Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to I'm On with mea podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello, I'm Jesse Stephens. This summer, we have curated your
out Loud playlist and we are bringing you our most
talked about conversations to keep you busy throughout holidays. In
this episode, Maya, Holly and I discuss the irresistible pool
of self help gurus and why mel Robbins has absolutely
(00:38):
met her moment. Plus, American fashion designer Vera Wang says
you should expect to age out of your career. Holly,
m and Claire unpack whether a job is only built
for a season of your life and what happens when
that season ends.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Been in a situation where maybe your buddies organize a
golf trip and they don't include you, or the women
in your life go away for a weekend and you're
not invaded. Or a friend, a friend that you adore,
is dating a real asshole, somebody who's horrible for them.
I mean, how much does you worrying about it? How
is that going to change anything?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
It's not.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
How does spending two hundred hours talking to your friend
about this horrible person over and over and over? How
does that How it doesn't let them.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
The twenty tens had Brene Brown telling us all to
be brave. The naughties had Tony Robbins walking on hot coals.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I didn't like that.
Speaker 6 (01:37):
That was way too much like it.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Also, I know people who did it, though, I know
people who did it tall Boy Loud.
Speaker 7 (01:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
The nineties had John Gray with his men of from Mars,
women from Venis.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I liked that.
Speaker 6 (01:49):
I know you did.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I thought that was great.
Speaker 6 (01:51):
This is one of the divisions in that relationship.
Speaker 7 (01:53):
May is such a basically.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I love Meta from Mars. I still talk about that
a lot.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
That book, and of course all the decades mostly Oprah.
Every era has its zeitguy, self help guru, and twenty
twenty five is unequivocally crowned melt Robs. Yes of let
them fame, more about let them in a moment. Robin's
podcast is currently the number one in Australia, which we're
not at all bitter about because we're number three.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
Robins is huge.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
She's been doing this for a while, so she has
been a life coach and a motivational speaker for over
a decade and until this massive breakthrough moment, she'd built
an empire from kind of really down home like kind
of like your grandma would have told you this advice.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
So it's quite bossy, like I've been for probably more
than five years.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
And she had a ted talk that went viral.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
About the five second role procrastination.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Yeah, and she's got a really great backstory, which we'll
get to in a second, a good origin story.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
And she's very sort of no nonsense.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
So she's like, jump out of bed in the morning
and get outside, don't procrastinate, that's the five second rule.
Think positively all the time. She's like, whether you think
you can or you think you can't, you're right, like
that kind of stuff. A short walk solves most problems,
make everyone else's day a little bit better. So very
like solid white bedy kind of she's.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Not wu Wu.
Speaker 6 (03:14):
She's not wu Wu.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
She's sold millions of books, she's had billions of podcast streams.
A little tiny bit about her origin story before we
get into the let them phenomena, because every guru needs one.
Robins is self reinvention. At forty one, she was unemployed.
She'd gone broke from a failed business venture that left
her and her husband with eight hundred thousand dollars in debt.
(03:36):
She says that she was miserable and unhappy. She said,
my past was full of shitty behavior. I used to
be a real competitive, insecure asshole and I hurt people
and blah blah blah. Right, Jesse, I don't know how
to tell you this next bit because you're not gonna
like it. Before she was a life coach and a
motivational speaker. She was a criminal lawyer, and she was
unhappy and dissatisfied. So she's got a law degree. She
(03:57):
was working as a criminal lawyer. She went to a
life coach to say, what should I do with my life?
I'm unhappy and dissatisfied. The life coach told her she
should be a life coach, and so she launched.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
And so it begins.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
Nd her too self help companies and quickly and this
reputation as a tough love personal improvement coach.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
Mia. Why is this Mel Robbins's moment?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
I think the news cycle has never been more intense
than it's been sort of this past eighteen months, between
war and Trump and algorithms, and everyone's just feeling very besieged.
And what the let them theory is, and let them
is about recognizing things you can't control.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Essentially, it's about.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
If if someone's not dating you and they're not interested,
let them not be interested. If your partner wants to
end the relationship, let them. If your kid hasn't taken
his lunch to school again, let them be hungry. And
it's that idea of personal empowerment, but in a very
passive way. So what she's actually doing, I think everyone's
(05:08):
so tired. Remember Cheryl Sandberg, who was another bit of
a self help guru that was all about leaning. That
was the girl Boss era, and that was hustle culture,
mel Robbins and let Them is about lie down.
