Latest / The Bold Lounge / Shelley Zalis: How to Break the Pattern & Change the Narrative

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Shelley Zalis: How to Break the Pattern & Change the Narrative · The Bold Lounge

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Every week we'll hear from someone who has taken the lead or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Whether they faced challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be created.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And today we have Shelley Zales, who is the CEO of the Female Quotient, among many other things that she's done in her life.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: She's also an internationally renowned entrepreneur, speaker, mentor, mother, and a grandmother.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to first just start off with you give just a snippet of who you are and what you're about.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, who I am is, you know, I always say Oscar Wiles says, be yourself, because everyone else has taken.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say I'm an original.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: I am also known as a chief troublemaker.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I break all the rules that make no sense and create new ones.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say I'm a mother first.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: I really define myself as a mom.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a normal mom.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: I am not a typical textbook mom.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: My kids will agree with that.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: A partner with my husband, and I wouldn't say a wife, because I'm not a traditional wife either.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: We share everything.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: We split all responsibilities equally.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm out of town, he takes all my responsibilities.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when he's out of town, I take his.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot tie hockey skates very well.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: My kids' ankles wobble on the ice, but it is the way it is, and he can't cook very well.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we take out quite a lot.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: A grandmother, I have the greatest grandson in the whole wide world.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: I love spending as many moments as I can with him.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I live every day with tremendous enjoyment.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that really comes from my parents to live life with no regrets.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I am a CEO and really do live life with equal parts.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's one of the things that people don't really understand that people think there's such a thing as work-life balance.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I say there's no such thing as balance.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: You have one life with many dimensions, your career, your family, your community, your friends, and the part we never think about is ourselves.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And all of those things matter.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm many things.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: 360 degree of Shelly.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that introduction.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: We always start off with what's your definition of bold?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're thinking of that, you know, what your definition may be, and thinking back, when was that first moment of boldness for you that you experienced?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think the first moment of boldness for me was when I realized I had to follow my heart.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I was in the corporate world, and I think it was when I had my first review.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was an employee in a research company, market research, and I showed up for my first review.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: I must have been 24 years old.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought I was this perfect employee.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I did everything right.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I came in early, I stayed late.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: I walked in like a goody two shoes, thinking I was gonna get a great review and a raise and a promotion.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I sat down and I saw this like 10-page typewritten review, little tiny words.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the first four lines were very nice.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm nice, I'm kind, and I'm a team player.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I had a big smile on my face.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then the rest went downhill.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I spent too much time with clients, I had too many client lunches, I pushed people out of their comfort zone, I said yes to clients.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of shocked, you know, and I remember looking at my boss thinking, what?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: I pushed people out of their comfort zone.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: I said yes to clients, I spent too much time with clients.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, he wanted me to sit at my desk and just be an order taker.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I colored out of the lines.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, that is a good thing.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: How could that be a bad thing?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was supposed to sign on the dotted line that I agreed with everything he said.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was my bold moment of truth where I looked at him and was supposed to agree, but instead, tears came down my eyes.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked at him and I said, You are so incredibly wrong.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a bold move of mine.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: He said to me, and you know, as a result of that, I'm gonna put someone above you.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And he kind of demoted me.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, I don't want to be the person you want me to be.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I do break the rules and I'm not gonna be an order taker, and we should be moving in another direction.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I got demoted and I was okay with that because I wasn't gonna be the person he wanted me to be.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: From that moment on, it was what I call a heartbeat moment.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: I have to follow my heart and be true to who I am.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: I did not want to be the person that sat at the desk answering the phone, doing what he said I wanted to do.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: That was the first bold move I ever made.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: I needed that job.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: I should have listened to him, but at the end of the day, I became the person I am because I did follow my heart.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's really funny because he's a very good friend of mine today.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was interviewed recently and I called him for the interview.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: He's in this six-page spread on me.