May 27, 2025 • 62 mins
Lesley Jane Seymour's remarkable career spans leadership roles at major women's magazines like More, Marie Claire, and Redbook—but it's what she's doing now that might be her most impactful work yet. In this candid conversation, Lesley shares how she convinced Michelle Obama to make history as the first First Lady to guest edit an entire magazine, generating 8.5 billion media impressions worldwide.
What drives a successful magazine editor to become an entrepreneur focused on women in midlife? Lesley explains her passion for helping women navigate what she calls "the FU 50s"—that liberating period when we finally stop seeking universal approval and embrace authentic self-expression. "I don't have time for that anymore," she explains. "Time is running out...you can't make people like you. And that is the biggest liberation of all."
The employment landscape for women over 40 is challenging, with statistics showing flat employment numbers while men's opportunities continue to grow. Lesley founded Covey Club to address this gap, creating a supportive community where women can upskill, network, and reinvent themselves. She delivers hard truths about technology skills gaps that hold many midlife women back: "95% of issues have to do with not understanding technology." Yet she approaches these challenges with compassion, teaching in ways that respect how this demographic learns.
Perhaps most surprising is Lesley's insight that reinvention often happens more successfully among strangers than with longtime friends. "Reinventing yourself with strangers is easier because you can show up day one as who you want to be," she explains. At Covey Club, women arrive without judgment or history, free to become whoever they choose next.
Whether you're facing empty nest syndrome, career transitions, or simply seeking your next chapter, Lesley's wisdom offers both practical guidance and emotional reassurance. As she says, "Midlife is not for sissies...don't go it alone." Ready to discover what's possible in your next act?
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Episode Transcript
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Audra (00:00):
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me
again this week.
This week, we are joined by aremarkable and accomplished
woman.
My guest this week is LeslieJane Seymour, and she is the
former editor-in-chief of Moore,marie Claire and Redbook
magazines.
Under her leadership of Mooremagazine, it grew to 1.5 readers
(00:23):
and she created history byhaving the first lady of the
United States, michelle Obama,to guest edit the entire issue.
This led to 8.5 billion mediaimpressions worldwide.
She's also the author of twobooks.
She's the founder of Covey Clubtwo books.
She is the founder of CoveyClub and she is the host of the
(00:45):
podcast Reinvent Yourselfanother powerful voice for women
in midlife who arerediscovering and reinventing
themselves.
It is my pleasure and my honorto introduce to you Leslie Jane
Seymour.
(01:05):
Leslie, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
Leslie (01:07):
It's funny Moore the name Moore with the magazine,
talk about a disaster for SEOand all that, and you couldn't
even search for anything.
You'd be like try to find yourclips and it'd be like search
for more.
Everybody has more.
You know, it's like Frenchfries and more so.
(01:30):
It's just you know.
It was made in a differentcentury, when there was no such
thing as computers and digital.
Audra (01:38):
Nobody even thought about that.
No, why would anybody startthinking, oh, let's create a
magazine called More.
Oh, I know, I know.
Why would anybody startthinking, oh, let's create a
magazine called More.
Before we dive into today'stopic, I would be remiss if I
didn't ask you why were you sothoughtful and think you know
(01:59):
what?
I have this idea I'm going tohave the first lady edit the
entire edition of this magazine.
First of all, that is brilliant.
Segnaval has now been copiedover and over and over again.
So good on you for beinggroundbreaking.
But why did you have this braveidea?
I mean, she's a brilliant woman, Right?
No one had ever thought of that, and it now seems so obvious.
Leslie (02:24):
Right.
Well, this is what happens whenyou have to sell hundreds of
thousands of magazines everymonth.
And we had had her on.
It was the fourth time on themagazine and I had to come up
with a new angle.
Like you can't just do.
And everybody else was doinginterviews with her, so like,
why should someone pick up more?
We've already had her.
She was a bestseller, so how doyou make a bestseller?
(02:46):
A more interesting thing andluckily for me, she had a new PR
person who I went down toWashington to see and we kind of
we were like circling aroundeach other like this, like I had
this crazy idea.
I had a list of crazy ideas.
I'm always people who worked forme when I ran Marie Claire, we
used to have crazy idea meetings, which was come and give me
(03:09):
your most insane idea, don'tworry about whether it's
practical or we can afford it.
I'll figure that out later.
You know you want to writeMarie Claire on the tail of an
airplane.
If that's going to, you know,create thing, let's worry about
the logistics later.
Anyway, so I go down there andwe have, we're having lunch and
(03:29):
I said I have these crazy ideasand she's like well, we're
looking for some crazy ideas.
I'm like, no, you don't thinkyou're looking for this kind of
crazy idea.
I'm like I'm so afraid to sayit Cause I know when I say it,
when I say I mean to ask a firstsitting first lady to edit a
magazine.
I mean, many, many celebritieshad edited quote unquote, edited
magazine ahead of time, butnever a first lady.
(03:51):
They'd been on the cover orthey'd had a story done on them
and there was no way she wasgoing to do it.
How was she going to have time?
And I really wanted her to doit.
It wasn't going to be that wedid the whole thing and just
stuck her name on the front,whole thing, and just stuck her
name on the front.
And, hilariously, it wasliterally one of those I'll show
(04:11):
you mine if you show me yours,kind of things where she was
like no, go, just hit me with itand I'm like you know, like,
and so I throw it out there andshe goes oh, that was kind of
like on our list for something.
I'm like really, anyway, whenit happened and she said you
know, I'm going to bring it backto her, let me see what you
think I had to get back on thetrain to go back to New York and
(04:34):
so I called my publisher thathad a tremendously big mouth and
I said you, on pain of death,you may not say anything, but I
think I clinched the deal of thecentury and in the end it was,
and it wasn't until we didn't doit because we thought it was
making history, it wasn't untilwe were well into it and she
actually did all the editing.
I mean, it was all her ideas,all her articles, all her
contacts.
We facilitated the whole thing.
(04:54):
We spent a lot of time up downin Washington and her PR team
was fabulous and we oh no, Ilost my train of thought and we
oh, now I lost my train ofthought.
Where was I going?
It's one of those days, sorry,but it was an amazing, amazing
product and an amazing event.
Oh, it was that we didn't gointo it with the idea of it
(05:16):
being history.
It was later on, full into it,that my PR person came up and he
said you know, has anybody everdone this before?
And I'm like I don't know.
So he goes and he looks it upLike no one had ever done it.
The first ladies had been oncovers, but they'd never, ever,
guest edited a magazine, so itwas a huge get and that's why
the publicity was so enormous.
(05:38):
Didn't stop them from closingthe magazine no, but it was
historic and amazing and, likeyou know, sometimes you don't
know where you're headed untilyou get there.
Audra (05:50):
But isn't that remarkable though?
I mean, it's now been copied,yeah, in various different
formats and different situations, but you were the first, yeah.
Leslie (06:01):
No, and not intentionally.
It was just.
I was just looking for a new,crazy thing to to do something
different.
I'm always interested insomething different and my
husband gets bored with thatwhen I'm like can we go to
another restaurant?
I don't want to go to the sameone, let's go somewhere
different.
It's like, but we have the oneswe like.
I'm like no, but I want to godifferent.
It's just part of mypersonality always looking for
(06:22):
something new and different.
Audra (06:23):
It's just part of my personality, always looking for
something new and different.
Well, my friends will oftenhear me say crazy ideas are my
favorite.
Leslie (06:29):
Oh, really, yeah, Well, we did one.
I'll tell you we did.
We got so crazy.
Do you remember when Tina TinaBrown put what's her name?
Pregnant Oof?
And I'm forgetting her name,demi Moore, mm-hmm Pover, naked,
painted, yes.
So we decided to take that onestep further at Mary Claire.
(06:53):
At Mary Claire, we were doingbasically, um, you know, real,
real life media and events wecalled them stunts way before
reality TV took off and so wetook that idea and we spun it
into.
You know, new Yorkers are soblasé that we hired a model, we
(07:16):
painted her.
She was naked except somethingaround the nipples and around
the crotch, but she wascompletely naked otherwise, and
we took her through the day inNew York, we put her on the
subway, we did all this stuff,the most hilarious photos, and,
of course, new Yorkers nobodycame up.
We have pictures of guys on thesubway in the morning going
down to Wall Street, and you cansee they're pretending to read
(07:37):
their newspaper, but they'reactually looking at this woman,
but no one says anything.
Audra (07:54):
No one says like, are you doing any clothes on?
And we thought we might getarrested.
No one arrested us.
I mean so anyway, I was therefor a conference and I was in
the cab.
We were driving through TimesSquare and there was women in
there in Times Square, naked,naked, painted, painted, painted
(08:16):
.
But they were naked to gettheir pictures taken.
They were wearing thoseshowgirl hats, oh okay, but yeah
, it's a normal thing.
Now I thought, just atrendsetter, what can I say?
Like I said, you were breakingrecords and making history in
all different kinds of ways.
(08:36):
You didn't even realize, maybenot so good.
Leslie (08:38):
Maybe I should take another direction.
Yeah, so that's funny.
Well, I live in New Orleans now, where literally anything goes,
so it's the right place for me.
There is a naked bike ride.
That is literally what it says,and it is a show and
festivities of every frighteningbody you've ever seen out there
(08:58):
in your life, but no one cares.
They're proud to show it.
You've ever seen out there inyour life, but no one cares.
They're proud to show it.
And why you would want to siton a bike with that.
I have no idea, but it'shilarious Anyway.
So I found my peeps right.
Audra (09:12):
Yeah, and that's just sounds frightening.
Yeah, I'm just trying toimagine that I, I no, I just
can't.
No, I'm in pain sitting.
I'm thinking imagine it, thissounds painful.
Yeah right, wouldn't you think?
Leslie (09:28):
Yeah, the hilarious part about it and you can't post
it on Facebook because they'llmake you take it down.
But so the hilarious part aboutit is they have a police escort
and I always imagine the guywho's like okay, joe, you're up
for the naked bike ride thisyear.
Audra (09:44):
And Joe's like oh, okay, do I get overtime?
Exactly, and as I said in yourintro, you have this.
These are just a coupleexamples of the remarkable
career that you've had.
This is just a few.
Oh yeah, we've had a crazy time.
(10:18):
You've had a crazy time, havequestioned you, right, but you
have chosen to take your time,your talents and your efforts
and dedicate them to thedemographic that that I speak to
, which is women in their 40sand 50s, women just like me,
that are me, that that are womenthat are in midlife, that are
(10:44):
either rediscovering themselvesor discovering themselves for
the first time.
They're reinventing themselves.
They are, they're in transition.
That's right.
They are like they could belike me, that are empty nesters
and now, suddenly, the world istheir oyster and they have all
these choices and they don'tknow where to start.
(11:04):
The world is their oyster andthey have all these choices and
they don't know where to start.
There's all kinds of things.
Like I said, you could havechosen to do anything, but you
chose this group, and I'mcurious as to why.
Because we are a complex group.
We are a fascinating group, butwe aren't an easy group, that's
(11:25):
okay, that's all right.
Leslie (11:26):
I mean, it's very hilarious.
When I first took over MooreMagazine, which was focused on
this group, and you learn,different magazines respond in
different ways.
I did a teen magazine which wascalled YM, then I did Redbook,
which was Young M, and then MaryClaire and then more, and each
one has its own response,attitudes and, hilariously, you
(11:50):
know, like a teen magazine, youput somebody they like on the
cover and you're like floodedthe day it comes out, you're
like, oh my God, I love Leo.
You know, like all thesepositive things.
Anyway, red Book, same way,Mary Claire, same way you get
all this feedback.
Even those days it was emailand then, of course, it became
online blah, blah, blah.
(12:21):
Hilariously, when I took overmore in 2008, I did my first
cover and the things that cameback were they were like you've
changed the font on page five.
I don't like that font.
Or it was like crabby.
It was like you know, I can'tbelieve you did blah, blah and I
was like what Am I going tofail?
Like, am I failing?
Like it was a two-week thing offailing.
And then you got the nice noteslater.
(12:43):
All the nice notes later camelater and it's kind of a crabby
time of life.
I used to say to my, to mycirculation guy, I would say you
know we need to do, can we putlike we need?
So that's why they're so crankyand they're cranky, they're
just cranky.
And here's a good venting pointright, which is you can look at
(13:12):
your magazine and of coursethey're very accomplished so
they can see.
