This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 155 / Executive Motherhood with Ashley Quinto Powell

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Whether you’re a full-time Mom where your job is inside the home, or a Mom who has an additional full or part time job outside the home, YOU HAVE A JOB. That job has REAL value. And we should start thinking about it like that. (Side note: I also believe that being a Dad is a job and more people should treat it as such, and dad expectations should be as high as mom expectations, but we’re talking about Moms here today.) I’ve invited Ashley Quinto Powell to join me to talk about this concept of Mom as a career, and as an employer. Ashley is a serial entrepreneur, a national speaker, and the author of Executive Motherhood: The Art of Having It All Without Doing It All. As the Founder of the Virtual Assistant Agency, myVA Rocks, she knows a thing or two about running a business, and she’s spoken about motherhood for TEDx. Ashley provides a different perspective on Motherhood by redefining “mom,” as a mother and as an employer.  Whether you’re a “yummy mummy” (you know those super zen yogi moms that wouldn’t dream of losing their cool and individually squeeze the milk of organic almonds while sculpting their abs, soothing kids' feelings and saving the whales), a holding on by the seat of your pants Mom, or any other type of Mom, YOU HAVE VALUE!! Recognizing, appreciating, and acknowledging that value isn’t just Woman’s Work. It’s society’s work.  It’s about time we see it for what it is: Women. Doing. Invaluable. Work. Connect with Ashley and access resources: LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyquinto/  Resource: www.myva.rocks Link to her book Executive Motherhood: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09TKWHYTW/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0 To join Nicole’s pod (to get all the inside scoops, free stuff, and the occasional rant), click here

I am Nicole Kalil and you're listening in to another episode of This is Woman's Work, where together we're redefining what it looks like, what it means, and what it feels like to be doing woman's work. And in case I haven't been clear, the definition of woman's work is whatever feels true and right to you. It's your choice. Whatever makes you feel the sun from the inside, that's what woman's work is because your gender isn't the determiner of your purpose, passion, or desire. You are. For many, though not all, being a mom is part of that definition. And my hope is that when we cover parenting topics on this show, that we bring a wildly different perspective,

or at the very least, a broader perspective to what it means to be a mom. Because for me, being a mom looks very different than what society has told me it should and what parenting book suggests it ought to. I am not what my friend Liz Diekel calls a yummy mummy. You know, those super zen yogi moms that wouldn't dream of losing their cool and individually squeeze the milk of organic almonds while sculpting their abs, soothing their kids' feelings and saving the whales.

Yeah, I admire a yummy mummy, but there's zero chance in hell I'll ever be one. And as you know, if you listen in often, I'm fond of the occasional rant and have more than my fair share of pet peeves. So let me open this episode by sharing something about motherhood that makes my blood boil. And that's anything that even alludes to the idea that it's not work. Even the term stay-at-home mom pisses me off as it implies they're just hanging around the house all day. It's freaking work. Anyone who says otherwise has never done it.

Way back in the day, I used to work in finance, and one of the aspects of any good financial plan is getting the life insurance coverage you need. Trust me, by the way, when I say disability life and long-term care insurance is part of any solid financial plan, but that's a topic for another day. So I used to hear stories of men saying their wives didn't need life insurance coverage because they were stay-at-home moms. Really, Dick? And Dick is short for Richard here. Let's think about the value that's being provided for a second. If your wife was no longer here and you presumably had to continue to work, who the hell would do it all? And what would it cost you?

You'd need childcare, a cook, a driver, someone to manage the household, a cleaner, a therapist, a grocery shopper, et cetera, et cetera. And I can tell you that shit does not come cheap. You'd likely need the equivalent of a full-time employee. So don't tell me you wouldn't be up a creek if your stay-at-home wife wasn't around to do it all. So all that to say, whether you're a full-time mom where your job is inside the home

or a mom who has an additional full-time or part-time job outside the home, you have a job. And that job has real value. And we should start thinking about it like that. P.S. I also believe that being a dad is a job and more people should treat it as such and dad expectations should be as high as mom expectations, but we're talking about moms here today. Okay, I've invited Ashley Quinto-Powell to join me to talk about this concept of mom as a career and as an employer. Ashley is a serial entrepreneur, a national speaker, and the author of Executive Motherhood, The Art of Having It All Without

Doing It All. As the founder of the virtual assistant agency, MyVA Rocks, she knows a thing or two about running a business, and she's spoken about the topic of motherhood for TEDx. So Ashley, thank you for being here to provide a different perspective on motherhood. Let's start with this concept of redefining mom as mother and employer. What does that mean? Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited for our discussion, Nicole. You know, as we see women rise up the ranks in corporate, one of the things I'm really passionate about in general is making sure we protect the executive pipeline of women, but actually not so we just happen to have great diversity numbers at the top.

