Voice Lessons Podcast

Erica Mackey is a mom on a mission. In this “Lesson on Self-Assurance”, the CEO, and Co-Founder talks founding MyVillage—a company training an army of women entrepreneurs to run their own businesses--raising six million from impact investors and her solutions for the broken, messy problem of childcare in America. If you’re a mom who was told to get on the childcare waitlist while you were still pregnant, this episode is for you.

• Why the average American mom can’t '“stay-at-home”.
• What is My Village? Why/how was it founded?
• What do being humble and “being the rock” have to do with it?
• How role models like Finland’s Sanna Marin, New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden, and Senator Tammy Duckworth are changing the conversation.
• Obstacles that women face as working mothers around an unconscious bias.
• Creating a really powerful on-the-ground community that supports each other.
• "Why are women expected to work like they don’t have children and mother like they don’t work?"
• Why aren't childcare providers able to be written off in the same way that other employees are?
• How Erica’s confidence and passion attracted investors to her business.
• Women raise on 2.8% of venture capital. How did Mackey raise 250 million and 6 million for her ventures?
• What is an Impact Investor?
• Do women lead differently?
• #LESSONUP: (8:03) We're using a lot of principles that are out there around child centered, child led, play-based programming. But we are doing it in a way that we really help people thrive in their first six to 12 months of running a home based business. (12:54) We're seeing so many more women right in this moment, I think of Jacinda Arden who brings her baby to the UN general assembly for the first time ever. Who's out there breastfeeding. Finland's female prime minister who's the youngest female prime minister in the world and she posts selfies breastfeeding. And then Tammy Duckworth, she got caught on her zoom call saying “ you're going potty mommy will be there in a second.” She told it to the whole democratic caucus, which I thought was hilarious and I personally, I love this. (14:49) That boundary between personal and professional as you start framing it, you can't be the best and exclude the other side. (15:52) We're still having this conversation in the United States, strangely about women who work and should women be allowed to work where you should be at home with your children. And there's still this kind of unconscious bias and this push-pull a lot of the times still between moms who work and moms who don't about what is best for children. (17:34) I think in the world that we're in now where unemployment is going to be a major issue and flexibility around employment and trying to make all of the puzzle pieces work in a way that don't. It's going to have to be at the forefront and the political conversation. (19:00) I built that business over seven years. I was COO and built a thousand person team. We raised about 250 million over the course while I was there to scale the business and at the point that I moved back to the States, we were selling about 10,000 houses a month. (19:53) Focus on solving important problems. And I think that's where a lot of my confidence as an entrepreneur comes from and how you present the opportunity, how you work your way through your network to get to the right conversations at the right time. (20:42) Having a strong conviction to the problem and a true deep passion for wanting solve it I think is always been a successful first step for me. (21:27) I was very specific about picking impact investors for our initial round. Impact investors are really mission-aligned, so they're looking for a double, triple bottom line business. Some of them are environment, profit, people-focused. Some of them are just people profit-focused, so they want a return. But they really understand that the best impact that can be made in a society is usually in a really complex system. (23:20) It's more of a place of leading from self-assurance. If I have doubt about the direction, it's anchored in a place where I'm sure we will get to a solution on the other side. (26:24) Feminine leadership will often will make you much more successful in the connection and coming from a good place, coming from a place of support, which then I think as long as you're delivering the directness, on the other axis at the same time where you're really able to not get hung up by worrying so much about people, how it's going to land, and where it's coming from. A true, honest place. I think that women, in general, are much better at getting that balance. (28:59) This is about creating an army of small female entrepreneurs that are going to change the world but just really tackle the childcare crisis on their own.

Barbara Huson has devoted decades to empowering women as a financial therapist, wealth coach, and author. In this episode, Kim speaks to her about her 7th book, Rewire For Wealth, and the three steps every woman can take to step into their power and program their brain for financial success.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

• How Barbara’s father and first marriage didn’t teach her about money but prepared her to help women financially.
• Banks could refuse women a credit card until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 was signed into law. Prior to that, a bank could refuse to issue a credit card to an unmarried woman, and if a woman was married, her husband was required to cosign.
• Why women are afraid of their power.
• Being MetaFISCAL and what it means.
• How a women’s spiritual journey connects with her financial wellbeing.
• Barbara’s three levels of financial development: survival, stability, affluence.
• Are you an under-earner?
• The two emotions to recognize when going from survival to stability on your financial journey.
• Barbara’s 3-step formula to rewiring our brains for wealth.
• Why it can be difficult to rewire.
• The connection between our brain and our thoughts and how we can change the negative thoughts we tell ourselves.
• The balance between love and fear.
• Receptive surrender and how it relates to COVID-19 and what we are collectively going through as a whole.
• Why Barbara changed her last name.

#LESSONUP:

(2:50- 3:50) I realized very early in my work with women and wealth is that women's issues with money have very little of anything to do with money. And it has everything to do with their fear up or ambivalence about power because women don't understand power from a feminine perspective. And in my definition, a powerful woman is someone who knows who she is, who knows what she wants, and expresses that in the world unapologetically. So essentially our fear of power is our fear of becoming all of who we're meant to be, to really shining our light in the world, and dimming ourselves down. So we don't make waves. And for the patriarchy men see power as power over we don't, for us, power is power with, we are collaborative. We are all about power with.

