Work It Like A Mum
Work It Like A Mum
How to Say No and Still Be the Mum and Leader You Want to Be - Minus the Guilt!
In this week’s episode of the Work it like a Mum podcast, we're talking with the dynamic and inspiring Monique de Maio, founder and CMO of On Demand CMO, trailblazing marketer, mentor, black belt in martial arts, and author of 7 Secrets to Creating a Life You Love: A Practical Guide for Women in Leadership.
We dive into the unfiltered realities of being a working mum. From setting boundaries and saying no (without guilt) to resisting pressure from others and making intentional choices that align with your goals.
What We Cover:
- Why being asked isn't the same as being personally invited, and how to say no with grace
- The hidden envy behind "mum guilt"
- How to choose the right commitments and stop overextending
- Building a home ecosystem that supports your ambition
- Why outsourcing isn't indulgent, it's strategic
- Long-term planning by living below your means and investing in future freedom
Key Takeaways:
You can have it all, just not all at the same time
Guilt is often misplaced and rooted in someone else’s envy
Being intentional about your time, energy, and money is the key to long-term success
Stop apologising for working; your kids will notice your strength more than cupcakes.
Why You Should Listen:
If you're a working mom juggling it all, feeling the guilt, and determined to grow your career without burning out, this one’s for you.
Show Links:
Connect with our host, Elizabeth Willetts here
Visit the On Demand CMO website here
Boost your career with Investing in Women's Career Coaching! Get expert CV, interview, and LinkedIn guidance tailored for all career stages. Navigate transitions, discover strengths, and reach goals with our personalised approach. Book now for your dream job! Use 'workitlikeamum' for a 10% discount.
Sign up for our newsletter and never miss an episode!
Follow us on Instagram.
Join over 1 million customers and counting who are saving money on their household bills with Utility Warehouse. Discover how much you can save here.
And here's your invite to our supportive and empowering Facebook Group, Work It Like a Mum - a supportive and safe networking community for professional working mothers. Our community is full of like-minded female professionals willing to offer support, advice or a friendly ear. See you there!
Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life. I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community. In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business. They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success. Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money struggles, growth, loss, boundaries and balance we cover it all. Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED Talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school. So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, make sure you're cosy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays. This is the Work it Like A Mum podcast. This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women. Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers. Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you. They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries. Ready to find your perfect job? Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity. Now back to the show.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast. This week I am chatting with Monique DeMeo. Monique is a trailblazing female leader. She has dedicated her life to helping women succeed in their personal and professional lives. Monique is the founder and CMO of On Demand CMO, which is a 25-year plus consultancy. It operates at the intersection of marketing and sales. She works with fortune 500 to mid-market technology, tech services, non-profits and educational clients such as intel, spectrum, cox communication, iron mountain, jabra and others and helps them with their branding, messaging, positioning, content development and go-to marketing strategies and implementation. Monique is a multilingual immigrant from France. You are now based in New York. She's a mixed martial arts karate black belt. She's a fitness and wellness enthusiast and empowering mentor. She's a podcaster Her podcast we'll put the link, but it's called Possibilities with Monique DeMeo. She's an award-winning and top-rated author of the book seven secrets to creating a life you love, a practical guide for women in leadership, and I could not think of a better person to be speaking with me on this sunny afternoon.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, monique thank you for having me, liz. This is great you.
Speaker 1:I'm very excited. We had such a good chat, didn't we the other week before we booked this in, so I know we've got lots to cover, but I know that something that you are really passionate about is making women realize that they're not trapped and that they have a choice, so maybe we'll start a little bit by there. Why do you think a lot of women come to you feeling that they're trapped?
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting. So the reason I wrote the book was probably because I was one of those women At one point in time I thought I had not a lot of agency in my life, choices in my job, in. You know the story I told myself about myself I had immigrantitis, as I call it. You have arthritis and you have rheumatoiditis and itis, and so I have immigrantitis. So my journey to the United States and being here in the early parts of my life were not easy at all, and so, anyway, I think I wrote the book that I wanted to have when I was in my 30s and 40s. I would say think that I wrote the book that I wanted to have when I was in my 30s and 40s. I would say and it was about when I once I understood the secrets that we have agency in seven key areas, and the way that I break it down is your voice, who you are. You know, what you stand for, how you show up. That's number one.
Speaker 2:Number two is is your choices. What do you, you know, what do you choose to do and not do? That is, we have choices all day long, and I'll get into that in a little bit. The third is our time. Our time is the one that's our time suck. That disempowers us from the choices that we think we can't make, because we spend time giving it away to other people and not giving ourselves the time we need first. So I can unpack that in a little bit.
