Life Uncut - Your Inner Critic & Why You're Not Thriving At Work. Uncut with Megan Dalla-Camina

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

There is a lot of discussion around women's empowerment in general, but women's leadership in particular is a topic that we are still defining and understanding. We’ve spoken before about gender pay gaps, glass ceilings, sticky floors, opportunity cost and the expectations on women to ‘do it all’ before.  Megan Dalla-Camina is a three time best selling author and award winning women’s leadership and gender diversity expert. She is also the founder and CEO of the fastest growing women's ed-tech platform ‘Women rising’. Today’s chat is about understanding the reasons behind why ⅘ women feel as though they are not thriving at work and the little voice in our head tells us we just aren’t doing a good enough job. Megan calls this the archetypes of the inner critic: The perfectionistThe beauty queenThe scepticThe imposterThe people pleaserThe outsiderThe comparerThe good girlThe overachieverThe self doubterThe chameleonThe empathThe ideal mother We also speak about: What mini burnout looks like and how you feel when the mini burnouts happen one after the other Motherhood paradox of the expectation to work like they don’t have children but raise kids as though they don’t have work responsibilities People pleasing, trying to be an agreeable, easy to work with person and how that leads to you not getting what you deserve at work How we can utilise this information to help us feel more comfortable in finding what is going to be ‘success’ to us and make us genuinely happy Feminine vs masculine ‘traits’ in leadership You can find more from Megan at her website and InstagramYou can get Megan's book Women Rising  You can take the https://megandallacamina.com/innercriticquiz-questions/   You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Cammeraygal land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany. And I am so excited about today's episode as someone who is very interested in business as a woman, who is interested in seeing other women be very successful in the industries that they work in and seeing women succeed is something that we care so much about. Not even that. What is even that?

No, but on top of that, seeing women, or in today's case, a woman in particular, but seeing women fully support other women is like one of my favorite parts because we don't see it a lot. And sometimes we see it and we don't believe it. Sometimes we think people are ticking a box by saying, I'm supporting women, but behind the scenes, they're not. But today's guest definitely does. Yeah, absolutely.

And I think we've been led to believe that the pie is just not big enough. And so therefore we have to compete with each other rather than working collaboratively. Today, we have Megan Dalla Camino with us. She is a three-time best-selling author and award-winning women's leadership and gender diversity expert. Say that 10 times fast. Her insights have been featured in Forbes, Marie Claire, CNN, and her Popular Psychology Today column with over 2 million readers. She's also the founder and the CEO of the fastest-growing women's ed tech platform, Women Rising. Now, there is a lot of discussion around women's empowerment in general, but women's leadership

in particular, is a topic that we are still defining and better understanding. And we have spoken before about gender pay gaps, glass ceilings, sticky floors, opportunity cost, and the expectation on women to do it all. Today's chat is for anyone who feels as though they might be a little bit stuck in their jobs or feeling a bit unmotivated to ask and expect more for themselves. Megan has just released a brand new book and it is called Women Rising, unpacking the forces that hold us back, the tools to help us rise up, and the different paradoxes that as women impact us in the workplace and can lead us to or inhibit us from having success. Welcome to the podcast. Hello. Hello. I'm so excited. I am so excited to get into this chat,

but before we do, we need to know your most embarrassing story. So my, I was thinking about this beforehand and I was thinking like, I don't have a salacious embarrassing story that I could think of. Well, you literally said, I don't have a Rebel Wilson shit in myself. I don't have one of those. Although my mother would differ, I'm sure, obviously. But I was reflecting, I know you talk a lot about, you know, motherhood and balancing and the juggle. And I certainly talk a lot about that with my audience. And I was thinking about this time when my son was, I was a single mum for the vast, my son's 23. So for the vast majority of his life. And I remember when he was going into the fifth grade and, you know, sometimes as a mum, you just think you've got all your shit

together you think like I'm so organized I've got it all sorted and I was driving him I had a big board meeting I was still in corporate I was driving him to my mum's to drop him off I had them all scheduled to go and get his school uniform and get him all set for school the next day I'm like I've got this nailed this year I'm gonna be so I'm an organized mom who has my shit together exactly the aspiring dream I'm the aspiring dream I was driving around the corner to drop him off at my parents and I see all the kids walking to school in their school uniforms and we just looked at each other. Luca and I just went, far out.

School starts today, not tomorrow. And I'm like, it's 8am, I've got a board meeting at half past eight. He's grown out of his school uniform because he'd had a massive growth spurt and we just both freaked out. What did you do? You're sick today. You're sick today. No.

I did the perfectionism thing, raced home, scurried around, found his uniform, had him lying on the ground trying to do up his zipper on his pants and get his thing done up and I got him to school. Suck in. One minute. One minute to go. Suck that in. It's so funny when, like, kids are running late for school

because usually you assume that it's the child's fault that they're running late, but often when we're running late, it's me. It's me. I am the fault. Yeah, but you blame your kids. You take the fault. You blame the child.