You know, this font didn't workso well on that page and I was.
You know they're all experts.
It's not like you're 20 yearsold and you've never seen Leo
DiCaprio before.
So it was just a funny crowdand that's OK.
What I love about it iseverybody's really honest and
very direct, and you can be veryhonest and direct as well and I
(13:34):
love that, no holds barred.
And the reason why I did it,audra, is because you know, when
more closed, I wasn't done andI love, you know, all the other
magazines I did.
I had to be a teenager, but Iwas really in my 30s.
I had to be.
The only one read book was agood match.
(13:54):
I was a young mom at the time.
But Marie Claire, yes, I wasn'ta French fashionista but I was
a big fashion person.
But then, with more.
I got to be the customer andwhat a it's much more fun.
You look, we say you know, youdon't have to have cancer to
write about it, but it surehelps, right?
So if you are the customer, itdefinitely makes it a lot easier
to identify.
(14:14):
And when they closed MooreMagazine, I wasn't done.
And one of the points of Moorewas the rebirth, the idea that
you could have a second life.
And I found myself saying Icould go run another magazine
I'd already run for.
And what was the point?
It was just going to end up inthe same situation, because the
business was bad and digital waseating its life and the people
(14:38):
running the business side ofpublications in print were just
I don't know if they justweren't that bright or they
didn't get it or they didn't seeit happening.
We were on the content side, sowe didn't necessarily have
control over the business side,but really Facebook and Google
ate their lunch and they didn'tstop them.
So it was very clear like Ieither was going to go do
(15:00):
something else completely or Iwas going to try to figure out
how to keep doing what I love todo, which is connecting with
women like you and helping women.
See, I mean, I think this isthe greatest time of life.
Frankly, I am so happy that weare in the FU 50s plus.
I'm now in my 60s, but it wassuch a joy to get to the point
(15:24):
where, you know, when I startedin my 20s and I was at Vogue,
every time I walked into thecopywriting room, you know, the
girls didn't look up at me.
That one gave me a side, thisone, you know, and it was like
this constant like why doesso-and-so hate me?
So-and-so didn't look at that.
It was just all this outside,like I couldn't control it.
(15:47):
I couldn't make people like me,no matter what I did.
It was all this just angst andworry.
And then you do cross over.
That's the beauty of midlife is, you do cross over where you're
like I don't give a shitanymore.
You know what Time is runningout, I don't have time for that.
You either like me or you don'tlike me.
You're not going to like mebecause you just don't like my
(16:08):
face.
So fine, I'll go find thepeople that do like me.
I can't control what you think.
I can't make you like me, nomatter how nice I am.
And that is the biggestliberation of all.
Just think of all the energy,the wasted energy that we all
spent in our toys.
Audra (16:28):
It has been that revelation for me personally has
been the best weight I've everlost in my life.
That's right.
Oh, I love that.
Leslie (16:38):
That's a good that's actually a great quote.
I'm going to steal that.
Audra (16:42):
Steal that because it was such a relief.
It took a long time to figurethat out and it was.
It was fought for and won verydifficultly.
Leslie (16:58):
And especially if you're a people pleaser, you
know absolutely.
Audra (17:01):
And, and you know I'm not I'm not that far behind you
as far as you said.
You're in your 60s.
I'm I'm 53.
And so I was raised in ageneration where you had to.
You had to be nice.
Leslie (17:14):
Oh God, that's still.
I'm still trying to throw offthe good girl.
I was the prominent good girlmy whole entire life, yeah.
Audra (17:22):
You have to be nice, you have to be the good girl, you
have to, you have to play thegame and and you have to be the
overachiever and you have to dothings right.
You always have to be the gooddaughter.
Good, do things right, do this,this, this and this and this.
And then you're surprised whydon't like you?
(17:45):
Correct?
And then it suddenly dawns onyou there's nothing wrong with
you, it's wrong with them.
Leslie (17:53):
It's wrong with them.
Audra (17:56):
Right, or it's just because people are different.
Leslie (18:00):
Right.
Audra (18:01):
Exactly, but it was such a long, hard road of
unprogramming.
Yeah, exactly, raised themdifferent so that they didn't
(18:22):
have to undo this programming.
But women of my demographicthey're also undoing this
programming as well, and we'vereached this glorious age of I
don't have to care anymore.
Leslie (18:38):
Nice isn't it, it is.
Audra (18:40):
But with that, like I said, there's these overwhelming
choices, because the choicesare endless, right, right, right
, and it's a smorgasbord of nowwhat do I do?
And that's where you come in of.
Yes, this is how I help yousort out now what you do.
Leslie (19:04):
Yes, and that is exactly why I started Covey Club
.
So there were lots of angryreaders for more magazine when
magazine closed.
So they came to me and asked meto do something else for them
on social media and 627 of themtook a 54 question survey to the
end and I built Covey Club offof that.
Originally, covey Club wasgoing to be a digital magazine.
(19:27):
Ha ha ha.
No one will pay for a digitalmagazine, but I had to learn
that myself, and then I leanedinto the club part of it.
I didn't really know what thatmeant, but I decided I was going
to figure that out.
And that's what's so much funabout doing your own thing, is
it's a blank slate.
What does that mean?
And I decided, well, what wouldI like in a club?
And so it's seven years laterand we have been changing the
(19:48):
club as we go along.
We just did this enormous update.
We added 10 new services thatwere just rolling out now that
I'm really excited about to helpwomen at midlife who are they
can be at a stage of I have noidea what I want to do next, but
(20:08):
I want to do something else.
I need to make money.
I have 15 more years to work,or I'm reaching my retirement
age and I am not going to go siton a beach or play tennis all
day.
I need something else where I'mcontributing.
Or it could be somebody goingthrough empty nest, or somebody
going through a health crisis orbeing downsized or losing their
(20:30):
job, trying to get back in andcan't get back in, like the
friends you were talking about.
We all reach that crisis.
I reached that when they closedthe magazine and I was all
alone.
I had no one to ask.
I had no one to talk to.
Things were just starting tochange at that point where this
is in 2016, where a lot ofpeople were saying I want to do
(20:55):
something different and new, andthe pandemic really helped with
that.
But I was stuck there way aheadand I decided I wanted to be an
entrepreneur.
I knew nothing about that,except that I'd written about
entrepreneurs.
I didn't know what that meant.
So I took the Cubby Club stuff.
I said I'm going to do what Iknow.
I know how to create content, Iknow how to talk to women.
(21:16):
But it took me three weeks tofigure out which email server to
use, because back then I didn'thave any friends who were my
age.
I had 20 year olds but theywere like oh, go, look at a
video on YouTube.
And I'm like I can't follow avideo on YouTube.
What do you mean Like?
So I had to do my own research.
Three weeks later, I figure outwhat I should use.
(21:38):
The whole point of Covey Club isI've done all the work, you
don't have to do that.
So now you come into Covey Club.
If you join, you go into ourCovey Connects, a private
Facebook group.
You're like hey, I'm thinkingof.
You know, I want to sell nailpolish online or whatever.
You know what mail servershould I use?
Two seconds later, you're done.
Next, what's you know?
It's like I'm going to save youso much headache, so much
(22:01):
emotional pain, so many wastedhours of research.
And the wonderful thing isbecause it's women in their 50s,
60s, 70s and some a little bitearlier, in their late 30s and
40s.
We're all experts.
We're not 20-year-olds.
It's not a group of20-year-olds.
It is a group of people whoknow and you can say you know, I
(22:23):
need to find somebody who canbuild me a website.
Who do you know?
Bam, bam, bam, bam.
I mean, it's that kind oftapping into sharing expertise
and because so much of that isgoing on.
It's been seven years of thiswhere I hear, oh, so-and-so
(22:49):
hired so-and-so to do this, orso-and-so helped me to do that,
or I hired this person as acoach and she taught me to.
So I was like, okay, here arethe new things that we want to
roll out.
We just rolled out the CoveyClub marketplace where, for a
small fee you just one fee thatyou pay for the year we we
position you inside the websitein the marketplace.
You get run through the banner.
We run you through all of CoveyClub three times, all through
our newsletters, through oursocial media, through all kinds
of stuff.
There's all kinds of benefitsso that you can get to the
(23:11):
people who want to hire you, whowant to know your skills and
want to help you as well.
And this is all going on anyway.
But now we really want to bringit to the forefront.
When I, when I, rather thangoing to Upwork, I hired my
marketing person from within theclub, it was somebody who
joined the club, who I learnedabout and got to know.
(23:32):
Other people were using her andI was like, oh, why would I go
to Upwork?
Let me go use this person.
So it's all that kind ofsisterhood.
You know it's the, it's the'sthe old girls network sharing
and connecting.
And you know I connect people,even people if they've left
Coffee Club.
I just did this.
Somebody who left and a new onecame in and they were in the
(23:53):
same educational space and I waslike, look, I'm going to
introduce you guys, you need toknow each other.
No-transcript.
(24:32):
During pandemic we didsourdough baking.
You remember that was a bigdeal.
Everything from leadershipskills to building your personal
brand, time saving, how to geton a board, how to manage your
LinkedIn better, how to get ajob with LinkedIn, whatever it
is.
In midlife.
We have doctors who talk aboutmenopause, whatever it is you're
(24:55):
looking for, you can startlearning today about whatever it
is you want to know.
And kind of my group that'sgravitated to Covey Club is a
lifelong learner group.
We kind of crack open the worldthrough learning.
It's a big learning group andit just happens to be kind of
(25:16):
what sets this group apart.
Audra (25:19):
So you've built this and forgive the term a sorority,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah this, andforgive the term a sorority.
Yeah, but it's a sorority ofnice girls rather than mean
girls.
Oh, yeah, mean girls don't likeus.
Yeah, but of women that arehelping each other.
They are.
It sounds like you meet eachother wherever each other is at.
(25:39):
Yes, and that's the beauty.
Yes, exactly so, speaking ofmeeting each other wherever each
other is at, yes, and that'sthe beauty.
Leslie (25:44):
Yes, exactly.
Audra (25:46):
So, speaking of meeting each other where they're at, I
had mentioned to you before wewent online that I know lots of
women right now accomplishedwomen, amazing women that are
currently out of work, that arein this demographic that and
have been out of work for anextended period of time, and I
(26:09):
know that one of your passionsis to help women in this
demographic, teach them on howto have a side hustle this
demographic, teach them on howto have a side hustle, so when
things like this happen, theyhave another stream of income.
And I know that there's a lotof people out there that are
like I wouldn't know the firstthing on how to set up a side
hustle.
I don't know that.
(26:30):
I am an entrepreneur.
I don't know why that's evennecessary, and as I was
preparing for our interview, Ithought, well, you know what,
let me put some numbers behindthis as to why I think that this
might be important.
That might be some soberingnumbers to put behind this on
why a side hustle might be anidea.
(26:53):
While you put the what behindit, I'll put the why behind it
as far as some numbers areconcerned.
Right, I looked up the, theemployment numbers for the last
90 days and the employmentnumbers for the last 90 days are
pretty high.
For women and these are womenover 20 that are educated they
(27:13):
are flat.
They have been flat for thelast 90 days.
For men that are educated over20, they are trending down.
That should be sobering Also, Idecided.
I'm like hmm well, let me golook and see what our wage gap
is doing.
Leslie (27:34):
Oh God, don't go near the wage gap.
You're going to want to killyourself.
Audra (27:37):
Yes, so I looked it up anyway because I was like I want
to.
I want to ground us in somenumbers and some facts.
I want to see what we're doing.
Yeah, I went and looked up thethe the last time that the
Forbes did their research andthe last time that they
published it was back in March.
And we are still sitting at 84cents to the dollar.
Leslie (28:00):
Oh I thought I was going to say 82.
That's good, 84.
Yeah, yay.
Audra (28:06):
Two cents, two cents, but we're still sitting at 84
cents.
Leslie (28:10):
I know, and it ain't going to get better man, with
what's going on in the politicalworld.
Audra (28:14):
No, so and it's not going to get any better with for
the with employment numbers.
If it hasn't budged for womenin 90 days, well, we have to
make it budge.
Leslie (28:27):
We have my point.
So here's here's a couple ofthings that I'll tell you.
One of the things my, mybiggest frustration with Covey
is people not joining earlyenough to work on this issue.
What am I going to do next?
How can I protect myself?
Which is really two yearsbefore any kind of a you know
(28:49):
cataclysm happens.