Speaker 2:Four is our jobs. Everyone thinks they're stuck. They're really not. They're really not, and I think your podcast makes a really good point of saying you know you've, you can create co-create, you can design work situations or opportunities. If you do it intentionally and if you come at it from a place of what is it that I want and what is it that I can offer, and that becomes a conversation with your employer, or if you're an entrepreneur, then there's a conversation to be had there as well. The fifth one is internal narrative. We tell ourselves stories inside. We have that little voice inside what I call the busy brain. It's always saying something negative. You know, 80% of our thoughts are negative and women over-index men in that regard.
Speaker 1:Really, do you mean like? I'm sorry, is that like? If you so, for example, I had like two negative comments on something yesterday. I had about 100 lovely comments and I remembered the two negative ones. Is that what that means by the over-indexing? Something yesterday had about 100 lovely comments and I remembered the two negative ones. Is that what that means by the over indexing?
Speaker 2:yeah, we totally do, we. And so there's a psychological, physiological reason why we remember more negative experiences than positive ones. So we have to really train our brains to remember the positives and also catch ourselves when we say negative things to ourselves, which I have a bunch of hacks, so. And then the other. The last two are the external narrative, which is the story that we tell other people about ourselves, or what, how. We want to be right, we want to be the perfect mom, we want to be the perfect whatever, and perfection is overrated, but you know we'll get there.
Speaker 2:And then the seventh and the last one is environment. If we, if we surround ourselves with chaos, if we surround ourselves with negative people, if we surround ourselves with negativity, it impacts us. We are the average of the five people we hang out with the most, so you got to pick your people really carefully. If you're, you know, negative Nelly or positive Patty, which one do you want to hang out with? You know, or do you want to? Are you stretched and enthusiastic about meeting up with your friends that you've known for 50 years? Or? Or? Or they, you know, have have you and they kind of gone your separate ways and they don't, they don't, they no longer feed your soul, they no longer give you joy. I mean, we have to be very intentional about all of these seven areas and I the reason, the book. I break it down into like a story from me, a story from another woman. I interviewed 11 of them in these seven areas and then a quick worksheet. A worksheet like what do you want to think about in this key area that's going to allow you to make that tiny change, to make you just be that much more joyful?
Speaker 2:I submit that life is not easy, but it can be simple if we allow it to be. And I can tell you, you know, everybody's got a lot going on Like you've got kids, you've got your job, you've got your house, and we all know the woman is the one that takes on the burden of the whole thing. You've got the parents, the aging parents. You've got the family obligations, you've got the social calendar, you've got the kids' activities. Let's not even go there. And in the US that's insane. Who's managing all that? Let's ask the question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I feel I'm the CEO of our house. I'm probably not the CEO. It's like the operations manager, facilities manager, everything that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right. So, at the end of the day, do you spent? You have given it all away. You have given it all away and what did? What do you? You can't pour from an empty vessel, you can't pour from an empty cup If you don't replenish yourself with joyful activities and things that give you joy and and light you up and make you smile. And you know, mitigate the negativity. You know, mitigate the negativity. You're not going to show up as a great CEO, cfo, coo, you know, vp of operations. All of the above, let alone mom, let alone mom and wife, right?
Speaker 1:You're going to be like cranky. Yeah, absolutely so. How do you fill your cup? How have you filled your cup?
Speaker 2:then you know, during the years, yeah, yeah. So the first thing I would say to all women is so I'm you know not to to be overly descriptive, but I'm 60, so I am at a different life stage than you are. I've been where you are and I will say the first thing you have to remember is that you can have it all. You just cannot have it all at the same time. So in your life stage, where you're focused on the kids, you have to give yourself grace that you're not going to be at the top of your game on everything else, because your kids are your priority. Presumably when you get a little older and the kids are out of the house or they go to college or whatever, then you get to shift the control back to you. So you have to make sure that you build in time.
Speaker 2:So this is my hack and I talk about this a lot in the book is your calendar runs your life, but you need to run your calendar. So this is the mistake that women make we don't time block. We do not time block. We do not allow ourselves to put in our stuff first. We allow everybody else to block our time for their priorities, and it should be reversed. Let me explain what I mean. So you're in a company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I was going to say because it's obviously some of the words for myself if I want to go get my nails done on Friday afternoon or whatever, I can go get it done. You know I can block that time if I'm in an office got less control.
Speaker 2:this is how it's done in a corporate, corporate environment and I was in corporate. So I've had this company for over 25 years and I was in corporate for for a good long time over a decade and that's why I left, because I didn't. I've aged, I didn't have as much agency as I knew I needed. I was also working with you know male chauvinists and sexism and discrimination and all that, and I just didn't want to put up with the, the toxic environment anymore. So I had agency. The agency was. I made a choice. I said I'm gonna bet on myself and I'm out. Yeah, that's it. I didn't have to. I could have stayed. I had a great job. I loved my job. It was so good. I was publishing a, a magazine. I had a great time. But, weigh it Unhappy at work, getting comments from your boss like half day your numbers are up but yet you're getting nonsense.