That's really interesting to me. I don't think I knew that part about you that you said you spent your whole basically adult life as a single mum. Yeah. I read that you have so many degrees. I think you're studying now as well, like another, you've got multiple master's degrees, hashtag overachieving. How did you manage to do that? How did you manage to study so much and pay the bills and keep the job and raise a child alone?

Yeah, it was, I look back now to all of those years and I, well, it's no surprise I burnt myself out, but I also look back and I think like, how on earth did you survive? Like, how did you do all of that? And, you know, I came to learning late, you know, I was a rebel at school. I tried to get kicked out of school. I used to get suspended all of the time because I wanted to go to drama school because I was an actress. So I really discovered this passion for learning later. So I was just trying to do what we do, you know, just trying to do the juggle. And it was really bad. Like I had so many moments of mini burnouts before I hit the wall when I was 36 after my first master's degree when I was an executive at IBM. And yeah, completely changed

my life after that. But yeah, I did what so many women do. We just run on the treadmill and hope to God that we don't hit the wall. We were literally talking about this this morning, this idea that you think, oh, after we finish this thing, it's going to slow down. After we finish this thing, I'm going to have more control. But for you, hitting burnout in your 30s was like a very significant and pivotal, it was like the fork in the road for you. What happened at that point in time and how did suffering burnout change the trajectory of your life? Yeah. So I, you know, I had all those mini burnouts and then I was coming back on a plane from another trip to New York, came back and was just feeling so ill and so overwhelmed and just so over it. And Luca was

six and school was hell, like that transition from daycare to, you know, to school and kindy and year one. And I remember driving, getting off the plane, going home, having a shower, driving into the car park and calling my mum on the phone and saying, I just don't think I can do this for one more day. And I was expecting her to give me the pep talk. Oh, you'll be fine, da, da, da. And she said, of course you can't, Megan, you have no life. Yeah.

And I got it and something just like clicked and I got out of the car, walked into my CEO's office, my boss, said I'm done. Like I'm done. You quit on the spot. Well, I did but then I didn't because he was like, Like, well, you know, all the things. So I negotiated two months off, negotiated a new role to come back in and negotiated to come back as a part-time executive, which had never happened.

And I did that for seven years. What were those signs of burnout? Like, how did you know that that, because when you say you have these mini burnout periods, I think a lot of people can identify like I'm run down, then I got better than I, and it does this cycle. But how did you know that you'd hit the end of the wall? One of the signs of burnout is that you just start to care less. like you get distant from it. When you're stressed or exhausted, you do that. You know,

you have a burnout, you get sick, you get more colds, more flus, but then you recover and you're like, oh, I'm good. Like, I'm okay. You know, I'm resilient. Boom, off we go again. But when you really start to see those signs of burnout, whether it's emotional, physical, maternal, you know, whatever it is, you start to withdraw a little bit. Well, for a lot of people, they do that. Plus the signs of I'm exhausted. I can't get up in the morning. You know, I don't want to be doing what I'm doing. You lose the passion for what it is. And I was also having some health challenges, thyroid issues, and just other bits and pieces. It's so hard when you're a mom, a single mom, because it doesn't matter how much you don't

want to do it. You have to, you have to keep going on that treadmill because there's a tiny human there that's still completely depending on you. But I think it's really interesting that it sounds like you had an extremely supportive workplace because you said, I can't do it anymore. And they adapted to you. Do you see that as frequently as you would like? Cause you and your company has done a lot of research into the way women feel at work. Do you find that your situation was a bit of a minority? Yeah, I think it was an anomaly even to this day. Wow. Because I mean, the research we've done at Women Rising, only one in five women are thriving at work? One in five. One in five. Like that's a staggering statistic, right? That's one person

in this room right now that is actually thriving in their workplace. When you say one in five, how do you, like, what are the parameters for that information? You know, when you do the surveys or however you conduct this research, what is the criteria to be defined as thriving versus like suffering? So it's self-identified, you know, so we look at, are you languishing? Are you functioning, which are very typical, you know, sort of research terms that we look at. So that's self-defined. Yeah, I'm thriving. Like I, like I feel like I'm on top of my game and, and feeling really good about life. And then there's a whole lot of other questions that we look at in research that gives us different parameters that you kind of look at then together and go, oh, okay,

