The Skirt Philosophy: A Mission To Impact Women’s Lives With Judy Hoberman

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.

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Pivot Radio where we are working through some incredible changes. Changes in business, changes in our personal lives. This concept of reinvention has really taken hold. I think that it's one of the things, one of the skill sets that if I were wanting to embed some way of, let's say, a way of being in children, in, you know, kindergarteners at an early age, that way of being would be a way of innovating, being able to change and not just change and manage change, like with a, you know, with, with resistance, or that feeling that it's, ugh, I can't believe, you know, I've got to do something different, but rather that they would welcome change, they would be able to utilize change, alchemize it even. And this discussion is really getting quite deep with a lot of people. I've got an incredible guest today. Her name is Judy Hoberman. She's the executive director of Walking on the Glass Floor Foundation. She's also the president of Selling in a Skirt. So we'll be back with the interview and this incredible conversation with Judy in just a moment.

Moment.

Hey, welcome back, everybody, to Pivot Radio. We've got an incredible guest today, an incredible discussion about sales, about reinvention. We're going to have a whole mess of things that we're going to talk about. And before we get into that, before I introduce our guest and we hear from her, I want to just remind us all how important this moment is, how sacred and even holy this moment is. Because right now, everywhere around the world, as we take our next breath, so everybody, collectively, whatever you're doing, whether you're driving, you're walking, you're consuming this content at work, at home, wherever you are, take a deep breath and be grateful in this moment for the fact that there are people everywhere who are taking their very last breath, this moment. And that makes this special. It might even, you know, it can be cliche, I suppose, these days to be talking about being grateful, being in gratitude, especially around the holiday season. I don't mean anything trite by It, I think this is truly one of these moments where every chance we get to be in our hearts and acknowledge the, again, the sacredness, how special it is that we are alive, that we are awake in this moment, that we are breathing and that gives us access to things that we cannot even comprehend. But it's special. And so I feel blessed to be with you, blessed to be able to bring an incredible guest on the show and share with you her incredible gifts, the knowledge she's gained and the amazing things she's done with her life. And her name is Judy Hoberman. As I said earlier, she is the executive director of the Walking on the Glass Floor foundation, president of Selling in a Skirt, which is a company she created. She'd been in sales for 30 years, gained incredible knowledge and she's got an incredible sense of humor that you'll detect from very quickly about gender differences in the workplace. She's created a suite of programs that take the negativity out of selling. There's a lot of negative. People have a lot of negative mindset around. There are a lot of negative programming when it comes to selling. So we're going to get to hear from Judy about that. She's also authored three business books including Selling in Skirt, Famous Isn't Enough and Pure Wealth. I love, I love those titles. She hosts a weekly radio show on iHeartradio called Selling in a Skirt and is featured as the gender expert on Fox News Radio. Judy has appeared on cnn, abc, CBS and has contributed articles to numerous publications and journals. And in 2016 she gave a very well received TEDx talk about the impacts of prejudging people. We might get to talk about that today as well. Judy's mission is to help women live her skirt philosophy, which helped quickly summarize skirt as in standing out keys to success, inspiration, results and time management, all while having fun. Now I know that her mission is to impact women's lives, but I'm going to say right out of the gate, this is not just about women. So all you men out there listening to this and I too have gained so much knowledge from my experience in coming to know Judy and learning from her. And she's a wonderful font of knowledge, great knowledge for all of us. So it's not just for women, this is for men as well. And who knows, you know, maybe men are okay to wear a skirt. At least the figurative skirts. We'll see. Judy, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. And yes, men learn a lot from this as well, as women learn a lot. So, yes, we're here together. Yep.

So would you supplement that introduction by sharing a little bit about yourself and. And what I'm really curious about in our community? I know. Love this. You know, what are you jazzed up about? What are you passionate about in your life these days? And then walk us through. If I missed anything in the introduction that you feel is important that people know about you, please feel free to supplement.

So I was born. And now. I'm just kidding.

What. What time of the day were you born? 6:21am do you actually know that for a fact?

I do know that for a fact.

Way cool.

Really?

And where were you born? Now that we're onto that?

I was born in Englewood, New Jersey.

Wow. Englewood. I worked for Prentice Hall Press at a certain point. They were a division of Simon and Schuster, and Englewood Cliffs was where they had their office. That's so funny. Way cool.

Yeah. So what am I jazzed up about? I am jazzed up about a lot of things, but right this moment, I am in the process of launching another book. And the reason I'm so jazzed up about it is because it's actually going to help women in leadership find out what their inherent feminine qualities are. So the soft skills and the men that champion them, how they can help them getting to that level. Because a lot of times we hear that women don't get promoted and women aren't in the C suite. Well, I'm going to help you do that. But the part that I'm really jazzed up about is I'm going to be giving back a good portion of the proceeds to. To companies and foundations and women that can't afford to have a coach or have a mentor and be able to give them scholarships so they can be part of the community that will help get women into these leadership positions. So I'm very excited about that.

