Flourishing Without Guilt: Redesigning Work, Leadership, and Life for Working Mothers with Mary Sheehan

Welcome to the Flourishing Edge, the podcast where we share weekly tips on making flourishing your competitive edge. I'm Ashish Kothari, your host, and each week we'll dive deep with flourishing experts, change makers and executives to share best practices that can help you unlock higher performance through science based interventions. Let's step together into the edge of what's possible and live, work and lead with more joy, health, love and meaning. Mary, it is so wonderful to have you on our podcast, my dear friend.

I'm so excited to do this with you. Ashish, thank you so much for the invite.

Look, you know, I've been so inspired by, you know, all your posts on LinkedIn. We got to know each other on LinkedIn and you know, you're really serving. I mean, your posts are so relevant because you actually, it comes from your lived experience as an executive, as a mother, as a coach, and you're really trying to create. All the work you do is around helping mothers really navigate and not have to choose either or right, but truly flourish and actually achieve great stuff out there. So I want to start with the first question really around as you've worked with both your experience and all the people you coach, Mary, what are you seeing are the greatest struggles working mothers are facing in the executive world today?

Yeah, thank you for giving me this platform. I would say it's guilt. Honestly, the number one thing it comes back to is guilt. So women that are, you know, in these professional, high performing careers and mothers, you feel guilty when you're crushing it at your job and not spending as much time with your family and with your, with your family, you feel guilty that you're not spending much time at work and add in side gigs or side hustles or any creative projects to that too. And it's this balancing scale that just is never going to be totally balanced. And I think a lot of people feel guilty around that every day. And I think it's something that society really puts pressure on us. I mean, everywhere you look, you scroll on Instagram for a second, you read the headlines, you know, perfect moms do this, Executive women do this. And it's really hard to cut through the noise and have a values based approach where you're really able to get rid of that guilt. And so that's what I try to talk about and try to work with people on. It's how to get over that guilt to do you and do the things that are most important to you so you can really live the best life that you were meant to live. And also not feel bad about it too. You know, we've made these choices in our life. Yeah. And we want to just make sure that we're going forward with them.

You know, it's so resonant with me. You know, we run rewire programs and one of the programs we ran was with this women, CIOs, CTOs, women in technology. Most of them were either CIOs or CTOs at Fortune 500 companies. And I was so heartbroken when I had one of them actually say, you know, we were having this conversation, one of the modules around beliefs and awareness. We where are we? Where do we judge ourself is not good enough. And so this woman who is Indian origin, leading this massive company says, you know, I beat myself up every day, that I can't cook a fresh cooked meal, fresh cooked meal for my kids every day. And you know, giving them, having somebody else come and cook it for them, which she can afford or, or have something else, just feel. Still I feel guilty. And you know, it's a little bit of a belief. It's a story from childhood of how you're raised, but you live into it and now you're in this role and you have to balance that. So I. It's so present for me. And I think that's. That is so true for so many. Right. That there is this beyond anything else. There's this feeling of guilt that hey, I'm messing up, I'm not doing enough in anything. And even though they're doing so much, even though they're doing so.

And the reality is her kids probably love that food and she is an amazing example and an amazing role model to them and probably thousands of other people.

Absolutely. So how have you personally dealt with that tension? You talked a little bit about taking a values based approach. Talk to me about how you navigate that.

Yeah. So I think what it comes down to is the realization I had after becoming a mom, trying to do it all, having deep, deep feelings about how I was failing so much and coming to this realization that you can't do everything perfectly and that an unhappy parent is going to trickle down and make your kids unhappy as well. So let me unpack that a little bit. When I talk about a values based approach. When I sat down and actually looked at my values, I realized that they were health, family and creativity. And note, like being super productive or being super high earning or wealthy isn't on that list for me right now. And so what that has really helped me to do is have a North Star of the Decisions that I make and what really I care about. And so I'm able to say, you know, is taking a walk for 20 minutes every morning, is that going to benefit my health value? Yes, it is. So I do not feel guilty about that. I do not feel guilty that I'm taking that time instead of emailing for 20 minutes or slacking for 20 minutes. I'm doing something for my health because I know it will make me a better mom, but it will also make me a better employee, too. I'll come to work fresh, with fresh ideas, ready to hit the day, even if I didn't have that time. And I think some people look at that as a. As a sacrifice that they're making to a particular company. But for me, I'm really thinking about how do I live those values every day in even the micro moments, and make sure that I'm not feeling guilty about it because I know it's going towards a greater good of really helping my family, helping the work that I do.