Speaker 6 (05:21):
It's about stop.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Trying to change people, stop trying to change things, stop
trying to control every outcome. Just accept what you can't
change about others like the Serenity prayer, and work on
what you can change and what you can do.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
And I think that there's something really appealing about that.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
It's also short, it's simple. Her advice is not, as
I said, it's not wu wu it's not like soul food.
It doesn't require a lot of self reflection. It's very practical.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
In fact, she doesn't really like self reflection much. Jesse,
why do you think we're so addicted to being told
what to do.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I reckon we all feel woefully unqualified to make any
decisions about our own lives. And I actually don't think
that's entirely new. I was thinking about how my grandmother
would have gone on to her priest. And over the
weekend we were at synagogue. Maya was speaking and a
rabbi was on the panel, and I thought I would
(06:16):
love an hour with a rabbi to just really corner
her and go, we've got some very wise, can you
solve them? And this is still I mean, all over
the world there are lots of religious people who turned
to a monk or an or a rabbi or a
priest to help them. And I think that mel Robbins
has actually used a few techniques and language that mirrors this.
(06:41):
For example, she often says I just happened to be
the messenger. I just happened to be the messenger of this,
which is very very Jesus. And she has this this
email that she sends out and she says, in case
nobody else tells you today, let me be the first
to say that I love you and I believe in
you and your ability to create a better life. Unconditional
love is that's nice, yes, But I think that the
(07:02):
demise of religion has left a wide open.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Hole and we've filled with celebrities for a little while,
didn't they.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, But I think that there's still this sense of
I don't know what to do. I was reading a
few interviews with people who said, you know, this sounds weird,
but I feel like she has my back. And when
I've spoken to people who are very religious, the thing
I'm most envious of is they say, I feel like
someone's watching out for me, like someone has some greater plan.
Like mel Robins will often say the universe has a
(07:31):
plan blah blah blah, and so I think there's an
element of that. But I guess the question I would
ask is that when you have religious people, say the
priest answer you, or you go to them with a crisis,
they have a methodology. They have centuries of texts and
conversations and ethics and values that inform their answer. If
(07:54):
you go to a psychologist, they have a methodology which
is research based evidence. My worry about certain gurus is
when you go what's your methodology other than what sounds
right and what feels and what's going to go viral
and what's going to go viral? How do we know
to trust you? Because where's this information coming from?
Speaker 5 (08:14):
What Mel Robins is and all of those people that
are listed at the beginning were they're just very good communicators, right,
Because Mel Robbins is obviously smart. She's obviously smart, and
she's obviously experienced in this field. But what she's saying,
and she says this herself, like I've been listening to it.
I was listening to her quite a lot the other
day on a long drive, and she'll say herself, this
(08:34):
is all stuff your grandmother would have told you, if
you'd have had the kind of grandmother who tells you
things which in itself tells you something about the way
our families are now. She said, I'm going to tell
you in simple terms, and then I'm going to give
you a trick to remember it. It's not that she's
come up with all these brilliant ideas necessarily, but she's
very good at packaging them and she's very good at communicating, and.
Speaker 6 (08:52):
That's the key.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
The thing that's interesting about it is that Mel Robins,
and this isn't criticism of her, like I find her
advice very interesting and helpful lots of ways, but she
doesn't really have you back, guys. She's just making a
lot of money. She's doing not in an farious way.
She's selling a product that people need and want, because
I think me is absolutely spot on when she's like,
our lives feel out of control. Everything feels out of control.
(09:16):
Even the most ordinary life has a lot of problems
in it. We all have a lot of problems.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Twenty five.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
And the thing that self help, over the decades that
it's established itself as being very mainstream, has convinced USLF
is that we can solve them.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
If only we tried harder, if.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
Only we got up earlier, if only we did whatever,
then we can solve them.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
It's up to us.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
She's the same vein as all that, She's just packaged
it a bit differently. It's interesting because she even starts
her podcast by saying, Hi, it's your friend mel here,
And it's like, you know, like I find that a
tiny bit. I think maybe that's also because I'm not
American that I find it a tiny bit.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
I can see through it, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
It's also that therapy speaking psychobabble and all of that
it's ubiquitous everywhere at the moment. The rise of that
has not dovetailed with a rise in accessibility. So everyone
thinks they need a therapist, but most people can't afford.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
One, know how to go about even getting no.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So Mel Robins can be your therapist for free. On
that on she's trying to sell you something. I do
wonder and I listened to a lot of her advice.
