On Women Standing in Power & Leading with Dr. Nancy O’Reilly

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your Conscious Pivot.

Hey, everybody, this is Adam. And welcome back to the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I am having a beautiful day. I hope whatever you're doing right now that you're loving your life, that your heart is open, that you're looking around at the world everywhere with eyes wide open, with a heart wide open and with great hope for the future. There's just nothing but good news. I mean, we've got challenges for sure. I know we all feel them, but there's just nothing but good news if you look for it. And I'm really excited today because I've got an amazing woman on our show. And a few weeks back we had Sandra Joseph on and got such great feedback about her story and the Pivot she shared, from being a struggling actress to becoming the longest running lead on Broadway as the lead in Phantom of the Opera. And I know we got great feedback and more people that wanted to hear stories from empowered women and women who are empowering other women to show up and be the greatest versions of themselves in business and their personal lives. And I got a goodie for you today. So I'm going to spend no time, as you guys know, I won't spend any voice or any of your time in setting an introduction, but rather passing the baton to this incredible woman to share a little bit about herself, what what she's passionate about today, what she's interested in, who she is in the world at this moment. And without further ado, I want to introduce Nancy O'Reilly to you. Nancy, thanks so much for being on the podcast.

Thank you. It's an honor to be here. We met down in Del Mar at the horse show, which is again, one of my greatest passion are my horses, showing them and loving them. And that really, actually, that really is probably one of the greatest things that happen to me as far as empowerment. But as far as who I am, well, let's see, I am a mother, I am a grandmother, I'm a sister, I am many things. I am a psychologist. I'm a writer. I'd like to think I'm a visionary. I would like to think that I'm a mentor. I'd like to think that I'm many, many things. But my background is just to give you a kind of a little history why I do what I do. Because I always start out my podcast, my radio shows, by asking people to tell me their story. Because I think when we tell each other our stories about who we are, how we became who we are today, the person that we're talking. I'm talking to you. Today you're talking to me. There's a story behind who we have become because of the history, the story that we. That journey that we've taken. I grew up in the South. I was born in Atlanta and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and then actually grew up in the Washington, D.C. area, Virginia. So I had lots of different influences and again, historically watched a lot of different things occur because of being in the Washington, Washington, D.C. area. I don't know. From the youngest time I can remember as a girl, I never. I mean, I always had this. The back of my mind that somehow boys were better than girls. And it was interesting. I didn't really understand where that was coming from. So my way of dealing with that was become. Was. I became the ultimate tomboy. I played every sport you could think of. The boys came to my house not to date me, but to get me to play kickball, baseball. And I still remember this one boy, he said, he says, let's end digging caves. I was. I mean, dirt. I loved anything that was outdoors dirt. But again, sports. And I still remember the day that my. My sister, my much older sister Stephanie, I love to say that about her. She said to me, she said, nancy, when are you ever going to be a girl? And I still remember stopping and looking at her, and I thought, what exactly is that? So, you know, I kind of had to kind of think about it. A watcher. So the first thing that I did is I went and rolled my hair in the very front of my hair. So rollers here, here. I didn't care about the back. I couldn't see it. So that was my first attempt at being a girl. All right, well, so fast forward, because again, I really had difficulty with the whole concept. And we would call that, in my field, leading with the masculine. So I was leading with the masculine. The feminine was not in my repertoire whatsoever. But as we move forward in history, you know, I was also the girl that was not going to get married, was not going to have children. I was going to be a career woman. I was going to make my mark on the World. And of course, as we know, those always never words, you know, really, I've eaten every one of them so far in my history that, you know, always a never, every one of them. But anyway, fast forward.

It's a warning to never speak in absolutes.