Yeah, I love that. Right. And it reminds me of this beautiful. I don't know if you've read this book by Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware.

No, I heard of it.

As my listeners know, I read it a lot. I'm on my 10th book in the last 10 years at this point.

Amazing.

But this book is amazing. So Bharani Ware was an Australian palliative nurse, and, you know, through her experience having so many people pass into whatever comes next after life, she wrote this book around these five regrets of the dying. Five most common regrets that everybody has. One of them was, I wish I hadn't worked so hard. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. I wish I had lived a life true to me, based on what I value versus what others expected of me. And that really speaks to that values point. What is it that matters to you in this point, at this point in your life? And how you can own that the life you live is only yours. You only live it once. And this notion of really owning that and not feeling guilty and not letting the world tell you. Yeah, but what about X? It doesn't matter, right? It doesn't matter. Our journey from the last breath to the last breath is a journey of coming home. And I think the only path that matters is the path that you take. Because all of us have the same road, right? All of us have the same road. We leave all the fame, the success, the money, everything else here. So if we are externally oriented versus internally oriented, that's what so resonates with me, we can enjoy the journey rather than chase these external things which we can't take with us anyway. Absolutely right. And it is so hard because our workplaces are so broken. Right. I shared the stat in my TEDx talk. Only 20% of people are thriving at work. So I want to pivot a little bit and talk a little bit about what aspects of corporate culture, whether it's hours, travel, expectation, you know, feel most in conflict with motherhood and kind of being able to have this role where, you know, you are, you know, are the caretaker. By the way, in today's world, as our generations are getting older, not only are you taking care of your family, you're also taking care of your parents. In many cases, you have so many responsibilities and they oftentimes fall more on women than men. And so my question is, how is our corporate culture feeling most in conflict with women who are in workplaces?

Yeah, well, first of all, that was a beautiful example that you shared. I'll have to read that book. I was tearing up hearing you talk about it. And yes, I do think that's really important to put that, that end in mind and you know, about the daily decisions that you're making, that it, it makes such a difference. And then to your question about what's in conflict, there's a lot that's in conflict and I write a lot about the systemic changes that corporations should be making to retain this highly talented group of women. So there's a few stats that I'll throw out in. There's been several studies done that have shown that senior women in leadership, if there's more than 30% of women in senior leadership, you actually see at least a 6% increase in profits. So there is a tangible reason to retain these women. And at the same time, the Washington Post just released at the beginning of the year the fact that women with young kids are dropping out of the workforce in a really alarming rate. So there's a retention problem. And I think it comes down to the reasons that you're mentioning that there is a major conflict in corporate culture. Some of the things that I think really stand out about that are, you know, the return to office mandates, especially when they're just really strict three, four, five days a week. A lot of us have learned to operate in a remote environment and are extremely productive in those work from home environments. So I think the blind RTO policies are really hurting mothers and caretakers, especially because that's really coupled with flexibility. I think that the hardest thing that I've. One of the hardest things that has come in conflict with me being a mother and working in corporate has been that your kid's schedule doesn't at all adhere to a corporate schedule. Like if you're expected to be in, you know, butts and seats, the typical nine to five, my kids school gets out at 2:15 and so there's already aftercare and then add on any kind of extracurriculars or a sick day which happens all the time, or random days off, minimum days, all those kinds of things. Or I also am in a position where I am taking care of an elderly relative and that requires doctor's appointments. Those doctors are not working on the weekends or after hours. So I'm fortunate to work at a company where, and you know, for a leadership team where they are human beings and see us as human beings and trust us. But I hear a lot of women tell me that they're afraid to even leave during the day for any reason, you know, as mentioned above, to sort of deal with some of these life things that come up. So the flexibility, return to office and adding that extra commute I think are really the two things that come to mind. Another is that, you know, a lot of, a lot of the tech companies have done a great job at this, but the FMLA policy in the United States is a joke. I mean, I have written about this. I know you're laughing. It's like you get 12 weeks of protected time off work as a baseline. It is not paid. So we're asking women in the most vulnerable time of their lives to go without pay for three months. That is insane. You cannot, most people can't afford other pay or they cannot afford to lose that, that income. So they either go back to work after, you know, a limited amount of time when they're not really ready mentally or physically, or they leave the workforce because they're starting, they realize, wow, how am I going to be able to do this? Childcare cost a fortune. This is going to be really problematic. So there's so many reasons. I've unpacked a few, didn't even touch on the insane cost of child care. But that's a problem with this too. And some corporations I think have done a good job of helping with this. Like Patagonia is always a really great example. But there's just a lot, it's a lot of mental burden going to work every day and stressing about all of those different things about how you're even gonna, you know, maybe get your work done. So when companies are really inflexible, it just adds to that. It just makes it really hard for us to show up.