I don't think she is the same as the other
gurus because I look at Brene Brown, who had decades
of expertise and academia and studies, and she was saying
something grounded in.
Speaker 7 (10:27):
Science, and she is still around, and she's still still.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Around in a way that Mel Robin's what she's saying
isn't necessarily grounded in science, or at least doesn't show
us her working out. But she started as a business coach,
and I think that that might be a clue to
what her values.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
That's how you've just made me realize, that's how I
found her. I was starting to look at around when
I was doing Ladies Startup, and I started to look
at some of the women, other women in that space.
This is probably more than five years ago now, and
that's when I found her. It was about business, and
it was about content creation and reaching an audience and
(11:04):
doing all of those things.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Is that a clue what data or methodology she's bringing
to her advice?
Speaker 6 (11:11):
Is her background?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
And is her value system capitalism?
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Like?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Is that it because a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Of everyone's value system isism.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Well, some of us are at least trying to resist.
Speaker 7 (11:23):
But I wonder if not.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
So great because a lot of her advice is very,
very individualistic. It's very if you help yourself, you'll help others. Ah,
it's not systemic, it's not institutional.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
It's about accountability.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
It's about accountability and taking responsibility for yourself. One thing
I think we've we've probably got to acknowledge is that
a lot of the people who have reported on her
and done features and gone and listened to her speak
is Wow, that's a lot of white women. I'm not
saying that white women don't have problems or that they're
not a legitimate market, but the fact that there is
a sort of homogeneous market for her, I think says
(12:00):
something about what the problems of the white woman is.
And maybe it's that if you can feed your family
and if you feel safe, and if you're a middle
class woman in America, then you worry about X, Y
and z it.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
I don't know about that.
Speaker 7 (12:15):
What do you think?
Speaker 5 (12:16):
You're not wrong about who her audience is. But I think,
as I was saying before, every life is very complex,
so you only have to scratch the tiny surface of
seed that what people are actually going through in terms
of illness and divorce and money struggles and estrangement from
family members and addiction issues like that applies to all
(12:36):
of those people think she appeals.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Is it as simple as she's a white woman, so
she looks like I think.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
She's very palatable and packageable. She's like, you know, blonde
and attractive. But I just think she's a really good communicator.
I think that she's added to and I think the
meaning her moment thing I think MEAs nails it about
let them and the uncontrollable moment. But also it's interesting
is she's apolitical, right. I've listened to a lot of
interviews with her. She can have a bit of a
snipe about Trump, but she's smart enough to know that
(13:03):
that's a lot of her market. So she's kind of
she's talking to sort of every woman in a way
like every woman. I'm sure, as you say, this is
definitely a demographic there, but she's not alienating anyone. She's
not making everything political. It's kind of like a mix
of This is quite soothing to listen to, and also
you've ended up listening to her and you're like, yes,
(13:23):
I am going to get up at six o'clock. Yes,
I am going to talk to myself in the mirror
like somebody who likes themselves and all those things.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
So two of her other philosophies in addition to let them.
One is the high five trick, and it's every morning
you get up, you brush your teeth, and you look
in the mirror and you give yourself a high five.
Our production team are just high fiving each other now
even as we speak. But her point is that we
are programmed. When you give a high five gesture, you
(13:53):
are positive, you are active, you are all of those things,
and by doing that, you can't not be, so it
almost tricks you no matter how bad you're feeling. The
other one is the five second rule for stopping procrastination,
and that is to literally say to yourself, I'm going
to count down from five to zero, and when I
get to zero, I'm going to do it. Whether it's
(14:14):
getting up out of bed, answering an email, calling someone
you always speak to.
Speaker 6 (14:18):
But going back to the gap that's been left.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
And to be clear, when I talk about my my
nan going to the priest, yeah he was always a
man and there are so many limitations issues with.