Often people wait to the lastminute.
They know things are bad, theyknow things.
You know their sector's doingpoorly, their company's doing
poorly, but you know, the braintends to want to protect you and
it's like, well, just pretendlike it's not happening, let's
just see how tomorrow goes.
And then tomorrow's anotheryear and you still haven't done
(29:11):
anything.
I go around the country talkingabout why you need to have a
reinvention plan in your backpocket, and that's the reason.
And I get a lot of people whosay to me when they go oh well,
I've worked at this bank for 22years and they love me.
And I was like, yes, but guesswhat happened to Silicon Valley
Bank?
They went home Friday and itclosed on Monday.
(29:34):
Yep, nothing to do with you.
Yeah, they loved you.
It's not about you, it's aboutwhat's happening out there in
the world.
You need to protect yourself.
You need to have ideas.
You need to know that you havesomething else in your back
pocket, a plan, an idea, youknow a side hustle that you
could move toward if somethinghappened and guess what?
(29:55):
And some money socked awaycould move toward if something
happened, and guess what?
And some money socked away.
I say you need to have at leasta year socked away of whatever
that would be that would keepyou afloat while you look for a
job.
I mean, this is an incrediblygreat job market, but it still
takes a while for older women tofind a job.
We do have things like ageism,and then you combine it with
(30:19):
sexism and we have both of thosethings.
They're very real.
You know, why are all thesewomen getting knocked out of
corporate jobs?
They don't seem to it's.
Is it happening with men aswell?
But I'm hearing this constantlyand that they're becoming you
know they're reluctantentrepreneurs.
Look, being an entrepreneur isnot for everybody.
It's hard, it requiresdifferent skill sets, it
(30:42):
requires different everything Imean, which is.
You know, I like that kind ofthing.
It stretches me.
So when we went out and did theresearch, what we found out is
men and women both get knockedout in their 50s, the men get
back in.
That's the difference Men pulleach other back in.
That's the difference Men pulleach other back in.
And if you're older as a manit's a little more accepted than
(31:02):
it is for a woman.
And of course, you know, thereare the women, this whole go
gray thing out there, which isgreat, you know, if you've got a
secure job.
I mean, I've had friends whosaid, yeah, I went, you know,
went gray, lost my job and hadto dye my hair again.
So nobody knew how old I waswhen I went.
You know, went gray, lost myjob and had to dye my hair again
.
So nobody knew how old I waswhen I went back in.
And then I got back in.
(31:23):
It's reality.
It's not nice, it's sad.
Is it retrograde?
Yes, it is, but these arerealities.
We have to deal with thereality.
So one thing you can do iscultivate.
You know always have otherinterests and you could even
have other interests whereyou've taken courses or you've
done something you can even do.
You know they have thesevacations where you can go be an
(31:46):
intern somewhere for a vacation.
I always like to have two orthree.
I'm just a curious personanyway.
So I'm always looking forsomething new.
That's just my brain, I guess,being in the fashion industry
for so long.
Maybe it's just always wantingto find the new thing, what the
trend is.
But you should have otherthings that you're interested in
(32:06):
, and guess what?
It'll make you a moreinteresting person as well, for
your spouse or for your kids.
(32:44):
No-transcript, oh crap, I thinkit's coming down today.
That's you know.
Yes, we can help you, but itsure would have been nice if
you'd been in working on youridea ahead of time, working on
your.
You know, yes, we can help you,but it sure would have been
nice if you'd been in working onyour idea ahead of time,
working on your you know, like,what else do you want to do?
Maybe you want to teach, maybeyou want to, what are the things
(33:06):
that interest you?
And so you cultivate?
And what I say is you put asidethat money.
You have that money set asidefor you.
If nothing happens, you retirewith a gold watch and you get
your you know your RV to drivearound.
Go buy something with it.
Go, you know.
Go buy some great item foryourself.
Go buy yourself a fancy car,but have it so that you're not
(33:29):
stuck and it has nothing to dowith you.
It has to do with the pace oflife that we are experiencing
today.
Of life that we areexperiencing today, my husband's
father worked in one place andgot his gold watch and that was
it.
Okay, I've had, I think I'vehad.
I keep counting as it's, it'seither seven or 12, that's seven
(33:49):
.
Seven different jobs throughoutmy lifetime.
Our kids are going to have likeseven jobs before they're 30.
It's just the speed of what'shappening and what's changing.
And I have two adult children,one who's in the tech industry,
and when he was trying to find ajob he was like moaning,
groaning.
(34:09):
He's like, oh, I don't knowwhat's the problem.
He said I don't know what Iwant to do with the rest of my
life.
I was like it ain't for therest of your life.
Think two, two years, be like ananny, like if you could get
two years out of a nanny, thatwas like incredible success.
Right, most left six months ayear or whatever it was this
incredible turnover thing.
Look at it in two year things,your things are rapid and we
(34:34):
don't know what's going tohappen or where things are going
to come from.
I really also and I'm going tobe this is not.
People are not going to like tohear this thing that I'm going
to say you have to upskillyourself.
If you are 40 plus, there arean awful lot of people who are
(34:55):
fitting into the stereotype.
They do not know enough skills,they have not upskilled
themselves and as you get intothe 50 range, it's really bad
and I see it all the time.
With Covey Club, it's one of ourbiggest issues.
I got a new VA and I said toher one point.
She'd been with me for a whileand I said so how much do you
(35:15):
think the issues with Covey Cluband keeping people in and blah,
blah, blah has to do with notunderstanding technology, and
our technology is really basic.
It's like Facebook, zoom, blah,blah, blah.
It's like pretty basic stuff.
And I thought she was going tosay, ah, like 40% 30%.
She said 95%.
(35:37):
Yeah, like 40% 30%.
She said 95%.
Oh, my gosh, yeah, people don'twant to admit that they don't
know how to do the basic stuff,and you might.
It's scary.
Look, I understand.
There's a pit that goes intoyour stomach.
I'm older than you, so it's notnatural to me to have to go in
(35:57):
and and download a new app andfigure it out.
I get that pit in my stomachSometimes it makes me want to
throw up, but I barrel throughit because I know I need to know
that, I need to understand that, I need to know what my kids
are doing.
I need to understand what otherpeople are doing and what they
have.
If you don't do that, you willnot get hired.
(36:18):
You will not.
I mean and I've seen it eventhrough the club I had somebody
who was doing some great editingfor me but came from an old
magazine background terrificperson.
I had to hire a new editor forthe blog and she was.
She came at me and said youknow, I can't believe you didn't
even consider me.
And I said to her I said I hadto go with someone who was
(36:40):
digital first.
This person couldn't evenupload her blog into WordPress
herself.
I had to have the assistant doit.
And to think that that's okayif you're looking for a job,
that why are you thinking that'sokay?
And I know that fits thestereotype.
It makes my heart break to evensay because I am like that is
(37:01):
not true.
When you look at the studies.
The studies overall show thatwe are not behind in tech and we
not willing to learn or aremoderately accomplished and not
skilling themselves up to besuper accomplished.
(37:23):
And then they wonder whythey're not getting a job.
The other thing that people aretalking about a lot when they're
not.
There's a couple of thingsgoing on with not getting jobs.
There's actually it's a wholething that we have to write
about, because I'm seeing it inyoung people, I'm seeing it in
old people right now.
Part of it is this wholeelectronic system of how you
(37:44):
submit your resume, how youappear on social media.
We tackle an awful lot of thatat Covey Club, because if your
outward facing stuff is not upto snuff, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter who you were.
You're not going to get pastthose initial gate holders.
The other thing that peopledon't realize is a big thing
(38:06):
that is now talked about thatwas not really talked about in
my day, which was culture Right,and you have to make it very
clear that you're open to adiverse culture, that you're
open to whatever the culture isin in this new company that
you're going to.
And my day was suck it up,buttercup.
(38:27):
This is the way it is.
Shut your mouth and just doyour work.
I don't want to hear anythingfrom you that is not.
That is not the workplace oftoday, and you need to make it
very clear in the rightterminology.
You need to do your research onthe company that you're
applying to and you mustactually let them know that
(38:47):
you're going to be part of thatculture.
Who was getting down to thesecond was between him and
another person, him and anotherperson, him and another person.
The other person kept gettingit.
Two things there that one hasto do today and I did this in my
old day too, and it makes a bigdifference.
(39:07):
You get down into the, you know.
Third, you know you thinkyou're like in the three or four
running thing.
Show them you can do the workand it's going to be on you.
You do it for free.
You say, hey, I was justthinking you know your
toothpaste, you know category.
So inspired me that I thought Iwould send you this little
(39:30):
video I made for how you mightgo out on social media blah,
blah, blah.
You're not going to end withthe letter.
Thank you so much.
I'm so.
It was so nice to meet you,audra, I'm so glad we talked
about blah, blah, blah.
You have to go that extra mile,you have to do something
digital, you have to get ahead,but all this stuff.
There are an awful lot of people, audra, who are not doing this
(39:51):
and they're not upskilling.
We spend a lot of time at CbyClub because we know how to
teach.
I was an adjunct professor atNYU and I just love teaching and
we do an awful lot of teaching,but in a way that women our age
understand.
Like my son always says oh,just go look it up on the
(40:12):
YouTube video.
And I'm like and you go to theYouTube video for whatever
little thing it is and it's likenow here, look at the button
here, push the button here.
Now, when you push that button,go to the next one and I'm
leaning in there, I'm goingwhere's the button is?
We know how to upskill you andhow to teach you the way you
need to learn, but I'm tellingyou the God's awful truth is
(40:48):
that a lot of women are not upand they don't know what they're
doing Very basic stuff.
Know what they're doing Verybasic stuff.
I guess maybe we call it.
I call it the sort oftechnological bubble.
A lot of women, especially ifyou go into your late 50s and
60s they had assistants to doall this stuff and be super good
(41:10):
at it, so they never had areally good at it no good when
you're looking for a job, no,and?
Audra (41:18):
and I use google and youtube all the time because
there's so much that I don'tknow how to do, and I know
exactly what you're talkingabout.
Youtube, I can't see it.
I'll go find another video thatI can see better.
Right, but it's.
But it's difficult because,because I and they're going so
fast, they're going so fast,they're going really fast,
(41:40):
things are much smaller on thescreen than they used to be.
I can't help it.
It's not, it's not like I'mdoing it on purpose, just, you
know, age has, age has a senseof humor, right.
But I absolutely understandwhat you're saying and I'm
constantly trying new technology.
(42:01):
For this very reason.
I love Gen AI.
I think it's a remarkable tool.
I also think that you have totake it with a grain of salt and
realize that it's not alwaysright.
Yes, but I am constantly tryingto upskill myself for this very
reason, also, because I getbored.
Yes, me too.
(42:21):
I'm constantly trying to pushmyself and learn something new,
and even when it's learningthings that I don't necessarily
use for work, because I want tostretch my brain in a different
way.
Leslie (42:34):
Right, right.
And all this technology does itscratches a different part of
your brain Right, right, right.
Different emotions than anyother kind of work.
(42:57):
When you get frustrated with it, you know it's a.
There's some other emotion thatit brings up.
It's a uncomfortability downdeep.
Audra (43:07):
you know it's a frustration of why can't I make
this machine do what I want itto do?
Leslie (43:14):
Right, Can't reason with no, you can't reason.
Audra (43:18):
Yeah, no, it's very frustrating.
Very frustrating is, and evenactually before I came on to do
this interview, I was trying, Iwas Googling, trying to figure
out how to make my systems talkto each other and I it's a very
simple thing that I wanted to do.
Right, I would not figure itout and I was like forget it, I
will let this go for right now,because I'm so frustrated with
(43:41):
this right now.
When you're frustrated, youhave to leave it.
Yeah, I was like I will figurethis out later.
I know there's a way to makethis work, but I can't figure it
right now and it's making meangry, and so I will figure it
out later.
It is an anger.
It is an anger that you're likethis should work.
Why?
Leslie (43:56):
isn't this working?
Yes, and it's a lot of.
I find myself cursing andyelling, almost crying.
But you have to do it.
And a lot of people don't wantto do it because it makes them
feel so incompetent.
And you know we're verycompetent in other areas and
it's humbling to be so stupid.
(44:18):
It's just, you know, it's justa stupid machine and you have to
figure your way around it.
And I've gotten morecomfortable.
I don't.
In the beginning and I know alot of people feel this way who
didn't grow up with digital intheir hand there is a fear that
you're going to push a buttonand blow things up.
