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Not Everything Deserves Your Attention · Kind of a Big Deal

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, welcome to Kind of a Big Deal.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Kristen Belden.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been enjoying the show, please hit that follow button and consider writing a review.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Helps more awesome folks like you find us and of course mean the world to me.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Today I sit down with Tuesday, a marketing strategist and trend tracker who spent 13 years at Nielsen studying consumer behavior before recently launching her own practice.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: She went to school for broadcast journalism, spent over a decade on the consumer trends and market research side of things, and has spent her career doing one thing really well: connecting dots that other people haven't quite connected yet.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: She also recently wrote an article that caused a genuine stir on LinkedIn about a generation of women who have stopped asking for permission and started living as though the old rules simply don't apply to them anymore.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of thing you read and immediately send to everyone you know.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about what she's seeing in women right now, why your unique point of view is the one thing AI genuinely cannot replicate, and why she thinks everyone should write a personal mission statement.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait for you to meet her.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here's Tuesday.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Tuesday.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So good to see you.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Me.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot wait to chat.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have a feeling we're gonna get into all kinds of fun things.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Tuesday is a marketing strategist and storyteller, which is on the surface level, sounds like one thing, but when I actually started to chat with her and understand the way she thinks about her work, it is so compelling, so I can't wait for her to tell us more.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I reached out to her after I saw an article that she posted on LinkedIn that caused a real stir in a good way.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like it really resonated with people.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as I tell you the title of the article, I'm sure you'll be nodding your head vigorously.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: The title was The Most Powerful Generation of Women Just Stopped Caring What You Think.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if that wasn't compelling enough, getting into the meat of the article, it was just so well written and so well thought out.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And from my perspective, you know, her thesis was that brands really need to evolve to meet the moment.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: But there were so many gems throughout her story that apply really to way more than just branding and marketing.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll share a few of my favorite quotes from the article, and then we can get into kind of like what the background was and what compelled you to write it.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: But one was millennial and gen X women are not having a phase.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: They are arriving.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: They are not asking for permission to redefine what it means to be a woman in midlife.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: They are telling you.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And funnily enough, as I'm reading this, I'm realizing I'm legitimately writing an from my newsletter about permission this Saturday.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, because it is such a word right now.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then the second piece that really stood out to me was women are not fighting the system.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: They are simply living as though it doesn't apply to them anymore.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: The power of it is in the indifference.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can't negotiate with someone who has stopped showing up to the negotiation.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ugh, like that's so good and so powerful.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think, yeah, let's start with, you know, given your background and the work you do, part of your unique skill set is in trend spotting and thinking about what that means in this like cultural moment.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So what compelled you to write this piece specifically?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it really was exactly how I told it is I saw this reel about this divorce energy, which is not not a marital status, but rather just this vibe that you know you can just do what you want.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: You could wear the big hat, you could be over the top.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started to see all these other, all these other reels that that have the same kind of message.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I just saw one the other day, and it was like, you know, don't it was about you know dressing not to make a 20-year-old jealous, but to to show them like that you you don't pass away when you turn 40.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like you just you grow up and you you you don't think that these things are embedded in your mind, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh my god, like this is gonna be, I'm gonna turn 40, and then I'm going to be like decrepit, and you know, I only have like 15 years in my career left, and there's all this, all these things that you absorb, but the mentality on social is no.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like who said who said, and you know, I think that there's this, you know, there are all these quote unquote rules, and rules are great, and and they're but I think that they're limiting in a way, and you see a lot of people in politics and other spaces, and they're not complying with what were the traditional rules, and that's you know, taking us down sometimes like an a less great path because you know, there's a social standard for how to act in public.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I think for women specifically, this is about breaking a barrier that's more about you know keeping us in line.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so now it's like, oh well, you said that we can't we can't be too much, or we can't, you know, we have to smile, you have to look young all the time.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, oh wait, who said?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's so real because the part about not showing up to the negotiation, because I think the who said was society a lot of times, right?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's if you aren't behaving or acting or showing up in a certain way, you aren't complying with the system that you're a part of.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, therefore you're either, you know, you're not gonna get ahead or you're not gonna get the things you want.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's that collective power that's happening now where women are saying no thank you.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right, but it won't change without everybody, I think, coming together in that way.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see it happening and feel it happening, even in the way, from my perspective, anyways, even in the way women are connecting now.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I can just feel and see in these conversations that I've been having, like, people are so genuinely excited to say, Hey, do you know so-and-so?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: or let me connect you to so-and-so, and making sure that we all have this kind of like webbing that's kind of percolating under the surface, it's really fascinating to me and exciting.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious for you, you know, about the permission piece.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a word that comes up so much in the work that I do with women, in the conversations I have with women around this idea of I'm finally giving my permission to do X, Y, or Z, whether that's dream a little bigger or ask myself the harder questions, or slow down if that's actually what I need in this season of my life.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Have you is there anything in this kind of more in recent season in your career that you've had to give your permission to allow yourself to do?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a good question because I think it's basically it's like you're reading like my therapy logs.