Speaker 6 (14:28):
You go with their own agenda, to their own agenda.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
And didn't he pretty much the answer was always say
hail Mary's and you know, go back and.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Look after your children, as Sarah lady know of our life,
well not necessarily of someone's life. But I'm thinking even
about the rabbi is they have these scriptures in these books,
and underpinning a lot of it was this sense of
community and social cohesion, a lot.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Of what or it's your fault or it's your fault.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
And let's not forget the homophobia and the sexism and
all of that and putting that to the side for
a minute.
Speaker 6 (14:58):
Mel Robbins, I.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Mean, high fiving the mirror isn't going to change the world.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
But it's not trying to. That's what self help is.
Self help isn't about helping other people. And I think
that's another reason why she's met the moment. I think
that two things. For the last few years, we've seen
a real rise in victim culture where whoever's got the
biggest hardship wins, and there's a real sense of your
(15:23):
wounds are your evidence or is the greatest most important
part of you? Your wounds bring status, Your disadvantages bring status.
She's very much the opposite of that. She's very much
like there's nothing to be said for walloweing there's strength
in making change. And you can't change systemic inequality, you
(15:45):
can't change the economy.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I think that that's a paladin as an individual.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
As an individual you can't.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
But what you can do is get out of bed
in the morning, high five yourself and feel better. And
we know that the key to making any positive change,
whether it's outside your life or inside your life, is
feeling good. If you feel miser and your self esteem
is low and you're procrastinating, you're of no good to anyone.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
True.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
But I think that there's a difference between Brene Brown right,
it was all about vulnerability and connection. Interestingly, is mel
Robins because in saying let them, there's a bit of
siloing there, which is sort of like I'm going to
do my thing, and I listened to a bunch of
Mel Robins in preparation for this, and I like her.
I'm not trying to I've just got some questions about
(16:33):
what she says.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
She uses the word.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Winning a lot, and like you are going to be
the winner and the past you would have been a
loser and all that kind of stuff. And I'm just
a little bit allergic to the individualism of her.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
But that's self help is I understand exactly what you mean, though, Jesse,
Because although I'm a big believer that a short walk
solves every problem when getting out of bad blah blah,
but it is true that it's not going to solve
all the problems in the world. To pull yourself up
by your bootstraps, just toughen up and get on with
it really isn't helpful in lots of situations, but it
(17:10):
is helpful in some small situations. And I think that
me is right that what we're talking about here, and
what Mel Robbins is addressing, is what can you control
what's in your circle of influence. I don't think that
means you shouldn't be thinking about inequality, and I don't
think that means you shouldn't be thinking about how do
I make a difference to the world. I think that
that's a very important thing to be thinking about. But
in terms of you and your world, that's where mel
(17:31):
Robbins has some answers for you. Whether or not she's
about connection, she does talk about it. She does talk
about I've listened to some of her podcasts where she's like,
obviously it's great to be rich and successful in all
those things, But she's like, but do you want to
be standing on the top of the mountain alone? Really,
we're all about our people around us.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
Really, those messages are all quite similar.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
In the end, Hello out louders, I am joined by
the wonderful Emily Vernon Hello, and the wonderful Jesse of Jesse.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
Oh my god, how many years have I worked with
these women?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I will not let you cut that out way.
Speaker 7 (18:06):
That is value day.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
My friendly Esteep Klaire Stevens, who I promise I can
tell apart from Jesse brain, we're going to talk about career,
an age and how many careers you might have. We
are inspired to do this by one Vera Wang and
something she said in an interview and also because and
we'll touch on this in a minute, but we had
a conversation the other day where EMM said something that
(18:30):
literally made my jaw drop and I had to bail
her up in a corner of the office, which isn't allowed.
Speaker 7 (18:35):
What happens on the podcast stays on the podcast, and
he cornered me in the office.
Speaker 6 (18:38):
And said, what what did you mean?
Speaker 5 (18:40):
We'll get to that in a minute. But what Vera
Wang said, As you probably know, she is a very
famous fashion designer who is now seventy five and still
going strong, she said that we should all expect to
age out of our careers and have many of them. Now.
The idea that we're not all going to have picked
one job and stay in it, which is something that
maybe gen X may have once thought, is not unusual.
(19:03):
But this idea of having like a suite of careers
to I had two, that much change with your age
is really interesting.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
And what do you think about this?
Speaker 7 (19:12):
I get confused. Is careers the same as jobs?