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Bill, do you ever regret that review of ripping me to shreds?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, No.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Why?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: He said, You wouldn't be where you are today if you actually listened to me.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was so true.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: He said, You would have been an order taker.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: You would never have broken all the rules that you broke.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And, anyways, that was my first bold move.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: In a way, you thank him, right?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for that, not in that moment, I'm sure, because I think we've all been there, and I bet someone even listening today has had a moment like you've had.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you're asking me to be something that I'm not.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're asking me to not be my authentic self.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And what you did in a bold way in a young age is say, I don't agree with you, and I'm not going to sign this.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you're going to, you know, do what you need to do.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you needed the job, you got demoted, but you didn't stay.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's hard for some people, I think, is just in that moment realizing that they are the person in charge of the next step, right?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe if they can't see something in the room, they can still start to make their plan and follow their heart.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes, and I I mentioned this briefly when we started talking, was making that first step and stepping into this unknown and which is part of being bold, is like nothing's guaranteed.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: There isn't a map sometimes.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: After that heartbeat moment that you had as you kind of work through, you know, the next step for you.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: What were the key things that you needed in your strategy backpack, as I call it, as you moved into the next piece of your path?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I always say when you love what you do, it's called passion.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: When you don't, it's called stress.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is so important to find your passion.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I hire for passion, I train for skill.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so many people just are status quo.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: They just do things and they're routinized, but you're never gonna really find what you love then.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it was in that moment for me that I realized so many people just do what they're told or follow this pattern.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: But if you follow a pattern, you're really never gonna find your own rhythm.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you're always just a little soldier marching like this, you're never gonna break away or find your own pattern.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a serial entrepreneur.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I never really realized that.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And had I have always followed what someone told me I was supposed to do, I never would have pioneered online research.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: So if you've ever taken a survey on the internet, I'm the mother of that invention.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I never would have done that if I stayed where everyone always told me that it wasn't the right time to move research from offline to online.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I always had male bosses telling me, you know, what the right time was.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it was that moment of truth for me.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was even the same thing.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone used to stay at work until midnight, but why?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't even have online shopping at the time.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: We had typewriters and we had acetates and overhead projectors.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: This was a long time, I'm 60 years old.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: This was a really long time ago.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what we were doing at our desks, but nobody would leave early.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: One day I like would say, What are we all doing here?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I got up at five o'clock and left.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, everyone started leaving.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't get fired, no one got fired.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: But someone has to break a pattern, right?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Or you always think, oh, you can't leave to take your kid to a soccer game during the day.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because think people would say, Oh, you're gonna get in trouble.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: What handbook says you can't leave to take your kid to a soccer game?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: We just all think you can't leave because whoever's gonna leave is gonna get in trouble.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's no handbook that says that.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like your training too, like as you go through whether it's a job or even college, you know, I I set out to be in healthcare and to lead.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And my original thing I wanted to be was a CEO of a children's hospital.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I wanted to be.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to like stack my skill sets so that I was well-rounded as I went into it.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I did a very good job in my role.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I got to a point where I felt like I wasn't actually finding all the joy that I used to in what I was doing.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew I needed to make a change probably 10 years before I made the change.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then it gets worse and worse and worse as you get through it.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I had to break the pattern.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I love how you talk about that because again, I think that resonates probably with a lot of people who are just following the steps of what they think they have to do or they should do.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then once you break a pattern, people say, Oh, that's interesting.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then once you do it, everyone follows.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: It just takes being the first and one shit the first, then the next goes, and then the next, and then the next, and then it becomes the new norm.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what's really interesting is I remember having this idea to migrate research from offline to online.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I went into my bosses and I said, Oh, let's move research from offline to online.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And my bosses said, but there's no one online yet.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, well, at some point we gotta move people online.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Well, it's not the right time.