Speaker 2:Or bet on yourself. Take a massive salary cut in the beginning and see what happens. Well, I chose the latter. Here's how it works. You're in a corporation. Your calendar is visible to other people Oftentimes. You don't block it. You don't block it for the work that you need to get done. You don't block it for the. I am going to go see Susie's play. Nobody, if you can get you, know if you can get away with it. They don't need to know that you are going to see Susie's play. You could have a doctor's appointment, I'll be in the office, or whatever. You block it. You take a half day. You have choice in the matter. What is your priority? What makes you happy? Then you allow Susie and Jeff and Biffy and everybody else to block time on your calendar for their priorities, their meetings, their initiatives, their projects. What about yours.
Speaker 2:Susie's project's not due for two months, but she's like she's jumping on it right away. Your project is due next week and you haven't blocked the time to do that. That's your problem. We don't block time to do the work that we need to do. And do we block a date night? Do we block a massage on the weekend? I block everything. I block time to travel to things.
Speaker 2:I block anything from a manicure to a golf date to anything, whether it's a weekend or a day, because what I do is I have color codes for each category and everyone listening is going to be like she's insane. I can't possibly do this. It is stupid simple. When you start it. Google has it, outlook has it. There's no excuse. You find the color that you want and you attribute it to a thing. I know about myself that if I don't work out three days in a row, I'm going to really be not nice, not a not a good version of myself. So if I don't right so my fitness color is green green for go If I don't see enough green.
Speaker 2:I look at my calendar a couple of times a week, if I look at it visually, in order to see is there balance and joy in my life. My calendar tells me. So I block out client work, project work, things to do. I block out my podcasting time, my speaking time, my there's not enough of a certain color that I know that gives me joy. I have to say what am I delegating? What am I pushing out? What am I doing as an email instead of a meeting? What meeting can be shorter? What meeting can be postponed and what never even needs to happen because it's not my problem, not my circus, not my monkey? So we need to be very crystal clear and intentional about what we take on as an action item on a calendar. Is it your priority or mine? If it's not my priority, I get to say no, thank you. Or maybe not now, but next week, next month, next, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this is good. I'm like this is like gold. I think what I, you know, just bringing it back to me sorry is I'm sure a lot of people listen to this. It's too much of a people pleaser. Oh, my God, let's talk about that and I'm like, oh, I'll say yes, even though I do not want to do this, because I'm trying to be nice and likable.
Speaker 2:Okay. So first of all, when you get to about, my magic number was 47. At 47 I realized I didn't care what people thought of me, and at 47 I realized that I didn't need to people please, and that I should come first. Right, that was my 47th year and, as a matter, of fact, your 47th birthday present to yourself.
Speaker 2:That's right to that point. I do a vision board and I have the number 47 smack in the middle of my vision board to remind me that biologically I feel like I'm 47. I'm in it. Well, I love you too. But you, you want to just have visual reminders right To keep yourself on track. So here's a couple of hacks about the people pleaser thing. So your aunt, betty's daughter's daughter is having a baby shower and you find yourself saying yes, and you're like I haven't seen this woman in ever, or last time I saw her she was three and I don't have a relationship with her. And you know what? I don't even know why I'm going. I'm wasting half of my Saturday being in a place I don't want to be, with people I don't know or don't care about.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Here's how it works. Oh, I'm committed. I'm so sorry, but I'll make sure to send her a card or a gift, whichever you want to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When somebody asks you for a thing that's not. That's not a personal invitation.
Speaker 1:It's like the work thing as well, isn't it? This is perfect.
Speaker 2:This is how you do the work thing. The work thing goes like this Can you serve on the committee to do that? Yeah, okay, gee, that's very nice of you to ask me.
Speaker 1:I really want to give it some, some thought. May I get back to you within the next two weeks? And then what?
Speaker 2:then don't get back to them just, or do you get?
Speaker 1:back to them.
Speaker 2:All right, okay nine out of ten times they've solved for the problem, or they got somebody else to do it or they forgot that they needed it okay, good, yeah, okay, so you're off the hook completely when you have a. So you're a working mom. This is your this, these are your people. Your people are my people working. This is what happens the non-working moms try to make you feel guilty that you're not volunteering at johnny's little you know cupcake. Yeah, yeah, do not.