Because women make amazing leaders. And any parent will tell you that the experience that they have raising children made them much better managers. And the company that I have now is incredibly mom-friendly, although we have lots of people who have side hustles and who are caregiving in general. And, you know, there's a lot of the stuff that we thought of for moms that makes sense for, you know, someone who is not caring for children in particular, but it's just a human being. And so anyway, long story short, moms are amazing managers and we should put them at the top because they definitely want to be there. And as you know, we've sort of been assuming that if a woman has

a baby, she instantly wants to have less to do with an upward trajectory in her career, but that is statistically not true. So what I kind of took away from that is being a mom is job experience. Like I often talk to women who maybe took time off when they had kids and they come back and they're like, I've been out of the workforce for so long. But what you said is absolutely right. Being a mom has made me a better manager, a better leader, a better communicator. It's had me have more patients, a better trainer. I mean, there's so many skills that are being used and developed in our roles as moms that are transferable and applicable to those of us who choose to have careers outside. Let me ask your thoughts on the way we do work

in today's day and age. I have this fundamental belief that this idea of working 40 hours a week at a job is an old way of doing things. And it was done at a time where there was somebody whose primary job was home. And now you have dual income households and all that. How does work need to evolve or change or adjust for parents who want to be able to do both at a high level? Great question. Well, and I think it's important, too, to recognize that our envisioning of a dad who puts a suit on and takes the commuter train into the city to work while mom is in a, you know, like a cinched dress with a flared bottom and little heels and pearls and is, you know, taking care of the children because that option was not available to Black women in the same era. The people of color have always been working and have always had two parents working. And so really, with that reframing, that image is even more narrow.

And let's not even talk about the people for whom being at home without having an outlet is miserable, or who really get something out of contributing outside of the home as well as in the home. You know, there's just there's a lot there. But we do need to change it because we're seeing and I'm really grateful for the generation of workforce that's coming up now and all of the things that they're insisting change because they are fairly antiquated. The insistence that we be in an office, the insistence that it be between a certain number, you know, a certain hour of the day. It doesn't work for many, many, many people.

I would venture to say it doesn't work for most people. And we're then missing out on all of the contribution that we could capture if we were smarter about the way that we manage and smarter about the way that we structure work days, because I got to tell you, I can't imagine a company with a more flexible work environment than mine is. And I know my people are working, are working very hard. They're incredible at what they do. They have fantastic autonomy. The whole thing is just, it is nothing but good, but it takes some effort. It takes some effort on the management side. I so appreciate you making the point that when we think about work back in the day, we're typically visualizing a white couple where, you know, as you said, and, you know, black women have been dealing with dual income working. And I would also argue that work

environments weren't created with them in mind back then or now. So I don't think this is working for anybody, even though some people have been doing it longer. I also appreciate the point, the idea that most of us don't want it to look that way anymore. And there are some people who are like, I love going in the office, but the being forced to having to between these hours and these hours and no wiggle room. I think that's where we lose people and lose talent and why a lot of women often feel like they need to make the choice. You talk about women being unpaid project managers at home. Is there anything that we can do to change that?

Because that is real work and needs to be valued. Absolutely. And when I'm speaking to big audiences, I will often say, all right, who can tell me how many rolls of toilet paper there are in your home? Just a rough ballpark of how long you have before you need to buy more. How about paper towels? How about cereal? How about milk? When are dentist appointments for your kids? Have you made annual checkups for doctor's appointments for your kids? And women always know all the answers. It is in our heads. We are constantly keeping up on absolutely everything. And that is an enormous mental load to carry all the time. And one of the things that I talk about in my book is the shift between asking for help and having a partner who's carrying their fair share. I think even having to say, oh,

I need help implies that it is supposed to be your job to begin with. And now you are asking for something that doesn't have to be given. Well, listen, partnerships need to be, you know, not even 50-50. Sometimes it's 90-10. Sometimes it's 10-90. So, you know, there are lots of really creative ways to make things work, but it needs to be all hands on deck. And I think actually, you know, I know my marriage, I don't know if this happens for other people too, but my marriage got way better when we had two kids. Because when we had one kid, we were fighting all the time and someone was always doing childcare and someone else was always doing something else. And both parties wanted to be, you know, the person watching TV wanted to be hanging out with the baby, giving him a bath.

