The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Olivia Bath on growing work confidence

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

In this episode of The Therapy Edit's One Thing, Anna chats to Olivia Bath, founder of The Women's Vault. Olivia's One Thing relates mother's confidence in the workplace.At The Women’s Vault, Olivia provides coaching to help women to overcome workplace barriers, including returning to work post maternity leave, progressing into leadership, negotiating flexible work through to confidence and personal brand. She also provides consulting and training programmes to businesses. Her private and corporate clients include the NHS, Amazon, PwC, and law firms. Olivia is a mother to three-year-old George, and it was her own experiences of returning to work after maternity leave, to a bigger role at one of Australia’s top 4 banks, and the struggles she faced, that inspired her to start her business. Olivia has a digital course, “Returning to Work and Thriving in the First Year” which will be re-released over the summer.You can visit The Wome's Vault here https://www.thewomensvault.com/Listeners can book a free 15 min taster session with Olivia here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd9XqDmKy-XLFZuSSXHoaCPvEHeMS7-J-MhX7eY0tvLwjvCcA/viewformAnd you can follow The Women's Vault on Instagram at @TheWomensVault

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist's mum of three and author Anna Martha. Every Friday, I invite one guest to tell me the one thing they would most like to share with mums everywhere. So join with me as we hear this dose of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it. Hi everyone and welcome to you today's episode of the Therapy Edit and today is a guest episode. and I am really looking forward to speaking with Olivia Barth. Olivia is a mum to three-year-old George and she runs the women's vault, which is an offering for for mums in the workplace.

People kind of just trying to navigate the juggle, maybe returning from maternity leave, wondering how can we do it or what if you've loved your job and now you've got a baby and how does everything fit and differing expectations can just, yeah, just really complicate things. So her passion and drive came from her return to work after having her little boy, George. And she was the first in the company to kind of try that compressed working week, but quickly found that the balance between home life and work life was just stressful and hard to manage.

And she started having more conversations with fellow moms and realizing that she wasn't alone. and now she works with mums. She works with those of us who are just really trying to navigate careers and motherhood. So I think it's just an amazing, just amazing to know you're there, Olivia, amazing to know that you're also working with companies as well. Aren't you kind of helping them work out how they can best support mums coming back into the workplace? So yeah, welcome. How are you today?

Thank you, Anna. I'm really well. Thank you. And I know we're both juggling sick children. at the moment and dealing to our careers and working in our careers. So it's such a pleasure to be with you here today. Oh, well, thank you. And we had a little chat, didn't we, before we hit record. And I just, yeah, you were telling me some really kind of powerful stories about how your passion for supporting moms in this space came about. Can you, can you tell us the

one about kind of when things all changed for you after returning to work? Yes. I'm I'd love to, Anna, thank you. So I had a role at one of Australia's top four banks and I was, it was my day off. I was working compressed hours. I'd shortly returned to work and I was breastfeeding George on the sofa. We had been for a walk that morning and my phone was ringing and I looked down and it was my boss, which wasn't unusual because the job that I did, I was often required. outside of hours. And my boss, who I had a great relationship with and I respected very much, said, I need you to step into this meeting. You have to brief a whole lot of our executives on a very sensitive commercial issue. You'll have to sign some documents later. But for now, I just need you to get organized, read this paper and outline what you think our communication strategy should be basically advising these people on an issue that I didn't know a lot about and to a room full of men. And so I had to pull George off my breast, literally,

and I will never forget a look on his face. He was completely bewildered, just looking at me, thinking, Mommy, what, you know, what's going on? And I put him in his bouncer, turned on my computer, which, you know, it's like, you never, technology never works quickly enough when you're really stressed in those situations. And I had breast milk leaking. all down my front. It was hot and sticky. And I was able to be confident enough within that meeting and to really hold my own within that meeting. But I realized afterwards, and I did a lot of reflecting, and I've looked at this situation and remembered it so many times that what I found was that I was confident in the workplace, but I wasn't necessarily confident in being a

