly to ask more questions about
9:10
Speaker 3: what's being expressed, because I'm still learning, and I feel
9:15
Speaker 3: like in the beginning you might feel stupid. I mean,
9:18
Speaker 3: people will make you feel like an idiot, and I
9:20
Speaker 3: have been made to feel like an idiot. But it's
9:22
Speaker 3: like you have to keep flexing the muscle.
9:25
Speaker 1: That's such an important point, like asking the questions. The
9:27
Speaker 1: smartest people in the room are those who are comfortable
9:30
Speaker 1: asking questions and wanting more clarification and are curious. So
9:35
Speaker 1: it's a sign of intelligence, it really is.
9:38
Speaker 3: I'll tell you though, in the beginning it can feel
9:40
Speaker 3: like you're an impostor and you're a disruptor. But my
9:44
Speaker 3: just advice to anyone listening, like keep asking the questions.
9:48
Speaker 3: If you're not getting the right answers and you're not
9:51
Speaker 3: in the right rooms, you know you're not in the
9:53
Speaker 3: room of growth. So all this sort of keeping silent
9:57
Speaker 3: and then the burnout. It culminated to a point where
10:01
Speaker 3: you're in a pizza shop in New York and you're
10:02
Speaker 3: having a meltdown and there's like truffle sauce all over
10:07
Speaker 3: your face and you're with her, a really good friend
10:09
Speaker 3: who's sort of calling you out, and your life kind
10:12
Speaker 3: of changes in that moment. So take us back to
10:14
Speaker 3: that New York pizzeria.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I was good girl bred, and I think
10:19
Speaker 1: that's what you know, going back to the beginning where
10:21
Speaker 1: I was a born entrepreneur, but then felt like that
10:24
Speaker 1: wasn't an option, to be an outlier, and so decide
10:28
Speaker 1: to do all the right things. Go get the good job,
10:30
Speaker 1: Go get the good looking partner, get engaged to them,
10:35
Speaker 1: Go get the nice house, the white picket fence, all that.
10:39
Speaker 1: Like I was on that exact track and working very
10:44
Speaker 1: very hard at it all, and I ended up at
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Speaker 1: this pizza joint. I'm just stuffing my face with pizza,
10:52
Speaker 1: which there's nothing wrong with, but drowning my sorrows and
10:55
Speaker 1: pizza because quietly, and I thought no one would notice,
11:00
Speaker 1: I just felt numb and dead inside, like I was
11:02
Speaker 1: not living my purpose. I was doing all the right
11:05
Speaker 1: things and yet it was such a joyless existence. I
11:09
Speaker 1: felt like I was eating like a dry saltine every day.
11:13
Speaker 1: And so my friend looks at me and says, you
11:16
Speaker 1: look like a ghost.
11:18
Speaker 2: Are you okay?
11:19
Speaker 1: I was pale faced and just unhealthy at the time.
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Speaker 1: And so I left that dinner and I walked home
11:27
Speaker 1: and it was one of those rainy nights in New
11:28
Speaker 1: York City, you know, where the light is just glistening
11:31
Speaker 1: off the pavement. And I walked forty some odd blocks home.
11:35
Speaker 1: I didn't want to take a cab. And this quote
11:38
Speaker 1: from this woman who I had met at a workshop
11:42
Speaker 1: a few weeks before, Tama Keeves, who's a Harvard trained,
11:47
Speaker 1: very bright lawyer. She had said, if you are this
11:51
Speaker 1: successful doing what you don't love, imagine how successful you'd
11:56
Speaker 1: be doing what you do love. And that haunted me.
12:01
Speaker 1: That haunted me that whole walk home, and finally I
12:05
Speaker 1: was able to get the courage to quit my corporate job.
12:09
Speaker 3: How did you figure out to do what you love?
12:11
Speaker 3: This is the question that so many of us struggle with,
12:14
Speaker 3: because what you're describing is essentially high functioning depression. Yeah,
12:19
Speaker 3: it's a new study. I just interviewed doctor Judith Joseph.
12:22
Speaker 3: She's put a name to this that I think a
12:24
Speaker 3: lot of us experience, which is that we have this
12:28
Speaker 3: feeling to use your words of like emptiness and vacuousness,
12:33
Speaker 3: and although we are like killing it at work and
12:36
Speaker 3: in our professional lives, like on our resumes, on paper,
12:39
Speaker 3: on LinkedIn, people are envious, but we're not fulfilled. We
12:44
Speaker 3: are numb. To use your words and recognizing it as
12:48
Speaker 3: one thing, then moving on from that, it requires understanding
12:52
Speaker 3: what does bark joy? What does make you happy professionally
12:56
Speaker 3: at least and for you, what was that discovery? Like
12:58
Speaker 3: how did you come to this idea? I got to
13:00
Speaker 3: open up my own agency and be a multi hyphen
13:04
Speaker 3: it who I thought?
13:07
Speaker 1: Okay, once you make this brave decision your purpose and
13:10
Speaker 1: what you're meant to do, it just like lightning, like
13:13
Speaker 1: here we go.
13:14
Speaker 2: It is common and it doesn't work that way. As
13:17
Speaker 2: we all know. It whispers to you.
13:20
Speaker 1: It is this quiet knowing that as you get closer
13:24
Speaker 1: to it, you feel warmer, you feel more energized, you
13:27
Speaker 1: feel more excited, and the further you get away from
13:30
Speaker 1: it to borrow. Martha Beck has this great concept, the
13:33
Speaker 1: way of integrity and credible book too. It feels colder
13:37
Speaker 1: and more agitating, and it makes you feel small, and
13:42
Speaker 1: so it really became an experiment, a great social experiment.
13:47
Speaker 1: So I'd been working in advertising and I figured I'd
13:51
Speaker 1: go into an adjacent space and help nonprofits with their
13:56
Speaker 1: marketing and branding and brand campaign because I had a
14:00
Speaker 1: non compete in the corporate space and so had never
14:04
Speaker 1: done that before, had never worked in nonprofit.
14:08
Speaker 2: But it was all I could do where.
14:10
Speaker 1: It seemed kind of easily transferable from one skill set
14:13
Speaker 1: to the other, just different category essentially, And that was
14:18
Speaker 1: the beginning of me starting my brand consultancy, Grays and Co.
14:23
Speaker 1: But it was very much a feeling my way through
14:29
Speaker 1: the dark.
14:29
Speaker 2: But that to me felt better.
14:32
Speaker 1: Than sleepwalking through life, which is what I'd been doing before,
14:36
Speaker 1: because I believe there was a light at the end
14:38
Speaker 1: of that tunnel.
14:41
Speaker 3: Let's talk about being a woman in business. Let's talk
14:44
Speaker 3: about from your perspective as a founder, what are the
14:48
Speaker 3: models of leadership that you deploy and what are the
14:52
Speaker 3: ones that you think we don't use enough of. You know,
14:56
Speaker 3: there's so many books on leadership, and I just want
14:59
Speaker 3: to understand and what you bring to your teams every
15:03
Speaker 3: day and the leadership models that you follow.
15:07
Speaker 1: So when I started my own small business, You're strapped,
15:11
Speaker 1: you have very limited resources, time, You're paying only a
15:15
Speaker 1: few people to work for you. So it ain't great, right,
15:19
Speaker 1: You're dealing with a lot of constraints. And so I
15:22
Speaker 1: was a horrible leader. I was like running very fast
15:26
Speaker 1: with super sharp scissors. It was dangerous, it was reckless.
15:29
Speaker 1: I do NDAs after the fact. I do contracts after
15:33
Speaker 1: people had already started working.
15:35
Speaker 2: I was laid on billing.
15:38
Speaker 1: It was just disorganized. Chaos is an understatement. And over time,
15:44
Speaker 1: as the business actually continued to do well, I took
15:49
Speaker 1: a step back and I developed something which I call
15:52
Speaker 1: mindful leadership that I needed for myself. So moving from
15:56
Speaker 1: kind of this more toxic model to a more mindful model,
16:00
Speaker 1: and what it essentially means is to first know thyself.
16:04
Speaker 1: So ninety percent of who we are is completely subconscious.
16:07
Speaker 1: It is all buried under the surface, And in my opinion,
16:11
Speaker 1: to be a great leader, you have to uncover all
16:15
Speaker 1: that lies underneath, what triggers you, what excites you, who
16:21
Speaker 1: you really are as a leader, who you really are
16:24
Speaker 1: as a person. And I think part of the problem
16:27
Speaker 1: is that so many people are leading others without truly
16:30
Speaker 1: knowing themselves. So starting there, doing the excavation work, bringing
16:35
Speaker 1: it to the surface, and then really owning this is
16:39
Speaker 1: the sort of leader that I am. And I had
16:41
Speaker 1: to radically redefine my company and leadership style because I'd
16:46
Speaker 1: been co opting this style and that to try to
16:49
Speaker 1: make it seem like we were one of those cool
16:53
Speaker 1: girl companies. I was a cool founder. We were going
16:56
Speaker 1: to drink rose and wear wreaths and go on versions
17:00
Speaker 1: once a week that were team wilding and go eat
17:03
Speaker 1: a wellness retreats.