Speaker 2:Do not take on that guilt there is no reason for you to feel guilty, because, in reality, what I'm going to tell you in hindsight is that most of the women who are trying to give you guilt are actually envious of you. Let me repeat that Most of the working moms versus the non-working moms there is a little friction because you think you're not doing enough and they are so envious or jealous depending on who they are because there's two distinctions of jealous and envious about you have a life outside of Johnny and Susie and they resent you for that. You need to remember that while you're feeling guilty, they're mad that they don't have a life outside of their children. So that lens gives you the opportunity to look at this person and not feel envious or jealous of her, but rather to say, yeah, I do have some stuff going on on my own that I own, that doesn't relate to my children and I'm going to be better for it when I'm older. But we're not going to have that conversation now. We're just going to appreciate that working moms have more flexibility and more say and more agency into what they get to do or not do, because they can say they work.
Speaker 2:My favorite thing when everyone was asking me to do stuff at the kids school, I would do two things a year. I would pick the ones that made me happy. I would take them to the museum and be a yeah, I've got to be fair.
Speaker 1:I volunteer for the trips that look quite good, right exactly so we get.
Speaker 2:Do that. We get to show up for our children and have the experience with our child. But honestly, doing the Halloween party in the class and passing out cupcakes does not fulfill me, does not give me joy and honestly takes time out of my day. Whether I'm in corporate or not in corporate, it's not worth it. Let the woman who's home all day baking the cupcakes go to the school. Do you think? Does he think it matters? No, do you think your kid is going to have any sort of feeling about whether or not you passed out the cupcakes? Or Mrs Jones did no? And I'm going to tell you something else. Here's what happened.
Speaker 2:My son comes home. I'll never forget this Fourth grade, third or fourth grade. Comes home. I'll never forget this fourth grade, third or fourth grade. And he would say he comes home. He's like mom. You can't believe johnny's eating lunchables. That's disgusting. And his mom doesn't even work. She must be very lazy. I don't know what a lunchable is. I'm like a lunchable. Is this pre-packaged nonsense? That doesn't. It's supposed to be like it's. It's a plastic thing.
Speaker 1:It's pre-prepared food comes out of a factory Like a ready meal type thing.
Speaker 2:We call them ready meal, but like really bad ingredients Right. That's just, it's not even from the earth. It's like the balloon. It looks like it's. It doesn't even look like food, and Lunchables was like the bottom of the food chain. I wouldn't. I wouldn't let my kids touch it with a 10 foot pole. So he comes home and his attitude is like my mom works, Like she wouldn't even feed me. That, yeah.
Speaker 1:So kids know kids know.
Speaker 2:It's not about how many times you show up to the school, it's about the quality of time that you give them when you're, or what you do when you're there. When you're there, you're intentional about it. There should be no guilt about it. Working moms, I'm telling you, trust me, we spend so many calories being guilty about stuff, feeling bad about ourselves about stuff. It is really not worth it. It's not Because, honestly, I've grown children now my daughter's 28. My son's 24. It's kind of like we have conversations about business, we have conversations about politics, we have conversations about the economy, about, you know, other things that I'm quite sure many of the other moms that are home baking cookies and I don't to each his own. I'm not. I'm not dissing that at all. I trust me, I'm not I. There's room in the world for everybody and everybody makes their choices. But your podcast is about working moms and I'm here to say we have to be intentional, but we don't have to do it all and we certainly don't have to do it all at the same time.
Speaker 1:I wanted to ask you something because you were saying you know, obviously, when your children are little and you know we do you know everybody has limited time, everyone only has 24 hours in a day, a good chunk of that.
Speaker 1:You're, you know, hopefully asleep and and you were saying, you know you can have it all, but not all at the same time. So obviously we get approached by a lot of organisations that want to get more women into leadership roles because you know they've experienced that women's careers slow down probably because of the children in their 30s.
Speaker 1:If you're listening to this, and obviously, each to their own, but you are ambitious and you know you want to carry on climbing that ladder. What would be your advice to somebody like that that, you know, has you know, 24 hours a day. They want to be a good parent, but they really do. They don't want to pull back on their career either. I didn't, I didn't. I didn't pull back on my career.
Speaker 2:Now here's what you, here's what and I talk about this in the book a lot too it's you have to make choices about your ecosystem. So if you want to be balls out and be on that plane and be in that meeting and travel and do whatever, you have to make sure a couple of things. You have to make sure that your spouse is on board. If you have a spouse or partner, partner, spouse whatever, your significant other, or if you live with anyone, they have to be supportive of the thing and you need to build the ecosystem to fill in the CFO, the CTO, the C, whatever. Okay, do not do your own house cleaning. All right, if you're making good money, I want you to break down all the things that you could outsource. Yes, right away. So, if you're making good money and you can afford it, the first the things to get rid of is all the stuff that you don't like to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the house. In the house I suppose it works as well. I suppose you could start at work. It works too. I'm going to get to that.