And the person giving the bath was like, well, the TV looks really nice right now. When we had two, it was all hands on deck and we were just trying to hold on for dear life. And so we were more of a team. And that's the approach that we then took for the rest of, you know, up until the present day, it is all hands on deck. So I love this point you're making about asking for help, this implication, and probably why we feel bad about it. It's like that we're supposed to be able to handle it, but we can't. As opposed to, and I only have one kid, so I don't know about the shift that happens when you have two. But early on, before I was pregnant, my husband and I had this

conversation and I was very adamant about this 50-50 partnership. Now, 10 years later, I can say it's not a 50-50 partnership. Like you said, it evolves and sometimes it's this and sometimes it's that. But our come from is it's 100-100. We're both 100% committed to being parents. We're both 100% committed to our families and our jobs. And this all hands on deck approach speaks to me thoroughly. So how do we begin to change it? Like I, I can think of people listening, going, okay, great. That's aspirational. How do I get there? So, first of all, I, I do think this is, you know, some of this, if you're not in a partnership that is serving you, there's some really difficult discussions that need to happen. I will say my husband looks like a lumberjack. He's like a very, he's a very, very handsome,

like Midwestern big guy. And he doesn't, he does not look like the kind of person who would be a staunch feminist, but guess what? 15 years with me made him one. And now, you know, after we've had all of these discussions and a lot of it is, is pointing out, Hey, this is the situation for me. And I realize it looks different for you, but I am really suffering here. And realistically, you know, we need to give our partners the chance to step up because they're in the, you know, they deserve to be involved parents also and having this blind spot. And we get really, I mean, let's take some of the responsibility on ourselves too. We get really precious about, well, nobody else can do it better. You know,

nobody else can do it as well as I can. And anyway, you're going to mess up the whole sleep schedule or you don't know how the baby eats. And, you know, it's that sort of stuff that we're really, we're stymieing our partners in being the best parents that they can possibly be and adding an enormous amount to our own workload. And obviously it's not working. So, you know, some, some tough conversations around, Hey, here's what I'm experiencing in our nightly routine. And I need some help shifting that because're talking about your husband, there's a quote that says behind every enlightened man, there's an exhausted feminist you need to think. And I just thought about that. And then the second thing is I had a friend who gave me that advice when I was pregnant, best advice ever, Julie Gordon, if you're listening. And she said, you know, you're going to have to like share things. And when your husband's doing something, do not say, don't do it like that. Or you need to do it like this. Just let him do it because

it's, you're both figuring it out. Nobody has the answers. And if you do that, he's going to want to do it less and less. And sometimes he actually does it better and who cares? And it was just the, the best advice because Cause I did catch myself wanting to be like, Oh no, you do the diaper that way. And it's like, yeah, he's doing it. We got, we have to let go a little bit to allow for that all hands on deck that we want. Absolutely. It's, I mean, it is a challenge, uh, you know, in, even in the work that I do with my virtual assistant agency, having people get rid of all of that head trash before bringing on a virtual assistant so they can get the help, you know, it's the same, it's the same darn thing. I mean, right. Parenting does make you a much better manager. Absolutely. In your work, or I think we hear this a lot as women, is the importance of self-care. In preparing for our conversation, you called it the myth of self-care. I'm curious what you mean by that. Oh my goodness. Self-care makes me so angry because this is like, I hope I

am finally able to articulate this correctly, but as a society, we tend to try to fix an external problem with an internal solution. And that feels like self-care to me. So I remember having this discussion with a wellness coach that I was working with. And it was mid-pandemic. And I was doing nothing but gaining weight. You could hear me getting heavier. It it was mid pandemic. And I was like doing nothing but gaining weight, like you could hear me getting heavier. It was just so it was like awful. And part of it is that I you know, I mean, we all wait, I did not have a unique experience that was terrible. But I had

gone from traveling back and forth to Chicago once a week where I was doing four 10s. I had a commuter apartment and then I would come home like happy fun time mom on Thursday nights and have an adventure weekend and then go back to work. And now all of a sudden I'm trying to be the CEO of this house. And it was really difficult for everyone. But I had this discussion with my health and wellness coach. And I said, you know, I wake up every morning feeling like I'm already defeated. And she said, Oh, well, let's dig into your why. And that's a pretty common, you know, that's a really common response to I'm having trouble. Great. Like, let's go internal and figure out like, let's get you