That's way cool.

Yeah.

I'm just declaring this out loud right now. We have a foundation. We love it, and it's a big part of what drives us to do what we do. I'm just declaring this intention. I want. People want to have and be able to create their own foundation.

Absolutely.

It is an incredible gift to be able to do that. And with all the jobs that are disappearing and will continue to disappear, traditional jobs over the course of the next 10 years, being an entrepreneur, being in your own business, and being able to have the wherewithal to have a foundation, the desire and, you know, be able to execute on that would be phenomenal. So I'm going to put that intention out there. Do you support that, Judy?

I totally support that. And it's interesting because to give some a company money, it's not that easy just to hand somebody money anymore. And I want to make sure that it's done the right way, because you look at some of the charities out there, and none of the. A good portion of the money doesn't go to the charity. It goes to overhead. And we don't want to do that. We want to be able to give. So the person that really needs it is going to receive it. And I think that's important to remember when you're looking at different charities and foundations.

Way cool. Beautiful. So you've had a very interesting life. I mean, I was on your show, and before that, you and I talked. So would you share a little bit about that interesting life? And then let's get into some of the juicy pivot stories. I think our gimmick, our folks are really used to that. We get. We get some really wild stuff that gets shared. But it's amazing is that in all of those sort of crazy experiences of our lives, there's this incredible learning and this one thing that's consistent throughout, which is this growth trajectory and this amazing human capacity to bounce back from setbacks, bounce back or pivot, as we say, into a place where they have higher consciousness. They've learned something amazing. They've been able to dial in their dream a bit more, create greater service in the world and then also prosper in ways that include money, but aren't exclusively about money. So would you catch us up a little bit?

So I started my career in commercial roofing. I was the only female that would actually be climbing up a ladder to sell commercial roofing. And let me just say, I know.

That, by the way.

Absolutely. That was. I was just gonna say that just because I'm female. And, you know, I mean, I know I was hired because I was a female, but what they told me it was in the 70s, they said that you had to dress for the part. You couldn't just show up in jeans or overalls or whatever. And the way that they told me was, you know, you're gonna climb up in a ladder in the skirt, but not to worry about because we're going to have somebody underneath you just in case you fall. Okay. When you're in your, you know, your 20s and you're thinking, well, this sounds pretty cool, until it actually happens. And underneath you, you know, you have this whole Group of men that are applauding. You know, so that's how I started my career of being the only female in a company that totally was not empowering women.

Right. And not enlightened.

No, no.

I think culturally, I mean, what's going on right now is pretty amazing. I would love it if you would actually share some thoughts on this. You know, my background, married to my college sweetheart. We have three gorgeous girls, women, young women. And just the thought that they would have to deal with some of the crap that you're talking about and that had been accepted acceptable behavior on the part of men in the workplace as to women is shocking. I mean, yeah, it's. It's a shock that you can't ego. It's shocking on one level that it could be tolerated for so long and acceptable as it has been until, you know, recent time.

I don't know if acceptable is the right word. I think it's fear. I think it's. A lot of it is fear because you're talking about very powerful people. It could be male or female that are doing, you know, inappropriate things or saying things, but you're talking about power. And a lot of times, as the person that's the recipient of that power, you back off. Because they can do things to hurt your career. They can do things to hurt you personally. They just can. And I can remember not in the. In the commercial roofing. When I was in insurance, I had somebody that used to say the most disgusting things to me. And I would say to him, now you have to remember most of the things I've done. I'm an independent contractor, so there was no hr. It was the wild, wild West. And I remember him saying things to me. And I said to him, would you like it if somebody said this to your daughter? He goes, you're not my daughter. I said, but I'm someone's daughter. And it didn't matter.

Didn't matter.

It didn't matter. But I will tell you that, you know, you have to. You have to be smart about things. You tell people. You do tell people, and they do what they want with it or not. But I remember I had to be intelligent, and I remember the language that he'd use. And I went to a bookstore and I bought an anatomy coloring book. And at lunchtime, I walked into his office and I said, can I talk to you? He said, yeah, you're going to close the door? I'm like, no, I'm not closing the door. And I handed him the coloring book. And I said, at Least get the terms correct. And I walked out the door. He never bothered me again because he realized that I did have a brain as much as anything else that he wanted, and so he just left me alone. But, I mean, it happens. It happens. It happens to. It happens to more people than you can imagine.