Speaker 4 (19:16):
No?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Totally different? And I remember being told this when I
finished year twelve, which was fifteen years ago. That's a
terrible but being told you will have multiple careers not
jobs careers. So it's talking like the difference of being
like a teacher a nurse, do you know what I mean?
But it's that our industries are changing so much that
(19:40):
a different career you may have the same set of
skills and the same experience, but it actually enables you
to pursue a completely different career path.
Speaker 7 (19:51):
Interesting because I thought you're only meant to have one
career because it takes a long time to develop that career.
So I've only had one career. I've been doing it
for six years now.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
But have you I don't know. I think like you're
sitting on a podcast and.
Speaker 7 (20:06):
You still there's just not just jobs within my career. Well,
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
I think this is tricky, right because you, as you said,
if you think about you go into a workplace and
maybe you grow and change. But you might say you
go into a workplace thinking I'm going to work in marketing,
but once you're in there, you're actually like, no, what
I want to do is I want to go into.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Strategy strategy, which I'm like, howaday different things?
Speaker 5 (20:27):
But apparently then you might move that in your career,
even if it was the same employer. You've moved your career.
So there are two things here. Everything changes so fast.
So my kids probably a lot of the jobs they're
going to do haven't been invented yet, but they will be.
But so things change so fast, so you might transition
like social media producer wasn't a job even probably when
you left school, Claer right, whereas now there's a whole
(20:50):
career in social media to be had, but you could
move around a lot within it. So it could mean
there's an umbrella of an industry that you like, but
you work a lot in it. Or it could mean
a completely different change and a retrain, which is also
something that women in particular tend to do at transitional
points in their life.
Speaker 7 (21:06):
What are the transitional points?
Speaker 6 (21:08):
Obvious one they have a family.
Speaker 7 (21:10):
Oh no, we do that after our career.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Remember M's like, no, no, no, you have a child
and then you stop working.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
So this leads me to one of the conversations that
I want to have with you about how you perceive
your career because it actually reminds me of something. I
had a conversation with the smart woman of a similar
age to me the other week, and she said, I
wish that when I was young I'd been told to
think about different careers that would suit me at different
times in my life. So the job that you might
want and obsesses you in your early twenties and you're
(21:39):
willing to work around the clock and you socialize with
all your workmates and it consumes you, and that's everything
to you. Is a great job, a great kind of
career for a certain point.
Speaker 6 (21:48):
In your life.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
But as your life grows and changes, that isn't so
attractive anymore. And one of those transitional points, very often
for women, is when they have a kid, and then
they might go back to the job that they left
when they had a kid, but it might not suit them,
so they might think, you know what, I need to
make a change here. That is a transitional point. But
you told me the other day that you think you
have to do all your careering and then stop and
(22:09):
have a kid, And that's that.
Speaker 6 (22:10):
Yeah, why would you think that?
Speaker 7 (22:12):
Well, because I was thinking, and after you cornered me
in the office, I thought about this or more because
I love my job right now and it does encapsulate
my whole lifestyle. Like most nights in the week, I
am still kind of working. Whether that's a turning prevent
You're going to an event, doing like a client thing,
and I love it, Like those are my favorite parts.
There's no way I could do that if I had
(22:33):
a kid.
Speaker 6 (22:34):
Well you could, but not five nights a week.
Speaker 7 (22:36):
But then how do I want a kid but also
want to do that.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
You have a different career, like Beau anxis. So I
have found the biggest difference for me, and I actually
found it even just being pregnant, which people talk about matrescence.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
It's a little bit like.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
It's hormones, but it's also just entering a new maturity
phase of your life. You have a thing where you're like,
hold on, if I'm going to be away from my child,
if I'm going to be at work, I want to
be doing things that really really give me a lot
of satisfaction. And there are certain things and I think
(23:13):
it's great, and I think this is why I like Holly.
For example, I've always found to be a really good manager.
You have less time for bullshit. So Holly, I can
remember so many times where I'd be deep down a
rabbit hole, some creative rabbit hole, being like, let's do this,
let's do this, let's do this, and Holly would just
be like nap, like make the call, like no, that's
(23:35):
not going to work, Let's go in a different direction,
Whereas I was so consumed, but Holly, having more of
a bird's eye view and a realistic view and a
sensible kind of worldly view, was able to kind of
make a call. And I feel like that's what you do.