Well, I mean, you know, these are so a couple of things that come up as I think about these, right? I think these are, what you highlighted are these are real challenges in the workplaces, right? They're real challenges. And at the same time, what you highlighted also was leaders can start to change that. There are corporate policies. Many of these, if I think about FMLA is one of those things that is a corporate. Unless a company adopts that, you can't. But if I think about flexibility, if I think about how many days can you be in the office versus not in the office and how does that work? If I think about really designing, you know, and creating an environment which is about outcomes and really allowing people to deliver that outcomes in the best way possible to balance, all of those are in the control of a leader, any people leader, a manager, a senior manager, a director, a senior director and a vp. No matter where you are, a lot of these things you can start to control, you can start to actually own versus basically have more of a victim mindset of like, hey, this is how it is, this is what's expected, right? So I want this to be an invitation to anybody who's in the middle to say, these are real challenges. And if you want to be a leader, leader is what you do. And you can start to create these places and teams, right? Which are. And oh, by the way, if you do this, you will actually lift the waters for everyone. Because it's not just women who need that. Men need that too. Right. And in many ways I'm actually glad of like, you know, the shift away from dei. What I'm glad about is actually shifted the focus on inclusion rather than just numbers, right? So even the women in the workplace, very rarely are people talking. People initially just started making it about the numbers, how many numbers, right. But not addressing what is actually causing the dropouts, which is actually an even bigger issue. I bring somebody in, but if they drop out or if I bring them in but they don't, they can't really show up as their full self because again, of this first level of guilt and second level of I do have all of these things I'm juggling, but I'm trying to all do it below the line. I'm trying to do it away from so people don't see it. I think it. I think it actually creates a big challenge. And so like this notion of inclusion, which is that I Always try and look at the positive. Mary, don't get me wrong, right? I'm not celebrating the demise of dei, but what I am celebrating is that leaders that really mattered are actually leaning into the inclusion environment and saying actually let's go do the right things. Let's keep the things that made it possible.

Yeah, that's a really good point. And I like that you're looking at the positive because I think it's easy to see all the negative with it. But I do, yeah, one, one example that comes to mind is one woman I coach. She is on the job hunt and she, because she left a toxic work situation where they didn't, she was basically the only working parent and no one respected her boundaries or hours. It was just, you know, kind of a nightmare. So now she's looking and she's just, she's owning the fact that she's a mom of twin toddlers and that she needs to have specific hours. She adds a lot of value. She's very experienced. So she's, she's telling people up front to, yes, to have them interview her, but she's interviewing the companies by telling them that, that she works on a, an impact driven basis. And she might not be able to be at that 5 o' clock meeting every day, but she will put in the work and show you the value and the impact. And I think that's. You mentioned rewiring. That's such an amazing take and I'm, I'm so proud of her and you know, excited to see where this goes. But it's so scary as a mom to put yourself out there, especially in the interview process, especially in this market. So it's, you know, I think if companies can start sharing if those are their values and being more open about things like that and even things like part time work, it is so hard to work part time at a big company and actually be able to work part time hours, to actually work those part time hours. So instituting things like that and finding the right roles and the right value that is equitable for that I think is another important step companies could take because you could get amazing talent if you were able to find part time roles for people as well.

Yeah. And you know, kudos to companies who are starting to or have been in this path. Right. So like one of my friends, Chris Schwalbach, actually started a company called AVL Growth Partners. And AVL Growth Practice Partners provides fractional CFO services. And he recognized early in thousands that all these women in high performing audit firms were Dropping out once they had kids because they couldn't be on the road. They didn't want to be on the road and away from kids. And they didn't want to just go and not work. They wanted to work, but they wanted to be able to make it work with, you know, with the schedules that they wanted. And so he created this thing where, you know, each person who he hires can support one or two clients and it's their choice and they can do it from their home. And. And I mean, they had skyrocketing success, right? Again, putting these top women, unbelievable talent, but creating something that allows them to be able to do what they need to be able to do to have best lives and perform good at work rather than feel like I'm having to make a trade off here.

I love that and I'm glad you brought up travel too. I didn't touch upon that in the corporate policies conversation, but when I personally go out of town for a week for work, it costs my family personally $1,000 extra childcare to help manage the household. Not because my husband can't do it, but he definitely can do it. He also works full time. And so we switch off a lot during the week about drop off and pickup. And he can't work 30 hours a week just because I am out of town. So we have to hire backup childcare. And so that's kind of the equation that I'm making. And once a quarter, I do it because I want to go to these events and it's important for me. But the real economic reality of it and the hardship on my family is a lot to travel. I wish I could go all the time, but it's just not really possible.

Yeah, Effy. No, for sure. So look, I mean, I have a question for you. You're obviously doing this work now. You found your balance. But tell me a story of a point. Was there times when you failed or you burnt out or you felt inadequate and how did you recover or learn from them?

Yeah, all the time. And I, you know, I am not perfect. And I think one of the main things I teach in my program is that you need to have a reset. And that's okay. And now my metric of success isn't have I remained in balance, you know, in perpetuity, it's how quickly can I reset and rebound? And so one thing, one thing that I will share, kind of how this whole thing really started and how I started really thinking about this in a deeper way was actually when I went back to work after my first child. I went back to a new job. Really, you know, great shiny new title. I had interviewed during maternity leave to get this job, which was crazy. So I was, you know, seven weeks postpartum at these in person interviews. I go into the office the first day and they invited me to a dinner. I knew about it in advance, so I had said yes. So I, you know, dropped my son off at daycare, went to work all day, met everyone, and then went to dinner. And it was, you know, 8 o' clock at night when I left to drive back home. I remember just sobbing in the car because I had missed my son's bedtime and I wasn't going to get that bedtime back with him. He was only about 4 months old. I was devastated. And I remember thinking, I did this to myself. I said yes to this dinner. And even at the dinner, some of the men at the table were like, this is your first night away from your son. Like, get out of here. So I actually skipped the bill coming and, you know, dessert and all that, and I left. So I realized that I have. I had to communicate my needs and set my boundaries myself that people weren't going to know or, you know, automatically understand what was going on with me just by seeing me. Because when you're in the work world, people just see marry the marketer. They don't really know that I have this baby at home that I'm, you know, desperate to see. So I learned a big lesson that day that I need to communicate and set boundaries and also set boundaries with myself and be realistic to what I want to commit to. Like I said, I say no to a lot of travel. I say no to a lot of those kinds of things. Now, I do say yes to a lot of them, and I try to make them work during the day or make them work at a time where it's possible for me to attend. And I would encourage other leaders to think about that. You know, if you're having dinners or happy hours, you're asking parents to stay away from their kids, and you're asking them to kind of move heaven and earth to make it happen for their other partner who might be working full time, too. Just a note to that. But I think a lot of it, you can control yourself and be really honest about what you can do in a day and what boundaries you need to set.

This conversation is brought to you by Happiness Squad, where we help leaders build new mindsets, new habits, and transform their ways of working to truly flourish. If you're ready to unleash the untapped human potential in your organization and operate at your best. Come Visit us@happinesssquad.com and start your journey today. Yeah. You know what comes up for me as I hear that is first of all, as you said, oftentimes we make the choice.

Yeah.

Then we beat ourselves over it totally. Right? And I bet you were beating yourself when you were at work, when you were at that dinner about not being with your son. And then when you were driving home, you were probably beating yourself because you left early. And even though you're sobbing, you're like, oh my God. Like I'm not like, you know, you're like, basically we create. We put ourselves into this. T tight twisted. No. And it happens all the time, right? It happens all the time. And I think so again, that's where I think your reminder what you started with around knowing your values, what are you solving for right now and letting that be the North Star and not letting that emotion, not letting that emotion of fear or anxiety or FOMO be the driver, but actually the purpose right now, this is my North Star be the guiding light for making that decision becomes, you know, so, so, so really important. Right. And by the way, you won't get it right all the time. So I also love that part of what you just said. You know, the best time to start practicing this right? To somebody said best time to plant a tree 20 years ago. The next best time right now. Right? So start today. Give yourself the grace. Don't beat yourself up. And I think if you're hearing, if you're a working mom, if you take nothing else away from this, just take this, that you are not alone in feeling that, are feeling that guilt and that you are failing at everything. So many other there are like you, right?