Yeah, I think that's the part that's so shocking, is it's been kept, however secretive or people have been in fear, like you said, to call people out or to have their lives impacted by someone else who wanted to, I guess, seek retribution or, you know, there'd be retaliation. I was a lawyer for 18 years, and I used to handle discrimination cases. I never handled a gender discrimination case. It was always race. But obviously the gender discrimination laws were there, and people were handling them. It just never in a million years really believed it was this prevalent. That's the part that I think is shocking to me, that in 20 years, I mean, you think about it, so many things can change in 20, 30, 50 years. But in the scheme of how long we've been around, like how long we've been on this planet, the evolution of the human species, how 20 years, 50 years is a speck in time that things like this were somehow tolerated or, you know, look the other way, you know, people look the other way or whatever, only. Only a short while ago is just amazing to me.

It is. And every. Every minute while you and I are talking, there's somebody else that's being, you know, called out right now. And this one's being called out now. There's 27 people that are, you know, and it's. But it's hard, and it's. It's not just the. The sexual part of it. A lot of it is just the emotional part. And they're not talking about the emotional part right now. They're only talking about the behavior.

Right.

I'm telling you. You know, I mean, this man put me up against a wall with a car and said, if I. If I tell anyone, he'll hurt my children. Now, you tell me, what would you do?

You'd keep your mouth closed.

Exactly.

I mean, that's the bottom line. You just wouldn't say anything.

Right, Exactly. And that's what I'm saying. So a lot of it is fear.

Yes. Well, anything before we move. So you're on the ladder, and that's where you start in the roofing business. Where do you go from there? What happens? Do you fall off the ladder?

No, I never fell off the ladder. But, you know, it got to the point where it was not the right culture for me, obviously. And I did get into insurance, and I stayed there for a couple of decades.

You did really well in insurance.

I did very well in insurance. And the reason I did well was because I knew as a single mom, my one and only job was to protect my family. And so when I went out to talk to your family or someone else's family, I knew my job was to protect your family. And sometimes in your. In a sales position, you want to quit, like, every other minute, because either it's not working, it's not making money. But then I thought, okay, so if I don't see your family, what if somebody else doesn't find you? So how could I possibly not be there and protect your family? Okay, so today I won't quit. And so it kept going like that, and I just kept protecting families. And I did really, really well in it because I changed my mindset.

Yeah. And you created something that I like to refer to as context. It's not my term. It's something I learned from. In the process of becoming. Going from lawyering to this training space of personal development, business development, we learn in a. How to create context for certain things. You created a context around what you were selling so that you had a very big why. You understood the why behind it, and that's what drove you.

Is that absolutely part of it? Absolutely. And the more I was able to help people, the better I felt about what I was doing. And it wasn't money first. Even though I had to protect my family and provide for them, the fact that I was building these relationships and I was helping people to protect them, if something should happen, God forbid, a million times, I. I knew that if I did the right thing, the money was going to be there. But if I went after the money first, it's a whole different ballgame. So I knew I created this space for myself that nobody else created for me. And I was the only female. And they kept saying to me, you're tight, you take too long, you ask too many questions, everybody has to be your friend, blah, blah, blah. And probably what you're doing isn't legal anyway, because there's no way you could have this much business. So I'm like, okay, I'm building relationships. That's what I'm doing.

Shocking.

Shocking. And they told me it wasn't duplicatable. And so don't. Don't teach anyone.

Okay, so did you end up not teaching anyone?

Oh, are you kidding? Hello. Who are we talking about? As I Started building.

You did not listen, right?

No, I didn't listen as I best started building my team. That's what we, that's what we all did. And you know, and then they brought me in to build all their training because my people were, you know, profitable and staying.

Yes, we call that so our term for that is the heart of enrollment. But I want to learn more about what, what's that process like? Is there a process to that selling that was that you had learned and then were willing to share with others?

Sure. So what I would do is I became the question queen. People would say to me, you have more questions than every time you walk in the room. They used to roll their eyes thinking how much more could she possibly ask? I needed to know everything I did, I needed to know so I can present to you what I had to offer. So when I would go and see somebody, I would be very interested in them, not interesting to them. And so I would ask lots of open ended questions. And if I got you to speak to me, you would give me your why. There's nothing more powerful than your why. You know that. I know that. And so instead of saying, do you want insurance? I would say, tell me why it's important for you to have this policy in place. And so they would tell me that they wanted it and they would tell me how much, but they also tell me their why. And that was how I would sell. And when people ask me what's the secret of sales? I say, stop selling. Just stop selling. Have a conversation with people, get to know them. Become the resource. Don't just disappear. You know, there's so many different pieces of it, but it was more about this part about meeting somebody, not doing it over the phone. Getting to build a relationship.