and understanding my new identity and understanding that I had to set boundaries, that I had to speak up, and that I should have said to my boss, actually, it's my day off today. I can't help you with this. But I didn't have the words, the language, the confidence to be able to say, you know, I was fearful of what that would have meant for my job. And also, I just wanted to help her. I knew how busy she was. So it threw up a whole lot of things for me that I was completely not expecting some some internal barriers, some inner thoughts, some inner beliefs and dialogue and some external barriers and they came crashing together. And when I started to tell that story upon realizing how stressful it was and how difficult it was, I needed to be pulled into two places at once

and I wanted to be in two places at once. I loved my job and I loved my baby boy. And it really, I started to share that story and as you said Anna as you shared other women started to tell me similar stories and I thought hang on you know actually this is a bigger issue I think I can do something to help I think I've been through this experience and now I work with women who are you know absolutely incredible women but we are still lacking confidence and we are still saying things like I'm an imposter or I shouldn't be here or I'm only here by luck or by chance. And so I try to tackle that and at the same time work with organizations around how can they better support parents and better support women because we need moms, we need women

represented at all levels of organizations. Yeah. So really it's kind of in you starting to recognize how in that moment you didn't, you know, you didn't have you kind of almost lost lost your voice and and through that now you're just amazing passionate about helping other moms find their voice and kind of instill new boundaries and helping workplaces support them in doing so so that they can they can be the best that they can be within that workplace with respect and acknowledgement of the motherhood role as well alongside that that's amazing I love it I do love it when these moments

that are just so pertinent, you know, incredible stuff comes out of it. So that moment must have been so hard. But what a journey of reflection that you and equipping that you are now able to kind of pass on. So that's brilliant. Thank you for sharing. So Olivia, what is the one thing that you would love to share with mums today? Oh, Anna, it's such a good question.

And I have pondered it so much. And I've loved listening to the other women and their responses as well. well. And I think if I can further build and further add to what they have shared, it would really be for mums to be more confident to have that self-belief and cultivate that self-worth within themselves. So we know that 79% of women regularly lack confidence at work. 79%. Wow, that's a big, that is a big statistic. And I think so many people listening will be like that, I am in that statistic. I am in that statistic. Yes. Yes. And I think it often starts at maternity leave and when we return and then our confidence

continues to take a hit as we are faced with all of these external barriers, as we're faced with not getting a pay rise after returning for a maternity leave, after we get overlooked for a promotion. So I think if we can start with ourselves in mind, start with our own sense of confidence and push that outwards to really be clear with others and to communicate with others and to show others what we are capable of. And I'm not saying that we should change ourselves. I'm not saying that women need to fix themselves. All I'm saying is that we can all work on our own confidence. And I think it starts for moms in particular, it starts before you head off on

maternity leave when you come back and into that first few years of work. And, you know, as moms, we're juggling the mental load where we are, we've got so much going on. And I think if we can just find some moments of stillness and reflection and looking at our own confidence and how we can show up, that can make us a huge difference in how fulfilled we are, how satisfied we are and how happy we are as well. And what, so for someone who might take that moment of reflection, think, wow, I really have just felt like I've come back from maternity leave. And I have lost my voice. I want to say yes to everything because I want to prove myself or I feel like actually I do want to dive into this. But the cost at home of doing almost too much and taking on too much is, you know, it has a high price. What might you encourage them to, what, kind of first step on recognizing that might you encourage them to take? Yeah. I think it's firstly

having that clarity of how you want to show up right now. So I often get this question and I often get it on Instagram, which is how do I know should I be putting my foot on the pedal right now? Or should I, is it okay just to sort of cruise back at work from maternity leave or just even in working. Maybe they've had their second or third child. And I would say that that can only be decided by you. You are living your life. It's your reality. But decide, you know, what you want and be clear, communicate that with others. Particularly as moms, particularly for those of us who work part-time, there are lots of false assumptions made around commitment at work. Women who work part-time often say that they are overlooked for promotion.