17:05
Speaker 2: Right, it ain't me like that, Ain't me.
17:09
Speaker 1: I'm a nerd okay, first and foremost, I'm not grade
17:14
Speaker 1: at operations. I have a temper at times that I'm
17:18
Speaker 1: working very much to get a handle on. I continue
17:21
Speaker 1: to work through that. And so it meant that I
17:23
Speaker 1: had certain attributes that I wanted my team to have, professionalism, positivity,
17:28
Speaker 1: and performance. I love alliteration, as you can tell. And
17:32
Speaker 1: we were going to move and operate like a woman's
17:35
Speaker 1: sports team, and it was going to be tough, and
17:38
Speaker 1: I was going to coach you and I was going
17:40
Speaker 1: to have high standards. But that's what works for me,
17:44
Speaker 1: for you, it's going to be something completely different because
17:47
Speaker 1: you're bringing so many other beautiful qualities to the table.
17:51
Speaker 2: But I think that's.
17:52
Speaker 1: What it comes down to, and then communicating that to
17:55
Speaker 1: your team in a way that's transparent, where you own
17:58
Speaker 1: it so they know what they're getting. And if you
18:01
Speaker 1: want to be more of an Elon Musk founder, like
18:04
Speaker 1: he's awful in my opinion, but.
18:06
Speaker 2: At least you know what you're getting, you know.
18:08
Speaker 1: So I think that's part of what's problematic in the space,
18:11
Speaker 1: is that people are trying to pretend they have a
18:14
Speaker 1: culture that is not what it is.
18:16
Speaker 3: You bring up Elon Musk. Can you imagine if his
18:19
Speaker 3: name was Elaine Musk? And what sort of reception would
18:24
Speaker 3: the media and the world give to a woman who
18:26
Speaker 3: was leading with that iron fist? And even yourself, you know,
18:30
Speaker 3: not that you had an iron fist, but you were
18:32
Speaker 3: in hearing your leadership style. You're like, I set boundaries.
18:36
Speaker 3: I'm not like doing retreats every day. I play like
18:40
Speaker 3: a soccer team. That admission is not sort of the
18:43
Speaker 3: soft yess that we expect from women. And I was
18:47
Speaker 3: just speaking the other day with a friend, a woman
18:49
Speaker 3: friend who worked in finance in her early career, and
18:52
Speaker 3: she said, in all of my reviews people called me pleasant,
18:58
Speaker 3: and as a result, I got high marks. And they
19:02
Speaker 3: would say things to her like, oh, but you always
19:04
Speaker 3: have a smile on your face and you.
19:07
Speaker 2: Dress so nice.
19:08
Speaker 3: You know these other women, they're so harsh, and I
19:11
Speaker 3: just wonder. I guess the question is, how do you
19:14
Speaker 3: reconcile wanting to have a certain style of leadership as
19:18
Speaker 3: a woman in business that is incongruent with what society
19:22
Speaker 3: expects of you. We don't give women leaders, especially I
19:26
Speaker 3: think of like Sofia Amarusso and others who like the
19:29
Speaker 3: girl Boss era. There's so many women leaders that have
19:32
Speaker 3: been knocked down, have not been given the amount of
19:35
Speaker 3: sort of makeups and makeovers that we give men. I'm
19:38
Speaker 3: speaking generally, but I think we know what I'm talking about, right.
19:41
Speaker 3: We don't give women enough grace and enough opportunities to say, Okay,
19:47
Speaker 3: I messed up. I'm going to try this again. Like
19:49
Speaker 3: you even said, I have a temper, I'm working on it.
19:54
Speaker 3: I think that as a woman leader that's scrutinized more
19:58
Speaker 3: than as a male leader. Do you agree with any
20:01
Speaker 3: of this, and what do you think about it.
20:03
Speaker 2: It's exactly right. The bar is different.