really motivated. And frankly, that was absolutely the wrong thing. I did not need a why I needed a how. And I needed someone to say, looking at this situation, you are trying to keep your business running, which was a full-time job before my husband had gone back to work after being a stay at home dad. And the whole thing was, you know, we needed, our family needed some grace. We needed better processes. We needed a nanny. And, and it was the, how are we going to accomplish this? Not why do we want to accomplish it? And self-care feels very much in that category to me. And sometimes I think about, you know, Nicole, you know, women, you're probably the same way too,

who are handling all the things beautifully. We do, we have a big job. Then we have a couple side hustles. We're on boards and then we were active in the kids stuff. We do the PTO and then we actually have friends that we talked to and you know, it gets to be a lot. And then instead of saying, oh man, you're up to a lot, but you're, it's, you're accomplishing some incredible things. How can I help you? We're saying, are you doing too much? Are you taking time for yourself? And that's so infantilizing. I feel like, you know, if you're looking at a woman standing in front of a door, hold like with two armfuls of groceries, right. With like, you know, the milk in each hand and then the line of bags on your arm. And we're, we're staring at her and we're saying, Oh, you should have done less

shopping instead of opening the door for her and saying, can I take any of this from you? Yeah. So I think self-care, you know, everyone needs self-care. I think that is true. The insistence that this is a female focused approach to you are overwhelmed is just more nonsense. I fucking love you right now. This is so good. This is like my kind of rant because, you know, self-care, and I've said this on previous episodes, I have like beef with it because it feels my angle was it feels more like kind of entitled and privilegey because a lot of times people say self-care is like, oh, get your hair blown out or your nails done or whatever. And it's like, I am a huge proponent of we should prioritize ourselves and what makes us healthy and happy and fulfilled. And if you want to call that self-care, great, then I'm all for it. But that's not a lot what we're talking about. But I

really like this perspective of there are some problems that are that need to be addressed with tactical solutions with hows and whos and it's not uh all the other shit that you're doing are you prioritizing an hour a day to do one more thing you know and calling it self-care because that's what i need or like in your analogy, as you're holding those two groceries, are you struggling because you're not taking the time to do it, strengthen your arms? Is that the problem? It's like, no, I need somebody to do the grocery shopping for me. And I shouldn't be standing here holding a door with my foot. Okay. This is fun. Yeah. So how might we go about addressing some of these how issues in our life? Well, I started a virtual assistant agency because I used VAs to handle everything from

my work travel. And so my perspective is a little different, right? You have to have the budget to work with a VA. It's not for everybody. That's fine. We need to look around at the people around us and be willing to, um, assign things, take things off of our plate, willing to let things fall off of our plate. Um, but in terms of tangible help, I'll outsource things like, uh, I coach basketball, uh, in in, I coach PB basketball for both of my kids.

And I was never getting to the emails because the emails are supposed to go out. Like, let's say ideally they'll go out on Tuesday for a Saturday game, but I'm dealing with work and home and all this stuff. And so I would never get that email out until like after 10 on Friday. And I'm like, Oh no, I totally forgot about this. But realistically, like it didn't happen to, you know, it wasn't on fire enough to bubble up on my priority list. I had a, I assigned it to a virtual assistant and the virtual assistant takes care of it. And it goes out whenever I say it needs to go out, it goes out on Tuesday because now that's at our job and it's not an afterthought. I'll say too, you know, in asking for tangible help, giving instructions, you know, being really

candid about what you need, that's really tough. But I am always, always, always asked, okay, but what about single moms? And I think that is another example of how we are expecting an internal solution for an external problem. And I always say, we are wondering about single moms. Everyone needs to turn around and find the single mom that's at soccer practice. And that is at the school pickup. And we need to jump in and say, hey, how about I help with XYZ? Or hey, what can I do for you here? Because we are really awful to single moms in particular. And that's a good example of someone who has no more capacity. And we're saying, well, let's get her additional systems.