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, I think I I am good at solving problems, and I have a lot of, you know, if I see a problem, there's not this hesitancy between, you know, should I solve it or not?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, I see the problem and I act.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's no space in between.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And in the workplace, it it has its pros and cons, right?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: In the workplace, it's it's gotten me quite far, and I've I've had a lot of different learning experiences because of it, but it also leads to burnout because people are like, oh, you can do more, so you can take more.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not something that I just do at work, it's something that I do like across my whole life.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that what I've really learned in the past year and a half is that not everything just deserves my attention.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need to fix everything.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's really about the power that I have lies within really defining what my role is and how can I best use my time and my resources.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's something that a lot of women are talking about right now, and a lot of us are discovering because you I mean, you just think about the labor that uh women do from a household perspective.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And there's been tons of studies about this, how women tend to just absorb more of the not just the household labor, but the the literal list that mental load, the ticker tape, the never-ending ticker tape.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like did we do dishes?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: When the is the drop-off, are we low on peanut butter?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like all of those things live within the system that is the the the woman of the the household.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is it's that is a question where you know, I think we're all a lot of us are are carrying that load, and then you layer on top of all these other things.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And when women are like, I'm tired, it's like yeah, that's yes, no shit.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and then parameters on top of it, and you're like, wow, what is even happening?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can't like again the level of fatigue is real.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Has there been would you be willing to share some of the response that you got from that article and kind of what were there any interesting themes that you heard come up in the responses from women?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I was just surprised by how emotional people were about it.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: There were essentially like two buckets of responses.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: One were women who felt like, oh, this is exactly what I've been doing, and I haven't named it and I feel seen.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so that is as somebody who writes, like to I I say this a lot when I do storytelling courses or or just talk about like how to write compelling things, is ultimately you want the reader to feel seen because that's what we all want.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: We all want to know that somebody else recognizes who we are, and so I I say that, but you know, when I when I wrote this piece, I was just writing about an experience and and what I saw.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so to hear that, you know, people saw themselves in this story was so cool.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that was I think that was very emotional for me.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I and then I think there was like this other group where people really felt like, oh, I'm on the the precipice of this.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't yeah, given myself permission.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that was also very cool to hear people say, like, oh, this is like what I'm working on, or I'm trying to take up more space.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I I love that as well because sometimes, you know, we can't see what we could be until like it's it, you know, it's right in front of us.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I totally agree.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's such an interesting thing if you've started that evolution to remind yourself at times.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, I was not in this headspace or mindset three years ago.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so it can feel like a really quick like I'm like, oh, I've always felt like this, or I've always thought, no, you know, definitely not.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like part of the permission piece was one of the women I interviewed talked about the three P's that tend to dominate the first half of your life are productivity, performance, and oh my gosh.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, proving.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And how that's completely natural, right?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're born into a system where you have to kind of prove that you can make it.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And how as you then shift into the next stage of your life and the next next season, you know, kind of midlife, so to speak, all of a sudden you're looking at things a little differently and going, wait a second, is this really what I meant to do, or is this really the way I want to keep going?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not to say I think sometimes there can be this misconception that then it's like, screw it, like I'm, you know, getting divorced and running to Bali.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's also 100% fine.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm here for that if that's what your calling is, but it can be such a subtle shift.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: It can just be in the way you look at your own work or the work you want to be doing or involving more creativity in your weekday, right?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like it can be these small, small things that can really feel seismic if you haven't given yourself that permission up until now.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's exciting to me to get to witness, you know, women around me going like, oh, like the spark of something that maybe they'd forgotten about or haven't been able to pay much attention to, and what that's doing to kind of ripple out across their community, right?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to sound you know too dramatic about it, but it is true.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think when we are living more aligned and more authentically with who we are, then that really does help shape the folks around us, their experience, anyways, with us and all of that.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: You recently branched out on your own, which is so exciting.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe let's start with why don't you tell us a little bit about what you're building and what you're most excited about?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I believe in this concept called foresight-led marketing because it's how I describe what it is, what my my own approach to marketing.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And what how I would summarize it is in order to understand where the industry is going, whatever that industry is, you need to have a map of how the world is shaping that industry.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so Foresight-led marketing is when a marketing organization really invests in that trend spotting in mega trend research.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then they are able to translate that not in just into their content, but into their product strategy, into their business strategy.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that all informs their persona development, their and then their their sort of storytelling and campaign, their emotional resonance that they build out, as well as how they build out content for the the future of the internet, which is really moving towards a zero-click world.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I'm trying to do is Wait, what does that mean?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: What is zero click?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: That means I go to, you know, Claude or, you know, ChatGPT, and I say, you know, I'm interested in buying XYZ type of product, but I don't want this problem, this problem, this problem.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And what are your, you know, what are your recommendations?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you never actually visit the website.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: You just either, either there's like an agent who buys it for you, or you just like you buy it on whatever separate platform or you go to the store and you and you buy it.