(44:39):
I have done that.
I've shut down my site a coupleof times and had to recover it.
So it's not that that can'thappen, it's just that you have
to know that if that does happen, you can get it back.
And it's also here's the otherweird, weird, weird,
uncomfortable, not normal thingabout the world, the digital
(45:05):
world we live in.
Imagine that you have a livingroom and you have all your
furniture and you know whereeverything is when you change
something.
So say, you have a website, youhave an app, you have something
you're used to working with,you know how to do it, or Google
comes in and changes somethingon you, like this day that you
(45:25):
have five meetings, that youhave no time to learn this thing
, that they have just changedand forced on you and you now
have to take three hours tofigure it out.
The weirdest thing about itit's like going into your living
room that you've known for solong but you have to notice
someone took the vase awayBecause it's not what they add.
(45:47):
It's not like someone put a bigflashing light over in the
corner and you're like huh,they've messed my thing up, I
can fix it.
The weirdest thing about digitalis a lot of changes that are
made or that you make, ormistakes that happen, take
things away, and that is a verybizarre concept in our very
(46:10):
tactile world.
I mean, you know, in a magazine, if somebody took a page out, I
would notice, because I'd be upon the wall and be like what
happened to page 19?
It's not on the wall anymore.
Where did it go?
Or when they printed it, it'dbe like what the fuck happened
here?
Where did it go?
It's tangible, you can get it.
It may take you months.
Sometimes it's my, you knowit's a.
(46:31):
These bugs that are in digitalstuff.
You don't discover it till someclient, you know, or your
customer goes.
I tried to do blah, blah, blahand you're like, oh crap, you
know, it's just, it's a weird.
It's a weird part of your brainthat has to get comfortable
(46:55):
with that.
That's the world we live in.
It's a, it's strange.
I don't know how any brain canget better at that, like how I
don't know.
I don't know how you get betterat it, but it's a strange.
It's just a strange thing andthat's how things work today and
you have to find things, thatstuff.
It's like someone came in andstole stuff out of your jewelry
(47:16):
box but you didn't remember forsix months so you lost that ring
.
You know that feeling of like,oh man, someone took that.
Audra (47:25):
But that's what digital is, and I don't think it's us
getting comfortable with it atall.
I think it's us resigningourselves to have to be OK, yeah
, the discomfort and justleaning into it.
Leslie (47:38):
Yeah, you just have to do it, discomfort and just
leaning into it.
Yeah, you just have to do itand you know it's going to
happen.
It's going to happen andsomebody's going to tell you
something's not working for themand you're going to feel awful
and it's going to mess them upand then you're going to have to
apologize and you just have tosay gee, I'm sorry, didn't see
that.
Really apologize.
Audra (47:57):
Because if we want to keep growing and expanding and
learning and keep being dynamichuman beings and growing our
careers and wanting to continueto elevate ourselves and each
other, we just have to keeppushing into the uncomfortable.
Yes, and you know, and that'swhy I like your club.
(48:21):
I think your club is cool thatyou lean into the uncomfortable
together.
Yes, exactly, and you make itsound like it's safe to feel
dumb together.
Leslie (48:34):
You have to If you're not willing to feel dumb
together, and that's one of thethings that we say about Covey
Club it is a non-judgment zoneIf you can't let go of all your
expertise.
There are a lot of storieswe've written on the blog and
one of my favorites is calledhave a Beginner's Mindset.
(48:55):
You have to have a beginner'smindset if you're going to
reinvent yourself.
There's just no possibility.
You know there are segues whichyou don't have to start all
over, but in general, you dohave to have a beginner's
mindset in order to succeed at a, at a reach.
You just have to admit that youjust went from a position of
(49:15):
knowing everything to knowingnothing and feeling comfortable
with that and I kind of like it.
I'm, you know that's somethingfor me.
That's okay.
You just have to be okayscrewing stuff up and
apologizing when you do.
You know it's like I didn't knowhow my when I first went out
and somebody came to me and theywanted me to do because we're
(49:37):
in Covey Club, we can do a B2Bkind of thing, like if you have
a product that you're testingand you want to reach women like
us.
That's hard to do on Facebook,like you know, to get the right
people.
But if you know it's targetedat these women, we can do
research for you, right?
And this woman had this greatscalp tonic and so she said you
(49:57):
know, give me a proposal.
And I didn't know what tocharge.
I asked a couple of friends.
They said charge what you thinkit's worth.
Well, I gave a ridiculous numberand she said no.
And I felt mortified.
But I didn't know what to offer.
You know, I didn't know Ireally did.
It was so amorphous I couldn'teven benchmark.
And you know, every time Ithink about it I'm like, oh,
(50:19):
you're an idiot, you should have.
But whatever, what could you do?
You know, I had no benchmarks.
I had no previous anything.
I had nobody to ask Is this agood number?
Bad number?
Is that way off.
So you know, but you learn.
You learn by making mistakes.
Audra (50:37):
Isn't that the best part , though?
I mean, it's better than nottrying at all.
Leslie (50:42):
Yes, no, no, you have to try.
The other part that I reallylove about the world we're in
the part I do love, is unlikeprint.
You make a mistake in print andyou are screwed.
Period Right, you're a screw,period Right, you're a show and
you know, I remember somebodycatching typos in the headlines
at Harper's Bazaar after it wasprinted when I worked there.
(51:04):
So the good news is you canchange everything in digital
Mess up spelling of someone'sname.
I don't recommend this, but youknow we can fix it.
There's a wonderful you caneven fix.
What I really love is my blog.
You know I come out of writingand digital and content and you
can fix your titles.
(51:25):
You, you know you pitch out atitle there and it goes flat
dead and no one reads it.
You can go in and fix yourtitle and do some SEO work and
pop it up and see, put it backout there and people will see it
.
You know it's a.
I like that part about it.
I like the fact that it's notlocked in.
We're not locked in, but it'sall there for you and there's
(51:49):
tons and tons and tons foranybody in any area.
Empty nest that you were talkingabout, that you're going
through which I used to thinkwas like, oh please, like
somebody's going to be likeempty nest, like I was such a
big career person, like I hadtwo kids going off, like wham,
wham, wham.
Why is everybody crying?
I got so depressed I cried myeyes out for two months.
(52:10):
It was a long process ofgetting over that.
Me too, sure, a hell lot of meHorrible.
You think like, yeah, I've gotall these things.
I'm like so connected, I'm busy, I'm like doing what I love.
Me too Completely popped me bysurprise.
It's hard, super hard.
(52:32):
It's way harder than you think.
It revives deep emotions, youknow, and if you have any kind
of childhood issues withabandonment or any kind of
things that you know were neverwere resolved, even if they were
resolved, they come back up andit's rough, it's really rough.
(52:53):
And so we have a whole channel,you know whole area, a whole.
You know whole segment on emptynest, a whole segment on back
to school, like when you'resending your kid off to college.
That's another big moment.
We have all kinds ofdiscussions about well-being and
health and menopause andhormones, and so it's whatever
(53:16):
is of interest to you inwhatever direction you're coming
at, this sense of change andtrying to figure out where
you're headed.
We have different ways ofgetting you there and I kind of
look at it as a poo-poo platterthat we load up with all this
food and you know you're goingto have five different things
than I'm going to have, andthat's okay, but we're all
(53:39):
getting to the same place.
We're all getting to whateverthat thing is that we want to do
and who we want to be Like.
Audra (53:46):
I said, you meet your, your, your members, your sisters
, wherever they're at, and youtake their hand and and guide
them along the way, yep.
Leslie (53:57):
And guide them along the way.
Yep, and it's really.
I mean, it's very, veryrewarding, and it's wonderful to
see when people have coachedeach other or they have, you
know, done designs for eachother, or they have gotten each
other to get you know, go andget their health coaching
certificate, or they'veencouraged each other on in ways
(54:18):
that maybe a close friend mightnot do.
This was really a big learningoddrope, which was, you know, I
didn't a lot of.
Well, you know, when you'redoing a being an entrepreneur,
you don't you don't know all thethings that are going to happen
.
Sometimes you just roll with itand see what happens.
Like one of the times itoccurred to me like you know,
(54:40):
well, putting all these peopletogether to learn from each
other, they're all strangers.
Is that weird?
So, over time, though, what wediscovered is actually
reinventing yourself withstrangers is easier.
It's easier because you canshow up day one as Audra with
blue hair and everybody will belike, oh, it's Audra with the
(55:03):
blue hair.
But if you're with your friendgroup and you're thinking,
you're saying, like you know, Ithink I'm going to turn my hair
blue, why would you do that?
That would be like can youimagine your children?
How would you you know they'regoing to?
There's all these reasons whychange is not acceptable in a
group you already have.
And part of that can be ifyou're with a lot of people who
(55:25):
are stuck as well.
It can be kind of gripe groupfor people who are stuck and it
keeps you in there and kind ofkeeps, you know, keeps petting
you for all your grievances,right, keeps petting you for all
your grievances, right.
But if you decide to get up andleave and you do start moving
in a different direction andcreating change, not only is
(55:47):
there a lot of pushback fromwithin the group because like,
well, what does that say aboutus?
Like wait a minute, why youknow.
Like who is she?
Like she thinks she's going togo create change.
You can't create change, thingsdon't change.
And if there is that kind ofthinking, then you, you know
that's not good for anybody,right.
(56:07):
So the wonderful thing aboutworking with people you don't
know you literally show up aswho you want to be and you're
accepted.
That's the completely amazingthing about it.
Audra (56:21):
There's no judgment because there's no preconceived
idea of who you are.
Correct, correct.
Where can the audience get toknow more information about the
Covey Club?
Know more about you because youdo lots of philanthropic
activities throughout the world,and so much more about what
(56:43):
you've done.
So where can they reach moreinformation about you?
Leslie (56:45):
So best place is to come find us at cubbyclubcom,
check out all the channels wehave and come join us.
Hit the page that saysmembership.
You'll understand all aboutthat.
We have different levels ofmembership that you can try, and
we even have a free trial.
If you want to try it for amonth, for a yearly subscription
, you can come in and you don'tlike it, bail out.
(57:07):
Write it in your calendar sothat you don't get caught, you
know, doing it for a month whenyou don't want to.
And we're on all social mediaunder Cubbyby club.
Cubby's a small group of birds.
That's why it's called cubbyand it's on.
We're everywhere.
We're on linkedin, we're onsocial media.
What do you want to call it?
(57:28):
Instagram, facebook, we'reeverywhere.
So just come join us.
Come on, get onto thenewsletter at cubbyclubcom.
You will understand who we areand see if we're for you, and we
would love to help you get tothe next level of wherever
you'recom.
You will understand who we areand see if we're for you, and we
would love to help you get tothe next level of wherever
you're headed, and you will beshocked at what it's like to
have a bunch of great, smart,accomplished women.
Have your back.
(57:49):
And I did a Covey Live in NewYork and I got the most amazing
note back from a woman who saidshe'd never been in a room and
this seems so antithetical to mebecause I grew up with women
She'd never been in a room ofsuch amazing, incredible women
who were so kind to each otherand she had written women off in
(58:11):
her life before that and shewas changing her opinion of it.
How heartbreaking,heartbreaking, right, yeah, but
yeah, but, yeah, so, but so allI can tell you is I attract a
certain group of women.
I grew up with the mean girls.
I'm not interested.
I have like mean girl repellent.
(58:33):
It's a lot of good girls likeme who really want to help each
other and it's amazing what youcan do together.
Audra (58:41):
Well, I'm going to give you an opportunity because this
is my favorite part of the show,where I basically get to shut
up and I give you an opportunityto have an, a intimate moment
directly with the audience,because I want you to have an
opportunity to leave an intimatethought with the audience, to
give them something to ponderover the next day or so, just
(59:06):
something for them to thinkabout.
So the mic is yours.
Leslie (59:09):
Oh, thank you.
That's so sweet.
Well, midlife is not forsissies and the world is about
to get a lot harder for womenthan it has been.
It's not your imagination, it'sreal.
It's tough out there.
Don't do it alone.
Don't go it alone, don't beafraid to reach out.
There are fabulous women whowant to have your back Not
(59:31):
everybody out there, but thereare, and we can do it for each
other.
And I can tell you from a factit's better to do it together
than to do it alone.
And we try to make Covey Clubvery affordable so that women of
all levels can come in andwe're here to help you.