Speaker 2:But the first thing to do is your ecosystem around your home, your hearth, your home, your personal life. Cleaning lady.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Laundry service, cleaning lady yeah. Laundry service, nanny or babysitter yeah, and. Or a service that picks them up and drops them off, depending on what time, what age they are and how much care they need. That I would have could have sent my children to was a ways, and then they closed for holidays and they closed for this and they closed for that, and if a kid got sick, the classroom shut down.
Speaker 2:I could not afford to be out of work or not working with two little kids in my house for extended periods of time, so I made the decision to pay somebody and it actually, when I did the math, was not much more money, so I paid somebody what we call a nanny or a babysitter yeah, we have done it Right To come into my house and watch my children. Why did I do that? Because it allowed me to be present and working all day. So why wouldn't I do that Otherwise? The opportunity cost of me not making money as an entrepreneur. Now, if you're in corporate, same thing. What is the opportunity cost of you missing a day of work because the child care center closed because some kid had COVID or whatever it was, or had the measles, or?
Speaker 1:whatever.
Speaker 2:It's too high. Do not cheap out on your resources when you have, and do it before you think you're ready. I know it's really hard in the beginning. It's like, oh, I'm spending so much of my paycheck on this, yes, but here's the thing You're on the fast track, you're on the leadership track and you won't get to the next step unless you pay it forward. So you have to look at it as an investment in your future. That's what people, that's what women, don't do. They think they can do it all. Oh, no, it's okay, I don't need a babysitter, I'll work while he's napping. Okay, that is the worst plan I've ever heard in my life because Junior's not going to nap when you need him to nap and guaranteed the minute you get on that phone call with a client or your boss he's going to wake up, yeah, and then, I've had that before.
Speaker 1:I've had a client meeting before where the kid walks in like semi-naked and that was I mean. There was no way I was going to win that business.
Speaker 2:It was a disaster, right. So, like, what's the opportunity cost of you paying a few more dollars or pounds or euros, whatever, to have yourself covered? So the thing again. These are choices, many choices. When I talked about starting my business, my husband and I, when we got married, decided we would always have we would live below our means. This was a magic thing that we did Magic and I'm telling you he we would always have. We would live below our means. This was a magic thing that we did Magic and I'm telling you he was paying dividends. Today, you know we're married 36 years in May. So what does that look like? What?
Speaker 1:does it mean yeah?
Speaker 2:It means that the bank says you can afford a house for X. Yeah, based on your salaries, you should get a house for X and you're fine. Okay, what? What the formulas typically don't really take into account is lifestyle and enjoyment. It doesn't factor in vacations. It doesn't factor in what kinds of cars you want to drive. It doesn't factor in savings for your retirement, which, by the way, it should be your primary, you know, focus. It doesn't factor in all those things.
Speaker 2:So we literally bought a house for one third less than what the bank told us to do. One third. Why? Because in corporate mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, it's happening every day. Yeah, but who's your job? What if we don't like our job? What if we want to change? Whatever, whatever.
Speaker 2:What ended up happening? I left my job. I was. Initially I was like, oh my God, I was making six figures. There was no question in my mind. I was on the leadership track. I was the only female in leadership, I had a phenomenal job and when I started my business, I had two clients. So a little less money was made in the early stages.
Speaker 2:In the course of our marriage, my husband lost his corporate job three times, completely out of his control, three times. Why did we not freak out? Why was I able to pay for my kids' college education at private universities in the US without getting into debt? Without getting them into debt? It was because I had savings, because I lived below my means. So, instead of paying a mortgage, I paid a college tuition. It was the same same for me.
Speaker 2:But the point is the intentionality of you don't always need to keep up with the Joneses. While other friends of ours were buying beach houses, we were not. We were renting at the beach when we wanted to. Why? Because I didn't want to take on another huge expense and have myself be on a treadmill, worried about my job and, if God forbid, I lost my job, I lost my house or I lost my savings or I lost anything.
Speaker 2:So these little micro decisions that we make along the way as young women with young children will set us up for success in our further careers. And I will tell you you, you know you you'd make these hard decisions in your 30s and your early 40s and in your later, whatever it compounded interest, because now you're in a position to be promoted and you're in leadership. So that nanny that you, you hired 15 years ago, is paying dividends. That smaller house that you bought is paying dividends. That decision not to keep up with the Joneses is paying dividends. Because I got to tell you the Joneses don't give a shm about you, nor should you give a mm about them, because they don't dictate your happiness, they're not paying your bills, they're not living your life and they're not educating your kids. So make the decisions that are right for you in the moment that they are right for you and don't take the shortcut.
Speaker 1:It doesn't work I feel this is such a good episode. I feel like I'm getting so much, so much from it. You talk about these narratives as well, these internal and external narratives. It's something because I did a podcast. She was um a specialist in subconscious, like mindset, and she's saying so much of our decisions is dictated by subconscious that we've picked up probably as children, and often, you know it can be obviously not always, but can be quite negative, and that's actually a really hard thing to shift. Have you got any?