20:07
Speaker 1: It's not fair, it's not right that we're held to
20:11
Speaker 1: a very specific standard. The box is very tight for
20:15
Speaker 1: how we're expected to operate. That said, I think the
20:20
Speaker 1: elixir is very easy because once you stop caring and
20:26
Speaker 1: just own the truth of who and what you are,
20:30
Speaker 1: negative criticism in the media be damned. It's just do
20:36
Speaker 1: you life short, lead the way that you want to lead,
20:40
Speaker 1: Just be honest about it. And I think that is
20:43
Speaker 1: maybe I don't want to generalize, but I think that's
20:46
Speaker 1: maybe where we ran into some issues where a lot
20:50
Speaker 1: of us, for a period of time, we're starting our
20:52
Speaker 1: own businesses and then trying to operate them as if
20:58
Speaker 1: we really weren't. People were like cyborg robots who were
21:03
Speaker 1: just so perfect and smiley, happy, and it was going
21:06
Speaker 1: to be this great kumbaya circle. And it's not realistic
21:10
Speaker 1: for how you need to operate a business. And so
21:13
Speaker 1: maybe that disingenuousness, that lack of honesty about what it
21:19
Speaker 1: really takes and how you need to lead, is what
21:24
Speaker 1: got some of us into a little bit of trouble.
21:27
Speaker 1: And I feel for those who were on the headlines
21:31
Speaker 1: because there were so many more of us who were
21:33
Speaker 1: operating that way too. They just got it because they
21:37
Speaker 1: were more known at the time.
21:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's sort of the double edge, right where the
21:42
Speaker 3: sort of like you put yourself out there and while
21:45
Speaker 3: that's great, then you're also putting yourself out there and
21:48
Speaker 3: so now, yeah, we're open to the wounds.
21:51
Speaker 1: But this is something I hear all the time and
21:53
Speaker 1: the women entrepreneurs I talk to is that double standard
21:56
Speaker 1: makes them so stressed out. They're giving criticism to an
21:59
Speaker 1: employloyee and the employees saying, well, I don't like your
22:03
Speaker 1: tone and your mean to me, and then they're in
22:06
Speaker 1: group chats sharing that the founder is verbally abusive for
22:10
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and it's terrifying too. So it puts
22:14
Speaker 1: this additional layer of stress on your management.
22:20
Speaker 3: When we come back, Kathleen Griffith and I talk about
22:23
Speaker 3: the mindset shift that helped her grow her business, how
22:25
Speaker 3: she moved past imposter syndrome, and the game changing power
22:29
Speaker 3: of asking for what you want.
22:31
Speaker 1: My first outrageous ask was to Jessica Alba and her
22:34
Speaker 1: team said yes, one yes can change your life.
22:41
Speaker 3: We'll be right back. So in your book, Build Like
22:53
Speaker 3: a Woman, Why did you want to take it from
22:56
Speaker 3: that lens? Like, what is it about building like a
22:59
Speaker 3: woman that is so unique?
23:01
Speaker 1: I really didn't want women to even be a part
23:04
Speaker 1: of it initially, and I hope that the womanness of
23:07
Speaker 1: it falls away. That's my dream, and I've shifted everything
23:11
Speaker 1: to now it just being built. But it feels important
23:16
Speaker 1: as a starting point to acknowledge our gender because all
23:20
Speaker 1: the business books I was reading were predominantly authored by men,
23:25
Speaker 1: you know, and then there are some great ones from you,
23:27
Speaker 1: et cetera, But for the most part men, and I
23:31
Speaker 1: just felt like I was having all these really weird
23:33
Speaker 1: experiences building the company that I spoke to more and
23:38
Speaker 1: more other successful founders about and they it had similar
23:41
Speaker 1: experiences around the emotional upheaval of your crying on your
23:47
Speaker 1: bathroom floor once a week, because we're emotional by nature,
23:51
Speaker 1: which is what makes us great too. Write to having
23:56
Speaker 1: all these strange encounters with men where sometimes there were
24:00
Speaker 1: just strange dynamics around power, and the more powerful you
24:03
Speaker 1: were becoming, the more there seemed to be this blowback.
24:07
Speaker 1: So I really don't want to live in a world
24:09
Speaker 1: where things are gendered. It isn't where I truly want
24:12
Speaker 1: to be, but it felt important because one, we have
24:17
Speaker 1: these experiences that are different, and two I only really
24:22
Speaker 1: wanted to hear other amazing women who I have featured
24:25
Speaker 1: in the book, you know, everyone from Jessica Alba to
24:28
Speaker 1: Eva Longoria to neuroscientists like doctor Amishi Jahd Martha Beck,
24:33
Speaker 1: who's one of my great life teachers who I mentioned earlier,
24:36
Speaker 1: Sarah Blakely for sales.