We're going to have your backand we want to see where you're
headed and we can help you getthere.
Audra (59:53):
Leslie, thank you.
Leslie (59:55):
Thank you, Audra.
Audra (59:56):
Leslie, thank you, thank you, audra, thank you for being
here with me and being sogenerous with your time and with
your information and just beingso encouraging to all of us and
spending so much of your energyin investing in those of us
that have hit this midlife,which is both exciting,
(01:00:18):
exhilarating, frustrating all ofthe adjectives that we all feel
every single day, because it isreally an exciting time, but
it's so much all at the sametime that we really do need a
little bit of help.
So I am so appreciative and,speak from all of my audience
(01:00:40):
and all of my friends, thank youvery much for your work and
your effort and thank you somuch for being here.
Thank you, and I want to thankall of you for listening and
we'll see you again next time.
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me
again this week.
This week, we are joined by aremarkable and accomplished
woman.
My guest this week is LeslieJane Seymour, and she is the
former editor-in-chief of Moore,marie Claire and Redbook
magazines.
Under her leadership of Mooremagazine, it grew to 1.5 readers
(00:23):
and she created history byhaving the first lady of the
United States, michelle Obama,to guest edit the entire issue.
This led to 8.5 billion mediaimpressions worldwide.
She's also the author of twobooks.
She's the founder of Covey Clubtwo books.
She is the founder of CoveyClub and she is the host of the
(00:45):
podcast Reinvent Yourselfanother powerful voice for women
in midlife who arerediscovering and reinventing
themselves.
It is my pleasure and my honorto introduce to you Leslie Jane
Seymour.
(01:05):
Leslie, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
Leslie (01:07):
It's funny Moore the name Moore with the magazine,
talk about a disaster for SEOand all that, and you couldn't
even search for anything.
You'd be like try to find yourclips and it'd be like search
for more.
Everybody has more.
You know, it's like Frenchfries and more so.
(01:30):
It's just you know.
It was made in a differentcentury, when there was no such
thing as computers and digital.
Audra (01:38):
Nobody even thought about that.
No, why would anybody startthinking, oh, let's create a
magazine called More.
Oh, I know, I know.
Why would anybody startthinking, oh, let's create a
magazine called More.
Before we dive into today'stopic, I would be remiss if I
didn't ask you why were you sothoughtful and think you know
(01:59):
what?
I have this idea I'm going tohave the first lady edit the
entire edition of this magazine.
First of all, that is brilliant.
Segnaval has now been copiedover and over and over again.
So good on you for beinggroundbreaking.
But why did you have this braveidea?
I mean, she's a brilliant woman, Right?
No one had ever thought of that, and it now seems so obvious.
Leslie (02:24):
Right.
Well, this is what happens whenyou have to sell hundreds of
thousands of magazines everymonth.
And we had had her on.
It was the fourth time on themagazine and I had to come up
with a new angle.
Like you can't just do.
And everybody else was doinginterviews with her, so like,
why should someone pick up more?
We've already had her.
She was a bestseller, so how doyou make a bestseller?
(02:46):
A more interesting thing andluckily for me, she had a new PR
person who I went down toWashington to see and we kind of
we were like circling aroundeach other like this, like I had
this crazy idea.
I had a list of crazy ideas.
I'm always people who worked forme when I ran Marie Claire, we
used to have crazy idea meetings, which was come and give me
(03:09):
your most insane idea, don'tworry about whether it's
practical or we can afford it.
I'll figure that out later.
You know you want to writeMarie Claire on the tail of an
airplane.
If that's going to, you know,create thing, let's worry about
the logistics later.
Anyway, so I go down there andwe have, we're having lunch and
(03:29):
I said I have these crazy ideasand she's like well, we're
looking for some crazy ideas.
I'm like, no, you don't thinkyou're looking for this kind of
crazy idea.
I'm like I'm so afraid to sayit Cause I know when I say it,
when I say I mean to ask a firstsitting first lady to edit a
magazine.
I mean, many, many celebritieshad edited quote unquote, edited
magazine ahead of time, butnever a first lady.
(03:51):
They'd been on the cover orthey'd had a story done on them
and there was no way she wasgoing to do it.
How was she going to have time?
And I really wanted her to doit.
It wasn't going to be that wedid the whole thing and just
stuck her name on the front,whole thing, and just stuck her
name on the front.
And, hilariously, it wasliterally one of those I'll show
(04:11):
you mine if you show me yours,kind of things where she was
like no, go, just hit me with itand I'm like you know, like,
and so I throw it out there andshe goes oh, that was kind of
like on our list for something.
I'm like really, anyway, whenit happened and she said you
know, I'm going to bring it backto her, let me see what you
think I had to get back on thetrain to go back to New York and
(04:34):
so I called my publisher thathad a tremendously big mouth and
I said you, on pain of death,you may not say anything, but I
think I clinched the deal of thecentury and in the end it was,
and it wasn't until we didn't doit because we thought it was
making history, it wasn't untilwe were well into it and she
actually did all the editing.
I mean, it was all her ideas,all her articles, all her
contacts.
We facilitated the whole thing.
(04:54):
We spent a lot of time up downin Washington and her PR team
was fabulous and we oh no, Ilost my train of thought and we
oh, now I lost my train ofthought.
Where was I going?
It's one of those days, sorry,but it was an amazing, amazing
product and an amazing event.
Oh, it was that we didn't gointo it with the idea of it
(05:16):
being history.
It was later on, full into it,that my PR person came up and he
said you know, has anybody everdone this before?
And I'm like I don't know.
So he goes and he looks it upLike no one had ever done it.
The first ladies had been oncovers, but they'd never, ever,
guest edited a magazine, so itwas a huge get and that's why
the publicity was so enormous.
(05:38):
Didn't stop them from closingthe magazine no, but it was
historic and amazing and, likeyou know, sometimes you don't
know where you're headed untilyou get there.
Audra (05:50):
But isn't that remarkable though?
I mean, it's now been copied,yeah, in various different
formats and different situations, but you were the first, yeah.
Leslie (06:01):
No, and not intentionally.
It was just.
I was just looking for a new,crazy thing to to do something
different.
I'm always interested insomething different and my
husband gets bored with thatwhen I'm like can we go to
another restaurant?
I don't want to go to the sameone, let's go somewhere
different.
It's like, but we have the oneswe like.
I'm like no, but I want to godifferent.
It's just part of mypersonality always looking for
(06:22):
something new and different.
Audra (06:23):
It's just part of my personality, always looking for
something new and different.
Well, my friends will oftenhear me say crazy ideas are my
favorite.
Leslie (06:29):
Oh, really, yeah, Well, we did one.
I'll tell you we did.
We got so crazy.
Do you remember when Tina TinaBrown put what's her name?
Pregnant Oof?
And I'm forgetting her name,demi Moore, mm-hmm Pover, naked,
painted, yes.
So we decided to take that onestep further at Mary Claire.
(06:53):
At Mary Claire, we were doingbasically, um, you know, real,
real life media and events wecalled them stunts way before
reality TV took off and so wetook that idea and we spun it
into.
You know, new Yorkers are soblasé that we hired a model, we
(07:16):
painted her.
She was naked except somethingaround the nipples and around
the crotch, but she wascompletely naked otherwise, and
we took her through the day inNew York, we put her on the
subway, we did all this stuff,the most hilarious photos, and,
of course, new Yorkers nobodycame up.
We have pictures of guys on thesubway in the morning going
down to Wall Street, and you cansee they're pretending to read
(07:37):
their newspaper, but they'reactually looking at this woman,
but no one says anything.
Audra (07:54):
No one says like, are you doing any clothes on?
And we thought we might getarrested.
No one arrested us.
I mean so anyway, I was therefor a conference and I was in
the cab.
We were driving through TimesSquare and there was women in
there in Times Square, naked,naked, painted, painted, painted
(08:16):
.
But they were naked to gettheir pictures taken.
They were wearing thoseshowgirl hats, oh okay, but yeah
, it's a normal thing.
Now I thought, just atrendsetter, what can I say?
Like I said, you were breakingrecords and making history in
all different kinds of ways.
(08:36):
You didn't even realize, maybenot so good.
Leslie (08:38):
Maybe I should take another direction.
Yeah, so that's funny.
Well, I live in New Orleans now, where literally anything goes,
so it's the right place for me.
There is a naked bike ride.
That is literally what it says,and it is a show and
festivities of every frighteningbody you've ever seen out there
(08:58):
in your life, but no one cares.
They're proud to show it.
You've ever seen out there inyour life, but no one cares.
They're proud to show it.
And why you would want to siton a bike with that.
I have no idea, but it'shilarious Anyway.
So I found my peeps right.
Audra (09:12):
Yeah, and that's just sounds frightening.
Yeah, I'm just trying toimagine that I, I no, I just
can't.
No, I'm in pain sitting.
I'm thinking imagine it, thissounds painful.
Yeah right, wouldn't you think?
Leslie (09:28):
Yeah, the hilarious part about it and you can't post
it on Facebook because they'llmake you take it down.
But so the hilarious part aboutit is they have a police escort
and I always imagine the guywho's like okay, joe, you're up
for the naked bike ride thisyear.
Audra (09:44):
And Joe's like oh, okay, do I get overtime?
Exactly, and as I said in yourintro, you have this.
These are just a coupleexamples of the remarkable
career that you've had.
This is just a few.
Oh yeah, we've had a crazy time.
(10:18):
You've had a crazy time, havequestioned you, right, but you
have chosen to take your time,your talents and your efforts
and dedicate them to thedemographic that that I speak to
, which is women in their 40sand 50s, women just like me,
that are me, that that are womenthat are in midlife, that are
(10:44):
either rediscovering themselvesor discovering themselves for
the first time.
They're reinventing themselves.
They are, they're in transition.
That's right.
They are like they could belike me, that are empty nesters
and now, suddenly, the world istheir oyster and they have all
these choices and they don'tknow where to start.
(11:04):
The world is their oyster andthey have all these choices and
they don't know where to start.
There's all kinds of things.
Like I said, you could havechosen to do anything, but you
chose this group, and I'mcurious as to why.
Because we are a complex group.
We are a fascinating group, butwe aren't an easy group, that's
(11:25):
okay, that's all right.
Leslie (11:26):
I mean, it's very hilarious.
When I first took over MooreMagazine, which was focused on
this group, and you learn,different magazines respond in
different ways.
I did a teen magazine which wascalled YM, then I did Redbook,
which was Young M, and then MaryClaire and then more, and each
one has its own response,attitudes and, hilariously, you
(11:50):
know, like a teen magazine, youput somebody they like on the
cover and you're like floodedthe day it comes out, you're
like, oh my God, I love Leo.
You know, like all thesepositive things.
Anyway, red Book, same way,Mary Claire, same way you get
all this feedback.
Even those days it was emailand then, of course, it became
online blah, blah, blah.
(12:21):
Hilariously, when I took overmore in 2008, I did my first
cover and the things that cameback were they were like you've
changed the font on page five.
I don't like that font.
Or it was like crabby.
It was like you know, I can'tbelieve you did blah, blah and I
was like what Am I going tofail?
Like, am I failing?
Like it was a two-week thing offailing.
And then you got the nice noteslater.
(12:43):
All the nice notes later camelater and it's kind of a crabby
time of life.
I used to say to my, to mycirculation guy, I would say you
know we need to do, can we putlike we need?
So that's why they're so crankyand they're cranky, they're
just cranky.
And here's a good venting pointright, which is you can look at
(13:12):
your magazine and of coursethey're very accomplished so
they can see.
You know, this font didn't workso well on that page and I was.
You know they're all experts.
It's not like you're 20 yearsold and you've never seen Leo
DiCaprio before.
So it was just a funny crowdand that's OK.
What I love about it iseverybody's really honest and
very direct, and you can be veryhonest and direct as well and I
(13:34):
love that, no holds barred.
And the reason why I did it,audra, is because you know, when
more closed, I wasn't done andI love, you know, all the other
magazines I did.
I had to be a teenager, but Iwas really in my 30s.
I had to be.
The only one read book was agood match.
(13:54):
I was a young mom at the time.
But Marie Claire, yes, I wasn'ta French fashionista but I was
a big fashion person.
But then, with more.
I got to be the customer andwhat a it's much more fun.
You look, we say you know, youdon't have to have cancer to
write about it, but it surehelps, right?