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: But you never go to the website, investigate their, you know, their content or anything like that.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And this is particularly interesting if you're in the B2B space, right?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because your whole, your adult, that's all you're doing is building out information about your product.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: But what's happening is it's getting synthesized through uh a third party.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then that summary is what is what people are ingesting.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you still need to create the content.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: But how it's showing up for people is different, and you're not getting the feedback that you might have previously had.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: So some marketers call this like the the dark funnel.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you previously you might have known where your middle of content funnel was hitting and how how resonant it was because people were going to that page, they were spending time on it, and you don't have that information anymore because it's now been synthesized and put in a table of some kind or a rubric that that an AI has spit out.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you're thinking about how do I win in that space where I don't have visibility into what's resonating and what's not resonating, I don't know exactly what my consumer is is asking for.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's when you have to really play into this idea of what makes me unique, because that is what the LLMs then can kind of glom onto.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is what is the differentiator point for this product or service.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because right now, the way that AI works is it is reflecting the consensus of the training data adjusted by whatever the whatever's retrieved just then.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: So essentially, like if I have, if I just started a company, but you've been around for 10 years and our companies are very similar, I can't write the same thing as what you're writing about because all it's saying is that I'm proving your point.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I'm doing is I'm giving you authority in the space, and I'm not necessarily getting much from that.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: So what I need to say is okay, you are the expert in XYZ, but I think this is where this is headed.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm planning for the future, and here's my approach or my differentiator, and now I can build out content that's adjacent to your content, but you haven't created content there yet.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so essentially I'm creating weight in a space, in a white space, and that allows me to gain authority in that space that an LLM can basically correlate more strongly with me.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm contributing to my own authority in this example versus contributing to your authority because we're talking about the same thing.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this is essentially like the interesting thing about this is like this is what SEO was trying to do all along, but it's separated so often from content strategy and this megatrend piece of it.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: So SEO writers are getting briefs that they're supposed to just like write about, but it doesn't have that point of view, it doesn't have you know a framework, an angle of some kind.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, especially as a as somebody who grew up or went to school for journalism, that's what it's all about.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: You have to find your own way in.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is just being reflected at the at the corporate level.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: So this is what I'm really excited about.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm hoping to help people essentially find that, find their niche and help them continue to continue to to really push their industry forward through this foresight-led type approach.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's ultimately where all of this is going to be headed anyway, because the rest of marketing can really be operationalized through agents, through LLMs.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you think about what is the true value add of marketing, it is understanding the market.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is so fascinating.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, there's 25 questions now in my head.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think selfishly right thinking about this from a B2C perspective too, like somebody, service providers, right?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: People that are, you know, providing a service to a particular ideal client profile.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Would you also argue that it's important for folks in that space to be thinking about what I mean?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: We we've all been kind of, I think, bumbling around and talking about what it means to have a point of view and to be putting yourself out there more.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the stats are still quite dismal as it relates to like activity on LinkedIn, even.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Which I am not, I don't have like a, you know, preference for platform, but the fact that only what I think it's like 2% of users are actually actively creating content.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's this like wide open landscape for people to be creating.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that's really important for folks to be thinking about right now?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I see a lot in the news, you know, storytelling is, you know, the the title of storytelling is very popular, and and you know, everybody's hiring a storyteller these days.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think that that's that's right, but I I think what people are missing is, you know, anyone can storytelling is a framework that you can learn and you can tell a good story.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: I could tell a good story about an ice cream that I got yesterday.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's the moth podcast.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's people like they wake up, they tell a story about their life, and they connect it to a revelation that they had, you know, five years ago or something.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like storytelling it can is a is a formula that you can learn.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: What I think is and and therefore it's replicable by by AI.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I think what's interesting is you know, you can't, AI doesn't know what the future is.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't know really the it it can't create net new necessarily.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's our job.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: And from a B2C perspective, you know, I think that that's even more important because you are more face to face with consumers and they're And dealing with things that are more minutely in their day-to-day life versus like just things that they're they might be purchasing from a from a work life or work perspective.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where I think that this emotional resonance piece is really important.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so understanding just the pressure of the environment that we're in and naming that is what creates emotional resonance.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what that is because you wake up every day and you feel it.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you're not even naming it.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: But when you start to look for this is just like a thing that I keep feeling.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like I keep feeling that, you know, there's this interesting dichotomy where we feel further apart, right?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's this, there's this, like, you know, we're more connected than than ever on social, but then we're also further apart.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer to that is exactly what you've been talking about, is is women coming together and supporting each other.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's how women have solved this particular, you know, space or or loneliness that that that exists.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And but but nobody's naming that.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think from a B2C perspective, that's where your human perspective really comes to play.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because you feel it, you live it, and you know, Claude doesn't know that.