Yeah. Which when you ask questions, you're interested in someone.

That's right.

And that's what you're willing to listen and give your time. What more valuable asset do you have than your time?

You don't. But, but there's a trick because people say I don't listen well. And listening is, it's a tough thing to really conquer. So I tell everybody, when I sit down with you, the first thing I'll say is, do you mind if I take notes? Because when you're taking notes, you have to listen. And so people that are bad listeners, all of a sudden, they become really in tune to what you're saying. And so that was the other thing that I did. I would sit down, I would take notes, and then when you'd say so what do you think? What do you got from me? And I would say, okay, well this was important to you. And they would think, wow, she really listened best. Best compliment a salesperson can get is you really listen to me. And so that's what I did.

So I'm just taking some notes right now.

Do you mind if I take some notes? No.

Can I take some notes? I want to circle back to that because you've given people listening to this right now, watching and listening to this. A hack. Really important.

Yeah, totally.

Which is. So if you've learned nothing else, you've learned something really profound right now. Is that in a sales conversation, a be interested, meaning that you want to. You're there to develop a relationship. So that's first. Develop the relationship. How do you do that? Well, you ask questions. And thirdly, you listen. And if you already have that story in your head that you're not a great listener, well, then you, your hack is to ask permission to take notes and then take notes because you can't speak or make it about you when you're taking notes about them.

That's right. Nobody cares about you. You haven't built that. You haven't gotten that trust yet. They don't care about you. And you have to understand that, don't take that personally. Once you show you're interested instead of being interesting, then all of a sudden they're going to ask you a question. So tell me about you, like what's up with you? Or whatever. But I always. And the other part is you don't ask questions about them, hoping they're going to ask back. You have to give. You don't. You know, it's. It's giving without thinking of getting, of receiving anything. But I'm telling you, when you sit and you take notes, you can't help but listen. And the questions are open ended. Don't say, do you want? Yes, no, maybe. So ask a question that makes them speak. Who do we like to talk about the most? Ourselves. Hello.

Hello.

That's how it works.

Yeah. This isn't that the main premise in Dale Carnegie's book, you know what's that great book?

It's how to win friends and influence.

Influence people. Yep, exactly. Help them to talk about themselves. Not that difficult, right?

That's right.

Yeah. Super interesting. All right, so. And I'm interested in knowing more about you. I know our people are as well. So where do you go from there? You're at this insurance company. You're killing it. I know the backstory, so I'M just going to say, doesn't stay. You're killing it, but at a certain point, it's killing you. What does that look like?

So after I. I had three different agencies. I was in Connecticut and North and South Carolina, and my groups kept getting bigger and bigger. So the CEO of the company asked me to move and to come to Dallas and to help them build training. So I moved. I had. I knew no one. I wasn't married at the time. My children were grown. And here I am in a northerner coming south. You know, there's a lot of stuff going on there. And I'm in the inside now, looking out, because when you're on the. In the field and you hear how much they all love you when they're, you know, all. The agent is king and we love you. And you go inside and you hear the real backstory where they could care less about the agents and they talk about the agents and you say, you know, the reason you have a job is because the agents are selling. Right? You do know that. And so I was the anomaly because the field loved me because I came from them. And here I am, the only person with that kind of a, you know, experience. Anyway, the culture was not for me. I lasted two years. I built all their training. It was, you know, it was wonderful being in the field. But I quit. And when you quit, you give up everything, like severance, right? And so here I am, 55 years old, jump ship. I mean, literally jumped. I didn't have anything to jump to. And I decided to start my company.

That deserves a deep breath right there.

Thank you. Because I know what. I know what's coming. So. So I decide to start my company. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, if I was starting right now, what would I want? And I would want to help me, guide me through the journey. I'm not asking anybody to do the work for me, but at least say, this is what it's going to look like. And I didn't have that. So I thought, I'm going to do that and I'm going to, you know, concentrate on women.

Are you talking about what we might call a mentor or.

Yeah, a mentor or a coach or.

Someone didn't have that.

I didn't have it. I had. I had successful men that would, you know, say, get in, get out and get the check. That was my mentoring. But anyway, so I decided to start my company. And now I'm working, starting my company, building everything, speaking, coaching, training, this whole thing. And I live by myself. And I'm working 10, 12, 14 hours a day because I can. And so a friend of mine came to visit, and she and I are the type of friends that you go in each other's closets and you borrow clothes and you do this whole thing. So she had never seen my home before. And we're sitting. We're having pizza and wine and champagne and chocolate and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she looks at me, and she's a Southern girl. She looks at me, and she looks at my home, and she says to me, girl, you have everything, but you have nothing. Now, the knife went in, the salt was around it, and we dug in deep, because what she said to me was, you're doing the same thing you've always done. How are you going to meet somebody? How are you going to be, you know, useful to anybody? How are you going to be useful to yourself when all you do is work and you're working so hard? And, I mean, she didn't mean anything malicious by it. And it was my biggest aha moment where there was a huge pivot right then and there. That second. I knew I had to change. And so I started putting, you know, guidelines for myself and structure around what I was doing so I could enjoy my new company I was building, but also get to know me again. And that was huge. Huge. But I. Every time I tell that story, I feel it in my throat, like, I have to gulp because I remember how I felt when I. When she said it.