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so the following week, I'm on a panel with the head of research from Procter and Gamble, and I'm on the dais on the main stage.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm whispering to him, and my bosses, all men, were in the front row of the conference.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm whispering to Larry Mock, this the chief research officer of Procter and Gamble.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I come off the stage and my bosses are like, Oh my God, what did you talk to Larry about?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I just asked him, when is the right time to come and talk to Procter Gamble about moving research from offline to online?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And my bosses said, Well, what did he say?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: What did he say?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Oh, come next week and let's talk about it.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Okay, great.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So my bosses all said, okay, John will go, Paul will go, Ringo will go, and Star will go.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, but what about Shelly?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Well, you know, it's really a boys' club and that's the right group to go.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, if I'm not going to go, I'm going to cancel the meeting and you can all wait for the right time.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was that moment of truth that I realized I want to be the boss.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Why are they always right and I'm not?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when I left my company and I started my own company called OTX, online testing exchange.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I pioneered online research.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't wait for the right time, but I made it the right time.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I am the mother of online research.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was bold, I was brave, I was bodacious, I had the courage.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or in Jewish, we say the chutzpah, I had no clue if I was going to win, if I was gonna lose.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: I made all the mistakes along the way.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I always say you need to be the first, the second, and the third because the first is the innovator and you usually lose because you make all the mistakes, you have no idea what you're doing, there is no ecosystem, there is no one online, you have to create the whole system.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's no textbook.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: The second is the copycat.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: They copy everything you do, but they don't know what's under the hood.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: The third is the sweeper.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: They ride in on the little white horse and they win the game.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so I always said to myself, there is no one that's gonna beat me at my game.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I won and I built it.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: That is what it takes.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: It takes believing in yourself because nobody else believed in me.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: No one thought I was right, everyone told me it wasn't the right time, but I didn't have a choice.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had to go because there was no way that Paul, Ringo, and Starr were to go to that meeting.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I was gonna take that meeting and I was gonna own it no matter whether I was gonna win or I was gonna lose.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was my idea, and it was time for me to own it, take credit for it, right or wrong.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that was my moment.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's another big bold moment, right?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think people will ask a question well, were you confident when you made that change?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Did you feel scared?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you used a word in their courage, bravery, boldness, like they all don't mean you're not afraid every now and then.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to describe to people.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've done this, but probably on a smaller scale than you, but it's free.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: When you make this change that you hadn't planned, that has no guarantee, that you feel like you're making a difference and changing and helping people's lives, it's a whole different ballgame.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean you're not stressed on certain days or things aren't happening or it things become misaligned.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I also agree there is no balance, it's just about you know being in alignment with yourself and what you're doing and what you love to do.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's the one misnomer I hear from people is like, well, I just don't know if it's the right time.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I don't know.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, insert the blank.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: There was no rhyme or reason.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I had three little babies, my husband was starting a practice, we had no money, I had nothing telling me to do this.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: There was no rationale other than a heartbeat moment and following my heart.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: My head would have said, What the hell?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: You're leaving a job, you needed the money.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: My heart said, You must do it.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I don't, someone else would beat me to it.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: The crazy part is I was the first in the world.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Had I waited, I would have been the last.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: There was no justification.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I followed my heart.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thank God I did.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a long journey and it was hard.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a culture where we think like what's supposed to happen within a month or two months or three months.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think obviously there's a sense of urgency, but you have to stay at it.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you you talk about crit with grace and being able to be out there and be doing the things that you need to do, having the conversations, you know, being in maybe early on in spaces, it sounds like where maybe you weren't even welcomed or folks who didn't think you deserved to or should be in the room as a woman or woman in tech.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, those are also moments I think we need to understand that you're going to have to break the pattern, going back to what you said before, to be able to do some of the things that you want to do and that you're meant to do.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think the only thing that's holding some people back is actually themselves from what their future could be.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, that's what's going to stop me.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and it's funny because in in market research, there was one giant that was the exclusive research company in the movie business.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, his name was Joe Farrell, and he his company was NRG.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: He was the exclusive research company in the entertainment business.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: No one could break him.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: I came in with online research and I found a way to get into the business.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was awesome.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and there was nobody that could get in because he had true exclusivity clauses in all of his contracts.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And because I found this clause where it said exclusivity with mall testing, and I was online research.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how we found the clause to break, you know, the exclusivity pattern.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I also would send data with homemade chocolate chip cookies on the top of the packages and just it was fun.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: We found a way of making it fun and exciting, and we knew how to excite and delight people, and it was just such a fun way of getting into the entertainment business.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's always a way of you know, grace with grit, you know, bringing that feminine touch in.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I used my femininity of the grace part.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I always say it was that empathy, you know, I did not hide it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: I brought this beauty to the table, not the sexy piece, the empathy, the feminine, bringing a whole new way of workplace, culture of belonging where everyone feels comfortable and welcome.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Even how a CEO can make everyone feel comfortable and welcome, not the masculine, the feminine.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is what we need to bring into the workplace, a whole new way of treating people with kindness and empathy and grace with grit, power and beauty.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is where we need to start making the invisible visible, you know, and that's what we talk a lot about.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's strength, power, but we can also bring this warmth and this kindness and this generosity where everyone can thrive and feel welcome.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the redefinition of what we need to see today.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: You recently said modern feminism must include men.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the moment that we're in.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of your recent conversations, you kiddingly asked someone, how did they do it all with a family, right?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: For some reason, we're asked about those types of things, and and men are not.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's not men preneurs or he bosses or boy bosses or those types of things.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like you think about the things that are out there said about women or he preneur, you know, like it's you're an entrepreneur.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's a misunderstanding about how to take some of those steps and how to gain that confidence, or maybe just break the pattern again.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to that is really like I think a key theme throughout our conversation.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did the female quotient come about?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want to say one thing to what you just said.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was just recently in Cannes.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: I just think it's so um crazy because caregiving is still predominantly a female responsibility, and that's part of the challenge in the workplace, is we lose so many women to leadership in middle management.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's where we fall out.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: I call it the messy middle.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's my column in Forbes.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: When you think about the workplace, if we would have shared responsibility at home, it would go a long way in the workplace if men and women shared responsibility.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you look at you know, every panel I ever do, women are always asked, well, how do you do it all?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, work-life balance.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And men that have children, do you ever hear a man on a panel be asked, how do you do it all?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I just started asking now men, you know, when I'm doing a panel and I have men and women on a panel, and you know, I say, Do you have children to men and women?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And if they all say yes, I will ask the men and the women, how do you do it all?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: When I ask the women, they're so used to that question, they say, oh, but when I ask the men, how do you do it all?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: They're taken aback because they're not used to getting asked that question.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: So they're like, oh, I want to ask that question now so that it becomes the new norm.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it will start getting them to not only think about it, but hopefully make the invisible visible.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And hopefully they will start taking more responsibility at home.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And my girlfriend Yves Ronsky, who wrote this book, Fair Play, you know, we're starting to talk about the workload and sharing the workload at home and at work, because then we can, you know, caregiving will become everyone's responsibility and it will equalize.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because if everyone shared the responsibility, it would go a long way in the workplace, right?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: So this is what we're really starting to, you know, talk about a lot.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about it because if we talk about it, hopefully people will start activating it, you know, at home and at work, which will be fantastic.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways, the female quotient, you know, so I sold my company OTX to Ipsos.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: I ran global innovation at Ipsos for five years in 83 countries.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Then I left Ipsos about eight years ago and decided it was time to give back with generosity, what I wish I had rising the ranks in the workplace.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I started a company called the Female Quotient.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: I started doing things called the Girls Lounge to take on the boys' club, um, doing pop-up spaces at big industry conferences to basically connect women all over the world.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted women to support other women.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: We were doing pop-ups at big industry conferences, really to create these support groups of women all over the world.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then once we created a group of women, over 600,000 women across 100 countries, we then migrated to equality lounges, conscious leaders, having conversations about how to close the gender gaps.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so now we host over 70 pop-up lounges at big industry conferences all over the world with conscious leaders across Fortune 500 companies at conferences like CES, Can Lions, World Economic Forum, MBA All-Star, NFL, you know, across the GAM.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's been quite remarkable.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all around changing the equation and closing the gender gaps.