24:38
Speaker 2: I wanted to.
24:39
Speaker 1: Do that because there's this wealth of knowledge and insight
24:45
Speaker 1: from women, the unvarnished truth that lives below the surface
24:50
Speaker 1: that I have found so deeply inspiring that because I
24:53
Speaker 1: had close proximity to these women, I wanted to bring
24:56
Speaker 1: that insight to more women as well.
24:58
Speaker 2: I love that, and it worked. It worked, you know.
25:01
Speaker 3: To bring these voices to the forefront intentionally is not
25:04
Speaker 3: something we do enough of. I mean, I think about
25:07
Speaker 3: Julia Louis Dreyfus's podcast Wiser than Me. It's all about
25:10
Speaker 3: listening to women that are older than her, because she says,
25:13
Speaker 3: quite frankly, we don't ask them for their advice, and
25:16
Speaker 3: by golly, they have things to say. They have so
25:19
Speaker 3: much to say life and have learned some things, and
25:23
Speaker 3: we all want to get the advice from like the
25:25
Speaker 3: wise old man, what about the wise old woman? Right,
25:28
Speaker 3: it seems like so silly that we don't do that enough,
25:31
Speaker 3: and so I really appreciate that perspective of yours.
25:34
Speaker 1: I love that you referenced her by the way, I
25:36
Speaker 1: had her best friend last night.
25:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, her best best friend from college.
25:40
Speaker 1: They go way back, and it's so important to have
25:45
Speaker 1: these voices at the table who have so much institutional knowledge.
25:50
Speaker 3: So yeah, shout out to JLD. We love you, Yeah, Kathleen.
25:56
Speaker 3: A lot of people aspire to be authors. We have
25:59
Speaker 3: a lot of idea and even if we're working in
26:02
Speaker 3: a nine to five, a book can be a game
26:04
Speaker 3: changer for your career, right. It's a way to have
26:08
Speaker 3: ownership over a collection of ideas that you want to
26:11
Speaker 3: put out in the world. For me, my first book
26:14
Speaker 3: was my Parachute. When I got laid off, I had
26:17
Speaker 3: a book, so it allowed me to have a platform.
26:20
Speaker 3: And I think I've built literally everything that I have
26:24
Speaker 3: because of that decision in my twenties to author a
26:28
Speaker 3: book and never have to go back to, you know,
26:30
Speaker 3: working full time somewhere. So, as you wrote build like
26:34
Speaker 3: a woman, I want to know how did the book
26:36
Speaker 3: change your life in some ways? And any advice for
26:40
Speaker 3: somebody who wants to become an author. You know, your
26:43
Speaker 3: biggest tip.
26:45
Speaker 1: I really believe all of us have something to say.
26:49
Speaker 1: Everyone is sitting on something that is unique and true
26:52
Speaker 1: to them, and so if that is on your heart,
26:55
Speaker 1: just go do the darn thing. You can figure it
26:57
Speaker 1: out as you go. You can figure out how to
27:00
Speaker 1: get an agent, and how to sell to a publisher
27:02
Speaker 1: or self publish, how to then market it and do
27:06
Speaker 1: pr It's all figure outable. So it just requires that
27:10
Speaker 1: you take a little bite each day. It's a very
27:14
Speaker 1: it's a marathon. No better than anyone else. It's a marathon,
27:17
Speaker 1: and you need to be really disciplined. There's this great book,
27:21
Speaker 1: The War of Art, which.
27:23
Speaker 2: Is all about that. I get for anyone who wants
27:26
Speaker 2: to write a book, because you really need to be
27:29
Speaker 2: able to sit.
27:29
Speaker 1: Down in the chair every single day if you're going
27:32
Speaker 1: to write it yourself.
27:33
Speaker 3: It's a battlefield.
27:34
Speaker 1: Get greater around that, right, and even folding the laundry
27:37
Speaker 1: feels very attractive at the time on any distraction, right.
27:42
Speaker 2: But it has brought for me personally you'd asked about that.
27:45
Speaker 1: It has been one of the great joy points of
27:47
Speaker 1: my life because now I'm able to actually face to
27:52
Speaker 1: face meet these women, these perfect strangers.
27:54
Speaker 2: I get notes from them every single morning.