What part of yourself, Judy, do you think you'd lost along the way?

I lost my personality. I lost my, you know, my inner child. I lost. I lost all of that. The only thing that was left was this boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You got to do this, you got to do that. You got to get this going. I have to. I had to be. I went back to being seven. That I had to be perfect. Everything had to be perfect. And that's. That's how I. So I went right back to things that are not the right things to.

Go back to, because perfection. If you could be perfect, you could be loved.

That's right. Yeah, right. That's right. That's right.

So you come to this point, it's. You're 55, and you choose to start a new business as an entrepreneur.

Yep.

What are some of the great pivot lessons? Let's call it the mistakes that turned into something that either helped you to turn the mistake around and be successful, or at least it helped you to not make the same mistake again. What are Some of those big nuggets. As a new entrepreneur, there's so much. Right. Being an entrepreneur is exhausting. It's never ending. It's almost like there's no boundaries between your work and your home or your personal life. And the technology is changing so rapidly, our culture is in flux, there's so much disruption almost on a day, on a minute by minute basis, that being an entrepreneur is not easy. And yet it is without a doubt the road to freedom, to road to great freedoms that most employees don't know about. And so at the same time, I want you to share sort of the ugly underside of it. I want you to also let us know what's in it for people, because it's a bit of a cow patty on in some ways.

It totally is. And I think that one of the biggest lessons obviously was about don't lose yourself. Because when you could become an entrepreneur, you're willing to work 100 hours a week for yourself, but you weren't willing to work 40 hours for somebody else. And you know, and they, you know that that's kind of like, okay, so does that even make sense? And you're not making any money yet and you left a cushy job. But I have to say I've never looked backwards, never look back, because I needed to be this way.

Right, okay, so can you reconcile that just a little bit? Because what you just said, I thought was really, there's something really meaty in that idea that people don't want to or will be grudge working for someone else for 40 hours. I mean, the statistics, the Harris polls and others polls say that, you know, 55 to 60% of people are in jobs that they are, that they're looking for other work, actively looking for other work, and 80% are in jobs that they just know is not there. It's not their dream or it's not their passion or what have you. So how do you reconcile that misery with the idea that giving it up means working twice as hard potentially?

Well, first of all, you have to decide what the business is that you're going to do. And why the heck are you going to do this? Because it's not just saying, oh, I bake really good cookies, so now I'm going to be the next Mrs. Fields. That's not what it is. You have to decide what you want to do, who you want to do it with. And is there a need? Because sometimes you have a great idea but nobody needs it. You can't create a problem. You have to find out if there is a problem. Right? So for me, when I was working corporate, and I only worked corporate for two years of my entire life, but when I was working corporate, I was making a ton of money. Was. I was making a ton of money. I worked a bunch of hours. But you didn't get paid extra. It wasn't like you got bonused out. You didn't make commission. This is what it was. So for me, it was a little strange doing that anyway, getting paid and not getting paid what I'm worth. Okay. Even though I made a lot of money. But the other part of it is, why are you doing something that you detest when you could do something that you love? So now you have to decide, so how many hours a week am I going to work? But as an entrepreneur, when you work from home, there's no stopping you. Now, if you have a spouse or a significant other, they could say, okay, back up a little bit. But I didn't have that. I had nobody to, you know, give me that balance. I had nobody. It was me. I want to work, I'm going to work. Who's going to stop me? But we do that because we're trying to create this passionate business. Once you have it running, don't think it's running up all the time because it runs backwards. And you, you know, you got this thing going on. And so it's high and it's low and it's, you know, like, how am I going to pay my bills? And it's exhausting.

It's exhausting. Exactly. So why do it?