That's right, yes, absolutes. But as you know, even in high school, I never dated anybody really seriously, because I did not want to get involved. Well, in college though, something occurred. I fell in love and love then babies, then. But you know, even then, it was like I assumed my first child would be a boy. And my first child was not a boy. My first child was a daughter. And then my second child I assumed would be a boy. No, my second child was a daughter. And then my third time, I definitely assumed this would be a boy. My third child was a girl. So, you know, during this time, I have a degree for every child, by the way. I have. I went to college, had children and continued my education. But anyway, I believe that God, she has a sense of humor. And I'm just saying that in my own way, because I believe that there are no mistakes in the world while things occur. You know, I was struggling with being a woman. I was trying to find my place as a woman. So again, what happens in my life, I have one daughter after another daughter. So to make, to continue forward, my greatest then goal and my most important thing then was to create a legacy for my children. I had been going to school, social sociology, psychology. I wanted to be a therapist. I always wanted to come be in the helping profession, to be in the service profession. My grandfather was a Methodist minister. My father was a Gideon. I came from a background of service and helping others. So that was a very strong variable always in my life. So that I wanted to create a legacy for my children, my daughters. My research was on women and professions, women in the professions themselves. But again, I went ahead and then I went for my doctorate, my doctorate in clinical psychology. Because I wanted to show my daughters they could do anything. I wanted to create a pathway, a place that they could follow and know that no matter what, they would be fine. They could do whatever they wanted. Well, to carry the story further and I'll continue on, my children have had children. I have seven granddaughters.

Get out of here.

I have seven granddaughters. So this legacy is bigger and bigger and gets stronger and stronger.

God definitely has a sense of humor right there.

Yes, yes. And so my youngest daughter had the first boy in the family. His name is Tristan. He was born on Valentine's Day. So we do have, we do have our, our male, our little boy, Tristan. And then my granddaughter has had Julian. He is three also. So the boys are here, but I'm sure every one of them will wear a dress because what the heck, you know. But, but I guess what I'm going to say though is my daughters are extremely feminine. They have, they have all the, you know, they have the male masculine and the feminine, and they're very, very beautiful young women. And of course, they also are very much in the service field as well. Okay. I started doing radio about 10 years ago. Kind of like what you're doing right now.

Can I pause you for one second right there?

Yeah.

Awesome. Because it just, it feels to me like the right thing to sort of point out. I'm sure, you know, our folks are catching this, but there's a, you know, for me, I love reminders. And what you said was that growing up you thought that boys were better than girls. We have three daughters and the son and our, our daughters sometimes said, I remember that, you know, girls rule and boys drool and, you know, I grew up or I didn't grow up, our girls grew up, you know, saying things like that at times I think, well, they had a healthy, they had a healthy self, self image and they were competitive a little bit. And that probably came from their mom more than me. But I'm just curious and it's not lost on me, the irony and you said, the humor, it, it's both of those things. And it's also something pretty telling that when, when we're working on ourselves, oftentimes the universe, spirit, God, that's the word I would use, will deliver you exactly. You know, something to help you work on yourself. Even when we're working in service to other people, you know, which is pretty incredible. That's why you do find oftentimes that, you know, lawyers don't have wills. You know, it's a shoemaker whose kids walk around with holes in their shoes, that kind of stuff. What do you, what do you think it was at the time in your, in your, either your upbringing or in your experience that had you believing on some level that boys, boys had it over girls?

It had to be intuitive because basically also in my, in my family, though, I have strong female role models. My mother was a million dollar saleswoman, realtor in Washington D.C. my grandmother, both my grandmothers, basically. My grandmother ran a jewelry company, jewelry store. And then my other grandmother being a minister's wife. Of course, you know, the minister's wife works day and night alongside her husband, but typically is running many, many programs herself. So it wasn't that I didn't have strong role models, but it's when I went out in the world, worked in the world, was in the world itself that I fe like there were challenges as far as how I was being valued or again, how I saw other women being valued.

We probably saw inequality, probably, I mean, all over the place. Pay, pay disparity, other examples of inequality.

Right. Yes. And then, of course, the research, research that I did also showed again, this, this pay inequity and also again, professions as well. So, you know, again, there were many, many signs as I went along and of course, as I also had challenges with some of my male professors and some of the males that I ran into, because I actually worked all through high school and college as well. And so working for me was not only a way, of course, to have some freedom, the money, but also gave me the experience of being in the world and working in different settings, which I, you know, when I was in high school, I worked in a dry cleaners, I worked in a factory. I did, I was a toy demonstrator. You know, I mean, I sold Jumping Jupiter Go Go guns. Now, you try to say that five times fast, and you can, you can imagine, but my job was to be out in the public. And so, you know, I still remember the day that I was working at Montgomery Wards, and they came to me and they said, nancy, we want you to mark tomorrow to come in with a short skirt on because we want you to go and sell, go into the appliance department area and sell TVs and washing machines and dryers. And I just, I still remember thinking to myself, hmm, how dare you? How dare you? I don't think I said anything at that time because I was still in high school and I was still a little bit intimidated by that, but still to walk up, I mean, that's kind of what was going on when I was growing up. Okay, you go and put a short skirt on, and, you know, you're cute. You've got your short skirt on. Somebody's going to notice you. They're going to come over, and then you're going to sell these, these, these refrigerators and these, these washers and these dryers.

You're, you're in your teens still.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, again, the messages were, you know, that, you know, you're a girl, you're a girl. And, you know, we, and, and so, as I said, a lot of it was intuitive. It was very Intuitive.

And you, you found yourself, I guess, adopting more, more of a male energy. You're more, more on the, on the yang than the yin.

Yeah, well, when I worked it, when I was working and I worked in the hospital setting after I, after I received my doctorate though, I worked in a hospital setting. I was a director of the eap. I wore suits with padded shoulders and ties. And that's what we did. We led as males, we led as women as male with our male characteristics. Back then, there weren't a lot of female role models for us to really look at in the corporate America or the, or whatever setting you might be in. And of course you had to get along, go along with whatever was going on at that time. So, you know, I worked long enough in the corporate America, the business area and that setting to say, you know what, I can't do this anymore. So this is when I basically left as a psychologist and started my research, wrote my first book which was timeless. Women Speak Feeling youthful at any age. One of the things that occurred as I was growing older again, this feminine, this, this female thing, this, this feminine, this masculine thing that was going on is that I recognized something very, very early on, is that if you want to be loved in our society, and I still believe it's true, if you want to be loved in our society, American society, you have to be young and beautiful and thin. And this is what the market drives us to do. This book was written back in 2000, so this book has been research based on 2,500 women interviewing them and have focus groups talking to them about how they felt about growing older in our society. I was feeling invisible. I was becoming invisible as I was growing older. And it was interesting to find that the more I sat down and talked to 20 year olds, to 80 year old women, how they felt about our society and how they were viewed. So I've had a really good many, many years to really observe how women view themselves and how the market views them. You know, you say you have three daughters. Well, I can guarantee you that women buy 85% of products and services in the United States. We are over 55% of the population. Why aren't we running the market? Why aren't we deciding what products that we buy and really running the market? But if you look at the ads, and I know we can pull some up right now, and it says, okay, what? They're young, they're beautiful. I mean, these are lose 10 years. Use this product for 7 years and lose 10 years. Well, I've Tried that. It does not work.

You don't have an airbrush at home, that's why.

No, I don't have an airbrush. Yeah, I don't have an airbrush. Night. You know, I'm not Photoshopping myself, but the thing is that these are subtle things that kind of what my job, I believe is as a psychologist. But again, the legacy that I want to leave to my daughters as well as their daughters, and the daughters are yet to be, and their sons as well, is that we have to start looking at ourselves. You know, you're talking about the spirit. You're talking about being authentic. This is where I am at now. Women's leadership, women empowerment. But what I'm really doing now is gender equality. I want everyone to be on the same page and feel connected. So I have two foundations. Dr. Nancy O'Reilly Family foundation, which I have with my daughters. Again, we're very philanthropic. But then I also have Women Connect for Good. Women Connect for Good has one mission and one mission only. Women supporting the efforts, the passion, the purpose, the dreams of other women. You know, I was. I told you I started radio about 10 years ago, and I still remember to this day. These were women that were riders. They had special. Let's see. Are you still there?

I'm still here. I just wanted to bring up the website of Women Connect For Good, because our folks can see it right there and face and find out how they can contribute, so.

Oh, very good. But Women Connect for Good really is all about women. Well, as I said, the radio show, this is where the book, the website came from. I mean, the foundation and the book and everything else is that these were all women that were doing amazing things in the world for other women. That was it. These were all. And I'm still doing this today. It's conversations with amazing women. But these are women that are truly helping to empower and help other women to find their dreams, to. To make their dreams come true and their purpose and their passions and help them with that. But I was. I was talking to a woman one day, and I remember I said, mary, we were talking, just talking. I said, mary, how can I help you? And all of a sudden, on the other end of the phone, it became very, very quiet. And then I said, mary, you still there? Where are you? And she said, you mean you want to help me? And I said, exactly. That's exactly what I want to do. I want to help you women. Unfortunately, a lot of women aren't very good about asking for help. And so something amazing Occurred in my mind that what I wanted to do was to make sure that women were not only getting the help, but also reaching other women to do the same thing. So the book Leading Women 20 Women, 20 Influential Women, Secrets to Success in Business Life and Leadership was born. And your good friend Kristen Andrus is one of the co authors. But these are 20 women, including myself, talking about how they are doing just that, helping other women, philanthropically helping women to really, you know, to drive their passions and to their dreams to come true. And so this has been my lifelong purpose is to really just reach out, build this community of like minded women. To build a community that, you know, body, mind and spirit that really are truly engaging and helping one. A sisterhood, a sisterhood of women. I mean it's so much. I mean you could put five women in a room and they can plan a project, they can budget the project and have it ready to go when they walk out the door. We're amazing. And this is the whole point of all this, is that when we come together, and you know this to be true as well, when you bring people together and you connect people together and they collaborate and, And Gloria felt is, she was one of the founders of Planned Parenthood. She is an amazing woman. But Gloria's passion is women's leadership. We are seventh in the, we are 75th in the world when it comes to women's leadership. We, you know, we aren't there. You think of Indira Gandhi, you think of all these other countries that have had the Margaret Thatcher. You think about women that in other countries historically that have been leading their countries to great success. We have not had that history. We are 75th in the world. So take the lead and women connect for good now are partnering to create equal parity as far as leadership in our country for women by the year 2025. Would love to see it happen sooner than that, but hey, you got to start somewhere. But as I said, equal gender parity. We all have to come together, we all support one another. It's going to take every one of us to connect and to really come together for these things to happen.

I was going to ask, what do you see as the greatest challenge that women are facing in the world today? I mean, I know some years ago my wife Randy was working for and she's led women's circles and retreats and you know, helping, helping women come together as a sisterhood. And one of the things that they were working on in their circles was actually women that were kind of conducting these were entrepreneurial Women that wanted to as was modeled in your house by your own, your mom and others around you. She wanted to help them to be more their authenticity self in business versus kind of being pretend men in business, which is a very.

Yeah, yeah, well. And then that's exactly what we. Leading with the feminine. Let's talk about those characteristics because that's what we're talking about. Women leading as women. This is the key because we have these amazing abilities that we need to start using and understanding. That's what makes us beautiful and wonderful and how we actually do get things done so much with so much grace and finesse. All right, collaboration. I've already mentioned that. Collaborating, women entrepreneurs helping one another. There's plenty of pieces to the pie. Plenty of pieces to the pie. But when women can collaborate, you know, anything is possible. Asking for help, being vulnerable. This is something that women don't understand. You know, men, you know, you've got. You've got the clubs that you can say, hey, you know, so and so, let's do this together. Let's do business together. Let's whatever. Women don't seem to understand that by asking for help, you really, you know, I mean, the greatest thing is to find someone who's better doing something than you are. I mean, that's what I do. I surround myself with people that are better doing something than I can do. So that vulnerability. Communication skills. We have amazing communication skills, but we have to use our voices. We have to be able to use our voices. Learning public speaking, learning to go out and be at the podium, stand up at the podium, use your voice for good. The one thing that women are very, very good at is that we are problem solvers. We see the problems, we see the issues, and we're very good at solving those. But we also need the help and the collaboration and using our communication skills and the ability to see the big picture, then see the details of the problem. So. But you can't do it by yourself. You have to reach out for help.

Yes. And last thing I wanted to ask you about is mentorship. Does that all kind of fall under an umbrella of mentorship? Where does that fit in?

Yes. Well, the statement that I always hear and I believe is you have to get a mentor and be a mentor, and it doesn't matter what the age is. You know, what I have found with women, if you go to someone that. Who you really would like to emulate, someone that you're kind of like your heroine, you're. You look at them, you go, wow, I want to Be like you when I grow up or whatever, you know, I like to. Is that if you go and talk with another woman and say, you know, I would really like to learn from you. I would really like to find out how you became who you are, I mean, isn't that the special gift that you can give to someone else? It's so amazing when we can talk to someone else and say, you know, I mean, it's not that necessarily you're not going to make similar mistakes or the same mistakes, but at least you're going to have a path and a journey, you know, a map of some kind. So. But again, you have to reach out and you have to ask for that. Your mentor is not going to walk up to you and say, hey, I want to mentor you. I want to be your coach. I want to be your cheerleader. And that's the other thing. Supporting yourself and surrounding yourself with cheerleaders surround yourself with people who get who you are, what you're trying to accomplish, and also support you, and that you have those. Something that's occurring more and more in our country is called Stiletto Net, Stiletto Networks, and these are women that are in corporate America, but they're coming together not only to talk about their businesses, but they're talking about their children. Because, you know, as a past director of an eap, I know that what goes on at work, that's what's happening at home affects what's happening at work. What happens at work affects the home. So, again, these women are coming together and really being.