Yeah, there's so many. And it's, I think I was, I was afraid to start talking about this, to be honest, publicly. So I, I previously, before we met, I've been known as product marketing Mary. I wrote a book, I have the course on product marketing. You know, that's what I do for my day to day job and, But I started to realize I put little, you know, teasers out there, little tidbits on LinkedIn and that's when people would DM me, text me, reach out to me, even if they weren't commenting publicly. And they would say, my God, I feel exactly the same way. I had no idea other people were struggling and that you were struggling too. And so just made me realize, yes, we need to know that we're not alone. And I think that that's so powerful and part of the reason that, you know, I've loved just doing this propel community. It's a, it's a community group coaching program that I do. I think the biggest value people get out of it is the community. They meet other moms that are high performers and they get to share, like, hey, how do you do the laundry every week? Like, how do I have this OKR conversation with my boss? How do I get a promotion? You know, it's like all the things. And I think a lot of us have felt really isolated in our communities because maybe we're, maybe we're hanging out with moms that don't have such high pressure jobs or we just aren't talking about it. And so we think that everyone has this perfect Instagram life. But the reality is so much of us, so many of us are thinking this and it's because it's very hard. It's really hard. Thank you for saying that.

No, of course, of course. You know, in fact, in fact, you and I like after we should chat a little bit because one of the key in the rewire practice, one of the biggest practices has really resonated with people is this practice of self compassion that we. From Kristin Neff, right, where she highlights this three part frame rewire is all around micro practices. It's literally all about five minute things that can help people rewire their brains away from scarcity, fear, feeling, not enough and too much focus on self to the point of I actually am even unaware that others are experiencing the same and shifting it away and moving it towards purpose, shifting it towards inter being. We inter are shifting it towards abundance. We actually do have more than we think we do because our brain just always has a negativity bias. But the self compassion framework, what I loved about it and that's why I integrated it into it, Mary, was it starts with saying, look, if you feel like you're suffering right now, just be with it. Right? Second is recognize that the second framework, part frame is common humanity. That what you're experiencing, you're not alone. Just think about all the people who actually feel the same. They might have messed up or they're right now where you are. And then the third is instead of beating yourself and say, you should have known better, you should have done something different. You start slowly but surely cultivating your inner coach voice. You start coaching yourself like you would coach a friend, right? If somebody else who was your dear friend came to you and said you Know what? I'm such a bad mom. Look at what I'm doing. What would you say to her? What would you say to him? If somebody else came to you, speak to you that way, speak to yourself that way. And that move of 1, 2 and 3, be with what it is, don't amplify right in that moment. Recognize that there are others who are suffering the same way and boost yourself up can be such a powerful move when we are swirling because it doesn't just stop, right? It just keeps going on and on and on till something else happens. And the somatic move that she talks a lot about, Mary, which I loved, is taking our hands and just giving ourself a hug or even just rubbing our shoulders, right? Because you start to release oxytocin and just hold yourself. Because sometimes we don't even want to share. We feel so bad at that moment. Sometimes we don't even want a hug from somebody else. But you can give yourself a hug and you can calm your nervous system down. You can get back to that grounded place which is filled with love. And from that place decide to take the next step. As you say, every moment is the next step. You can start to bring back into balance and have that life.

I love that. Someone else just recommended that book to me too. So I think those two books I'm going to have to read.

Yeah, well, she wrote a new one called Fear Self Compassion because oftentimes people say self compassion is weak or like, you know, what are you giving up? And it's absolutely not. Self compassion is one of the biggest drivers of success. Performance. How we speak to ourselves is one of the biggest, biggest drivers. Every. I serve many of the Olympic committee, national governing bodies, and almost every athlete out there, you know, has these words of how they coach themselves before event, before a game, before, before a shot. Right. We just don't do that in corporate world.

Do you call it, do they call it mantras?

Yeah, yeah, they're mantras, exactly. Well, let's talk a little bit about, you know, talk to me. You talked a little bit about your Propel Yourself program, but the other piece that you talk about, which I literally loved and can only come from a former product manager or even a current product manager now also taking on a different Persona is this concept of a minimum viable person. Talk to me about what that is all about. I love it, I love it. I absolutely love it. But share with our listeners what that means and why it resonates so strongly.