Well, I did it because I felt like I was going to be sick if I stayed where I was, where I was physically. I was popping Excedrin all day long, and I just couldn't do it. And I. If the culture was different, I might have stayed a little longer. But the culture was horrible. I worked with mean girls. Yeah, okay. So I mean, that's how it works. So I knew physically I needed to get out of there, but beyond even that, I knew that I was creating something that I could support a group of people that really needed my help. A lot of times women don't ask for help. So if I could offer it so they didn't really have to ask for it, it would be a different thing. But that was the other. That was the other lesson that I learned also was about you have to ask for help. You can't do this by yourself. You can't do it by yourself. An entrepreneur is not meant to be a solopreneur. With nobody else helping them. You need somebody for technology. I have to ask other people. I'm not a tech. I don't do technology. I mean, I do enough to make. To be dangerous. But, you know, you have to have somebody if you're. If you're doing something where you have to do marketing materials. What if you're not a graphic artist? Okay. If you're going to learn a program, you still have to learn it. So you need to have other people that can support you, and you have to learn how to ask for help. And that's a hard one. That is a hard. Especially women.

So what are some of the fruits of being an entrepreneur? Because I'm sure there's a bunch of people listening right now who are in jobs they don't love and can really resonate. They know my story as well. I gave up profession and title and money and all that kind of thing to pursue doing something that would res. Would feel good in my heart, feel good in my soul. And I certainly wanted the money. I certainly wanted the success as well. So why should a person. Or not why? But what's on the other side of the exhaustion from your experience when somebody.

Looks at you and says, you changed my life. Is there anything better than that? I was ready to quit, and then you showed up. You know, I mean, there's nothing better than when somebody says to you, you just, you changed everything for me. I mean, you can't put a price tag on that. The first time somebody said that to me, I just burst into tears, as I feel like I'm going to do right now. But, you know, that's. That's what it is. I did a virtual mastermind not too long ago, and there was a woman on screen that said to me that because she read my book, she didn't know me. I didn't know her. But I happened to show up one day. She read my book, and she said it changed her life. She got out of an abusive relationship. She decided just to go into insurance. And because she read my book, she knew she could do it. Okay, can you. I mean, there. There's nothing. If anybody is like, well, you know, there's a lot of nonsense, and you're tired and you're losing money and da, da, da, da. Think about that. There's nothing, there's nothing better than when somebody says to you, you changed my life, or, oh, my goodness, I can't believe I want to be you, or whatever it is. It's. There's. I'm telling you that that's what, that's what keeps me going. And I have a whole book of things that either people have said to me or videos or they've written testimonials or whatever. And when I have a crummy day, and we all do, I'll look at that and I'll go, yeah, that's why I do this.

Yeah. So pivoting is sort of mindset wise, is an ongoing process for you.

Yes. So if you, if you watched my TED Talk, you're gonna. There's a part of me that goes back, you know, to when I was in high school. And when I was in high school, I wanted to go to medical school for college. And my father said, you know, that's ridiculous. You're not, girls don't do this. And he's told me, girls don't do this since I'm five. But this was really the big one. And so he entered me into a beauty contest, and I unentered myself. And he kept entering and I kept unentering. And then he sat me down and he said, you need to enter and you need to win because all you are is pretty, and you'll never amount to anything else. Now you take that and you think about what women do anyway, to themselves all the time. I'm not good enough. I'm not this enough. I'm not that enough. And people go, yeah, but he thought you were pretty. Okay, I wanted to be pretty, intelligent. I didn't want to be pretty. And I wasn't pretty. I was cute. I was Gidget. That's what I looked like. Gidget with little pony, little pigtails and whatever. That's what I looked like. I was cute. But as a businesswoman, that stuff comes up all the time. And so you have to keep pivoting and you have to keep changing your mindset and saying, but. But you are good enough and you are smart enough and you are this enough, and you can do this, and people like you and people, you know, gravitate towards you and. But I rewind my tapes all the time. People look at me and they go, oh, you're kidding. Not you. Yeah, yeah. Hello. Yes. Because that's what I did. And pivoting is, is a lot in your mindset. It's a lot of just changing your mindset. Okay, I'm going to make everything go more positive. Not Pollyanna positive, but I got to look at the good stuff.

Judy, what are the rituals? Do you have rituals that help you to get grounded or reset, kind of push the reset button? As you're talking about so that you can get back to what's true. What you've learned in your experience is true about life, about yourself, about the world. Because I think when we're stressed, I want to just make sure I'm hearing what you're saying. In the normal stresses of life, of business in particular, sometimes the tape will rewind and what you'll hear in your mind is this little voice that might be your dad or might be yourself, or it could be even society as a whole. But it's saying to you, somehow, you know what? You're not really good enough. And by the way, this thing you just screwed up or this thing that went wrong, it's actually proof of all that crap that was told to you when you were younger. And those kinds of conversations show up.