• 23:30
  unknown: Yeah.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: It sure can feel like it does, though.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it does.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, sometimes it's very scary.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, you have to remember like people are writing about this experience, and so it's pulling from it knows where it sort of knows where culture is headed because people, because of the content that people are creating, and it is it is consuming that content.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: But you know it from your own angle and from your own like perspective.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that is that is the thing that like you learn in journalism school is you can all get the same exact assignment to cover something, but everybody will tell the story in a slightly different way.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so that is the that is the human perspective that we're that's our responsibility to continue to bring, because we can't just rely on AI to tell that story for us.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think you're touching on something so important, and I'd love for you to maybe like double down a little bit, which is I hear from a lot of women who are a bit apprehensive about starting to get their voice out there, or you know, why would anybody care about my point of view about a thing?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or there's already 75,000 people talking about that topic.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I love that example of in journalism school, right?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like all being assigned the same thing, but everyone's gonna have a bit of a different approach.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what would you say to the person that's like, no, like that topic is already being covered by you know too many people.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: I have I don't have anything to unique to share.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is something that I personally struggle with.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: We all do.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm asking.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's so funny because you go through life and you're like, how remarkable is this life?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like every other life.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like it just it doesn't seem from the inside.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes we discount like the the unique decisions that we might be making.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where having a community is so helpful because other people see you so differently, and sometimes they see you better than you see yourself.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so and you know, I think some of the best advice that that I've that I've heard that I've you know, I'm sure you've heard as well, is you know, when they're teaching you how to advocate for yourself from a workplace standpoint, they're like, okay, imagine that your friend recommending yourself, right?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's so much easier to recommend a friend and what you would say if you were hyping them up.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then when it comes to yourself, you're like, I don't know.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes I respond to emails on time.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, it's like all of a sudden, this like great perspective that you have for this other person, it is hard to get hard to apply to yourself.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do think that having a community and hearing how other people see you can help you understand what your true unique contribution is.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: I also think that this is where an LLM could be very helpful.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are trying to understand what is my unique point of view, how do I solve this problem differently?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes it's not necessarily the output, it's how you get there that's interesting.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when you can start to go, like, if you spend a lot of time in an LLM or if you're like communicating, like, this is how I want to solve the problem, you can ask, like, is this a state like what is different about this work than other traditional work that's out there in the space?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it can start to do that comparison for you.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that sometimes feels like, oh, that's that must be super objective because you know, it's it's looking at other people's talking about this in the marketplace, and it's telling you where you might have a unique voice or unique point of view.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then sometimes it's just in delivery, right?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like you could talk about the same thing, you know.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I think about I think I am a yoga teacher, and it's funny because like a yoga sequence is a is a yoga sequence, and yet people go to specific teachers.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, yes, that's so real.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: So like when someone's shout out to Yogi Bob if he's ever listening.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's my guy.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so you think about that, and it's like somebody else could say that exact sequence.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And somehow you still love the other teacher.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so some of it is just you, the young people, what would they they would call that like your aura or your writ.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: You and so some of it is just it's not necessarily that you're delivering something that's not new.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that like people like you.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that you say it somehow like really resonates with them.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I think that that's it's it's funny because I mean, hopefully a lot of people have gone to yoga class and they, you know, and and they can, you know, they can relate that, you know, they went to one class and then another class.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Any class, right?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that, right?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Any it's anybody therapy, right?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're not gonna go to any therapist, you're gonna choose the one that you actually connect with and feel safe with.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna keep going to a lifting class taught by somebody that makes you feel unsafe, right?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're always gonna have.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love that analogy.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's so good.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think when you were talking about that unique sauce, too.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I always come back to this analogy of like, it's like a chef trying to write a recipe for their favorite dish that they've been making for 20 years.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's almost impossible because they just know it in their body or in their mind.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so, how many tablespoons of salt?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, they don't know.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: They have to like really go and dig deep and figure out what those elements are.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's kind of part of the permission happening right now for women, which is oh no, I can let myself actually pause and go, what does make my work or my point of view unique and actually spend some time with it versus just kind of like glossing over it constantly?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the community piece is huge, like that.