Yeah, absolutely. So, yes, from the product management world, minimum Viable person is like a minimum viable product, which you might have recalled is the minimum feature set that a product needs to have for a customer to be able to use it and be able to say, okay, I could see the functionality of this, see how this works. So it's not everything. It's not what you're going to market with. It's not even a beta, it's the mvp. So I started to think about this in my life and as I mentioned, I have a son, I also have a daughter. And when this really started to become important to me was after my second child. I had no time. I always loved going to the gym. My husband and I would switch off, I'd get to have 60 or 90 minutes at the gym, even with our one child. And that was just no longer a possibility. With two things were just too crazy. So for a while I didn't work out. I didn't do anything for myself. I didn't meditate. I just would wake up when the kids woke up and the day would begin and it would be fully crazy for, you know, 15 hours. And what I started to do was think, hey, first of all, what if I woke up five minutes before the kids get up, even though it's 5:15 in the morning and did something for myself? So started out really small to be able to get that feeling of what I could have before if I, if I went to the gym or if I did a 90 minute yoga class. Sort of started off really small with five minutes of meditation and 10 minutes of walking every day. And what that really led to was just realizing how much better I felt because I had done something for myself. I got to think, I got to clear my head. And it helped me pave the path to have more of those sort of micro moments throughout the day where I could just take a break from work, take a break in between mom life and work life and then again from work life to mom life. And now it's, it's helped me really capture more healthy habits overall. And I've, you know, feel like I'm getting an actual workout on the day. You know, you had to crawl before you walked or run, right? So I think why this has been so resonant for the moms that I work with and beyond actually, is that we don't have a lot of time. So saying having all of these productivity haps or having these morning routines is really overwhelming. So saying, you know what, take five minutes and do whatever you need, like it is your minimum viable person. And so for some Women, it's been, I want to drink a cup of hot coffee by myself. And that is like the peaceful moment that they need in the morning. Some it's just standing outside for two minutes to get some sunshine before they go into craziness of making breakfast and lunch for everybody. And for some it's, you know, I'm going to do a personal trainer once or twice a week because I need to focus on my fitness and that will motivate me to get it done. So it's, it's different for everyone. And I've really just enjoyed it because it helps people understand the things that it takes to get them centered in a day, takes away the guilt because they start to realize how happy it makes them and what a better parent it makes them, what a better employee makes them. As I've said, one little story I'll share is that recently I shared how my husband and I implemented this on a trip to Hawaii. We, you know, we're in this beautiful place and we were just so exhausted because we were like going just full on all day in the pool, in the waves with the kids and didn't have any time for us off. It was not like the Hawaii vacation we had before we had kids. So we started to do our MVP time in the morning even though we were on vacation and it changed everything. We were able to, you know, each have an hour for ourselves and it just really unlocked the ability to be present, to be able to, you know, take everything with joy instead of just feeling like, oh, this is a work.

Work trip watching just another work trip, just another kind of a.

And so I loved how, I loved how it worked for my husband. And then we started to realize that the MVP actually works for our kids too. And so they're, they're young, they're three and six. They don't quite get it yet. We realized that my son, my six year old son, he, his MVP is he needs to get out and run around before 8am or things are crazy for everyone. And then my daughter, she needs to eat a little protein and she needs to spend some time with her brother because that's her most favorite person in the world. So we started to realize this and we're like, if all of these magical things can happen even though they're pretty small, like we will have the best day. So it's taking it as a family mvp. And I've heard some of my friends here too have told me they started to do that with their older children and talking about it. So it's been fun to see how it's just kind of organically started to spread.

Well, I, I love it. You know, in our program, the first practice or micro practices, we start with. It reminds me a little bit of one of the two.

Yes.

Which is a mindful start. So I always ask people when they start their day, I'm like, don't start with the phone first. Leave your phone out. Because it literally puts your brain and your system into a fight. Flight freeze. From the moment you, the alarm goes off and the first thing you see is the number of emails or a news flash. Right. Because most of the news flashes are negative, not positive. Right. Or an Instagram. You look at, you look at, oh my God, I got to go to work. And oh my God, look at this person. Right. Because we can compare ourselves to everyone. But I say, you know, choose five minutes before you wake up, five minutes after you wake up. Do something mindful.

Yes.