I think we've got a little technical glitch right there, but Nancy should be returning in just a second. While she is getting back on the line, I'll just say this. For many of you who've read Pivot, you know that it's so important that you have mentors in your life. In fact, to me, what we call Pivot people are three specific groups of folks. One, your stakeholders, who are the people that are most impacted by your Pivot, by the success of your Pivot. The people who are the mentors, the people who've been there and done that, so to speak, that you ask. I love what Nancy said about asking you. Simply ask for someone to offer you their guidance, offer you their wisdom, offer you the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. And as Nancy also said, I think very wisely so. It doesn't mean you're not going to make mistakes. It doesn't mean that you won't make some of the same mistakes even, or new ones entirely but there's no question that a mentor can save you years and years of trouble, can help you to understand how to debrief the situations in your life so that you know what, what you're actually learning from what you're experiencing. And then I also believe a third group of folks, in addition to your stakeholders and your mentors, are the people that you, you get together with your peers that you mastermind with to create incredible solutions to the challenges that, that show up. I also loved what Nancy said about not just women, but she mentioned it in the context of women learning how to use their voice for good. I think this is not a gender specific call to action. It's one for men and for women to use your voice for good and learn how to speak effectively in public. It's, you know, needless to say, it's probably the most important skill, the most, yeah, I would say the most profitable tool that you can learn. So even in a corporate setting, in a career, on a traditional career path, learning how to speak publicly, to be able to present, to be able to enroll, to be able to speak a vision is a top skill set to move up in that situation. But it's so effective in so many other areas of life. Whether it's raising capital for a project for a business, encouraging others to join you in your business, whether it's to be an employee, to be an investor, be a joint venture partner. You really have to master, master the skill of speaking effectively, communicating persuasively, enrolling, having enrollment, conversation, being able to sell. In other words, sell yourself, sell your product, sell your business, sell your vision. These are phenomenally important things. And I fully agree with Nancy that these are things that are game changers for women and for men alike. So if you haven't yet read that part of Pivot, if you didn't get past the beginning of the book, get to the part where we talk about Pivot people, we get into much more detail on that subject. And of course, one of the things that we love to do as part of our PIVOT launch formula is help people to actually become better at speaking, presenting, training, facilitating in a variety of different contexts. We have an incredible masterclass on the art of public speaking, and I think it's the world's greatest public speaking program. I'm a little biased, I admit it, but. But in any event, it looks like Nancy's having some technical problems. So Nancy O'Reilly is an absolutely incredible woman and she's done some amazing things. Part of an Incredible family, the O'Reilly auto parts company that many of you have probably seen probably everywhere in North America. Women Connect for Good is one of her foundations. And I want you to definitely go to drnancyorilly.com and you can get information about Women Connect for Good so that you can find out more about how to participate, how to support women, empowering women. As Nancy said earlier, women leading as women, women collaborating, women asking for help. Just incredible things that she's up to. Love the fact that we could have her on the podcast as a guest and look forward to more opportunities to learn from her and share her wisdom and her message and the tools and the resources that she has for women in business and in every area, every walk of every area of our life experience. So again, I want to say thank you so much for being here for this episode of the Conscious Pivot podcast. It's been a pleasure to spend this time with you and we look forward to seeing you again very soon. Also, if you're on Facebook, you can go to StartMyPivot. Look up StartMyPivot and there's a community of pivoters, people who are consciously pivoting in their business and personal lives. And I think you'll find it absolutely incredible. Nancy used the words vulnerable. How important it is to be able to ask for support and be vulnerable. What's beautiful about the StartMyPivot community is it's again, very like minded, like hearted people that are connecting, looking to both be a mentor and be mentored. I thought that was incredible as well when Nancy said get a mentor, be a mentor. So those are wise words, words of wisdom I'm going to leave you all with today again, hope you're making great choices in your life that you wake up tomorrow morning. Most importantly, that you're grateful for the fact that you're taking your first conscious breath of the day. Looking, looking for inspiration standing up, putting your arms up in the air, or putting your hand on your heart to declare, I love my life. And I hope you do in fact love your life. I wish you all of your heart's desires, all of your dreams come true. I love you and we'll see you soon.

Ciao for now, everybody.

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