(4:09-5:00) I remember interviewing a psychologist who specialized in financial matters and I asked her, why are women so afraid of their power? And she said to me, something gave me full-body chills. She said powerful women have been burned at the stake. Yes. And I believe it is in our collective unconsciousness that we have this fear of being punished or having catastrophic outcomes if we are powerful. But in order to create wealth in order to make a difference in the world, we have to become a container that can attract, sustain and grow our money. And that's what's required of us. Mother Theresa said it takes a checkbook to change the world. And it's so true.

(10:07- 10:20) Under-earning never feeds your soul. It is always an act of deprivation and not just of money, but of time of choices, of freedom, and most of all of self-esteem.

(10:45- 11:20) Our brain which is a physical organ in our body controls our behavior. Everything we do inhaling, exhaling, saving, spending is controlled by our brain. Our mind is a non-physical entity, the source of thoughts and feelings. And what flows through the mind is what shapes the brain. So if you want to change your behavior, it's really hard. It's really, really challenging to change your behavior unless without changing your brain first, and the way you change your brain is by changing your thoughts and feelings.

(13:28-13:56) All rewiring is unlearning the thoughts that don't serve you so you can, we can program into your brain thoughts that serve you. You recognize the thought you reframe it, but it's not enough to change your behavior unless you do the third step, which is respond differently. Don't want to do, do what doesn't feel. Right. Do what you think. This isn't me. This isn't me. Those are all signs that you are rewiring your brain.

(14:55- 15:40) The effects of COVID are many, but one of it for us is enforcing us to reconsider our life. And are we going in the direction we need to go? And thing to do when you get the call, when you realize, Hmm, I need to make some changes. Whether you want to or not. The universe tells you time to make a change. What you need to do is step back and receptive surrender... to get quiet because the idea is to tune into your soul. And in order to hear our soul, we must be quiet. Our soul needs stillness. Our ego, which is telling us, telling you, you're not enough. You must do this. You should do this. It's so loud. It's screaming at you. So you need to get quiet to see what ...

After a flash of inspiration, Deborah Alma bought a vintage ambulance on eBay and became “The Emergency Poet”. Another flash several years later and she bought a shop, founding the world’s first “Poetry Pharmacy”, a tea, performance, and consultation space where Alma prescribes handpicked poems to her patients. In this episode, we take an inside look at the healing, intimate power that poetry has, and how it connects people to the spiritual part of themselves. You’ll learn that being on the outside of normal can be the best part of how you share your voice and operate your business, allowing some decisions to be made purely on moments of playful creativity.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

• What is “emergency poetry” and how did Deborah turn her creative passion into a career?
• Why we turn to poetry at times of crisis or at heightened states of emotion.
• How poetry taught Deborah the power of listening.
• The intimate nature of poetry and how it can serve as an extension of yourself, allowing you to become more open.
• How being mixed race/mixed class informed Deborah’s work and the importance of combatting situations of prejudice.
• Why what Deborah values most about herself is invisible to others.
• The journey from creative to businesswoman.
• The struggles of taking yourself seriously as a creative business owner and the boundaries that should be addressed.
• Why some creatives want to give away their work for free.
• Do you have to be ruthless to be good at business?
• The collegiate way that women lead and why they work with you instead of for you.

#LESSONUP:

(1:25) About eight years ago, I suddenly bought a vintage ambulance on eBay. All of my friends saying, no, do it. It wasn't an idea to have a business particularly. It was just a kind of a piece of art, I suppose. A kind of creative idea to go and do poetry prescriptions.

(7:14) And it's got all the original ironmongers shelves, sort of mid Victorian shelves. And I was peering through the dusty windows at these shelves and the mahogany counter and an old tale. And it was a bit like the emergency poet thing. I just had this kind of flash of inspiration.

(7:24) The flash of the inspiration, is that the same place where the poems come from for you? Yes. It's the kind of free, almost childlike, playful part of me that hasn't died. I just indulge it all the time. It's the same place I think.

(9:28) I think what happens here as well as the States is that school can put you off to poetry. People pick poetry apart in the classroom and it destroys it. It destroys that kind of immediate and intimate response.

(12:22) I realized how sharing a poem could take them in their head to somewhere positive. So I learned that, I learned that people like being listened to really carefully. I learned that people like you to ask unexpected questions. They like to talk about themselves.

(12:33) There's a process...this question and then this question, so that they don't go off into unsafe territory. It's always about them. It's always about positive parts of themselves. Then it kind of comes to a resolution and at that point I asked them what they'd like a poem for whether it's work stress or anxiety or they're bullied at work or whatever it is, and it's right at the end. So we don't dwell on the thing too much. The poem should answer that.

(15:10) It's such a personal relationship. That that very intimate relationship, yourself, your emotions in that text, whether it's fictional or a poem.