27:57
Speaker 1: I can now meet them at live events, and we
28:00
Speaker 1: have this shared vernacular, we have this common experience that
28:05
Speaker 1: we can kind of short circuit with each other. So
28:08
Speaker 1: I can't get over that I show up places and
28:12
Speaker 1: I hear more than anything else, I felt seen. You
28:16
Speaker 1: made me feel seen, and as someone who felt so
28:20
Speaker 1: unseen for so long, that is the highest compliment you
28:24
Speaker 1: could ever get.
28:26
Speaker 3: Let's talk about this outrageous ask. I'm going through the
28:30
Speaker 3: archives here, so you have a practice. You call it
28:33
Speaker 3: the outrageous ask. It's essentially part of being bold in
28:37
Speaker 3: the workplace, and I want you to bring that to
28:39
Speaker 3: life for us. And maybe what is an outrageous ask
28:43
Speaker 3: that you've recently requested that is worth noting?
28:47
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is fun.
28:48
Speaker 1: So for anyone listening, you're going to want to activate
28:51
Speaker 1: this this week. It is so powerful it can honestly
28:55
Speaker 1: change your life. So this came from the desire to
29:01
Speaker 1: have bigger things happen in my business, but it applies
29:04
Speaker 1: to anyone who has their own business or who was
29:07
Speaker 1: in a corporation. The idea is that you make an ask,
29:10
Speaker 1: so you think about something that you want that could
29:13
Speaker 1: be game changing for you. Person you want to meet,
29:15
Speaker 1: a partnership, you want to do, project, you want to
29:18
Speaker 1: work on, game changer, something that makes you terrified when
29:23
Speaker 1: you think about it.
29:23
Speaker 2: It's that big.
29:25
Speaker 1: It's a basic ask to the tenth exponent. It's something
29:29
Speaker 1: that ninety nine point nine percent of people would say
29:31
Speaker 1: no to if they got it right, and they're gonna think.
29:35
Speaker 2: One of two things, Who does she think she is?
29:37
Speaker 2: And is she crazy?
29:38
Speaker 1: Like that's what they should be thinking when they open
29:40
Speaker 1: up this email from you or get this call from you.
29:43
Speaker 1: And it's amazing because one yes to an outrageous ask
29:48
Speaker 1: can change your life. Like when I was starting this
29:52
Speaker 1: interview series for Build, I didn't know who was gonna
29:55
Speaker 1: do it.
29:56
Speaker 2: No one knew who I was.
29:57
Speaker 1: And my first outrageous ask was to Esca Alba and
30:01
Speaker 1: her team said yes, and then that paved the way
30:03
Speaker 1: for all because she was this anchor person who'd come
30:07
Speaker 1: on yeah, and then all these other women ended up
30:10
Speaker 1: saying yes on the back of that.
30:12
Speaker 2: So it's that sort of thing.
30:14
Speaker 1: And I've had this happen so many times in my
30:17
Speaker 1: own life. If you make one a week, it's fifty
30:21
Speaker 1: two ass a year that are just hanging out there
30:24
Speaker 1: in the ether. And even if someone says yes to one,
30:27
Speaker 1: it's life changing. But please don't everyone email me, because
30:30
Speaker 1: this is what tends to happen. I end up with
30:33
Speaker 1: a thousand outrageous asks. Don't give one to farnoushe or
30:38
Speaker 1: to me, but send them out into the world. No,
30:42
Speaker 1: unless we can uniquely help you, then that's a different story.
30:45
Speaker 3: What's the most outrageous ask you've gotten?
30:47
Speaker 1: One that was really fun was I went to UNC
30:50
Speaker 1: Chapel Hill and this girl was graduating and she really
30:54
Speaker 1: wanted to intern for me, and so she had everyone
30:57
Speaker 1: in her marketing class. It was one hundred women or
31:01
Speaker 1: something send me messages across every single social media platform
31:05
Speaker 1: on why she would be an amazing intern who should
31:10
Speaker 1: be given the opportunity. The outrageousness of that was she
31:13
Speaker 1: had enrolled all of these people and then they're posting
31:17
Speaker 1: on my LinkedIn publicly, they're sending me dms. I mean,
31:19
Speaker 1: these women came for me, and I gave her paid
31:23
Speaker 1: work and she actually helped you some other research for
31:26
Speaker 1: the book.
31:26
Speaker 2: So it works. Wow, it works.
31:28
Speaker 3: That's a great, great story. Someone listening is going to
31:33
Speaker 3: do that for their north star. I love that. Something
31:37
Speaker 3: we really like to ask all of our guests, Kathleen,
31:39
Speaker 3: is what leading by example means to them. So I'd
31:43
Speaker 3: give you the floor to tell us, what does leading
31:45
Speaker 3: by example mean to you?