I really see this. I see this trend around women and how high burnout is. Yeah. In terms of the women who are suffering burnout, obviously one in five, it seems like it's across the board, but did you find that it is something that is more common in mums, in people who are also juggling children, particularly, I guess, young children at the time, or is it kind of just women in general? Yeah, we thought it would be that. We thought it was going to be really, you know, working mothers who are struggling the most, but we saw it across the board. Wow. And we see it in other research as well. So that is interesting, right for all aspects yeah and it is very interesting because there is absolutely no

doubt that mothers take on such an it's like another full-time job such an astronomical amount of stress but i guess the thing is when you are when you are not a mom you take on other parts of stress like and it's all relative it's relative to your life so these people are still experiencing what they're experiencing but it's it's comparable in stress levels but not comparable in the reason of stress. What are some of the other common themes, the feedback from these women in the workplace? Did you go deep enough to know exactly why they say they're not thriving? Yeah, we see so many different levels. So things like I'm unsupported by my manager. I feel like I don't have the opportunities. Like a really high percentage of women said,

like, I'm not fulfilling my potential. And that showed through in how many women said, if my company doesn't start investing in me and in my career, I'm going to leave. Do they feel like that's a bit of the glass ceiling? Like, is that because there's no opportunity in the company full stop or because there's no opportunity for women in the company? I think it's both. This piece around how much support do I get from my manager? Yeah. And, you know, does my manager care about me, see me? Are there opportunities for me for my next role? How much bias do I experience in the workplace? You know, we saw 74% of women

get interrupted constantly in meetings they get talked over in meetings and all of these like we call them microaggressions they're not really microaggressions and they compound to really impact women's confidence which we talk so much about it's the number one issue that women self declare they have from fulfilling their career potential at work well what do you think i mean in terms of for somebody who is in an environment in their workplace where you say like they are experiencing things that are, and I know exactly what you say when you say microaggressions, being interrupted constantly is anything but that, especially when your opinions are being invalidated. How do people rectify this in the workplace? Is it a cultural thing or are there

actually very tangible steps that as individuals we can take to rectify it? Yeah, the first thing is from an individual perspective is to realize that it's not you. and this is such an important step for women to realize and this is what i write about the paradoxes of power that impact women because what i see you know we've had about 10 000 women go through the women rising program in the last four years that's a lot of women right all ages all stages all cultures and the vast majority of those women come in thinking that it's their problem they're the problem you know if they can't speak up or if they can't put themselves forward for something or if they're feeling imposter syndrome, that it's all on them. So the first thing for

women to realize is a lot of these issues are systemic. They stem from the patriarchy. They come from all of the biases that exist in workplaces. And when we realize that, we stop from blaming and shaming ourselves, which further erodes our confidence and sparks up our inner critic inside our heads that tells us all the reasons why we're not good enough. And we start to see the machinations of what's actually going on around us. Did you get a lot of feedback that women are experiencing this real crux between making the decision on their career and their family, not because their workplace is making them feel that, but because society makes them feel that if they want to go and start family

planning, that they're going to lose the jobs, they're going to lose the promotions? Yeah. Like, I mean, this motherhood paradox where we expect women to work like they don't have children and we expect them to parent like they don't have jobs outside the home. and this conversation I have with women in their late 20s and early 30s and you know we're having children later and all the way on of what's going to happen to my career and I can't be successful in my career either because I don't think I can do it or because of all of the biases you know and limitations and the maternal penalty where we automatically think that women are less capable

when their mothers comes through in all of the research. It's so interesting to me because I feel as someone who is a mum and has employed mums, it is the complete opposite. No one is as productive as a mother who has to get out to pick up their kids by 4.30. No one. Like they are not taking lunch breaks. And I'm not saying that that is ethos that I want,

but they want to get through their work. They want to get it done so that they can get home and be with their kids. They're not like on their Instagram and lolling about. Going for a beer with the boys. It's such a different focus and I know even in myself like my propensity for procrastination absolutely went out the window once I had kids because I became laser focused because now my time is so much more finite. 100% but the problem that we see is women know that but the people in

charge which we know are 50 and 60 year old white men, we know that. We know that less than 12% of women are in CEO leadership positions which is the problem. So the people that are making the decision on whether you can have the promotion and whether you are going to be a great worker are men that don't know so it comes back and the reason we're not getting employed in leadership positions is the same thing because people employing you are men it's yes i don't know how to break the cycle yeah well said well this is why i wrote women rising right because i wanted to get to a different level of conversation about the problem because we keep having the same conversation and i've been in this conversation for nearly 20 years now on all

sides of it. And, you know, like new data came out last week, two reports came out, the Lean in McKinsey report in the US, which says that, you know, we're making progress, but it's very fragile progress. And one of the most important stats was only one in 10 men see microaggressions against women at work, to your point, right? These are the men who are making the decisions about women's careers because they're the ones in management and leadership. They don't see it. they don't understand. And then the CEW report in Australia came out that said we're going backwards. Is that so? Yeah. In terms of women in leadership positions, how many CEOs we have.