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I tell some folks, like, if you're doing kind of an identity audit, ask yourself, you know, how would your best friend describe you?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not even just like an interview perspective, but just you fundamentally, like who you are, what would they say about you, or even ask them.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there are I've been a part of coaching programs where they'll say, go back to your most trusted sources and have them describe how they see your work, or and I mean you have to be careful because you don't want input that's like, you know, gonna stretch you in a way that's not interesting to you.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I think ultimately that community piece and thinking about how we can be seen by others and they can be a mirror for us is so important.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to there's such an interesting through line to me in what you're saying around going to school for journalism and the space that you've landed in today.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, there's years of career in between that led you to this moment.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: But what do you see as some of the kind of like through line in some of your work that has kind of allowed you or or shaped how you think about what trend spotting looks like in your work today?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I spent I think it was 13 years at Nielsen.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: So most of that was on the CPG retail market research side of it.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I spent a few years on the media side as well.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: But both sides are really about dissecting consumer trends.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that has combined with, you know, this storytelling that I've always been in in charge of, I think that that has really given me perspective about how the world works.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we're just seeing it accelerated in such a crazy way now with with AI.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I I see how it's I see how AI is making some things commoditized, right?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And how it's making other things more and more important.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think that, yeah, so my my experience has really my grounding, I would say, my my like career base has really been all around market research, consumer trends, and interpreting those trends in a way that resonates with people.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because what I also find is that people will read and hear about a trend, and then they'll they'll actually like live and experience the impacts, and they'll never connect the dots.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something like it has something to do with like you're you're reading it and you're like, oh, that's cool.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you just like file it away in a different part of your brain, and that is the gift that storytelling gives, which is that it's like, hey, you know that other thing that you're experiencing or seeing?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's because, and so defining that causal relationship and connecting the dots for people is has been a big part of my life, and so I think it's it's always like trying to find that unique angle, that that way to explain it that resonates with people.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's sometimes what you realize is that it's not just one way to explain it, you have to explain it a thousand different ways, and that is that is eventually what will make the the message sink in.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that I think that practice has really informed how I approach everything, and it just it's it's built from there.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: And can you share a bit about so how recently did you decide to build on your own?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, quick pause before we get back into it.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to conversations like this one and something keeps nudging you, like I know I'm at some kind of turning point.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't quite see it clearly yet.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually exactly what I do.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: I work with women leaders who are in the middle of something a career shift, a business that's ready to evolve, a moment where what got you here just isn't cutting it anymore.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes what you need most isn't a whole program or a big engagement.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: You just need a few hours with someone who can help you see what you're too close to see yourself.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's the clarity session.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a focused, one-on-one conversation where we dig into where you are, where you want to go, and what's actually in the way.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: You walk away with real direction, not a list of homework, but genuine clarity on your next move.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: If that sounds like what you need right now, I'd love to talk.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can find all the details at Beldenstrategies.com slash clarity.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, it was just I guess I made the announcement like a month and half ago, like at the end of June.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that was brand new.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is such a fun moment then.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: How is it feeling for you?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And like what has been maybe one of the more surprising things for you as you branch out and get out of the kind of, you know, maybe more traditional W-2 position?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think what I have what I'm focused on right now is building something and figuring out how to how to how to basically apply everything that I've ever learned and and package it into something that's very cohesive.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's just step one.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Where it's like I could have gone out in this world and been like, I'm just like good at marketing.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what I realized is that, oh no, I need to take my own advice and and really figure out how do I tell this story in a cohesive way and package it so that I'm in I'm doing something very directional and I'm I'm helping people.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: If if my end goal is to help people navigate through this time of uncertainty, like how do I, how do I actually execute on that?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's about building out the tools to do that, but not going overboard, which is my hardest part.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: I know, yeah.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think it's like I want to build all the things, you know.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: I have dreams to build, you know, this really cool trend tracking thing, and you know, these these other workflow tools, but also I'm just starting.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I could just, you know, I think it's like there's a I need to make my own product roadmap, and I have to also make sure that I'm iterating on that.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it's okay to launch something not perfect, perfect, which is yeah, I think that's hard to do.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's its own like meditative practice for me.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: 100.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I'm enjoying all of this because I think there's just so much continuity in how I'm explaining my approach, how I'm actually applying my same approach, and and so that's that's the exciting part for me.