In your head right at the most inopportune times also, I might add. Yeah. And so I just. I constantly tell myself, you're pretty amazing. You pretty are. You're pretty awesome, you know, you're smart. And I just. I go through affirmations. I do. I go through affirmations because there I think I'm pretty awesome. I do. And I think I'm funny. And I'm my own best audience, and that's who I am. And I will tell you, I am my own best audience. If I tell you joke, you don't laugh. It's okay because I laugh. But I. But I do. I rewind tapes all the time. So there was a situation where I was doing a telesummit and I had 25 other women plus myself that were going to be on this telesummit. And I had everything laid out. I hadn't asked anybody yet, but I knew who I was asking, I knew why I was asking. And I was going to be sending everybody this beautiful email on a Sunday night. And I had gotten remarried and I said to my husband, I'm not gonna do it. He said, why? And I said, well, I'm not well known enough and I'm not famous enough and I'm not this enough. I'm not tall enough. Whatever it was, I wasn't enough. And he looked at me and he said, do you have any idea who you are? And I said, I do. And he said, people love you. People gravitate towards you. You're magnetic. You have to stop this. And I said, okay, I'll give myself till 6 o'. Clock. And if I decide that I'm not going to do it by six, I'm not going to do it he said, okay. So at one minute to six, I hit send and I turned off my computer because I didn't want to hear 25 emails coming back saying no, whatever. So the next morning at 6am I turned on my computer and there were 24 of the 25 that said, oh my God, I can't believe you asked me. Thank you so much. What can I do? How do I support blah, blah, blah. And the last one came in an hour later because she was on a different continent. And I think about that a lot, that I see myself differently than other people see me.

Yes.

So now that Randy told me I better look good.

You look beautiful. Cute and beautiful.

But you understand, I mean, sometimes it comes back at the most inopportune times and you're thinking like, what the heck?

I had this happen this past weekend. We were delivering one of our, our trainings. We have a beautiful sales and speaker training that we call the heart of enrollment. And it was the first day we had this beautiful day. It was incredible. I was drained. Second day, same thing. You know, it's a lot of heavy lifting. It's a lot of holding space for people while they go through and you were leading and all of that. And end of day two, I didn't feel good. I didn't feel good about myself, I didn't feel good about what we were doing. Somehow it just felt off to me. And then sure enough, got a little bit of sleep that night, woke up the next morning, had this sort of a release, you know, was in the shower, praying, thinking, just connecting and realized something and had had one of those moments and then had this unbelievable third day of this program, just watching life changing things happening, things like you say, you can't describe, but when you've seen them, you've experienced it, you could never go back to anything that's, that's less intentional, right? It's less of a, of a thousand fold value in the world, regardless of what that is, but just can't dial it in on someone else's dime, which sometimes is what a job feels like, somebody's paying you and you're just doing it and blah, blah, blah. But it's not, it's not who you are, it's not your life, it's not your what you're here on the planet to do. So yeah, all that happens and then I'm like at lunch that day thinking to myself, how often do I have to lose faith? Regain faith, lose faith, regain faith, lose faith. Have something, show me yet again what it's all about. And it's that back and forth of, you know, this. I get it, I don't get it. I get it. I don't get it. Which is painful on some level, and yet it's somehow part of the process.

Because you get too comfortable, you know. Have you ever seen, like a speaker or a trainer that. That believes their own press?

Yeah.

And they, you know, they get up and they think like, wow, you know, I'm just awesome and whatever, but not awesome in an awesome way. Awesome in an obnoxious way. And so if we never get this back and forth, you know, inner conflict, how do we stay humble? How do we stay where people want to be around us? Because I know for a fact there are people. I know them, and I don't want to be around them because they're just so cocky and, you know, and self promoting and that's not me. That's not me. That's not you. I could tell you it's not you. And I have never met you in person, but I know for a fact that's not you. You want to be somebody that's authentic. I want to be somebody that's authentic. I want people to like me because it's me, not because I'm someone else. And so if we don't get this inner conflict and it grounds us a little, we become, you know, obnoxious. I'm not doing that.

Oh, I have loved this conversation. So one last question which is really related to. Is there a specific thing you do during the day or a certain time of the day that we might call a ritual or master habit that is able to get you back to yourself or just to do something that helps you in your business, even. So if it's a productivity habit or it's a personal reset type of a habit that you've created, what is that? What does that look like?

Well, recently, my husband and I, we went to a conference and one of the things that we started doing was journaling. So every night we journal. And in the journal we talk about, like, what kind of success did you have today and what are you grateful for and what makes you happy and things like that. Very, you know, like little. It could be that today I got a great haircut. It could be anything. But we. We both do it every single night, and then we share it. And it really brings you back to a different space because we would talk about the day and whatever. But it's very different when you're writing this down as part of your journal because it also Encourages you to do something else, you know? So for me, that's become a new ritual for us. And I just. I think it's. I'm very grateful that we do that. I really am. And it's. It's taking our communication to a different level, you know, so. So that's my ritual now. Every night, we journal and we talk about successes. What you. You know, the gratitude, because you have to be. You have to say thank you. I don't care who you're saying thank you to. It could be the. The computer screen if you want, but say thank you and then what you're working on to either reach your dreams or be happy or whatever. So that's what we do.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

You know, what I love most about that particular ritual is that you share it with each other.