Speaker 1:tips really about finding what our subconscious is telling us and trying to reprogram or rewrite yeah, yeah, no, there's a lot, there's fun.
Speaker 2:So I do it from a lay person's perspective. I've done a lot of training on, on on this stuff. Um, I'm not certified as a psychologist or anything like that, but I have done training. So, given that 80 of our thoughts are negative and women are people pleasers, we have a nasty combination in our heads and also super, super hard on ourselves. So we will say things to ourselves that are so mean and so awful You're stupid, you're fat, you're ugly, you're fill in the blanks. We just say it all. We would never, ever, ever, ever, say it out loud to another human being. Why? Because it's too nasty, but somehow we feel it's okay to say it to ourselves.
Speaker 2:First step and I talk about this is treat yourself like your own best friend, first and foremost. Who is with you when your life is great? You are. Who is with you when your life is terrible? You are. What do you want it to be? Great or terrible, depending on. What you say to yourself will literally have a physiological response in your body. When you are negative and you speak to yourself in that tone and manner and dismissive, ugly language, our cells react Literally. Do you know that? And this is going off topic, but it is on topic. When they slaughter cows, they have them in a factory and they're lined up. It's terrible, right, because the cows are now lined up, seeing their family, friends, whatever, being slaughtered in front of them. Do you know that the cow's cortisol levels spike right before they're killed?
Speaker 1:I can imagine it. Yeah, probably I'm being, you know, a typical meat eater, not wanting to think about it, but yeah, I can imagine.
Speaker 2:In a mass production perspective. That's why oftentimes, you know, people pay more money for grass and beef and organic and all that, because this is not something they're going to see right. The point that I'm making is our environment and how we speak to ourselves has a physiological impact. What we see, what we surround ourselves with, what we say to ourselves has a physiological impact. And if you read anything from Dr Joe Dispenza, he is a master of neuroscience and neuroscience shows the correlation between words and physiology. So when you go to be mean to yourself, I'm going to give you two tricks, two tips and two very easy hacks that I want you to practice. One is taken from LeBron James. Lebron James as in, the American basketball player who went from a local market basketball team, the Cavaliers, to the Miami Heat big market and he got a lot of you know, he got a lot of stress from it when he made the decision. But LeBron James is a master of mindfulness training, he's a meditator, he meditates a lot, he's on podcasts, he's very into positive psychology and LeBron James's secret is talking to himself in the third person. And when he had that opportunity, the press gave him a hard time and he said the following he said you know, I didn't want to make an emotional decision. I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James and do what would make LeBron James happy.
Speaker 2:So I invite you, the next time you have a harsh conversation with yourself, to speak like this Liz, it's okay, you'll get it, you just don't don't know how to do it quite. Yet I want you to say, when you start to say I can't, I can't do X, I want you to add the word. Yet at the end of it, I can't get up the mountain on my bicycle. Yet that's what I tell myself, right? I'm a cyclist and I'm always trying to get better, and last night I had a horrible night and I'm like, oh my God, yet Fabulous.
Speaker 2:And also speak to yourself in the third person, because you would never say the things that you say to yourself to another human. So I want you to stop saying it to yourself You're ugly, you're fat, you're unworthy, you're terrible, you don't know you're, you're not going to get this promotion, you're worthless. Like this should not be allowed in our vocabulary. So in order for us not to have it, we should talk to ourselves in the third person and allow the emotional aspects of it to mitigate. So you've got this, liz, you're going to get it. It's going to be great. You're going to go into this meeting. You're going to rock it Great. Thank you, best friend. It's okay, liz. I know the kids are driving you crazy today. You want to throw them out the window. It's normal. This too shall pass, don't worry.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Liz, I know he's making you crazy. Your boss had a bad day. He must've had a fight with the wife. Ignore him, don't respond, it's okay, you'll be fine. The problem we have is we let our five-year-old run our lives. So the five-year-old inside of each of us, it has its own individual traumas, memories and baggage. The challenge becomes when our grown-up selves allow our five-year-olds to tell us what to do. So there's two things that work. One is that we make emotional decisions because our neurocortex and our brain it's like we're always thinking that we're going to be like attacked by a, you know, cyber tooth tiger. So we have the flight or fight syndrome, and that's something that we can't really completely control. But we can again modulate when you start to see yourself responding in a way that doesn't make you proud. Talk to yourself. I have a name for my five-year-old. I call her Monica. She's my alter ego when she was your ugly head, so you name yours. So if your name is Liz, and your friends, call you Liz, yeah.
Speaker 2:So call your alter ego Beth. When she shows up, you say Beth, thank you for your opinion. I appreciate it. I'll take it under advisement. You're dismissed. Bye, bye.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye.
Speaker 2:It allows you to be like OK, she showed up, she inserted herself into my day, she tried to take over the situation. I'm going to dismiss her because she is a five year old and I'm the adult in the room. Have a nice day. So that's another hack. Speak to yourself in the third person, treat yourself with grace, add the word yet to your things, name your alter ego. Dismiss her when she shows up. Those three things, magic, magic. And just treat yourself like a best friend because, honestly, you've got your back. No one trusts you. You are it like who else has your best interests?
Speaker 1:good point. The other thing I wanted to ask you so you mentioned about your the sum of the five people that are closest to you. Is that right? So if you are, you know, obviously a lot of people just see the same people every day. You know, they'll maybe take the kids to school, they'll see their neighbors, they'll go to work. If you're surrounded, I mean, and you have like not really any control about those people no, you don't have control about your family.
Speaker 1:No, those are default people right yeah, how do you form this circle then that actually are really gonna like lift you up, inspire you, and are then the five closest to you.
Speaker 2:So what I? It happened organically? I don't think it. I I mean at one point I got intentional about it.
Speaker 2:But every decade is an opportunity to do inventory. When I say inventory, I mean inventory on your possessions, your life, your decisions and the people that you surround yourself with. So I have people in my family that really do not give me joy at all. Zero, none, zero. Did I mention zero? Yes, so I mitigate the time that I am around them intentionally.
Speaker 2:I had friends that from early on in my life that stopped giving me joy and that started doing things that I didn't want to be doing. They, you know, they liked getting drunk, it was their thing. Like on a weekend. All they talked about is they would go on vacation and all they could talk about is how wasted they were. Well for me if I'm going would go on vacation and all they could talk about is how wasted they were. Well for me if I'm going to go on vacation and I love vacation, I love traveling a lot but I'd like to remember what I did. I'd like to go to places that mean something to me.
Speaker 2:So every decade is an opportunity for you to say, okay, who is in my friend group? Who is in my time group? Where do I spending my time? And, for the love of God, women, get yourself a group of women who are up to something. This is exactly why I started my podcast. I want to speak to women, I want to get their stories. I want to be surrounded by women who make me think, who make me better, who bring me up when I'm not having a great day, who I can call and say what do you think of this?
Speaker 2:This is my problem. What do you like? What would you do? I literally have that. So I have these close friends that are personal friends that have nothing to do with work, and then I have close work friends that I would go to with a problem that I love going out to lunch with or going out to dinner with. You have to curate your friends. The same way you make a garden and you water the garden and you have the vegetables and fruits grow. You got to grow friendships and you got to water them. You can't water them if you don't spend time with people. So take the time away from the people that make you sad or annoyed or angry or whatever, and add that same time. Substitute it. You don't have to hang around with the mom that you just dropped off your kids with. She might be lovely to go back and forth to and from your house, but you don't have to have dinner with her. You don't have to have lunch with her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't have to take it any further.
Speaker 2:Right. So have some compartments, have some intentionality around. Who gets to be with me on a weekend? Who gets to be with me on a weeknight when my kids are doing sports? Yes, of course you're going to have the parents that are in the same activities as your kids. My son played baseball. I mean, that is the sport, with no time, clock, hours and hours and hours on a baseball field. There were some parents I wouldn't hang out with them if they were the last people on the planet. There were some parents that I loved. That's who I would sit with, that's who we would hang out with.
Speaker 2:So be intentional about. Just because you're doing something doesn't mean you have to buy the entire package. You can be selective, you can be intentional. So look at your and your women friends will light you up and will bring you up when you need it. Trust me, in a way, that your spouse if your spouse or your partner, is a male and I love men, I'm not saying anything bad about men. However, men like to fix things, things. Men like to go right into solution mode and tell you what to do yes, they do.
Speaker 1:I feel like you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know my husband I know I've been married 36 years.
Speaker 1:I get it sometimes I'm like I just want to, I just want the same. I don't really want this, you know.
Speaker 2:I just want the sympathy or whatever so this is, this is a hack for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Honey, I'm going to tell you a story and I just need you to listen. I don't want you to solve the problem. I don't want you to tell me what to do. I simply need another human that I trust to listen to me without judgment or resolution. Can you do that? Yes, okay, then I'm going to tell you the story. Oftentimes I can tell by my.
Speaker 2:My husband came home last night. He's like you should did it. I said read the room. We're not having this conversation now, not appropriate. We can circle back on it another time. I don't want to hear you right now. Yeah, read the room.
Speaker 2:Does this face look like it wants you to tell me what to do? No, not now, not today, maybe tomorrow, but not now, when I'm in the heat of the problem that I'm having. Sympathetic, I need you to listen, I don't need you to solve it. So if you say those words and you're very calm and very metered in your delivery and you look them straight in the eye and you say, look, I'm going to tell you a story and I do not want you to solve it for me, I do not want you to tell me what to do and we can process this at another time. Are you good with that? If they don't say yes, you don't tell the story, you call your best friend or you call a girlfriend. I'm just going to share this thing.