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes, I love that.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to us about being a yoga teacher.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is exciting and interesting.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know this about you.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: How long have you been doing that?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: I got my certification in 2019, and so yeah, I taught before the pandemic.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: I had this cool outdoor yoga practice with some friends, and we would go to like different breweries and other outdoor spaces and teach yoga, which was a lot of fun.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then 2020 happened, and I did some subbing when I was living in Seattle.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, now I just since I moved to Austin, I haven't been doing much, but I love it as a practice, as just like a life practice.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's it's taught me a lot about some of the things that I mentioned before, which is you know that you can have your own voice, and your job is to just be essentially as clear as possible and to create that space for other people to explore and live practice the way that they need to live it.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: And also, not everybody's gonna love you, and that's okay.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's okay.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you can't be the perfect thing for everybody, which I think is just like an ongoing practice for for a lot of people.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think the other thing that it's really given me is this uh this space to really just let people have their own experience and not necessarily be like, well, this is the way I would do it.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes just have like being a witness to other people's lives is exactly, I mean, in fact, it's it's exactly what you're doing with this podcast.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it gives people such freedom to explore, to make their own mistakes, to to just be themselves without judgment.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so I I think that that's been a big and I think it's made me a better friend.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yes.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I love that.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I think it makes me a better parent, similarly, you know, where it's like there is that I can very much feel when I'm like in my practice versus when I'm like away from my practice.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's very clear.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: My husband will be like, hey, been to yoga lately.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, and you know I haven't.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: I would be curious if you're willing, you know, to think back to like early, you know, baby Tuesday days, like when you think about what you were drawn to as you were growing up and you know, maybe going into high school, like this kind of idea of being interested in patterns and trends and connecting dots, like was that something that you were already being drawn to at a young age, or is this something that kind of evolved a bit later on in your career?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think yes, I was a very curious child and and I did always love telling stories.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: So like one of my hobbies as a as a child was to um to do like a pretend news report for my parents about very important things like you know, the toys are all us burned down and this is a tragedy and then they run.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was a tragedy.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: That would be a tragedy.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was a tragedy, yeah.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think I I wasn't I did do, you know, I like to do plays and things like that.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was never a theater kid, but I liked the I did love to tell stories and I love to write stories.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not sure if I was I guess I did.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: I did we had like this young authors, you know, competition thing.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I would do that a a lot.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think almost it's it's funny.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: I at some point I was like, oh, I don't like writing, it's so much more.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I was like, oh, I don't, I don't want to do that, and now now I do it all the time.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: But it's so but that but that has been a big through line in minus the blip when I was like, no writing.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you gotta take a break from the day.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I I do think that that's been always a big part of my life.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: I thought for the longest time I was gonna be a doctor, and and then I realized that a lot of science is is memorization, and I'm like, oh my skill set is in my skill set is in taking this information and synthesizing it and then like applying it to something else.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and dropping it back off somewhere, not maintaining it.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm gonna tell you what this other person said.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think I realized that in in college, and I I made the switch to journalism and I was broadcast journalism, and I was like, oh my god, this is so much better.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like you don't have to be the expert, you just have to like consult all the experts.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, I think what I liked and I still love is just looking at a problem from every single angle.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because you'll find like, you know, if you if you attack any problem, it has resonance in places that in the natural world, in in in different cultures, in psychology, in anatomy.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like there are just so many, like everything is interconnected, and there are so many elements where the pattern shows up in in different places.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that like I've always just been fascinated by that.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: And also, like when you're in journalism school, you want to have the best angles.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a little bit of a competition to be like to be like, oh, you inter everybody interviewed that psychologist, like I interviewed this other person.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it you know, you wanna part of it is like it's it you you see, I think it teaches you like the value of really different perspectives, and it's so needed in today's world because I think you know, we've so long been like, oh, this expert answers this problem, and we think very linearly, and that's like a I think it's a very Western thing, you know.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: You have like the pro the this this person solves this problem, and then they don't see the other parts of the problem, and they're like, oh yeah, it's the whole like elephant story where everybody's touching a different part of the elephant and they all think it's something else.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I think today, more than ever, you you really need to combine all those.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Expertise and to get a fuller view of the problem that we're trying to solve, it's that systems thinking that I think has become more and more important as our systems get more and more brittle.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: You need to bring in these other experts because it's and we have to work together to solve to solve that.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: Are you reading anything interesting right now?