31:47
Speaker 1: Leading by example means you live your life with total alignment.
31:53
Speaker 1: You live in a way that is maybe unconventional, unique,
31:59
Speaker 1: but it is true to you because that is what
32:02
Speaker 1: the world needs now more than ever. It needs more
32:05
Speaker 1: people who lead in their own unique ways.
32:11
Speaker 3: I love that. Thank you so much, Kathleen Griffith. We
32:15
Speaker 3: loved having you on. I loved reconnecting with you. I
32:19
Speaker 3: took many notes.
32:20
Speaker 2: Oh I love being here with you.
32:22
Speaker 3: I think you inspired a few people too.
32:24
Speaker 2: Thank you.
32:24
Speaker 3: We are very appreciative. Thank you.
32:29
Speaker 2: All right.
32:29
Speaker 3: That's Kathleen Griffith. What a leader, Kia. I just I
32:32
Speaker 3: really appreciated how disciplined she is in sort of the
32:39
Speaker 3: learning how to lead. She recognizes that it's a work
32:43
Speaker 3: in progress. She's done a lot of self work, and
32:46
Speaker 3: I like that she admits when she's wrong or has
32:49
Speaker 3: a weakness, which can be really scary to do when
32:52
Speaker 3: you're in a position of power to say you know
32:54
Speaker 3: what I was wrong or I don't know enough and
32:57
Speaker 3: I'm going to go back and learn. What was your
32:59
Speaker 3: favorite part of the interview?
33:01
Speaker 4: Ah? Yeah, this was such a great interview. I was
33:03
Speaker 4: just like so engaged and so excited to hear everything
33:05
Speaker 4: she said. I think being intuitive with yourself is so important.
33:09
Speaker 4: It's something that I feel like a lot of people
33:11
Speaker 4: lack in general, beyond business, but like in their everyday lives.
33:15
Speaker 4: It's so important to just check in and look inward.
33:18
Speaker 4: And I feel like that's not something we see a
33:21
Speaker 4: lot of people doing, and I really feel like it's
33:23
Speaker 4: a disservice to like yourself. But also like society, we
33:26
Speaker 4: have to coexist in this world, and it's almost in
33:29
Speaker 4: a way selfish to not look inWORD because the people
33:32
Speaker 4: around you have to deal with that. So I really
33:35
Speaker 4: love that she said she takes a moment every morning
33:38
Speaker 4: to do that. And another thing that she said which
33:41
Speaker 4: I thought was great, You guys talked about if Elon
33:44
Speaker 4: Musk was Elaine and Musk, and I'm also not a
33:47
Speaker 4: fan of.
33:47
Speaker 2: Him for other reasons.
33:49
Speaker 4: We don't have to go into it, but I do
33:51
Speaker 4: think there's a thing where it's like a woman makes
33:53
Speaker 4: an ounce of a mistake and.
33:55
Speaker 3: She's like admonished. Yeah, the sman of so tired, young
34:02
Speaker 3: Farnoushe felt so validated when she said asking questions is
34:06
Speaker 3: a sign of intelligence and curiosity, because I remember being
34:11
Speaker 3: terrified in my junior writer role at a magazine in
34:16
Speaker 3: New York. I was so I guess, just intimidated by
34:20
Speaker 3: all these like very successful writers and editors around me.
34:23
Speaker 3: And I remember we would go into the morning pitch
34:25
Speaker 3: meetings and one month we were going to talk about
34:29
Speaker 3: real estate, and the whole issue was going to be
34:31
Speaker 3: about the housing market and why it's a great time
34:34
Speaker 3: to buy a house. This was many years ago. And
34:36
Speaker 3: I raised my hand because again I'm here to learn
34:40
Speaker 3: mostly right, I'm new on the job. And I said,
34:42
Speaker 3: can you tell me a little bit about like why
34:44
Speaker 3: we're talking about real estate is the most important thing
34:48
Speaker 3: for the month of August and the issue doesn't come
34:51
Speaker 3: out for another four months, so how can we be
34:53
Speaker 3: sure that in four months it's still going to be relevant?
34:56
Speaker 3: And I tell you the looks I got, like how
34:58
Speaker 3: dare you ask this question?
35:00
Speaker 2: What do you mean?
35:01
Speaker 3: And their answer. We just know, like it's all we
35:04
Speaker 3: talk about with our friends. So it was like, well,
35:06
Speaker 3: that wasn't very scientific.
35:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the ego.
35:09
Speaker 4: It's ego.
35:10
Speaker 3: Talk like ego, and you know it's so easy when
35:13
Speaker 3: you get a reaction like that that you just quiet yourself.
35:16
Speaker 3: I thought that was such important advice. I can't say
35:19
Speaker 3: I practiced it back then. You know, maybe I did
35:22
Speaker 3: quiet myself a little bit. But for others who are
35:25
Speaker 3: new to the workplace or even not, you know, I
35:28
Speaker 3: think there's always that intimidation factor and to be the
35:32
Speaker 3: curious one is a sign of intelligence, and it's a
35:35
Speaker 3: sign of commitment, right, Like I want to learn so
35:39
Speaker 3: I can grow, so that hopefully I can be an
35:41
Speaker 3: asset to this team. It's not appreciated enough.
35:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, it's poor leadership on their behalf. And I
35:49
Speaker 4: also think people just want to convince you that their
35:52
Speaker 4: way is the only way. And another thing that she
35:56
Speaker 4: mentioned was like stop caring about other people responses, and
36:02
Speaker 4: that's like the criticism of women and we don't give
36:05
Speaker 4: them enough space. But just her vice of like stop caring,
36:09
Speaker 4: I feel like I've practiced that so much and maybe
36:12
Speaker 4: too like far off, but I'm also like, I look
36:15
Speaker 4: at people and I'm like, you were trying so hard
36:17
Speaker 4: to convince me of your point, of your way of lifestyle,
36:20
Speaker 4: of your values. That's simply not aligning with me. And
36:24
Speaker 4: I'm not going to change myself to make sense to you.
36:28
Speaker 4: And I'm just simply not going to do it. I
36:30
Speaker 4: just once I started implementing that, I just became happier.
36:33
Speaker 4: And I'm like, we can all say that our way
36:35
Speaker 4: is the right way, X, Y, and Z, but why
36:37
Speaker 4: should I have to just think this is the only way.
36:41
Speaker 3: We're often playing the defense when we're trying to move
36:44
Speaker 3: an agenda, and anyone sort of questions it, we see
36:48
Speaker 3: it as an offense. I think when Kathleen talked about
36:52
Speaker 3: navigating the workplace as a woman and standing in your
36:56
Speaker 3: truth and doing things your own way, I think that
36:58
Speaker 3: takes a lot of courage. I think until all women
37:01
Speaker 3: can get on board with that, when we can normalize that,
37:05
Speaker 3: that's when we can stop talking about it. You know,
37:07
Speaker 3: the issue is that if you're the one woman in
37:10
Speaker 3: the office who's taking a stand, who's the one woman
37:13
Speaker 3: in the office asking for the promotion or saying, hey,
37:17
Speaker 3: I have a different idea Yeah, everyone's going to look
37:19
Speaker 3: at you like you have four heads. But when everyone
37:23
Speaker 3: who identifies as a woman, who identifies even on just
37:26
Speaker 3: as an other, starts to speak up more, then that
37:30
Speaker 3: gets normalized and then we stop seeing a lot of
37:33
Speaker 3: what is still unfortunately a backlash to that. And it's
37:37
Speaker 3: going to take some brave women like Kathleen to pave
37:41
Speaker 3: the way. But I'm so glad she has a book,
37:43
Speaker 3: Build Like a Woman, to democratize this, to teach others
37:47
Speaker 3: how to do this, because a rising tide does lift
37:50
Speaker 3: all boats. Yeah, I'm very excited to read her book.
37:53
Speaker 3: So thanks Kathleen, and that's our show. I hope you
37:57
Speaker 3: enjoyed our conversation with Kathleen. If you like what you're hearing,
38:01
Speaker 3: please follow in subscribes you don't miss out on any
38:03
Speaker 3: new episodes, and as always, we want to hear your
38:05
Speaker 3: thoughts to make this the best show possible, so please
38:08
Speaker 3: leave us a review. In the meantime, you can find
38:10
Speaker 3: me at Farnoosh Charabi on Instagram and I'm always on
38:14
Speaker 3: the So Money podcast. I'll see you next time. This
38:17
Speaker 3: podcast is a production of iHeartRadio's Ruby Studio. Our executive
38:21
Speaker 3: producer is Matt Stillo, and our supervising producer is Nikiah Swinton.
38:26
Speaker 3: This podcast was edited by Sierra Spreen.