So it's not even plateauing, it's going backwards. Yes. At that top level. So we have to get under the skin of, oh, well, we need targets and we need this and we need that. And what's actually going on for women? And that's things like the motherhood paradox, like the leadership paradox, where women get told, we want you to lead, but don't lead like that like we want you to lead like it's always been done lead like a man talk to me a little bit i mean you've brought up paradoxes a few times and i know that this is what your research is centered around talk me through what you think are the most important ones that ones that are the most common that women experience and how these paradoxes shape the

way in which we function within a work environment yeah great question um where do i start why don't we start with the confidence paradox yeah yeah we'll talk about that the confidence paradox is where women get told be confident but don't be too confident because when women like the world doesn't know what to do with strong confident women let's just be honest right we see it everywhere we see it every day and in workplaces a confident woman someone who is assertive stands up for herself uses her voice goes against the gender norms of what we expect for women and this is where the paradox comes so we're going to say to you in your performance review or you know whatever conversation you have oh you do so much better in your career you just

need to be more confident mostly being told that by men who don't understand what that even looks like how to build it what the issues are that take away that confidence in the first place and you know this is why I do so much work with women around like what does confidence actually look like and feel like for you if you're being your most authentic self what does that look like what are the things that get in the way of that? One of which is the inner critic, which I'm sure we'll talk about. And what flavor is your inner critic? Is it the perfectionist, the people pleaser, whatever? And then this is what to do about that. I think it's also like the likability aspect, right? Like I think a lot of people

worry, maybe worry is not the right word, but there's hesitation in asking for things or being direct for fear of not being liked. And that kind of comes across with this type of meekness or you get walked all over you're not actually verbalizing what it is that you want in your work environment or what you need because you're trying to people please you're trying to be this agreeable easy to work with person and that can be long term it can be so exhausting it is absolutely exhausting and we're like we're always trying to like where do I fit here yeah how do I fit how do I not ruffle feathers here because if I ruffle feathers I'm going to get cast out you're like I'm not going to get the job. I'm not going to be in the in-group. Yeah. But it's a dance because I mean,

it's great to be a pioneer in a space, but that doesn't help anyone if by being assertive and being overtly confident ends up that you're cast out in your workplace environment. So it really is a dance, you know? But I think it's important to note here too, that like men are not just the reason that we don't want to be overly confident. We still live in an environment where a lot of women will equally judge you the second that you come out and show too much confidence. And that is something that I think is inbuilt in us for a very long time. Maybe it's because we know that as a society, women shouldn't be like that. Or maybe we know that there's a scarcity mindset for jobs. So if you're going after something you want, there's an internal bias that's like,

you know, she's doing this the wrong way, or she's flirting with the boss, or she only got that because of this. Do you get feedback about women's perception still just as much as men? Because I don't want to just, I don't want to be the person that just goes and dumps on men. I don't think it's men. I think it's the patriarchy, which affects everyone. yeah so when we say men yeah so there's a couple of sides to that and you're absolutely right and you're absolutely right it is a system of patriarchy that we're having all of these conversations and also men aren't the problem right and I completely agree well some men are the problem let's be real but in terms of like I never want to be divisive I never want to be

all of the problems that women have particularly at work are because of men no men are in the patriarchy and men in many ways are significantly impacted in negative ways around gender normative behavior etc about the patriarchy and there's plenty of great supportive men too there's plenty of great supportive men and male allies and we do a lot of work with them so it's an end and to your question yes we hear all of the time from women in our community and it comes to you in the research where we have a woman who is causing the problem a female leader who's not supporting other women who's a toxic leader you know call them a patriarchal leader absolutely and like we can explain all of that away the scarcity mindset you know there used to be one position for a woman

so everyone's fighting for it the way that we tell women they have to lead in a very masculine mode to be successful like there are reasons for all of it the thing that I find with women you know like when a man interrupts you in a meeting it's almost expected when a woman doesn't support you like it feels like a betrayal like there's a very tribal kind of do you know what I mean like essence to well why aren't you supporting me like we're in this together yeah and it has a it just cuts differently I mean we've touched on a couple of the paradoxes how many are there that you have identified and I know we said sort of like what are the main ones we've covered motherhood we've covered confidence we've covered leadership how many are there and what do you think are the

number one most important yeah so there's six tried to keep it kind of net yeah probably more but yeah that for sure right like you could literally go on endlessly so the empowerment paradox we expect women to be empowered in systems that disempower them and this is the piece where we talk about women's progress we don't talk about the systemic issues and that progress and then we're always talking about fixing the women yeah well if you're more confident then you'll be successful well maybe but unless if we want all women to rise we have to fix the systemic issues so that's and really understanding what they are for the empowerment paradox leadership paradox the success paradox so be successful been in a sea of expectations well

everyone has a view on what a successful woman looks like yeah and how you should be successful And if you do it this way, someone has something to say about it. If you do it this way, something has to say about it. It can be very challenging for women to then know, well, what do I want for myself? How do I define success? And not only that, but how do I then own that and have courage and confidence to go and, you know, take the path? Like when I left my corporate career, I was in a high profile job, all the trappings of

what that is to leave and start my own small business. Like everyone's like, you're mad, crazy. Like you're throwing it away. For doing that. You're throwing your 20 years, you know, of your work. You're a single mom. You're this, da, da, da. That's what success looks like.

And I was like, well, no, it's not. I think the same. Not for you. Not for me at this point in my life, yeah. I think the same thing not just in the workplace. I think that this is something that we are questioning more in terms of motherhood. I think we've been told that, well, you just hit a certain age

and you have children and that's just kind of what most people's adult female life looks like. and now there's this rising conversation around childless by choice because before it used to be well if you were childless it wasn't by choice it was because you couldn't have kids and now we have this generation of women who are saying you know actually like kids are great for other people but they're just not for me and the thing about that that's so interesting is the instant thought that choosing that life must be selfish that they must be inherently selfish people if they don't want to dedicate this massive part of themselves to children yes then I think on the flip side I

know a lot of mums who love their children and love being mums but would choose differently and that's a like they would never say it out loud if they could go back they would never be vilified right but they have verbalized it to me yes and that is such an interesting thing to kind of go okay but why why did you feel that you needed to make this decision it's also I don't know if I don't know if this is any relation but when you see a man like when you see a couple break up it's almost not even a question who takes the kids right the man can go and move overseas if once and see his kids twice a year and no one blinks an eye. But if a mum ever took that route in a breakup and said,

I'll take the kids two holidays a year on the weekends. I'm going to move to the Malfi Coast. You have them. The shock, the outrage. Yes. Because we're pushing against gender norms. We're pushing against and it impacts us as women in every single aspect of our lives.

It's the same with women who choose to be single. yeah it's like the stigma or that it's not so much now and i read a statistic yesterday that i think it was like in 10 years 45 of women will be single that's so interesting and i'm not surprised i'm not surprised well i'm single i'm not surprised either i had such an interesting conversation about this recently with my mother-in-law so my mother-in-law lives with me matt's mom she is 72 and she has been single for i don't know better part of almost 20 years i guess 15 years often the question has come up like oh god wouldn't you just like want to be don't you ever want the companionship don't you ever want you know the company the love and she's

always very devoutly said I have amazing girlfriends I love being a grandma and I don't need a male companionship but recently when we were speaking she said I know that I don't choose men who are good to me she's like so why would I want to be in a relationship with someone when my track record has just been horrible relationships. She's like, I had an epiphany one day and I was like, I'm so happy being on my own and not handing my happiness over to anyone else. So, so many people find it hard to understand, but she's like, I've never been more me and more comfortable in who I am than when I stopped dating and stopped seeking that validation elsewhere. I'm the same, right? I've been single for a decade by choice, you know, and never been

happier and this thought that like women have always been defined by who is the man standing next to them yeah and it's not that anymore and it's I think it's such a testament to how much power women have and have access to now and I think like more we're realizing that people are choosing once again choose not choosing choosing not to be in relationships and it doesn't mean that they are not dateable it means they've made the choice yeah and it used to be right like it used to be oh my god I'm a spinster yeah nobody wants me what does that mean about me is my and my womanhood like it's not that anymore and even if it is that anymore like I sure as shit don't care yeah do you know what I mean if people think that you've spoken as well I mean

we've got the paradoxes but you also speak as well about these 13 different types of like almost like personality types again the perfectionist the beauty queen the imposter why was it so important to break down people's personality traits in this way? Yeah, so this is the second part of the book where I look at the archetypes of the inner critic. And I've been doing work myself and with women for more than a decade on the inner critic. It is the number one thing that women say holds them back

from doing what we want to do in our lives and having clarity and taking action. I might rattle them off really quickly just so people know what we're talking about. The perfectionist, the beauty queen, the sceptic, the imposter, the people pleaser, the outsider, the comparer, the good girl, the overachiever, the self-doubter, the chameleon, the empath, the ideal mother. Which one do you think you are, Britt? Okay. I don't know what this says about me. I was looking at this list over and over last night,

trying to pick what I think I am. And I genuinely don't know. I don't know what I am. I would love to know what you think I am, Laura, someone that works with me all the time. I'm definitely an empath. I don't know. I would say you're a perfectionist, Laura. Depends on what it is. I mean, it depends on what part of my life. I think there's an overachiever probably. Yeah, I would say I think I'm an overachiever. I think I try and feel my version of success is built around saying yes to almost everything to the point where like I will reach burnout, but I'm like, I find it very hard to say no

to things. Usually it's things that I want to do and it's things that are big opportunity, but like I have to do them in the best way possible with the most thorough attention to detail. So that's the overachiever and the perfectionist. Yeah, I'd probably just say I'm an overachiever too in a way because success for me at the moment would be – and I think it's wrong and I grapple with that, but success for me is very career-driven at the moment.

It's not wrong. Well, it's – no, I shouldn't say wrong, but – It's where you put yourself value. It's a really big focus for me instead of like probably my relationship or love, which is also very important. But for me, I've always been very driven and very career-oriented. but what do you see is probably the most like is there a really strong standout that you see from people from this inner critic list yeah there's a couple so the imposter is a huge one where like

I always feel like I'm gonna get found out like I feel like I'm a fraud someone's gonna tap me on the shoulder and say why are you podcasting you're not a podcaster yeah right and that sense of like I never feel like I'm in the right place and that I belong to be here so the imposter is a huge one for women, particularly at work. I think the imposter one is an interesting one because it also is a driver for the overachiever and the perfectionist. And I think that that for me is probably something that in every aspect, because I work so hard because I'm like, well, if I don't think I belong here, I'll prove to you that I belong here. And that's where it comes from. There's a lot of comfort though, I think in imposter syndrome in knowing that some of the

most successful men in the world, almost every one of the most successful men in the world have come out and said that they still to this day suffer imposter syndrome yeah i mean which i think is fascinating i feel like probably not as much as women but no no no it is it's proven that's what the science says the science says but it's the idea of people that are successful feel that and that's why they're successful because they're constantly having to prove themselves so they get to that extremely high level yeah so let's talk about the overachiever because that's me you know and we all can have different archetypes like we're not just one and they can change and shift. But yeah, when I wrote The Overachiever, you know, I want to go into the

flow state and I was writing and I came back and I read it and went, oh, that's me. You know, I'm The Overachiever and it's that drive, strive, energy. And a lot of times it can come from a really good place. Like it can, like for me, it comes from purpose, like a sense of purpose and service and wanting to make a difference. But it was also absolutely a precursor to burnout if you don't know how to manage it the people pleaser is a huge one for women yeah because we're you know we're socialized and cultivated to be kind and caring and nurturing and take care of people and what we were talking about before of not wanting to you know ruffle the feathers like where do I fit be likable so that's a big one the perfectionist and the ideal mother you know this

How do I fit into this good mother persona and how does that conflict with my aspirations and my dreams for myself and how do those two things come together? Yeah, I think every mum probably grapples with that at some point. What do you mean by the beauty queen? So the beauty queen, I really grappled with calling it that, but it is when we have a really loud inner critic that is telling us that we're not pretty enough, you're not beautiful enough, you don't fit in, you're getting old you've got a gray hair you yeah that we don't meet societal standards for what a woman should look like or that there is so much value placed within the way you look and so much validation that comes and you know particularly with social media yeah and how we are continually

checking comparing checking comparing and when all of our self-worth is placed on how we look versus who we are yeah so interesting one of you the ones on the list that i would have imagined would be very popular is the comparer because we do live in a comparison culture yes not just because of social media so social media heightens it for sure but I think we're always comparing someone else our age what are they doing well why why haven't I got that yet like why aren't I doing that yet or should I be doing more if they've got four jobs if they're doing a business yes do you think that these archetypes are all negative personality traits or do you think that there is ways in which these can be implemented in a positive way or people have

them in a positive way. Yeah, absolutely. And I write about the light side and the shadow side. So, you know, when it comes to our inner critic, we all have one, like we all have this voice in our heads. The archetypes are really helpful because it helps us understand, well, what is that voice? Where does that come from? What's the broader context of that? Like why so many women people pleases? What are the good aspects of that? So if you're a, if you're a perfectionist, the light side of the perfectionist is well I'm going to work hard and I'm going to refine and I'm going to yet be really diligent about my work the shadow side is it's never going to be good enough yeah and by default I'm never going to feel like I'm good enough and then there's ways

that we manage and tame that through the actions that we can take so it's not all bad the one of the key things is that we need to be aware of what are the stories that we're telling ourselves that are impacting how we feel about ourselves, the meaning that we make from that, and then how are they stopping us living the life that we want to live? And how do people, so if you're going to identify these things in yourself, are there different strategies for each one or are there similar strategies to implement once you've acknowledged and can figure out what person and I guess personality traits you have and how that's impacting the way you show up in work? Yeah. So there are some consistent strategies. Like the top strategy that I teach around inner

critic is three steps. It's super simple, deceptively simple, but absolutely life-changing. So the first step is catch the story. Like when you want to go and do something and you don't do it, what's the story that you're telling yourself? You know, I'm not smart enough to speak up. I'm experiencing this in my PhD program at the moment because I had my first class and I'm doing it in the US so it's all you know zoom small classes and I'm on my first class it's 3am because I do my classes from 3 till 6am because you're an overachiever so much fun well I have to because that's when it's on and I'm sitting in my first class watching all of these scholars you know contribute and analyze the readings and all this and I'm just sitting there going I have something

to contribute holy shit like I'm not smart enough to be here I can't be wow right and I've got two master's degrees and 30 years of experience and like but I because I've done this work for so long I could recognize oh okay that's the story the second step is is that true like is that true that you know I don't deserve to be here I'm not smart enough to be here well I could demystify that quite quickly and then the third step is get to the action well what was the action I need to contribute and speak yeah and I can now do that very quickly when I started and what I see for so many of the women that I work with is like that can really take some time to like even number one what are the stories that I'm telling myself about myself or about the situation getting to that

through line is that true what's actually going on here so that we can get to the reframe and take the action yeah yeah it's really interesting to me something that's been brought up a couple of times and it's like in terms of how specifically women and women who are leaders but they're told to lead in the same way that men lead. How do you think women should be leading? Like what are the parameters that are different to how men are doing it and why are we kind of denying ourselves the opportunity to be like the most authentic version of ourselves as a leader

when we're doing it in an alternate way? So I mean that's the whole crux of what we do at Women Rising. You articulated that so beautifully. So there's the two sides of it, right? There's the patriarchal constructs that we work and live in that tells women, we want you to lead, but not like that. Lead like a man, lead in a masculine way, lead in a directive, authoritative way, because that's what leadership has always looked like. And still today, it still looks like that in a lot of places. The work that I'm trying to

get to is a modern definition of leadership that can be relevant for all genders, but particularly for women, like what does authentic leadership look like? What are your strengths? What are your values? What are the traits? I talk a lot about feminine and masculine traits, which are non-gendered. They apply to all genders. But for women, for decades and decades, all of those feminine traits, intuition, vulnerability, empathy, vision for the future, they're research-defined feminine traits. There's been no place for them. The work that I'm really interested in doing and focused on is, number one, how do we define a new model of leadership? And we're seeing a lot of that you know we saw that with Jacinda Ardern when she was prime minister where she said I refuse

she got so much criticism that she was too soft and she was exactly the person I was thinking of I was like here is a new mum who is the prime minister who is crying who is hugging people who is showing a level of yeah and a level of vulnerability that you've never seen or we've never seen before but it allows people to connect with us but she got so criticized yeah and was told you need to, what, toughen up, be more directive, be less emotional. And she said very clearly, I refuse to accept that I can't be paraphrasing both soft and strong. I refuse to accept that. That's a new model of leadership. And that's what I'm teaching, you know, looking at where are your feminine traits? Where are your inherent strengths and values? And how do you

bring them to the fore versus twisting yourself into a pretzel to fit a model of leadership that doesn't fit you, will never fit you. And I believe is a cause for so many women opting out of workplaces, sidelining themselves, because what I hear from women all the time is I can be authentic here, like at this level, whether that's mid-management, coming into mid-management, but I look above me in my workplace and all I get told is if you want a more senior role, you need to change. Be more assertive. Yeah. And women are saying, but then when they're assertive, they get told they're aggressive, right? It's this likability penalty. So, so many women are saying, no, thank you. That's not for me. It's not for me. And then we wonder why our numbers aren't

shifting. I really love the way in which you've described this, because I do think that people, for very understandable reasons like feminine female masculine male but understanding that there's characteristics and traits that have been gendered but aren't necessarily about gender yes and i think that that's so important because you know men can be vulnerable they can we talk about toxic masculinity men can have all of the same emotions in a leadership position but they've been conditioned to not like we've been conditioned in a way that we've really kind of gendered these very very like normal emotional responses to things I feel like we saw it a lot with Barack Obama like I feel like we saw a different level of leadership with him for a man yes more empathy

he came across as a lot more soft than someone like Donald Trump don't even need to compare the two you wrote a book getting real about having it all and the million dollar question do you think we can have it all you can have burnout too yeah have it with your side of burnout we'll throw everything in there. So funny looking back at that book. I wrote that book 12 years ago. It's like it's, I was still in my corporate career. I want women to ask a different question. I want women to ask themselves, what is it that I want? Like, I'm so sick of this, which is why I wrote that book. You know, like men never get asked this question. Can you have it all? Like it is a, again, it's a patriarchal question for women that constantly makes us battle with ourselves and

battle with each other and judge and compare and feel like we're never good enough. So I'm really interested in the question of like, what do you want your life to look like? What is it that you want in your life? How do you define success for the season that you're in right now? Not what you thought it should have been 10 years ago. And how can you go create that for yourself and stay true to your journey? The thing about this, this question of can you have it all? What it really is asking is, can you do it all? It's the expectation. I think that's really comes into play with motherhood because, you know, when we say, can you have it all? It's the juggling the career and juggling the motherhood. And that piece really just means, well, can you

juggle a full-time career and also be the majority caregiver in your household? That's what that question is. It's not a question about, can you 50-50 parent with your husband? It's, can you do most of it? And I think for the people who have the households where they do 50-50 parent, you realize that it is actually very achievable to have a career and to be a 50% parent because you have the support and the network and the framework around you. It's a question that I, whenever I am interviewed on other podcasts, it's like, how do you do so many things? And I'm like, I do. And I know that I probably have a higher sort of like overachieving drive, but I have so much help. And my husband isn't a hands-on dad.

He's just a dad that does 50% of the dadding in our household. And it means that he has a full-time career and I have a full-time career and we both do full-time parenting between us. But I don't think the idea of having it all also has to just be in the box of motherhood and work. There's a lot of people that don't want kids that still want to feel like they can have it all. And for that, that looks like the really high income with the big house and the white picker

fence, but also the great relationship. But they want a work-life balance. they don't want to work that much but they also want to be able to travel like it's just an idea of whatever your all is but I read something really interesting just yesterday that was this conversation around let's normalize being happy with a nine to five like we're really comparing ourselves to everyone like we are led to believe growing up now that you have to have a side hustle and multiple streams of income and and you have to over consume everything because that's what we're seeing successes online yes I was listening to it and I was being like that's so true some

people's success is having a life outside of work like some people's want to just go to work on a nine-to-five they don't want this stress they don't want their side enjoy their life they want their family life on the weekends like I think back to my parents but you know I'm 37 but we had there were four kids but I think about my childhood growing up my parents worked very very hard because they had to but the balance I don't remember them working at night I don't they were always with us on the weekends they just went and did their nine to fives and then we had a real family life and I don't think we see that as much anymore yeah and I think we really have to give ourselves permission to define it for ourselves yeah and it's that's hard in the world that we

currently live in where there is so much evidence of what our life should look like that it is hard to detach from that and also to unravel all of those expectations that women, you know, get put upon to do that inner work, which is hard for a lot of women to sit there and go, yeah, what do I want for myself? What is success? Yeah, it really is, isn't it? And I know that like a lot of this comes back to this conversation around purpose, like what is my purpose? And I think it takes some people a really long time to figure out what it is, not that is just their purpose, but what is purposeful to them? Like what do they do in life that makes them feel fulfilled and happy?

And I'm sure it is a combination of many things that add to that. In terms of this statistic we talked about at the very start, that only one out of five women are thriving in the workplace, what can people do? If they've identified that in themselves, what are the first steps to being able to live in a way and work in an environment that makes them feel that they have purpose and also makes them feel

that they're on a better path towards thriving? So the very first one, and you know, 95% of women who come and do the work with us don't know the answer to this question, but it is, what is it that I want for my life? What is my life vision? What are the elements? You know, do I want, you know, family life, spiritual life, creative life? Where does my career fit into that? Where's my wellbeing?

Like, what does my picture look like? That's the first, always the first question. Because so often we feel stuck in our careers, but we feel stuck in our careers. we don't know where they fit and we don't actually know the second question which is where do I find meaning and purpose in my work and in my work and also in my life right like you can have a nine-to-five job and your job is not your purpose your purpose is what you do in the evenings or the weekends or playing in a band or taking care of your kids or looking after your aging parents like that's where you find purpose and so often we think that well I have to know my

why and my why has to be where I make my money yeah that's just not true do you think you have to have a purpose to thrive I think you have to be connected to meaning and like we see that in the data I think we all feel that like if you if you don't feel like you have meaning and connection what's the point and that's can you know obviously cause a whole lot of you know mental health issues emotional health issues and i believe we all have a purpose like i believe or multiple purposes of why we're here like what is your role to do in this life i also think purpose can be fluid as well like it's going to change multiple times over your life definitely absolutely it has to be though right i mean even if you as you said like what if your purpose is taking care of your elderly

parents and then your elderly parents aren't here anymore you know like that is a very real thing that it has to be something that is fluid and I think it's also when you are in a place where you don't feel like you have it anymore it's putting in the work to figure out okay well what is it that I can focus on and how can I make myself get back to a place where I have something that is fulfilling in my life yes yeah yeah I'm looking forward to when my fiance doesn't play football anymore and his purpose becomes me good luck joking thank you so much for coming in today it's such a fascinating chat and unfortunately a chat that is so important because it's so prevalent still the the yeah the the patriarchy that we're still fighting daily in the workplace

and as women is it's unfortunate that it's 2024 and we still have to have these conversations and you still have to do your studies and you're still writing these books on it but it's fascinating and I have no doubt we'll be speaking to you again we will be putting Megan's links to the website and to her new book Women Rising in our show notes so if you want to go and find out more please please go because you are a wealth of knowledge thank you so much and thank you for having me on and thank you for all the work you do to support women oh stop it thank you