So if you are the customer, itdefinitely makes it a lot easier
to identify.
(14:14):
And when they closed MooreMagazine, I wasn't done.
And one of the points of Moorewas the rebirth, the idea that
you could have a second life.
And I found myself saying Icould go run another magazine
I'd already run for.
And what was the point?
It was just going to end up inthe same situation, because the
business was bad and digital waseating its life and the people
(14:38):
running the business side ofpublications in print were just
I don't know if they justweren't that bright or they
didn't get it or they didn't seeit happening.
We were on the content side, sowe didn't necessarily have
control over the business side,but really Facebook and Google
ate their lunch and they didn'tstop them.
So it was very clear like Ieither was going to go do
(15:00):
something else completely or Iwas going to try to figure out
how to keep doing what I love todo, which is connecting with
women like you and helping women.
See, I mean, I think this isthe greatest time of life.
Frankly, I am so happy that weare in the FU 50s plus.
I'm now in my 60s, but it wassuch a joy to get to the point
(15:24):
where, you know, when I startedin my 20s and I was at Vogue,
every time I walked into thecopywriting room, you know, the
girls didn't look up at me.
That one gave me a side, thisone, you know, and it was like
this constant like why doesso-and-so hate me?
So-and-so didn't look at that.
It was just all this outside,like I couldn't control it.
(15:47):
I couldn't make people like me,no matter what I did.
It was all this just angst andworry.
And then you do cross over.
That's the beauty of midlife is, you do cross over where you're
like I don't give a shitanymore.
You know what Time is runningout, I don't have time for that.
You either like me or you don'tlike me.
You're not going to like mebecause you just don't like my
(16:08):
face.
So fine, I'll go find thepeople that do like me.
I can't control what you think.
I can't make you like me, nomatter how nice I am.
And that is the biggestliberation of all.
Just think of all the energy,the wasted energy that we all
spent in our toys.
Audra (16:28):
It has been that revelation for me personally has
been the best weight I've everlost in my life.
That's right.
Oh, I love that.
Leslie (16:38):
That's a good that's actually a great quote.
I'm going to steal that.
Audra (16:42):
Steal that because it was such a relief.
It took a long time to figurethat out and it was.
It was fought for and won verydifficultly.
Leslie (16:58):
And especially if you're a people pleaser, you
know absolutely.
Audra (17:01):
And, and you know I'm not I'm not that far behind you
as far as you said.
You're in your 60s.
I'm I'm 53.
And so I was raised in ageneration where you had to.
You had to be nice.
Leslie (17:14):
Oh God, that's still.
I'm still trying to throw offthe good girl.
I was the prominent good girlmy whole entire life, yeah.
Audra (17:22):
You have to be nice, you have to be the good girl, you
have to, you have to play thegame and and you have to be the
overachiever and you have to dothings right.
You always have to be the gooddaughter.
Good, do things right, do this,this, this and this and this.
And then you're surprised whydon't like you?
(17:45):
Correct?
And then it suddenly dawns onyou there's nothing wrong with
you, it's wrong with them.
Leslie (17:53):
It's wrong with them.
Audra (17:56):
Right, or it's just because people are different.
Leslie (18:00):
Right.
Audra (18:01):
Exactly, but it was such a long, hard road of
unprogramming.
Yeah, exactly, raised themdifferent so that they didn't
(18:22):
have to undo this programming.
But women of my demographicthey're also undoing this
programming as well, and we'vereached this glorious age of I
don't have to care anymore.
Leslie (18:38):
Nice isn't it, it is.
Audra (18:40):
But with that, like I said, there's these overwhelming
choices, because the choicesare endless, right, right, right
, and it's a smorgasbord of nowwhat do I do?
And that's where you come in of.
Yes, this is how I help yousort out now what you do.
Leslie (19:04):
Yes, and that is exactly why I started Covey Club
.
So there were lots of angryreaders for more magazine when
magazine closed.
So they came to me and asked meto do something else for them
on social media and 627 of themtook a 54 question survey to the
end and I built Covey Club offof that.
Originally, covey Club wasgoing to be a digital magazine.
(19:27):
Ha ha ha.
No one will pay for a digitalmagazine, but I had to learn
that myself, and then I leanedinto the club part of it.
I didn't really know what thatmeant, but I decided I was going
to figure that out.
And that's what's so much funabout doing your own thing, is
it's a blank slate.
What does that mean?
And I decided, well, what wouldI like in a club?
And so it's seven years laterand we have been changing the
(19:48):
club as we go along.
We just did this enormous update.
We added 10 new services thatwere just rolling out now that
I'm really excited about to helpwomen at midlife who are they
can be at a stage of I have noidea what I want to do next, but
(20:08):
I want to do something else.
I need to make money.
I have 15 more years to work,or I'm reaching my retirement
age and I am not going to go siton a beach or play tennis all
day.
I need something else where I'mcontributing.
Or it could be somebody goingthrough empty nest, or somebody
going through a health crisis orbeing downsized or losing their
(20:30):
job, trying to get back in andcan't get back in, like the
friends you were talking about.
We all reach that crisis.
I reached that when they closedthe magazine and I was all
alone.
I had no one to ask.
I had no one to talk to.
Things were just starting tochange at that point where this
is in 2016, where a lot ofpeople were saying I want to do
(20:55):
something different and new, andthe pandemic really helped with
that.
But I was stuck there way aheadand I decided I wanted to be an
entrepreneur.
I knew nothing about that,except that I'd written about
entrepreneurs.
I didn't know what that meant.
So I took the Cubby Club stuff.
I said I'm going to do what Iknow.
I know how to create content, Iknow how to talk to women.
(21:16):
But it took me three weeks tofigure out which email server to
use, because back then I didn'thave any friends who were my
age.
I had 20 year olds but theywere like oh, go, look at a
video on YouTube.
And I'm like I can't follow avideo on YouTube.
What do you mean Like?
So I had to do my own research.
Three weeks later, I figure outwhat I should use.
(21:38):
The whole point of Covey Club isI've done all the work, you
don't have to do that.
So now you come into Covey Club.
If you join, you go into ourCovey Connects, a private
Facebook group.
You're like hey, I'm thinkingof.
You know, I want to sell nailpolish online or whatever.
You know what mail servershould I use?
Two seconds later, you're done.
Next, what's you know?
It's like I'm going to save youso much headache, so much
(22:01):
emotional pain, so many wastedhours of research.
And the wonderful thing isbecause it's women in their 50s,
60s, 70s and some a little bitearlier, in their late 30s and
40s.
We're all experts.
We're not 20-year-olds.
It's not a group of20-year-olds.
It is a group of people whoknow and you can say you know, I
(22:23):
need to find somebody who canbuild me a website.
Who do you know?
Bam, bam, bam, bam.
I mean, it's that kind oftapping into sharing expertise
and because so much of that isgoing on.
It's been seven years of thiswhere I hear, oh, so-and-so
(22:49):
hired so-and-so to do this, orso-and-so helped me to do that,
or I hired this person as acoach and she taught me to.
So I was like, okay, here arethe new things that we want to
roll out.
We just rolled out the CoveyClub marketplace where, for a
small fee you just one fee thatyou pay for the year we we
position you inside the websitein the marketplace.
You get run through the banner.
We run you through all of CoveyClub three times, all through
our newsletters, through oursocial media, through all kinds
of stuff.
There's all kinds of benefitsso that you can get to the
(23:11):
people who want to hire you, whowant to know your skills and
want to help you as well.
And this is all going on anyway.
But now we really want to bringit to the forefront.
When I, when I, rather thangoing to Upwork, I hired my
marketing person from within theclub, it was somebody who
joined the club, who I learnedabout and got to know.
(23:32):
Other people were using her andI was like, oh, why would I go
to Upwork?
Let me go use this person.
So it's all that kind ofsisterhood.
You know it's the, it's the'sthe old girls network sharing
and connecting.
And you know I connect people,even people if they've left
Coffee Club.
I just did this.
Somebody who left and a new onecame in and they were in the
(23:53):
same educational space and I waslike, look, I'm going to
introduce you guys, you need toknow each other.
No-transcript.
(24:32):
During pandemic we didsourdough baking.
You remember that was a bigdeal.
Everything from leadershipskills to building your personal
brand, time saving, how to geton a board, how to manage your
LinkedIn better, how to get ajob with LinkedIn, whatever it
is.
In midlife.
We have doctors who talk aboutmenopause, whatever it is you're
(24:55):
looking for, you can startlearning today about whatever it
is you want to know.
And kind of my group that'sgravitated to Covey Club is a
lifelong learner group.
We kind of crack open the worldthrough learning.
It's a big learning group andit just happens to be kind of
(25:16):
what sets this group apart.
Audra (25:19):
So you've built this and forgive the term a sorority,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah this, andforgive the term a sorority.
Yeah, but it's a sorority ofnice girls rather than mean
girls.
Oh, yeah, mean girls don't likeus.
Yeah, but of women that arehelping each other.
They are.
It sounds like you meet eachother wherever each other is at.
(25:39):
Yes, and that's the beauty.
Yes, exactly so, speaking ofmeeting each other wherever each
other is at, yes, and that'sthe beauty.
Leslie (25:44):
Yes, exactly.
Audra (25:46):
So, speaking of meeting each other where they're at, I
had mentioned to you before wewent online that I know lots of
women right now accomplishedwomen, amazing women that are
currently out of work, that arein this demographic that and
have been out of work for anextended period of time, and I
(26:09):
know that one of your passionsis to help women in this
demographic, teach them on howto have a side hustle this
demographic, teach them on howto have a side hustle, so when
things like this happen, theyhave another stream of income.
And I know that there's a lotof people out there that are
like I wouldn't know the firstthing on how to set up a side
hustle.
I don't know that.
(26:30):
I am an entrepreneur.
I don't know why that's evennecessary, and as I was
preparing for our interview, Ithought, well, you know what,
let me put some numbers behindthis as to why I think that this
might be important.
That might be some soberingnumbers to put behind this on
why a side hustle might be anidea.
(26:53):
While you put the what behindit, I'll put the why behind it
as far as some numbers areconcerned.
Right, I looked up the, theemployment numbers for the last
90 days and the employmentnumbers for the last 90 days are
pretty high.
For women and these are womenover 20 that are educated they
(27:13):
are flat.
They have been flat for thelast 90 days.
For men that are educated over20, they are trending down.
That should be sobering Also, Idecided.
I'm like hmm well, let me golook and see what our wage gap
is doing.
Leslie (27:34):
Oh God, don't go near the wage gap.
You're going to want to killyourself.
Audra (27:37):
Yes, so I looked it up anyway because I was like I want
to.
I want to ground us in somenumbers and some facts.
I want to see what we're doing.
Yeah, I went and looked up thethe the last time that the
Forbes did their research andthe last time that they
published it was back in March.
And we are still sitting at 84cents to the dollar.
Leslie (28:00):
Oh I thought I was going to say 82.
That's good, 84.
Yeah, yay.
Audra (28:06):
Two cents, two cents, but we're still sitting at 84
cents.
Leslie (28:10):
I know, and it ain't going to get better man, with
what's going on in the politicalworld.
Audra (28:14):
No, so and it's not going to get any better with for
the with employment numbers.
If it hasn't budged for womenin 90 days, well, we have to
make it budge.
Leslie (28:27):
We have my point.
So here's here's a couple ofthings that I'll tell you.
One of the things my, mybiggest frustration with Covey
is people not joining earlyenough to work on this issue.
What am I going to do next?
How can I protect myself?
Which is really two yearsbefore any kind of a you know
(28:49):
cataclysm happens.
Often people wait to the lastminute.
They know things are bad, theyknow things.
You know their sector's doingpoorly, their company's doing
poorly, but you know, the braintends to want to protect you and
it's like, well, just pretendlike it's not happening, let's
just see how tomorrow goes.
And then tomorrow's anotheryear and you still haven't done
(29:11):
anything.
I go around the country talkingabout why you need to have a
reinvention plan in your backpocket, and that's the reason.
And I get a lot of people whosay to me when they go oh well,
I've worked at this bank for 22years and they love me.
And I was like, yes, but guesswhat happened to Silicon Valley
Bank?
They went home Friday and itclosed on Monday.
(29:34):
Yep, nothing to do with you.
Yeah, they loved you.
It's not about you, it's aboutwhat's happening out there in
the world.
You need to protect yourself.
You need to have ideas.