And it's actually not just having kids. I think it's
also entering your thirties and whether it's the fact that
(23:57):
you've got parents to look after, or your financial needs
just become more demanding.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
You partner who you want to spend some time with exactly,
you know, like when you're at the beginning of your
career and the place that you're is a lot of
your friends are your work friends, right, Yeah, so if
you want to hang out with them going to work
things is perfect.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
But your group will.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Shift and change and then you'll have other things in
your life that you want to do.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
I guess is part of them.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Here's a question for you, Am, because you started when
you came to Ma Maya as.
Speaker 6 (24:26):
A social media assystem.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I feel like, as somebody who was deep in that
world for a bit, I feel like you grow out
of that. Do you feel like you can see yourself
growing out of that simply because it's like your own
habits change and social media changes. I think, like, I
look at myself and I think the best people to
be making tiktoks are not me, They're people who were
(24:49):
in the early twenties.
Speaker 7 (24:51):
Yeah, I do see that a little bit. I feel
like a lot of the little jobs I've had here
have helped become like one big job. And I'm still
very much involved in socials because I think it's like
crosses with writing and podcasting. But what like I found
hard within my career is exactly what you said is
your manager kind of being on a different timeline as you.
(25:12):
Because I remember when I first started, I was like
obsessed with my manager to the point where I think
about her all the time. I talk about her with
my friends and be like, do you think she likes me?
Do you think you're going to be in promotion? And
then it only took like years until I realize, oh,
you only think about me.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
When you see me.
Speaker 7 (25:31):
Yeah, but you have a whole other life going on.
And I think that's what makes it really hard in
your early career, because you made work your life, so
you assume everyone else has made work their life and
it's not all.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
That like your little patch of work is where ye
might have ten different priorities.
Speaker 6 (25:48):
Not that binary.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
For people who have like big jobs with lots of
different responsibilities, work is their life too, But it doesn't
mean they're thinking about you all the.
Speaker 7 (25:55):
Time that both of you were are only thinking about
me for like a solitude year, I did think.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
About your lot, It's true, but like so I think
that there are different phases to your job in your
work life. But the thing that's interesting about thinking about
different careers that suit different times of your life.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
This isn't something that I ever did.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
By the way, like I never thought about it, but
it blows me away to think that that's a really
smart thing to do. At the other end of the scale,
I interviewed this woman a while ago for mid who
went through a career reinvention in her late forties. When
because another transitional time will be you lose your dream
job or your business fails, or you're a freelancer and
the work drives up, or you get fired or you know,
like there will be lots of chapters to any.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
AI comes in and still.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Exactly you're made redundant, there are cuts whatever, or you're
just jack of it and you want to do something else.
There'll be lots of times in your life where you'll
go what next. And this woman she's called Faith at Google.
She's a really interesting therapist. She's a psychotherapist. And she
said when she was deciding that one book had closed
and another one had to open, she had three criteria
for a new job that she knew was the job
(26:59):
she wanted to do from like her mid forties onwards,
like third act. I guess we might call that still
a bit second actor. She said she'd been working in
the fashion industry for years, so, like what you were
just describing, her job was really social. She said, my
job was in PRS, so I was expected to turn
up at events and parties, and I didn't want to
do that anymore. I wanted to go home and curl
up with a cup of tea in my JAMMI. So
(27:20):
she didn't want a job that was hypersocial and she
had to go out a lot then too. She knew
that she wanted it to pay well. Like that's a
literally a really important consideration that women don't say out
loud enough. She's like the hourly rate had to be
high enough, because often when you get to that point
in your life, you've got responsibilities, whether that's a mortgage
or whatever, and you're competing against people who are twenty
(27:42):
and can work for a lot less. So she was like,
it had to be something skilled that had an hourly rate.
And she said she literally even thought, I want to
be able to sit down when I do it a
lot of the time, not all the time, but she's like,
I don't want to be on my feet all the time,
which lots of jobs in retail, nurses, teachers are constantly
standing up. It sounds really sad to think about that
in a way, but it's just practical. And then the
last thing which really wowed me, and this ties into
(28:05):
what Vera Wang said, is she said I wanted something
that I would get better at as I got older,
rather than being considered to be getting too old for.
So that's what Vera Wang was saying when she said,
you're going to age out of different careers. Is that
one of the truths about living in a very ageous culture.