And the MVP version, which I love your MVP analogy. I'm like, if you can meditate, amazing. The research is so powerful on it. But if you can't, you have young kids, you have too busy of a schedule. Here's what you can do. Do you brush your teeth? Just brush your teeth. Being present with the sensation of brushing teeth, or do you make yourself a cup of tea? Or do you get into a shower? Or even if you wake up your son or daughter because you're running late and you have to get them up, how are you waking them up? Are you waking them up? Like, come on, get up, let's go, let's go, let's go. Or are you like taking in, in that moment, even if it's one minute of just seeing that gift that you have that so many people would die for, they want kids, they can't have it. Or they had a kid and they lost it. Right. A friend of mine lost his 7 year old in a skiing accident.

Oh my God.

That moment in the mornings when you wake up, right? There is a gift right there. And being able to just for a moment ground ourselves in seeing the gifts in being with us can make such a big difference. And your MVP sounds and it's different for everyone, right? It's not the same thing for everyone, which is also like, I think it's different. So I have a second MVP practice I want to share with you that, you know, I invite your community to try.

I'd love to hear it.

Or you to try. Right? So here is what it is. Five minutes before you go to bed. Just five minutes, right? Before you go to bed, keep a little journal. If you can't do a journal, just start with even just thinking about this in your mind. But journaling helps. Five minutes before you go to bed, do one of three things. Your choice, right? Dealer's choice. Either write down what are three things you're grateful for today, three things you're grateful for in your life, or write down. And this I think will resonate a lot with working moms. What are three positive things that happened today? What are three advances you made today? The list of never ending, what to do is never ending. You know, things where you messed up is as unreal as it is. It's real for you, it's there. But focus in on what are three ways in which you showed up. Three days in which three positive things that happen in the world. And if neither of that is accessible, read a poem, read something of philosophy, read something spiritual and just take a note of an intention that you want to take into the next day. Something of beauty in this world. As hard as life is a reminder of something connection with divine. That would be my recommendation. And the reason it works, Mary, is because overnight we transfer what's in our short term to the long term. And when we seed our short term memory with positivity, we actually over time can build a positivity bias just as much as we are born with a negativity bias. And that's an invitation. That's something I might see to see what it works in your community.

Yes.

And how it resonates.

I will share that. And I want to practice that too. I definitely do not. I do. In the morning I'm good. In the evening I'm reading and then just shut it all off and go to bed. So I love that moment. And it's. It's a micro moment, you know, it's.

It's a micro moment.

It's a cue. You can build the habit. I love that.

Yeah. Well, my friend, I am excited to hear about what's your vision for propel yourself. It seems like a great community. It seems like it's so needed in the world. Tell me about what's your vision for this and, and how people can find you and find this community and collectively. Look, I've always been a believer that the workplace today needs women more than men. We need that feminine energy of connection, of creativity, of innovation much more than we need the physical, you know, drive, control, fight, masculine energy that has, you know, been the, you know, 1800, 1900s. It was a lot of physical labor. It's all mental labor now. It's all collaboration. So tell me, what's your plans for the community and how people can find you?

Yeah, absolutely. So it's, it's a growing community. 50 women have been through the core program and I'm going to do another cohort in January and I have a weekly newsletter where I talk about all the topics we've talked about and more. It's your weekly permission slip to live the life that you want. And you can find me there at propelyourself. Co or on LinkedIn. Send me a DM if you're interested in the cohort. I think it's such a beautiful experience. Keep it relatively small, about 8 to 10 women per cohort. But looking to expand this in an authentic way, in a way that, you know, we can still have that sense of community and have that sharing that I think is so needed. So, yeah, I'm excited for the next round of this and just to continue sharing and connecting with other people that need this. So thank you for the platform.

Oh my God, thank you, Mary. I have so many people. I'll send you referrals to be a part and I think recommend them to come join it. Really, I think, I truly believe, I think, look today where we need workplaces, where we can show up with meaning, where you're energized, where we feel that we belong, we trust we are able to work in ways that are flexible, inclusive. I think our workplaces are not serving 50% of the population right now. And that's what you are. You're giving women the tools both for themselves, but also as leaders to transform the teams they lead. And I am deeply grateful for that. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for, and thank you for doing it as a side hustle on top of your full time job and as a mom. Appreciate, loved having you on this podcast.

Appreciate you too. This was so fun. Thanks again.

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