(21:34) For me because it's not seen as well. It's part of me that's really important and that I love and I'm not in touch with it. It's not addressed most of the time. So it was really nice to be able to write about it actually. There's a line in one of the poems from when I was little and we put bells around our ankles, my mum and me and my sister and we'd dance, Indian dancing and I grew up with the films and it goes right through me. But it's not seen.

(18:19) I think there's something that women do that's very different. It's more about working together, worrying about the people, how people feel when they work with you, that they work with you and not for you. That kind of collegiate way of doing things. I can be a bit of a softie. I want to give things away all the time.

In this moment, it can feel exhausting standing under the weight of the world and its problems. It’s going to take all hands on deck to speak the truth about what isn’t working so that we can figure out a solution together. In this episode author, speaker, and movement builder Alexis Jones shares her belief that audacious ideas have the ability to change the world. Her company I Am That Human works with the biggest, baddest people, brands, organizations, campaigns, and initiatives to inspire people and innovate humanity.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

• The vision behind #IAmThatGirl and what girls wanted and needed at that time
• Building a brand when you make people a part of it
• What are her squads?
• Visibility can be a double-edged sword
• Staying authentic in who you are
• Alexis’s spiritual practices
• How to get specific about the thing that you love the most and not apologize for that
• What the E-Myth taught Alexis about shifting gears within the leadership roles and leaning into different communication styles
• The differences between feminine and masculine leadership
• What cause is Alexis willing to be unpopular for?
• What is a “good man” and do women who are raised by them have an advantage?
• Kobe Bryant and how do women approach the conversation of forgiveness with Men
• Making the invisible bro-code system visible and rewriting the rules of it
• We need to talk to young white men about privilege
• How Alexis got involved with “13 Reasons Why”
• How movements like Black Lives Matter and #METOO are changing the cultural conversation

#LESSONUP

(5:25) And I think if you're a true founder, you have the humility to recognize that it's just a tapestry and everyone is a different color thread in that tapestry. And so for me, I think having the initial, the impetus and the spark for I am that girl, but truthfully, women have grabbed it and run with it and created so much of their own thing. And I think that was a big part of kind of our pillars in it were I am but one girl originally from Texas, I have a very, very specific perspective to myself. We wanted every single girl, every single woman, every single person who identifies as female, we wanted all of them to be able to feel like it was a home.

(6:55) I think visibility is definitely double edged sword and I think learning how to manage visibility, because I think the moment as a human and I think it's something I've certainly struggled with over the years. Because the expectations and quite frankly the validation that exists outside of you. I think it's really easy to loose who you are in a world in which we are crowdsourcing confidence outside of ourselves and I think visibility offers you that temptation of saying “Oh, all of these people have all of these ideas and all of these opinions”, because that's really what visibility is, right? It's the mirror recognition that people now have an opinion on your life and often strangers have an opinion on their life.

(14:32) Leading with a femininity, which I think leadership requires both of it. And it's really up to each individual. I think of what you lean into. Because I grew up with four older brothers, I grew up in a very masculine environment. I was an athlete. I worked at Fox Sports, ESPN. I've always been around a whole lot of men. I think that a lot of it is nature/nurture and that nurture aspect was I learned how to communicate very directly, which men predominantly communicate very directly. And I remember being 14 years old and having this kind of aha moment of that distinction when we talk about feminine, masculine energy.

(16:40) I think it takes a lot of humility back to that word of like malleability back to that word of flexibility, back to that word of almost this emotional intelligence to recognize that whoever's before you, whether it's a man, whether it's a woman, regardless of how they're dressed, regardless of how they're coming across or what their job title is. I think so much of leadership is recognizing my only job is to take the time to learn how the human being in of me needs to be communicated to.

(19:05) We are taught so much and we can unlearn so much. And we kind of this idea within technology, like we're always like upgrading with our technology, are we upgrading within our humanity?

(31:48) If we're ever going to get to a place of actual change, one is addressing, acknowledging, listening to the righteous indignation and anger. There's righteous anger that if you're a woman in America today and you see the things that are happening, if you are a person who is looking at statistics of one in five girls will be sexually assaulted on a college campus. One in two women walk around having been sexually assaulted in our lifetime. If we don't all have a low grade fever out of like a mild rage tha...

Deciding the objects we surround ourselves with in our homes can be a journey of self-exploration. In this Lesson on What We Keep, Jean Lin, Founder and Curator of New York City design gallery and studio Colony, speaks about her new book, what designers make, what they collect and understanding the creative power of collecting.

ABOUT COLONY Founded in 2014 by Jean Lin, Colony is a cooperative gallery, design studio and strategy firm with the singular aim to celebrate independent design and support the community who creates it. Colony Consult provides creative direction and design services for design studios, architecture firms, real estate developers and global manufacturers. The team utilizes design, marketing research, PR, and content creation to better articulate clients' position in the American market. Colony, the designers’ co-op, is a community of independent furniture, lighting, textiles and objects designers coming together on a New York City stage to celebrate American design with an international audience. The gallery is located at 196 W Broadway, New York, NY 10013. FOR SHOW NOTES VISIT: WWW.VOICELESSONSPODCAST.COM TO WATCH VIDEO EPISODES: https://www.youtube.com/@VoiceLessonsPodcast FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM:

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