You need to know that you havesomething else in your back
pocket, a plan, an idea, youknow a side hustle that you
could move toward if somethinghappened and guess what?
(29:55):
And some money socked awaycould move toward if something
happened, and guess what?
And some money socked away.
I say you need to have at leasta year socked away of whatever
that would be that would keepyou afloat while you look for a
job.
I mean, this is an incrediblygreat job market, but it still
takes a while for older women tofind a job.
We do have things like ageism,and then you combine it with
(30:19):
sexism and we have both of thosethings.
They're very real.
You know, why are all thesewomen getting knocked out of
corporate jobs?
They don't seem to it's.
Is it happening with men aswell?
But I'm hearing this constantlyand that they're becoming you
know they're reluctantentrepreneurs.
Look, being an entrepreneur isnot for everybody.
It's hard, it requiresdifferent skill sets, it
(30:42):
requires different everything Imean, which is.
You know, I like that kind ofthing.
It stretches me.
So when we went out and did theresearch, what we found out is
men and women both get knockedout in their 50s, the men get
back in.
That's the difference Men pulleach other back in.
That's the difference Men pulleach other back in.
And if you're older as a manit's a little more accepted than
(31:02):
it is for a woman.
And of course, you know, thereare the women, this whole go
gray thing out there, which isgreat, you know, if you've got a
secure job.
I mean, I've had friends whosaid, yeah, I went, you know,
went gray, lost my job and hadto dye my hair again.
So nobody knew how old I waswhen I went.
You know, went gray, lost myjob and had to dye my hair again
.
So nobody knew how old I waswhen I went back in.
And then I got back in.
(31:23):
It's reality.
It's not nice, it's sad.
Is it retrograde?
Yes, it is, but these arerealities.
We have to deal with thereality.
So one thing you can do iscultivate.
You know always have otherinterests and you could even
have other interests whereyou've taken courses or you've
done something you can even do.
You know they have thesevacations where you can go be an
(31:46):
intern somewhere for a vacation.
I always like to have two orthree.
I'm just a curious personanyway.
So I'm always looking forsomething new.
That's just my brain, I guess,being in the fashion industry
for so long.
Maybe it's just always wantingto find the new thing, what the
trend is.
But you should have otherthings that you're interested in
(32:06):
, and guess what?
It'll make you a moreinteresting person as well, for
your spouse or for your kids.
(32:44):
No-transcript, oh crap, I thinkit's coming down today.
That's you know.
Yes, we can help you, but itsure would have been nice if
you'd been in working on youridea ahead of time, working on
your.
You know, yes, we can help you,but it sure would have been
nice if you'd been in working onyour idea ahead of time,
working on your you know, like,what else do you want to do?
Maybe you want to teach, maybeyou want to, what are the things
(33:06):
that interest you?
And so you cultivate?
And what I say is you put asidethat money.
You have that money set asidefor you.
If nothing happens, you retirewith a gold watch and you get
your you know your RV to drivearound.
Go buy something with it.
Go, you know.
Go buy some great item foryourself.
Go buy yourself a fancy car,but have it so that you're not
(33:29):
stuck and it has nothing to dowith you.
It has to do with the pace oflife that we are experiencing
today.
Of life that we areexperiencing today, my husband's
father worked in one place andgot his gold watch and that was
it.
Okay, I've had, I think I'vehad.
I keep counting as it's, it'seither seven or 12, that's seven
(33:49):
.
Seven different jobs throughoutmy lifetime.
Our kids are going to have likeseven jobs before they're 30.
It's just the speed of what'shappening and what's changing.
And I have two adult children,one who's in the tech industry,
and when he was trying to find ajob he was like moaning,
groaning.
(34:09):
He's like, oh, I don't knowwhat's the problem.
He said I don't know what Iwant to do with the rest of my
life.
I was like it ain't for therest of your life.
Think two, two years, be like ananny, like if you could get
two years out of a nanny, thatwas like incredible success.
Right, most left six months ayear or whatever it was this
incredible turnover thing.
Look at it in two year things,your things are rapid and we
(34:34):
don't know what's going tohappen or where things are going
to come from.
I really also and I'm going tobe this is not.
People are not going to like tohear this thing that I'm going
to say you have to upskillyourself.
If you are 40 plus, there arean awful lot of people who are
(34:55):
fitting into the stereotype.
They do not know enough skills,they have not upskilled
themselves and as you get intothe 50 range, it's really bad
and I see it all the time.
With Covey Club, it's one of ourbiggest issues.
I got a new VA and I said toher one point.
She'd been with me for a whileand I said so how much do you
(35:15):
think the issues with Covey Cluband keeping people in and blah,
blah, blah has to do with notunderstanding technology, and
our technology is really basic.
It's like Facebook, zoom, blah,blah, blah.
It's like pretty basic stuff.
And I thought she was going tosay, ah, like 40% 30%.
She said 95%.
(35:37):
Yeah, like 40% 30%.
She said 95%.
Oh, my gosh, yeah, people don'twant to admit that they don't
know how to do the basic stuff,and you might.
It's scary.
Look, I understand.
There's a pit that goes intoyour stomach.
I'm older than you, so it's notnatural to me to have to go in
(35:57):
and and download a new app andfigure it out.
I get that pit in my stomachSometimes it makes me want to
throw up, but I barrel throughit because I know I need to know
that, I need to understand that, I need to know what my kids
are doing.
I need to understand what otherpeople are doing and what they
have.
If you don't do that, you willnot get hired.
(36:18):
You will not.
I mean and I've seen it eventhrough the club I had somebody
who was doing some great editingfor me but came from an old
magazine background terrificperson.
I had to hire a new editor forthe blog and she was.
She came at me and said youknow, I can't believe you didn't
even consider me.
And I said to her I said I hadto go with someone who was
(36:40):
digital first.
This person couldn't evenupload her blog into WordPress
herself.
I had to have the assistant doit.
And to think that that's okayif you're looking for a job,
that why are you thinking that'sokay?
And I know that fits thestereotype.
It makes my heart break to evensay because I am like that is
(37:01):
not true.
When you look at the studies.
The studies overall show thatwe are not behind in tech and we
not willing to learn or aremoderately accomplished and not
skilling themselves up to besuper accomplished.
(37:23):
And then they wonder whythey're not getting a job.
The other thing that people aretalking about a lot when they're
not.
There's a couple of thingsgoing on with not getting jobs.
There's actually it's a wholething that we have to write
about, because I'm seeing it inyoung people, I'm seeing it in
old people right now.
Part of it is this wholeelectronic system of how you
(37:44):
submit your resume, how youappear on social media.
We tackle an awful lot of thatat Covey Club, because if your
outward facing stuff is not upto snuff, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter who you were.
You're not going to get pastthose initial gate holders.
The other thing that peopledon't realize is a big thing
(38:06):
that is now talked about thatwas not really talked about in
my day, which was culture Right,and you have to make it very
clear that you're open to adiverse culture, that you're
open to whatever the culture isin in this new company that
you're going to.
And my day was suck it up,buttercup.
(38:27):
This is the way it is.
Shut your mouth and just doyour work.
I don't want to hear anythingfrom you that is not.
That is not the workplace oftoday, and you need to make it
very clear in the rightterminology.
You need to do your research onthe company that you're
applying to and you mustactually let them know that
(38:47):
you're going to be part of thatculture.
Who was getting down to thesecond was between him and
another person, him and anotherperson, him and another person.
The other person kept gettingit.
Two things there that one hasto do today and I did this in my
old day too, and it makes a bigdifference.
(39:07):
You get down into the, you know.
Third, you know you thinkyou're like in the three or four
running thing.
Show them you can do the workand it's going to be on you.
You do it for free.
You say, hey, I was justthinking you know your
toothpaste, you know category.
So inspired me that I thought Iwould send you this little
(39:30):
video I made for how you mightgo out on social media blah,
blah, blah.
You're not going to end withthe letter.
Thank you so much.
I'm so.
It was so nice to meet you,audra, I'm so glad we talked
about blah, blah, blah.
You have to go that extra mile,you have to do something
digital, you have to get ahead,but all this stuff.
There are an awful lot of people, audra, who are not doing this
(39:51):
and they're not upskilling.
We spend a lot of time at CbyClub because we know how to
teach.
I was an adjunct professor atNYU and I just love teaching and
we do an awful lot of teaching,but in a way that women our age
understand.
Like my son always says oh,just go look it up on the
(40:12):
YouTube video.
And I'm like and you go to theYouTube video for whatever
little thing it is and it's likenow here, look at the button
here, push the button here.
Now, when you push that button,go to the next one and I'm
leaning in there, I'm goingwhere's the button is?
We know how to upskill you andhow to teach you the way you
need to learn, but I'm tellingyou the God's awful truth is
(40:48):
that a lot of women are not upand they don't know what they're
doing Very basic stuff.
Know what they're doing Verybasic stuff.
I guess maybe we call it.
I call it the sort oftechnological bubble.
A lot of women, especially ifyou go into your late 50s and
60s they had assistants to doall this stuff and be super good
(41:10):
at it, so they never had areally good at it no good when
you're looking for a job, no,and?
Audra (41:18):
and I use google and youtube all the time because
there's so much that I don'tknow how to do, and I know
exactly what you're talkingabout.
Youtube, I can't see it.
I'll go find another video thatI can see better.
Right, but it's.
But it's difficult because,because I and they're going so
fast, they're going so fast,they're going really fast,
(41:40):
things are much smaller on thescreen than they used to be.
I can't help it.
It's not, it's not like I'mdoing it on purpose, just, you
know, age has, age has a senseof humor, right.
But I absolutely understandwhat you're saying and I'm
constantly trying new technology.
(42:01):
For this very reason.
I love Gen AI.
I think it's a remarkable tool.
I also think that you have totake it with a grain of salt and
realize that it's not alwaysright.
Yes, but I am constantly tryingto upskill myself for this very
reason, also, because I getbored.
Yes, me too.
(42:21):
I'm constantly trying to pushmyself and learn something new,
and even when it's learningthings that I don't necessarily
use for work, because I want tostretch my brain in a different
way.
Leslie (42:34):
Right, right.
And all this technology does itscratches a different part of
your brain Right, right, right.
Different emotions than anyother kind of work.
(42:57):
When you get frustrated with it, you know it's a.
There's some other emotion thatit brings up.
It's a uncomfortability downdeep.
Audra (43:07):
you know it's a frustration of why can't I make
this machine do what I want itto do?
Leslie (43:14):
Right, Can't reason with no, you can't reason.
Audra (43:18):
Yeah, no, it's very frustrating.
Very frustrating is, and evenactually before I came on to do
this interview, I was trying, Iwas Googling, trying to figure
out how to make my systems talkto each other and I it's a very
simple thing that I wanted to do.
Right, I would not figure itout and I was like forget it, I
will let this go for right now,because I'm so frustrated with
(43:41):
this right now.
When you're frustrated, youhave to leave it.
Yeah, I was like I will figurethis out later.
I know there's a way to makethis work, but I can't figure it
right now and it's making meangry, and so I will figure it
out later.
It is an anger.
It is an anger that you're likethis should work.
Why?
Leslie (43:56):
isn't this working?
Yes, and it's a lot of.
I find myself cursing andyelling, almost crying.
But you have to do it.
And a lot of people don't wantto do it because it makes them
feel so incompetent.
And you know we're verycompetent in other areas and
it's humbling to be so stupid.
(44:18):
It's just, you know, it's justa stupid machine and you have to
figure your way around it.
And I've gotten morecomfortable.
I don't.
In the beginning and I know alot of people feel this way who
didn't grow up with digital intheir hand there is a fear that
you're going to push a buttonand blow things up.
(44:39):
I have done that.
I've shut down my site a coupleof times and had to recover it.
So it's not that that can'thappen, it's just that you have
to know that if that does happen, you can get it back.
And it's also here's the otherweird, weird, weird,
uncomfortable, not normal thingabout the world, the digital
(45:05):
world we live in.
Imagine that you have a livingroom and you have all your
furniture and you know whereeverything is when you change
something.
So say, you have a website, youhave an app, you have something
you're used to working with,you know how to do it, or Google
comes in and changes somethingon you, like this day that you
(45:25):
have five meetings, that youhave no time to learn this thing
, that they have just changedand forced on you and you now
have to take three hours tofigure it out.
The weirdest thing about itit's like going into your living
room that you've known for solong but you have to notice
someone took the vase awayBecause it's not what they add.
(45:47):
It's not like someone put a bigflashing light over in the
corner and you're like huh,they've messed my thing up, I
can fix it.
The weirdest thing about digitalis a lot of changes that are
made or that you make, ormistakes that happen, take
things away, and that is a verybizarre concept in our very
(46:10):
tactile world.
I mean, you know, in a magazine, if somebody took a page out, I
would notice, because I'd be upon the wall and be like what
happened to page 19?
It's not on the wall anymore.
Where did it go?
Or when they printed it, it'dbe like what the fuck happened
here?
Where did it go?
It's tangible, you can get it.
It may take you months.
Sometimes it's my, you knowit's a.
(46:31):
These bugs that are in digitalstuff.
You don't discover it till someclient, you know, or your
customer goes.
I tried to do blah, blah, blahand you're like, oh crap, you
know, it's just, it's a weird.
It's a weird part of your brainthat has to get comfortable
(46:55):
with that.
That's the world we live in.
It's a, it's strange.
I don't know how any brain canget better at that, like how I
don't know.
I don't know how you get betterat it, but it's a strange.
It's just a strange thing andthat's how things work today and
you have to find things, thatstuff.
It's like someone came in andstole stuff out of your jewelry
(47:16):
box but you didn't remember forsix months so you lost that ring
.
You know that feeling of like,oh man, someone took that.
Audra (47:25):
But that's what digital is, and I don't think it's us
getting comfortable with it atall.
I think it's us resigningourselves to have to be OK, yeah
, the discomfort and justleaning into it.
Leslie (47:38):
Yeah, you just have to do it, discomfort and just
leaning into it.
Yeah, you just have to do itand you know it's going to
happen.
It's going to happen andsomebody's going to tell you
something's not working for themand you're going to feel awful
and it's going to mess them upand then you're going to have to
apologize and you just have tosay gee, I'm sorry, didn't see
that.
Really apologize.
Audra (47:57):
Because if we want to keep growing and expanding and
learning and keep being dynamichuman beings and growing our
careers and wanting to continueto elevate ourselves and each
other, we just have to keeppushing into the uncomfortable.
Yes, and you know, and that'swhy I like your club.
(48:21):
I think your club is cool thatyou lean into the uncomfortable
together.
Yes, exactly, and you make itsound like it's safe to feel
dumb together.
Leslie (48:34):
You have to If you're not willing to feel dumb
together, and that's one of thethings that we say about Covey
Club it is a non-judgment zoneIf you can't let go of all your
expertise.
There are a lot of storieswe've written on the blog and
one of my favorites is calledhave a Beginner's Mindset.
(48:55):
You have to have a beginner'smindset if you're going to
reinvent yourself.
There's just no possibility.
You know there are segues whichyou don't have to start all
over, but in general, you dohave to have a beginner's
mindset in order to succeed at a, at a reach.
You just have to admit that youjust went from a position of
(49:15):
knowing everything to knowingnothing and feeling comfortable
with that and I kind of like it.
I'm, you know that's somethingfor me.
That's okay.
You just have to be okayscrewing stuff up and
apologizing when you do.
You know it's like I didn't knowhow my when I first went out
and somebody came to me and theywanted me to do because we're
(49:37):
in Covey Club, we can do a B2Bkind of thing, like if you have
a product that you're testingand you want to reach women like
us.
That's hard to do on Facebook,like you know, to get the right
people.
But if you know it's targetedat these women, we can do
research for you, right?
And this woman had this greatscalp tonic and so she said you
(49:57):
know, give me a proposal.
And I didn't know what tocharge.
I asked a couple of friends.
They said charge what you thinkit's worth.
Well, I gave a ridiculous numberand she said no.
And I felt mortified.
But I didn't know what to offer.
You know, I didn't know Ireally did.
It was so amorphous I couldn'teven benchmark.
And you know, every time Ithink about it I'm like, oh,
(50:19):
you're an idiot, you should have.
But whatever, what could you do?
You know, I had no benchmarks.
I had no previous anything.
I had nobody to ask Is this agood number?
Bad number?
Is that way off.
So you know, but you learn.
You learn by making mistakes.
Audra (50:37):
Isn't that the best part , though?
I mean, it's better than nottrying at all.
Leslie (50:42):
Yes, no, no, you have to try.
The other part that I reallylove about the world we're in
the part I do love, is unlikeprint.
You make a mistake in print andyou are screwed.
Period Right, you're a screw,period Right, you're a show and
you know, I remember somebodycatching typos in the headlines
at Harper's Bazaar after it wasprinted when I worked there.
(51:04):
So the good news is you canchange everything in digital
Mess up spelling of someone'sname.
I don't recommend this, but youknow we can fix it.
There's a wonderful you caneven fix.
What I really love is my blog.
You know I come out of writingand digital and content and you
can fix your titles.
(51:25):
You, you know you pitch out atitle there and it goes flat
dead and no one reads it.
You can go in and fix yourtitle and do some SEO work and
pop it up and see, put it backout there and people will see it
.
You know it's a.
I like that part about it.
I like the fact that it's notlocked in.
We're not locked in, but it'sall there for you and there's
(51:49):
tons and tons and tons foranybody in any area.
Empty nest that you were talkingabout, that you're going
through which I used to thinkwas like, oh please, like
somebody's going to be likeempty nest, like I was such a
big career person, like I hadtwo kids going off, like wham,
wham, wham.
Why is everybody crying?
I got so depressed I cried myeyes out for two months.
(52:10):
It was a long process ofgetting over that.
Me too, sure, a hell lot of meHorrible.
You think like, yeah, I've gotall these things.
I'm like so connected, I'm busy, I'm like doing what I love.
Me too Completely popped me bysurprise.
It's hard, super hard.
(52:32):
It's way harder than you think.
It revives deep emotions, youknow, and if you have any kind
of childhood issues withabandonment or any kind of
things that you know were neverwere resolved, even if they were
resolved, they come back up andit's rough, it's really rough.
(52:53):
And so we have a whole channel,you know whole area, a whole.
You know whole segment on emptynest, a whole segment on back
to school, like when you'resending your kid off to college.
That's another big moment.
We have all kinds ofdiscussions about well-being and
health and menopause andhormones, and so it's whatever
(53:16):
is of interest to you inwhatever direction you're coming
at, this sense of change andtrying to figure out where
you're headed.
We have different ways ofgetting you there and I kind of
look at it as a poo-poo platterthat we load up with all this
food and you know you're goingto have five different things
than I'm going to have, andthat's okay, but we're all
(53:39):
getting to the same place.
We're all getting to whateverthat thing is that we want to do
and who we want to be Like.
Audra (53:46):
I said, you meet your, your, your members, your sisters
, wherever they're at, and youtake their hand and and guide
them along the way, yep.
Leslie (53:57):
And guide them along the way.
Yep, and it's really.
I mean, it's very, veryrewarding, and it's wonderful to
see when people have coachedeach other or they have, you
know, done designs for eachother, or they have gotten each
other to get you know, go andget their health coaching
certificate, or they'veencouraged each other on in ways
(54:18):
that maybe a close friend mightnot do.
This was really a big learningoddrope, which was, you know, I
didn't a lot of.
Well, you know, when you'redoing a being an entrepreneur,
you don't you don't know all thethings that are going to happen
.
Sometimes you just roll with itand see what happens.
Like one of the times itoccurred to me like you know,
(54:40):
well, putting all these peopletogether to learn from each
other, they're all strangers.
Is that weird?
So, over time, though, what wediscovered is actually
reinventing yourself withstrangers is easier.
It's easier because you canshow up day one as Audra with
blue hair and everybody will belike, oh, it's Audra with the
(55:03):
blue hair.
But if you're with your friendgroup and you're thinking,
you're saying, like you know, Ithink I'm going to turn my hair
blue, why would you do that?
That would be like can youimagine your children?
How would you you know they'regoing to?
There's all these reasons whychange is not acceptable in a
group you already have.
And part of that can be ifyou're with a lot of people who
(55:25):
are stuck as well.
It can be kind of gripe groupfor people who are stuck and it
keeps you in there and kind ofkeeps, you know, keeps petting
you for all your grievances,right, keeps petting you for all
your grievances, right.
But if you decide to get up andleave and you do start moving
in a different direction andcreating change, not only is
(55:47):
there a lot of pushback fromwithin the group because like,
well, what does that say aboutus?
Like wait a minute, why youknow.
Like who is she?
Like she thinks she's going togo create change.
You can't create change, thingsdon't change.
And if there is that kind ofthinking, then you, you know
that's not good for anybody,right.
(56:07):
So the wonderful thing aboutworking with people you don't
know you literally show up aswho you want to be and you're
accepted.
That's the completely amazingthing about it.
Audra (56:21):
There's no judgment because there's no preconceived
idea of who you are.
Correct, correct.
Where can the audience get toknow more information about the
Covey Club?
Know more about you because youdo lots of philanthropic
activities throughout the world,and so much more about what
(56:43):
you've done.
So where can they reach moreinformation about you?
Leslie (56:45):
So best place is to come find us at cubbyclubcom,
check out all the channels wehave and come join us.
Hit the page that saysmembership.
You'll understand all aboutthat.
We have different levels ofmembership that you can try, and
we even have a free trial.
If you want to try it for amonth, for a yearly subscription
, you can come in and you don'tlike it, bail out.
(57:07):
Write it in your calendar sothat you don't get caught, you
know, doing it for a month whenyou don't want to.
And we're on all social mediaunder Cubbyby club.
Cubby's a small group of birds.
That's why it's called cubbyand it's on.
We're everywhere.
We're on linkedin, we're onsocial media.
What do you want to call it?
(57:28):
Instagram, facebook, we'reeverywhere.
So just come join us.
Come on, get onto thenewsletter at cubbyclubcom.
You will understand who we areand see if we're for you, and we
would love to help you get tothe next level of wherever
you'recom.
You will understand who we areand see if we're for you, and we
would love to help you get tothe next level of wherever
you're headed, and you will beshocked at what it's like to
have a bunch of great, smart,accomplished women.
Have your back.
(57:49):
And I did a Covey Live in NewYork and I got the most amazing
note back from a woman who saidshe'd never been in a room and
this seems so antithetical to mebecause I grew up with women
She'd never been in a room ofsuch amazing, incredible women
who were so kind to each otherand she had written women off in
(58:11):
her life before that and shewas changing her opinion of it.
How heartbreaking,heartbreaking, right, yeah, but
yeah, but, yeah, so, but so allI can tell you is I attract a
certain group of women.
I grew up with the mean girls.
I'm not interested.
I have like mean girl repellent.
(58:33):
It's a lot of good girls likeme who really want to help each
other and it's amazing what youcan do together.
Audra (58:41):
Well, I'm going to give you an opportunity because this
is my favorite part of the show,where I basically get to shut
up and I give you an opportunityto have an, a intimate moment
directly with the audience,because I want you to have an
opportunity to leave an intimatethought with the audience, to
give them something to ponderover the next day or so, just
(59:06):
something for them to thinkabout.
So the mic is yours.
Leslie (59:09):
Oh, thank you.
That's so sweet.
Well, midlife is not forsissies and the world is about
to get a lot harder for womenthan it has been.
It's not your imagination, it'sreal.
It's tough out there.
Don't do it alone.
Don't go it alone, don't beafraid to reach out.
There are fabulous women whowant to have your back Not
(59:31):
everybody out there, but thereare, and we can do it for each
other.
And I can tell you from a factit's better to do it together
than to do it alone.
And we try to make Covey Clubvery affordable so that women of
all levels can come in andwe're here to help you.
We're going to have your backand we want to see where you're
headed and we can help you getthere.
Audra (59:53):
Leslie, thank you.
Leslie (59:55):
Thank you, Audra.
Audra (59:56):
Leslie, thank you, thank you, audra, thank you for being
here with me and being sogenerous with your time and with
your information and just beingso encouraging to all of us and
spending so much of your energyin investing in those of us
that have hit this midlife,which is both exciting,
(01:00:18):
exhilarating, frustrating all ofthe adjectives that we all feel
every single day, because it isreally an exciting time, but
it's so much all at the sametime that we really do need a
little bit of help.
So I am so appreciative and,speak from all of my audience
(01:00:40):
and all of my friends, thank youvery much for your work and
your effort and thank you somuch for being here.
Thank you, and I want to thankall of you for listening and
we'll see you again next time.
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