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's just you are you have your finger on the pulse of so many really interesting spaces.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are there any publications that you find interesting?
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't to put you on the spot.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you if the answer is no, that's totally fine.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel like I want to know, I want to read whatever you're reading.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to like understand.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'd be curious if there's anything, you know, in this kind of calendar year that you've been really either inspired by or have found really compelling.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I feel like I have such strange taste in and I love it.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I know, and that's why I can't wait to hear.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me everything.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: I read this book because I I ended up interviewing the author for for my work at Catalyst, and it's the author's name is Jamae, what's his last name?
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: But he wrote this book called Navigating the Age of Chaos, and it is about this framework that's spelled B-A-N-I.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: He calls it the Bonnie framework, and Jay, Jamai, Jamee Camus.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: And what it stands for is the fact that the world is more brittle than it's ever been before.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's nonlinear, it's incomprehensible, it's this, it's essentially this chaos that we're living in.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's an interesting book because it talks about it talks about like what we're seeing and and feeling from everything from like a climate perspective, a supply chain perspective.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then it he he and there's this other framework that this this is like building off of if you're into that type of thing.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's called the VUCA framework, and that was like volatile.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember the other ones, but it was before the world was VUCA and now it's Bonnie.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's basically like the book.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like before it was, you know, things were volatile, but they were still like comprehensible in some way.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's just like, you know, you I feel like it's like you never know what's gonna happen.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's why these polymarket things are so wild, which is people betting on random things because the world is just so it feels so random sometimes.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: But he and the other author of this framework developed a essentially an approach to how to be how to be resilient in this type of environment so that you're not just feeling hopeless, like, oh wow, like everything's breaking, the world doesn't make any sense.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he talks about the importance of exactly what we just talked about, which is incorporating views from all different places, from being more interconnected, from being more empathetic, to really really understanding that everybody is going through the same thing, that we all have our same baggage.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I think it's it's such a beautiful book, and it's not a long read, but I think it it really helps bring a lot of perspective into what we're seeing in the world today.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also reading this book on Darjeel T.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing, telling me everything.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: I read a lot of books on like specific, I like food and and and and culture and all those things.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to read like specific books.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting because then you can see history through that lens.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so this book is about the history of Darjeeling tea, the English empire, you know, the how the opium wars with China, and then it gets into like modern day of how how that system is essentially collapsing because now there's counterfeit tea, people are leaving to get better jobs in other areas, and so you see through the lens of a single industry how the world is shifting, and I think I like to read books like that because then I'm like, oh, that's what's happening in this other industry, or this is how we're destroying, you know, this community, because we just take, you know, we export all of their gifts, their cultural gifts, and we we're just consuming it rather than actually investing in the people inside of it.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think like that that is a book that I'm enjoying because of that reason.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is fascinating and so not surprising.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like it exactly what you're saying around your ability to connect what might feel like a totally disparate kind of topic or, you know, whatever to the cultural moment that we're all in.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's so cool.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I would consume that book the same way.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love that though.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Back to you, a couple, you know, last questions here.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: One is as you think back to like early career days to today, how has your personal idea of success kind of evolved over the years?
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or has it evolved?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: I should frame it as has it, not how has it, because you know, maybe there's some truth still in how you thought of it in your younger years, but curious if it's evolved for you.
• 49:48
  unknown: Yeah.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: I sometimes think about a comment that a friend of mine made when I was, I don't know, maybe like three, five years into my career.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think she was just surprised.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, Oh, I'm so surprised you got a corporate job.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: And in my mind, I was like, what other kind of job would there be?
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I think about that actually on a on a relatively regular basis.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think like, oh, it's just it's it is interesting because now I am in a way like stepping, stepping out of that.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think my path made sense to me and the fact that I was always very concerned about am I doing this right or the best way?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: What are the best practices for doing X, Y, Z, whether that's you know, as something as simple as like a press release or an article.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think a lot of my early career was just trying to get myself in rooms with people who I thought were doing really excellent work.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: And as much as I can like absorbing that and incorporating that into my my own practice, and I think the the traditional corporate workplace is exactly for that.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's great at that.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I I do think that there's this limitation that I'm sure a lot of women experience, which is that like at some point you you stop being able to really craft a path, like an innovative path for yourself.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been very lucky.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: My whole career has been really me being able to craft my own next role and my own next role.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I just finally was like, oh, what I need to be doing is not actually in a role at a given company.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if I want to be somebody that is guiding an organization forward and really breaking barriers, it's difficult to do that from inside.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so if I want to make that kind of change, then I need to do it from the outside.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's that's like where I've been thinking about like what what does it mean if I'm if I consider myself somebody who's driving change, how how what is the most effective way to do that?