Right.

So I think that this gratitude habit, you know, creating a gratitude ritual or habit during different times of the day is powerful. Knowing that you're going to do that before you go to bed at night, and that that's sort of the last thought or part of the last thoughts that you cultivate before sleep, before you get into that subconscious state and the fact that you've got somebody that you're sharing it with. So folks that are watching, listening, if you've got that significant other, this is a wonderful ritual to try on. I am inspired to do this. So my wife and I, Randy and I, we each have our rituals, But. But what I'm just noticing in this moment is that they don't. We get together through what we call this thing we call basecamp for our relationship. So whether it's doing crosswords or walking the dogs or, you know, other things. But that particular gratitude, that particular thing is not something we typically share with each other. And I just think it's wonderful to do that before you go to bed at night.

Yeah.

And I'm sure that gratitude is going to include each other. We do it at meals and things like that. So I love this idea of doing it at night. I'm going to try that on for size.

You should try. I'm telling you, I didn't think we were going to continue it, really. Honestly, I thought I fall asleep. I've never seen a program that's on from 9 to 10. I've never seen a complete program because I always fall asleep. But even last night, I woke up and said, I'm so tired. I got to go to sleep. And then I looked, I said, oh, my God, we have to do our journal. And so we sat down and we did our journals and, and it was good. And some of the gratitude is, you know, like, I'm grateful because he grilled dinner tonight and I didn't, you know, that's what it is. And it's all about positivity as opposed to, ugh, I have to do this. So it just changes. It just, it's like flipping the switch. It's pivoting interesting.

To the Euro. Delicious. Really love, love your energy. Love having you all be a part of our. Of our community.

So thank you.

Yeah, wonderful. Where can people find out more about. And again, I know you do a lot of work with women. You. You mentor and coach them and you've got a system for sales increasing performance there too. So where is it people can find more information about you?

My website is selling in a skirt dot com, almost everything. You can find me either at selling in a skirt or Judy Hoberman. I'm all over social media. I'm very consistent. So I do post every single day or my email is judyellinginaskirt.

Beautiful.

Very easy. Very easy.

Yeah. Way cool. So we'll have more information in our show notes and it's been a blast. I love having you.

Thank you so much. This has been really special for me. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for being vulnerable. I really appreciate that, too.

Yeah.

Well, we're ending our. This, this particular episode, and as always, I want to bring us back to where we began, which was with gratitude and this breath and how. How beautiful this breath is. So I feel blessed to be here with you, all of you right now, and be present in this moment. And I want to recommend that you wake up tomorrow, that everybody gets to wake up. In fact, I wave my magic wand, it's done. We all get to wake up because that is not something that's guaranteed to any of us. So it's in that moment that you realize you are waking up regardless of what the day looks like. Whether it's a cloudy day outside, it's cold, it's warm. You're excited about your life and your business or you're not. Because I've spent many years not waking up, putting my feet on the floor and not feeling excited about what I was going to be doing for the day. And so we can acknowledge in that moment that regardless of how we might feel, that we have an important assignment to do. That's why we've been given another day. There's just no two ways about it. It's not by chance that we get another day. So step one, wake up. Step two, be grateful for something in that moment, even if it's just the breath. But there's a lot to be grateful for, as we all know, we all will admit when asked that question. For sure. And third, if you're inclined to do it for the next 21 days, starting tomorrow, and I know a lot of you are already into day 10 or day 20 or day 80, day 100, whatever it is, declare I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. And that becomes your intention for the day. That's the seed that you plant in the soil at the very beginning of your day. And watch how it is that you germinate that seed in so many, so many ways. So, Judy, again, thank you for being with us and we're excited to have be able to share you with our community. Thanks again.

Thank you. Thank you.

Awesome. All right, everybody, have a beautiful rest of your day. Ciao for now. And of course, leave a comment. Let us know how you feel about the show. If you haven't already subscribed, subscribe and also check in at StartMyPivot, the StartMyPivot community on Facebook. You can get there also by StartMyPivot.com get our six question kickstart guide to see whether or not you're in a pivot, whether a pivot is on its way, or whether you're in the middle of one right now, and then therefore, what resources are available to you to support what you're up to. Anyway, lots of love. Ciao for now, everybody.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@admarkel.com podcasts for more tickets, tips, strategies and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love. Join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com.