And we do, and Vera Wang said, and so did
Faith at Google, who originally was born in Africa. Those
(28:25):
are not agis cultures. The most powerful and important people
in the room of the oldest people. That's what Faith
was telling me. But our culture isn't like that. We're irrelevant.
You've got a wrinkle on your face, You're irrelevant. Who
cares what you've got to say anymore? You choose something
that that isn't going to be the factor in And
so she's like therapy for her. She's like as I
get older and I get wiser, and she was interested,
(28:46):
and so she went and studied. Then she only gets
better at it and she can do it remotely. Like
those kind of really practical considerations are the things that
you might think about when you're changing your career.
Speaker 7 (28:56):
All I'm thinking about is that there will be a
time in my life where eventually my career will move,
which is what vera Wang are saying. But I love
my career right now, So now I'm freaked out, like
this is not given me.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
But do you think you'll never love anything else? Like
the say, it feels you came here and you were
doing one thing, but now you're doing this and this
and this, and you'll love lots of things. And so
your next career might have a part of what you're
doing now, but also other things.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
See I reckon this is so important to know. I
feel like the older you get, the more you get
a sense of what you enjoying what you don't. In
my twenties, I don't even think I knew that, and
I had it all mixed up by like if I
was good at something, I was like, well, that means
I have to do it, yeah, But then in my thirties.
(29:41):
In my thirties, I'm like, no, if you don't enjoy something. So,
for example, I don't like events, And it has taken
me to my thirties to be like Claire, you don't
like them.
Speaker 7 (29:52):
They make you.
Speaker 6 (29:53):
Tired, especially like events.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I don't know if you feel like this where there
are like all the influences and stuff and you leave.
And I was like, I feel bad about myself. Yeah,
I don't have to keep doing that. I don't want
to do that. Anything in my job I feel like
is about my appearance. I've been like I want to
move away from that because I feel icky, and that's
not something I kind of realized in my twenties. Instead,
(30:16):
I would beat myself up and be like, well, just
have a better appearance then, But I feel like it's
good to know because it gives you a bit of autonomy.
And like the other day, I was thinking, do I
want to go back to UNI? Maybe I'd like to
go back to UNI and study something in my book.
I've got this big metaphor about a black hole. So
I got really into physics for a day, and I'm like,
(30:37):
maybe I want to go study physics, And how isn't
that galvanizing?
Speaker 7 (30:42):
But what age am I allowed to say that? Do
I have to have all?
Speaker 2 (30:45):
You are one hundred and twenty honestly, and you have
to remember that that Like I thought when I was
in my twenties, I was like, oh, when I'm in
my thirties, hundred filter so old. And then you think
like when you're forty, when you're forty five, when you're fifty,
when you're fifty five, and I was like, no, no, no,
you just feel the same. But you can do whatever
you want, but your desires change a little.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Bit, back to this point that you think you've got
to do all your career things before you have a baby.
A it's a little bit offensive because she works with
a lot of women who have children and I don't
know what she thinks.
Speaker 7 (31:16):
I know she thinks you've given up.
Speaker 6 (31:19):
I don't know what she thinks we're all doing.
Speaker 7 (31:21):
I do complain a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
And how are you going to enter your child?
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Wife?
Speaker 7 (31:25):
You are, that's true, you'll get much whole other career.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
The thing is is that you may want to work differently,
you may not. It's a privilege to be able to
sit around going, you know what, now that I've got kids,
I don't want to work a nine to five or
I don't want to do shift work anymore. It's a
privilege to be able to make that call. But a
lot of women that becomes a fact, and men, actually
they might go, I don't want to travel all the
time for work anymore. I don't want to work in
that place that expects me to be sitting at my
desk from seven till seven because I want to see
(31:51):
my kids sometimes. So you have to think creatively about
that and be like, well, what if I did more
of this and more of that or whatever it might be.
So it's not as binary as you work really hard
and then you stop, you know, especially if you love working,
do you imagine so say you have a kid at
the thirty five.
Speaker 6 (32:08):
Do you really think that.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
From thirty five till death you will not want to
work ever again, because suddenly you'll magically be a person
who doesn't.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
Like working anymore.
Speaker 7 (32:15):
No, No, I don't think that way. I think it's like,
I'm not going to be done with my career and
the pace that my career is at now, so it's
only the point when I want to be done with it.