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it in some ways in my mind, like from a you know, when I was in college trying to figure out like, well, what job would I have?
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, you have no idea what all the jobs are, so it's really hard to totally imagine that.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I did I've achieved all those things that I wanted to do, and somehow you're like, well, it's not enough, like I'm not doing enough, or I'm not like making the change that I want to make.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's when you have to think outside of the box, and at least that's that's like been how I've been thinking about my own career.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, you've said so many things in this conversation that I'm like, yeah, yeah.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're putting language to things that I think I've felt or see, and so it's just so interesting to hear your perspective on it through your own lens.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, last question I ask everyone, and it's just around legacy, no big deal.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: Softball.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, but really, I mean, it it kind of started when I first started this series, and I think it's because through all of these conversations, there's a through line of impact, or the way you want to be living your life, or how you want to like leave a mark, and that can take so many different shapes and so many different ways of expressing what that looks like.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so I like to ask everyone, what does building a legacy mean to you?
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um seven, eight years ago.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I was scrolling through LinkedIn profiles and I realized that one of my friends actually wrote his own personal mission for what he wanted to accomplish.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: So just like an organization has a mission, he had one as well.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that that was incredible.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so I crafted one at that time, and I think it's still very true today because what I my goal is I would love to be the person that helps organizations manage through this this really crazy time that we're living in and navigate that change, but do it in a very human-centered, sustainable way.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that that like last part is is really important to me because I think there's a lot of ways to get ahead.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: But as somebody who's really seen the power that a brand can have, it's so important for corporations and organizations in general to set the tone for what it means to support like the the systems and the people that we all live in, because we spend so much time at work.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so if if our workplace is unhealthy, if the way that we're contributing to the you know, the the con the consumer uh products, like that if if that's not done ethically, that is diminishing the people resources that you rely on.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's diminishing our our actual physical resources.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I think like all this is about trying to make companies and brands just better in general, because I think that that's where the power to shape what the world could be, that's where it really lies, is in these organizations that are essentially giving us money so that we can feed ourselves.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and so that that's how I see that's the legacy that I want to leave behind is yes, let's move forward, but let's do it in a way that makes life better for all of us.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's you know, just a small little thing that I hope to do.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so yeah, tiny.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: So tiny, like no big deal.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't, I really should have like picked a lower bar legacy in that.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I but I I like this idea of being somebody to help light the way because I think in so many ways, it's like we're just living in darkness.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, yes.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, there's your t-shirt.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's your that's your bumper sticker quote.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: That was so beautiful.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's so real.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting to hear you say that years ago you were thinking this, and now here we are in this moment where things are speeding up even faster, and how resonant it is that you still feel like it holds truth and how, you know, exciting.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's kind of like what you were saying earlier, Eamon, and some of the books that have been inspiring you, or it can feel a bit scary and a bit tenuous, but what if we get to choose how we enter that moment and try and do our very best to shape things for good?
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever effort we're putting towards that is valuable, you know.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's an incredible way of sharing that mandate.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: And now I think we need to have everybody needs to go write their personal mission statement.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that's such a beautiful exercise to be thinking about.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's so easy for us to be thinking about it from a corporate perspective or what our role is, right?
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: So many of us are tied to the work we do, and that's so important, also, and like how we want to live in our personal lives and how that even influences the work we're doing.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: So now I've got my mandate.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I highly recommend it because I think I think it can apply to anyone.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like your purpose in life can be just being a good neighbor, being a good, you know, wife, you know.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I think it's it's just about understanding what drives you.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then once you write it down, it it then means that everything you do, you can you can battle tactic against that mission.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like uh it's just like a company.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm obsessed.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: All right, everyone out there that's listening, think of this as your as your fun homework, something to be thinking about for yourself.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a gift, I think, to give yourself because in a world that can feel a bit chaotic, to be able to come back to your own center is so important.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for doing this.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: You are so much fun.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is it's been such a pleasure, and it was so nice to meet you, and I'm so glad you reached out.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you're you're not getting rid of me anytime soon.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Tuesday.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: Have a good one.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: All right, bye-bye.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening and spending some of your time with me here.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: I hope our conversation sparked some new ideas for you.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed the episode, please make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're ready for even more tools and stories, head on over to beldenstrategies.com slash newsletter.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: I share fresh insights, stories, and tools for women leaders every week.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep building, keep evolving, and remember that you are kind of a big deal.