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we talk about all kinds of issues from care giving pay gaps to diversity gaps to leadership to flexibility to, you know, every kind of issues.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it really is amazing when you share the good, bad, and the ugly.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Big Fortune 500 companies talking about what works, what doesn't, and how do we create solutions for change?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's really working.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're making a lot of progress, especially when you read the gender gap reports of it'll take 257 years.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: That is absolutely ridiculous.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're actually working on a pretty big idea that I think we could do it in five years.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're working on something called CEO accelerator and something that we're coining called the flipping point, where we have actually a toolkit that if you are a conscious leader and you actually want to create a workplace that is designed with conscious leaders, putting the caregiver at heart.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you create a workplace around what works for caregivers, you could create a workplace that will work for everyone.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: You got to throw out the junk in the trunk and actually build with a new whiteboard, not retrofitting, but from scratch, where you have life stage accommodation.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: You actually can build a system that will work if you want to.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to shut the door of inequity, open the new one of equality, and be willing to do what you need to do versus what you are status quo.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Status quo doesn't work, and we all know that.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we are going to be creating a flipping point challenge with conscious, bold leaders, willing to do what you need to do.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's all doable.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's about conscious leaders.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And all it takes is shutting the door of an.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Equity, open the door of equality, being willing to do what you got to do, because the rules of the workplace were written over a hundred years ago by men for men when women weren't in the workplace.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it is time to stop pretending and apologizing and asking for permission and doing what you need to do.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Period, exclamation point, end of story, and just get it done.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is not hard.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't given up hope.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: You haven't given up hope.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think some have.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what I was surprised about.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: But that's an excuse.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's just an excuse.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it's time to stop.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's just time to stop.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: These reports of 157 years, 250.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Don't bother reading them.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Why are we reading these reports and saying, oh, we're shaving off three years?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yay, us from 157 years to 154 years.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: We are so proud of ourselves.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is the silliest thing I have ever heard in my life.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, next generation, we're leaving you with 154 years.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: We're so proud of ourselves.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should be ashamed of ourselves.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy someone's fired up even more than me.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, from the perspective of what you're doing and the leverage that you had, I'm excited to hear about what you're doing and the flipping point that's coming and some of the things for the conscious leaders out there that really want to make a difference.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that they're they don't acknowledge that there's work to do and there's some things that are working and some things are not.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's just they're willing to move forward and also be, you know, in my words, be bold, like try it, figure it out, be vulnerable, right?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's boldness in being vulnerable.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's for the bold type.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it's for.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's for exactly the people that you are attracting.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, if you are not bold in today's day and age, and it really is for the blue ocean thinkers, it's for the bold type.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you are not bold today, and you are a status quo kind of person, you're gonna lose.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and you know, it really, you know, Darwin had it right, but today it is so beyond just being a little curious, it's about really reimagining, rethinking, and going.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: No risk, no reward, but you gotta go there.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because if not, you will be left way behind.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: You will be 157 years in the waiting, and I can't tell you what you're gonna look like at that stage.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: No amount of creating it's gonna help with that.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't so how do we join the movement?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: How do we support?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: How do we connect?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: How do we engage and help this happen?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: What can we do?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Join the FQ community and uh you know, go on to you know the femalepotion.com, come to our lounges.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: We are on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're everywhere you want to be, and we love engagement and most importantly, we love action.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: So just say yes and get going.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And last question is what advice do you give someone who's maybe at like your first heartbeat moment of that didn't align with me and who I am, and I need to make a change?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: What advice do you give them so they can hear it today?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Life is short.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Find your passion.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I really think that there's always a yes, you just have to find it.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you got to make your own bed.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Really enjoyed meeting you and talking about you.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: All information about the female quotient is below for everyone to take a look and to join the movement.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, Shelly.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for all that you're doing.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Through the continuum of bold stories, vulnerability to taking the leap, you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.