Speaker 2:It's driving me crazy. My boss did da-da-da-da-da-da-da and I said da-da-da-da-da-da. Now I don't know what to do. What do you think? Okay, you go to the person that knows that has that similar context, because you can't go to your friend who has never worked a day in her life and tell her about your political problems in your company. Yeah, she's not gonna get right. So you pick your. You pick your ally and you go to that ally. And if your ally is your partner which it often is, and you don't want them to solve for it, just tell them up front I'm gonna I'm gonna literally borrow so much of this.
Speaker 1:It's like I feel like I've learned a masterclass in navigating, like motherhood work, and everything that comes in between. How do people how do you work with people? Remind us? So obviously you've got your book, which is the seven secrets to creating a life you love. It's a practical guide for women in leadership, is that? I'm guessing that's available Amazon.
Speaker 2:Yep, it's on Amazon. The audio book I've also done an audio book, so the podcast possibilities, also available on every platform is a place where I interview people like you and actually, as you know, I want to interview you, so we're going to do that very, very quickly. So we have women who are up to something, that are making a difference, that are impacting their communities, other women around them. So the podcast, if you have, if somebody listening wants to get in touch with me, monique de Mayocom is the best way to do it. M O N I Q U E D E M A I O.
Speaker 2:So, monique de Mayocom, there's my I speak. My big, my biggest ask is that if you have a company or you have an organization or you have someone who would need this kind of message, who wants me to speak, you have someone who would need this kind of message, who wants me to speak? That's what I do, right? So I'm a paid speaker, I'm a podcaster and the author. The reason I wrote the book is so people understand what my premises, what my thoughts are, what, how I you know how I want to help women and empower them to be, have that life that they look for, that they want, but they just don't know what piece parts to do first, or how to get started, or you know all in like yeah, logical, you know basically start here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:It is. I will tell you, as long as you read the introduction, if there's something that's really concerning you right now, you can skip from one secret to the other within the book, not in order. So I always say read the introduction, get grounded in the why, start with voice and then go to the place where you're getting the most friction in your life right now and then jump around to where look. If you have time handled and you're a master at time, okay, the time should be the last chapter you read. But if you're really having trouble with your environment or your little voice inside your head, go to that chapter and read that first and knock that out first. So get a win.
Speaker 2:Understand that Rome wasn't built in a day, is a real thing, and at the same time, you can make these tiny little adjustments that I swear to you. Everything you do is compounded interest, whether you do it with your children, your business, your company, your time, all of it. These little micro decisions make these macro outcomes. So that's it. I would go to MoniqueDeMeocom, I would engage, I would send me an email if you want to talk to me, if you want. I do retreats twice a year May and October.
Speaker 1:Are they in the US?
Speaker 2:They are in the US. Yes, though I do listen for enough women, I would come to the UK. I love the UK, love the UK. So if they're, you know, if we get a group of 15 women to have a retreat, I'm happy to come out. So the the the retreat goes deep into these things and has women going through the exercises in a way that you learn it. There are exercises after each chapter within the book for self-guided exercises. The retreats just do a deep, deep, deep dive.
Speaker 1:I guess you get your sum then, your sum of the five people that are going to maybe you know change your life.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's it. It's funny, the last 12 women that did the retreat are so connected still and they're in action. You know, I've had, I had a couple women quit their jobs, a couple women start new companies, start a book. Somebody you know gave her husband an ultimate, you know an ultimatum. It was all these things that that they were on, they were unable to do without that support, and then when they felt that support and they got the skills and the tools to how to do it, they went right into it was it was miraculous. It's the only reason I'm doing the retreats, to be honest with you, is that seeing seeing women just light up and and get busy and accomplishing what they've been thinking about for years and haven't been able to get it, get it going you're transforming life, so thank you so much.
Speaker 1:so the book is is the Seven Secrets to Creating a Life you Love, a practical guide for women in leadership, available on Amazon. The podcast is Possibilities with Monique DeMeo, and remind everyone what your website is again, please.
Speaker 2:Monique DeMeo. Moniquedemeocom Real simple M-O-N-I-Q-U-E-D-E-M-A-I-O.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, and I think you're on LinkedIn as well, aren't you?
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm on LinkedIn as Monique DeMeo.
Speaker 1:I'm the only one Brilliant, so we will put all the links in the show notes, but please, you know, get in touch with Monique If you enjoyed this episode, listen to her podcast, buy her book and prepare to have your life transformed as well.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Liz.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work it Like a Mum podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend. If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode. You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram. Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.