That's when I'll think about having kids.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Okay, I definitely had that belief, but now I've reframed
it as like work smarter, not harder. I think that's
what career becomes the older you get, like that thing
of having a higher hourly rate. For example, like when
you're young, you're sort of like, yeah, whatever, all work weekends.
I'll just constantly work. And then as you get a
(32:48):
little bit older, maybe have a family, maybe have other responsibilities,
you still are just as for some people justice determined
want to get all this satisfaction, but it's sort of
like I'm cutting out the part like imagine your job
right now, but you're like I hate meetings. I just
don't have time for them. I just don't want to
(33:08):
do it. It's like, yeah, working smarter, not harder, which is
a complete luxury. But that's one way to frame how
you might look at your career.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
Okay, I want to know from your younger people perspective
what you think about the ages and peace because we
were talking before about how traditionally fifties and early sixties
are like the power period for dudes in a traditional
workforce and work arrangement. That's often when they'd get the
CEO job or the big manager job, or they'd make partner,
or they'd you know.
Speaker 6 (33:36):
Get elected senator or whatever it is.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
Right, like that was seen as a big power age,
but now for women and maybe for men too, because
I think how culture is becoming more youth obsessed, because
at the pace of social media change and technology change
in general, that you're seen as a bit over the
hill at that age right when you look ahead, do
you imagine there's a time when you're just going to
be like, oh, I'll just be too old by that.
Speaker 6 (33:59):
Oh I don't know.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
I always tell the truth.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
You do not have to spare any feelings of old people.
Speaker 7 (34:04):
It's scary to me because the one person I've always
compared my career with is my mum, who came into
Australia as an immigrant and she only started her career
after she had me. And what's really interesting is that
my career level right now was her career level when
she was in her early fifties, and that was something
(34:24):
that I was like, I'm firstly amazed that she was
able to do that. And she's also been in the
same company for twenty seven years, and that was something
that I was like, Oh, that's exactly how it has
to be. And then when I was able to do
it much younger than she was, I was like, what
else can I do?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Like?
Speaker 7 (34:39):
What else can I do? And what scares me is
that I do feel like there is that time limit
and I'm not going to be able to get everything
done within that timeframe.
Speaker 6 (34:48):
What about you?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
My senses that looking at my career, and I often
think this about people who work on the internet, or
people who make themselves their brand, themselves their brand slash
their income. In my head, there's an ex byery date
on that. I don't know what the date is, I
(35:11):
don't know how old it is. I haven't had a
clear example I can point to, but that's something I
feel and I feel like that's why when I think
about my future, I think a lot about writing because
I think this is such a horrible thing to think,
and I don't think about anyone else. I'm just thinking
about myself. There will be a point where you don't
want to see that person or listen to what she
(35:31):
has to say anymore, because she's irrelevant.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
That's definitely what people think, and they think, well, nobody cares,
or at least people never used to care how old
someone who writes a book is. But this isn't only
about media. This is like, I know lots of people
who work in all kinds of fields who feel like
they are being considered aging out, not because they necessarily are,
but because of the pace of technology. They're like, well,
you'll never understand this AI thing, which is just not true. Like,
(35:56):
you look around our offices of many women that I
know well, and you're just as able to learn about
these things at any age if you're interested and you
make the effort and you're cus and smart.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
But there's a perception that you can't.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah, Like, if you've been in the workforce for decades,
the workforce you're in now compared to the workforce you entered,
is totally different. If anybody is able to adapt and learn,
it's actually people who have been in the workforce for
a long.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
So that's a really good point, because it's true they
say millennials and Gen x's have over the courses of
their work life, have literally gone from what I have,
literally gone from we didn't have the internet to what
we do now. And so you've proved over and over
again that you can adapt, but there's kind of maybe
an expectation that that adaptation has we're all maybe they
(36:43):
think we're just too tired, But I don't know many
women who are like that. Most women I know who
are a similar age to me are like revving up.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
And if you're looking for more to listen to, every
Mum and mea podcast is curating your summer listening right
across our network. From pop culture to beauty to powerful interviews,
there's something for every There's a link in our show notes.
We'll be back to regular programming on Monday, twelfth of January.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
Mamma Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on
which we've recorded this podcast.