And just having a good idea of what we can realistically handle is probably key. Yeah. Well, remembering we are all humans with capacity and our capacities are different as humans. And the answer isn't let's increase your capacity. The answer is how do we make sure people aren't blowing past theirs or having to, in order to survive? One of my best friends is a, you know, Uber career oriented, amazing mom. And she always talks about the community of other moms that she was surrounded with that helped with pickups and drop-offs

and let me handle this and sign that. And how grateful she was that those women offered and were willing. And so to reinforce your point, how do we turn around and ask how we can help when we can help? I guess my last question is any other, I don't know if tips are the right word, if it's not a VA, which by the way, I think a lot of people listening, we have a tendency to default to that's not possible or no, or I can't. If you're thinking, well, I can't afford it,

or I could never do that. I would invite you to just ask yourself, how could that be possible? So for those of us who are entrepreneurs, like if I have to pay somebody $20 an hour and it frees up three hours of my time, that's three hours I can do something that generates some sort of income for my business and we can make choices and all that. So back to my question, outside of hiring a VA, what are other ways, tips, tactics for getting other hands on deck, whether it's a spouse or not? Yeah, it is such a good, it's such a good question because we tend to, when someone says, oh, how can I help? We say, I'm fine. It's, it's a response. And I think in the way we ask,

the way we ask people should change a little bit too. When I ask someone, how can I help you? I usually say, hey, I am thinking that I can either send a cleaner over to your house, or I can come by with my carpet cleaner and make your house fresh, or I can send a meal, which would you prefer? So instead of sort of expecting someone who's already overwhelmed to identify first what you can do, and then, you know, there's so many emotions wrapped up in how we ask for help. So instead of putting that on someone who's already overwhelmed, I will often say here are three ways I'm thinking I can help. I'm open to other ones too, but pick one. I have a friend who every once in a while, like every six months sends me a text message

and she says, name three ways I can support you go. And it's hard to say, Oh, actually I'm totally fine. Thank you. Handling everything beautifully. She knows that's not true. I know that's not true, but I've done things like I'm really bad with text messages for, for instance. Well, my kids think responding to text messages, you know, they're eight and 10, that that is the most fun thing in the entire world. So when we're driving, I hand my phone to my son and I say, all right, start from the top. It's like, all right, your mom says, would you like to come over for dinner on Friday? Yes. Okay. Jeffrey, tell her we'll be there and ask her if there's anything that she wants me to bring. Okay. Next one. Then, you know, he thinks like,

oh, your friend Lorelei sent a TikTok video. It's pretty funny. Great, moving on. You know, you just, you be really creative. I also think like crackpots were, are like such a fantastic tool around. Yeah, they're pretty fantastic. But being really, really being clever and tactical. We're moms. really, um, really being clever and tactical we're moms. So we are used to being clever and tactical. This is not, this is a bit, but letting go to

of the expectation that we are, that we are, um, yummy mummies, uh, in disguise. I'm not a yummy mummy. I'm a hot mess. Actually my favorite thing to do, um favorite thing to do is when I am particularly messy outwardly, you can really tell I'm struggling. I like to say, hey, of all the people you know, can you believe it's me who wrote a parenting book? Because it is kind of hard to believe sometimes. It's so good. I love this tweak of rather than asking, how can I help? Or even the like, I'm here if you need anything or reach out. It puts the onus on figuring how to help on the person who needs the help. And it's like, again, I don't need another thing to do. I really like the here are the ways that I can help. What's great about that too, is then you don't end up getting asked to do something that you don't want to do, or is like

outside of your wheelhouse or that is too much or too little. You can kind of provide the options. And I am absolutely going to start doing this with a few of the women in my life. Name three ways I can support you. And that could be as a mom or a business owner or a woman, you name three ways I'm in. And there are a few people I'm sure in all of our lives that we can do that for. And I just love that. Ashley, thank you. I want to make sure people have the opportunity to find you. So Ashley Quinto on LinkedIn. You can also go to myva.rocks if you're interested in looking for hiring a virtual assistant. We'll put all of that in show notes. And of course, get your hand on Ashley's book, Executive Motherhood. You

can order it on Amazon or tell your local bookstore to order it for you so we can keep local bookstores going. Ashley, thank you for your incredible work and really exceptional ideas today. Thank you so much for having me, Nicole. Okay, there you have it, friends. Whether you're a yummy mummy or a holding on by the seat of your pants mom or a mom who has a second full-time job, you have value. Recognizing, appreciating, and acknowledging that value isn't just woman's work. It's society's work. And it's about time we see it for what it is. Women doing invaluable work.