But if you can be clear and communicate with others around this is how I want to be supported at work. For example, I want to put my foot on the pedal. I want to be chosen for projects. These are the types of things that I love to do. This is what I'm good at. Then that sends a very clear message to your manager, your employer around where your heads at and where you're going and hopefully, you know, they will support you with that.

On the other hand, you may say to your manager, look, I'm lacking a bit of confidence at the moment. I need a little bit of help with that. Can I work on some projects that, you know, I am good at doing to build my confidence, to boost my confidence, but I'm not wanting to shoot the lights out at everything right now. And so there can be an enormous, trust and rapport that is built from that conversation, from that communication. I love that. That's so tangible. That's a brilliant one. Thank you. So, Olivia, you're the women's vault is, I've seen your website. It's brilliant. It's this kind of real collection, a place to go, whether you're looking for kind of that one-to-one coaching. You've also got

workshops on there and you've got a digital master class. And then, of course, he works. along with companies as well. But is that the best place for for mums to go that are listening and might think, oh my goodness, I need more. I need more of this, more of Olivia's guidance. Yes, yes, my website or Instagram. And I'm always also happy for moms to contact me and say, come and talk to my company, come and educate the leaders within my business around

how we can better support moms, how we can better support parents. I'm working with a few organizations at the moment. One of those is a very large, a global brand. And they've asked me to help create a program for parents at work and also managers of parents, how they can better support parents. So if you feel that you don't quite have the words or the voice to be able to communicate, you know, the support that you feel that you need, then please do, I'm more than happy to have that conversation on your behalf.

And I see it now as a passion, but as a duty as well to help both women and help organizations with that two-pronged approach to make things better for moms so that they stay at work. Oh, it's so good to know you're there. It's so good to know you're there. So needed as, you know, the balls that we're juggling just seem to get bigger. And the expectations that we place on them can, you know, on ourselves can just, yeah, can be so high. So it's great to know that you are there as that powerful resource to go to.

So to finish off, I ask some quick fire questions. I've got some for you here. Olivia, what is a motherhood high for you? What do you love? At the moment, George and I cycle to school together. So he rides on the back of my bike. and it's just a really lovely moment in the mornings together. We chat, we sing songs, and it's just such a joy to be able to do that together.

And I guess if I can add one extra, it's as I was saying, it's working with women and I guess finding my purpose and completely changing careers and now getting to do something that I never thought I would do and having the opportunity to work that, to do that. And I work with some absolutely incredible women and I feel so, so privileged to do that. Oh, those good feelings. Thank you for sharing. And what is a motherhood lower motherhood challenge for you? Sleep deprivation. Yeah, I'm feeling that today. I'm feeling that today. It feels relentless some days, yeah. So what's something that makes you feel good, something that you do that makes you feel good?

Meditation and a long bath. Oh, yeah. And maybe even at the same time, ever at the same time. Yeah, yeah. I love that. Meditation and a long bath. And finally, Olivia, how would you describe motherhood in three words? Joyful, unexpected.

and I would also say all-consuming, which I know sounds a little bit negative, but actually my thoughts are never far away from my child and I'm sure you're the same. And even when we're in the thick of work, we will think about them or we will see a drawing they've done or, you know, I've got a T-Rex figurine on my table. Yes, there he is. I've just seen him. Very menacing. Yeah. Oh, beautiful.

It's always in our hearts and in our bodies, isn't it too? Yeah, it is. It is indeed. Well, thank you so much for your time stand. I encourage everyone to go and find you on Instagram, your Olivia Bath, and what's your actual Instagram handle? At the women's fault. At the women's fault.

And then also your brilliant website, which I'm sure everything is probably linked from there, isn't it? But thank you so much for your time and your inspiring words, encouraging us to kind of find our voices and think, about what we want, think about what we want and nudge those comfort zones in starting to gain some confidence as we speak those things out. So thank you. Thank you, Anna. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe and review. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my two books

called Mind Over Mother and Know Your Worth. I'm also. the founder of the Mother Mind Way, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mothers' mental and emotional wellbeing. It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon.