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Welcome to real beauty with FD. This is episode four of season six, and this will be part two of our conversation with Amanda GATS. Who is the CEO and founder of house of wise. And just to quote the awesome website, one more time, the house roles. Better sleep. Less dress, hotter, sex, more strength. Stay wise. And my gosh, I love it. It's such an incredible brand. Um, and it was such a blessing being able to speak with. Amanda and pick her brains. So without further ado, I ain't going to dive straight into this episode. And I hope you all have a great week. And if you were in Houston, I pray as I record this on Sunday evening, the rain stops. And we have some semi nice weather for the week ahead, although I have already looked and it seems like it's just going to rain relentlessly this week. So Houstonians. Stay dry.

FRANCENE: 1:12

I do love everything about the House of Wise website. Again, it's very like slick, um, very educational. Um, but I especially love some of the phrases that's being kind of sprinkled in, like, um, where it says, unlike your toxic X, um, we keep it honest and transparent, which I love. So how have you found balancing building this brand and company. while balancing that life of being a mom. Um, and I definitely, like I mentioned, like I appreciate it. I can only imagine it's not being easy. Um, and how, you know, kinda taking a love determination, how do you prioritize your

AMANDA: 1:53

time? Yeah, so I think the first thing I had to unlearn is that there is not, I, I'm not going to do things like everyone else. Um, and that's okay. So pre covid, I ha was going through the, the divorce already and my kids were super, super young. And if for anybody that has young kids, they know. your kids go to bed so early? Yes, they'll wake up at like nine or 10:00 PM but my kids were like 6, 6 30 bedtime routines. Yeah. And, and I was breastfeeding and all the things, right. So I would leave work at four because I was like, I only get my kids, you know, half of the time. Plus, I like, they go to bed early, so I'm gonna leave work at like 3 30, 4 o'clock. And I remember that was like, got a lot of heat, right? Because people were like, well, why does she get to leave at three 30 or four? Mm-hmm. and it was all around aligning with my. what are my goals and like what do I need to accomplish? What are, what does success look like? And I will, I will hit that. Like, you tell me what you need me to do and I will do it, but I need this flexibility. And this is pre covid now. I think Covid has shaken things up and allowed people to, to integrate their work in life. But above everything else, it's like I'm going to create. A life that works for me. And the cool thing is there are no set rules anymore. And so you can truly, truly ask for what you need to make it work. And the worst thing that can happen is someone says no to you and then you go and you keep asking for what you need to multiple people. And finally someone will give it to you because they value you and what you can do. And so that's like, that has been the new lens at which I look at everything. It's like, how do. Do something that maybe looks and feels and sounds different, but it works. And so that then leads into I have this luxury of building a company from scratch with a bunch of women who, you know, are looking for this new approach to how work should work or, or an integrated approach. we have what's called like a 70 30, 70% async, 30% synced work week schedule. And basically what that means is only 30% of our week is, you know, synced in person or, or meetings, et cetera. And, uh, outside of that, I don't care how much you work, it's truly around. you, we have a very clear goal setting schedule where you know what your goals are for that week. We've aligned on how you're going to report tho into those goals. Mm-hmm. and the strategy you're using to hit those goals. And then I don't care when you work and we have a lot of like fractional employees who are doing the work in the best in their own time and. is very uncomfortable in the world where we live in, in, in the ecosystem. We, we exist in. we're a VC backed company, and so the, they're trying VC landscape is all around, uh, pattern recognition. Mm-hmm. they want to put you in a pile that looks like this other pile so they can say, okay, your expected return should be this, or you should be growing at this rate. And it's hard for people to. Look at us and say, well, how do I know you're working as hard, you know, quotation marks like as hard as these other people because you know, you have employees that are posting like with their kids at the park during the day and whatnot, and at the end of the day, like we're growing, we're up 200% year over year. And so it's, I just always bring it back to. What really matters? Cause I don't, I don't care about optics. Like I truly don't. And I, I post that I'm at the pool during the day because my kids are at school and I need a break. And like, truly, truly, it's about shedding and like the thing we started with, shedding the like notion that you have to care what other people's perception of the way you're living your life.

FRANCENE: 6:29

You, Janelle, that is, I wish there was more people like you in, I mean, everywhere. Um, but I work in energy and, you know, it's a very kind of corporate setting. Um, and although we have flexibility, um, I, it would definitely be awesome to have this type of empowerment knowing that. You know, to me, I can see my peers kinda working, you know, whatever, like eight till five, staying late, and I go in, I get what I need to get done, and then I leave. Like similar to you. I'm like, I wanna be able to pick up my kid, I wanna be able to go to the park, have fun, and I do not get on my laptop in the evening. Like I very much maximize my time and to me, Sometimes I'm like, just because you're putting in the hours, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're bringing in that quality. Yeah. Or the amount of chit chat or coffees or, you know, whatever else. Um, but I think to be able to create that empowerment around you where you're like, this is the goal. It's up to you how you. Like, I'm here to help, but it's up to you. Use your time wisely. Right. I think, yeah. And knowing women, let's be honest, we, you know, in some cases we definitely work harder in some scenarios and. You know, I've worked in corporate for however many years, but I kicked off my career when I was 17. I worked offshore and I was the only female for years. Um, and I always felt like I had to work harder. All the guys would be, you know, chilling out and I'd be trying to learn something and I would always go above and beyond. A part of me is like, well, it stayed with me. I continue to like bust my ass. Cause I, you know, I, I want to strive, but I'm also like, imagine if we just all started on the same playing field. Imagine if it was all equal and we didn't have to feel the need to bring more. And I think especially when you're a mom, you then think, okay, well now I need to bring more cuz they're gonna think I'm not serious about my career and I. I hate that, especially in America. I feel like it's a, it's a lot different here, the way we view women and we're like, oh, great, she's pregnant. Awesome. Yeah, that's it, that's it for her career. And you're like, no, no, no, no. We can do this

AMANDA: 9:02

Yeah. So the way I, I, as I get older, I, I, I try to just like go back to. Facts and, and keep it in data because I think once we, once we assign gender to something, it causes an emotional reaction. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And so all of a sudden, like, like men are like, oh, here we go again. This is about like, uh, whatever, right? And so, yeah, I teach a class on efficiency and I, I'll like go through this and I'll be like, okay, let's talk about Parkinson's law. It's, it's about the fact that whatever time you allot to an activity, you will fill it with that activity. And so we have allotted, you know, a 10 or eight to 10 hour workday based on industrial revolution times. We have been given eight to 10 hours to be at work. So we will fill that eight to 10 hours with chatting with our friends on Slack, with you know, whatever. We will expand to whatever time. And so I teach efficiency and I'll be like, Set a timer, say, I need to create this deck and I'm giving myself 70 minutes to do it, and I'm gonna create the outline today, and then tomorrow I'm gonna make it look pretty and the next day I'm going to proof it, add more concepts and I'll have a deck done in, you know, 210 minutes over the span of three days. Yeah. And like I teach people like you will then get it done because, you know, you only have 70 minutes. And I think intuitively going back to what you said women have, you know, w when you look at the number of invisible labor hours that are assigned to women versus men, um, obviously this is a very heteronormative we we're taking. Account, like single dads, et cetera, which I think, yeah, don't have enough credit, but it's like, okay, if we look at the macro scale we have. Both work and, you know, childcare and all these things that are, are on our plates. And so we naturally do it. And so if we teach everyone to do this, then we're equipping an entire society with the, the, the tools they need to get more done and less time so that it frees up. I, I think, removing men from this conversation. time, et cetera. We're doing all of ourselves a disservice because if we could let them get their work done in less time too, they're now open to say, well, what would I do with that extra time? And how can I Yeah. Like, you know, pick the kids up from school and go, et cetera. So I, I, I push like, I used to only talk to women about this stuff, and then I was like, well, we, we know how to do this. Like it's innate. And so now I teach like a lot of people how to, to think about their time in such a way that's truly, truly outcome oriented so that everyone can be freed up to, to have more hours to do what they want to be doing. And that want can be decided, you know, based on what's important to them. Yeah. And it

FRANCENE: 12:16

also, I mean, that's a great way of thinking about it and I really need to put that into practice. Um, especially when it comes to your example of presentations, that's probably where I procrastinate the most. I'll literally leave it to the last minute and I'm like, oh, I hate doing presentations. Um, but yeah, I think it's. Setting that goal of completing something. So then you're like, this means I can leave early and I can go see my friends. I can go to happy hour or I can go to the park, or whatever it is. But I think that time allocation, because we've been so conditioned with that hours of, you know, this is when you need to be at work. And I think, you know, mentioning this kinda. You know, post covid lifestyle where there is more flexibility. You have so many people being like, but we've been so used to, yeah, the eight to five. Like now, what do you mean? You can leave earlier? You can flex your schedule. And I think we have such a disjointed in the workforce right now, where you have the younger generation being like, this is great. We're working from home. They trust us, and you have. I'm obviously generalizing the older generation, they're like, whoa, why are you working from home? You should be here. You should be seen. Why are you grabbing a coffee? Why are you leaving early? That it's,

AMANDA: 13:43

um, Well, we, we, like the shift happened. It was literally like one day we were working in an office. The next day we worked from home, and so there was no transition period. And so then it was like you had an entire group of, of people being like, well, This has an expiration date and we're going back to normal, and, and now we're seeing it did, that didn't happen. And now there's a lot of hybrid. But yeah. What happened during the time of covid was developing tools to create the, the things that happen in an office, uh, because there is the, the, the hallway chats sometimes. Brew ideas or they, um, they allow for less one-on-one time, you know, meeting times. And now all of a sudden it's like, well, how do we prevent everybody from being on Zoom all day so that they can still get the work done, but still allow for those kind of spontaneous interactions? And so we, we instituted what was called a synced, um, slack time. Where everyone has to be on Slack for about 90 minutes on a Tuesday, and we do a round robin where, and everybody can see it's transparency. Now granted, we have a team of less than 10 people, so that makes this so much easier than a big corporation. But you can imagine, yeah, like if you need cross-functional alignment, it's like, okay, so. Let's have marketing and product do a synced slack time where the product managers are talking to the marketing managers and, and they're just like at pinging a bunch of questions back and forth, but then everybody has line of sight into what the questions are. It's like, Hey, how's that new product coming along? I'm, I'm a little concerned about this feature. Can you talk like blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's like the hallway conversation. But now the best part is it's transparent because everybody can see that slack message. So it's actually. Elating a lot of the, the stuff. So I think I, I'm a very like, solutions oriented type of mind, and so I'm like, okay, we just need to create solutions for this transition from all at, uh, all at the office to all at home. And I think once we do that, we can speak to the generation that. Okay. What's your fear? I always like, that's my biggest question about anything. Yeah. When someone comes back on something like, what are you fearing right now? Like what, what, what do you feel like is going to get lost? Let's sulfur that versus just like beating your hands down and saying, we must be in the office. Like, why? Yeah. You're

FRANCENE: 16:26

like, why? Yeah. Yeah. And what is the

AMANDA: 16:28

purpose? You just chip away at that. Like, I feel like a lot of things will be better in this world if we. like get curious about why someone feels the way that they do. And then once you peel back kind of the layers of that, you can start to solve for those and then you make progress. But I think we're, we're right now in a weird stage where everybody feels so passionate about their beliefs and they're holding them so closed handed that we are not stopping to just have conversations. Yeah, it's true.

FRANCENE: 17:05

Or stopping to be open enough to listen and hear the other person's perspective and think, okay, I understand why you're feeling that way. Let's compromise. Whereas I agree, I agree. There's definitely a lot of emotions. Slightly Yeah, a lot of people definitely jumping on the defense and everything's very. Um, like us versus them kind of thing. Right, exactly. Um, okay. So I do have one more question and then we'll kick into the quick fire rounds. So, um, for all the women listening to this, can you provide advice on what you feel is needed in order to be successful?

AMANDA: 17:57

So in order to be successful, you truly have to love yourself. Like, and, and be your own partner. Be your own hype person when you go into a room, like I was the youngest VP in the corporate, like in my corporate setting. Um, and that came with a lot of like, oh, What are they talking about me? Do they not feel like I deserve this role, et cetera, et cetera. And, and there's a ton of like conversations you can have in your head. You have to truly stand in your knowledge, in your expertise, in your growth, and, and f. Feel worthy of whatever place that you are in. Same with relationships. Like if you wanna have a successful relationship, you need to be a whole human, and the other person needs to be a whole human. You have to have done your work to know what you bring to the table, to know what your gaps are, to know what your triggers are, and, and stand in that. And then you're not trying to earn someone else's love because you, you know that. Complete without it. And so everything comes back to like this completeness in yourself. And that to me has been the work that has, I think, catapulted me over the last couple of years in my career, in my personal life, um, as a mom. Um, I'm not trying to earn things. I'm, I'm comp, you know, sanding in my completeness.

FRANCENE: 19:33

I love that. That is a great, great answer. Um, Yeah, I think we all need to be like that. I definitely, a lot of times we'll have like imposter syndrome and think I shouldn't be here, I don't deserve to be here. Or why is that person my friend? Um, and it's, I really try and snap out it and again, I feel the older I get, the more confident I become in myself. Um, but I feel we all need to just do that check sometimes, even if it's just before you go into the office or before you start your workday or before you got for drinks and be like, no, I, I deserve to be here because of X, Y, Z. It's like, we need to do our own Kinda walking like hide Yeah.

AMANDA: 20:20

Well, okay. And then the last thing I'll say on this topic is, Bring our brains there. There's a thing called the negativity bias. Our brains are wired and it, it takes, it takes you back to the evolution days of cavemen and stuff, but our brains are wired to a nine to one negativity bias. Meaning for every one positive thing, you may think, you'll think nine negative things. That that is how our brain is wired. And if you think about why, from an evolutionary standpoint, it was probably to protect yourself, you have to think about like, oh, this isn't just a beautiful spot to like build a family or a truck or whatever. It's like, oh, we're close to this, you know, potential fault line or, or this kind of animal that could, or whatever. You had to constantly be thinking about what could go wrong. Well, that has stayed in our brains, and so just know that when you're thinking negative thoughts, you have to intentionally rewire your brain to say positive things because it's. it's baseline is nine to one negative to positive. And that's not anyone's fault. That's just how we were evolved as creatures. And so that's why like I used to be like, oh, gratitude journaling is so silly. Like, I don't need to do that. But now that I know the, the data and the science behind it, I'm like, oh no, I have to because I have to rewire my brain to be thinking not a positive thing. So when you're going into a meeting, And you feel that imposter syndrome, reframe it as, oh, my brain's wiring is nine to one, so now I've gotta shift that. So yes, I'm a little nervous. I don't feel like I have to, you know, I've earned my place to be at this thing. I don't feel like I know as much as these other people. Okay, well, shit, I just thought of three negative things. I'm gonna double that and try to think of six positive things. Like, oh, I've done the research on this thing. I, I feel really confident in talking about this aspect. Like I've. You know, 15 years to get into this meeting, like give yourself that rewiring, and now you're like, okay, it's not about gratitude anymore. It's like about I have a short circuit and I need to fix it.

FRANCENE: 22:29

Yeah. It's like you're just powering yourself back to be like, hold on. Wait mind. I know I can do this. Right. Um, but no, that is great advice. Um, I definitely could ask you another like 30 questions, but anyway, let's go into the round. Um, so just tell me whatever pops into your head. So your favorite cocktail?

AMANDA: 22:53

I don't drink a lot, um, but if I do, uh, I am, I love a good like old fashion.

FRANCENE: 23:01

Oh yeah. I love an old fashioned, yeah, I, I'm the same. I don't drink that much. Um, I'm also the biggest lightweight, which is why I don't drink a lot. So I kinda don't help myself but I can only have one. And that is enough But I love an old fashioned, um, who would play you in a movie?

AMANDA: 23:25

Oh gosh. I mean, if I had to pick a character that I feel the most, like, it'd be like Mrs. Maisel, but like, I'd be Miss Mrs. Maisel personified as like someone else. But, um, like I, I think like an. Emma Stone or someone like that who's like a little quirky says what's on our mind. Yeah, I'm a little awkward too, so like, I'm sure that would come into play. I don't know. Something like that. Emma

FRANCENE: 23:53

Stone's a good one. Um, what is your favorite number?

AMANDA: 23:57

23. It was my basketball number and I'm from Illinois and I was a big Michael Jordan fan and it, I see 23 all the time. Oh, I

FRANCENE: 24:05

love that. That's a good one. It's interesting cuz of course, as Michael Jordan, but it makes me instantly think of Onetree Hill. I dunno if he ever watched that. Yeah. But um, that was their nu such a good show. Um, anyway, um, if you were a sex say character, who would you be?

AMANDA: 24:24

So, I'm. A mix between Carrie and Samantha, cuz I have no filter when it comes to sexuality, et cetera. But I'm a hopeless romantic. Like I truly, truly, um, want to find my partner. And I, I feel like I have, I'm, I'm now recently dating someone new and, um, like I, I, that is my driver. Like I, I think for me, I. Sex is the best when I have an emotional connection with the person. And I like, I don't know if anybody knows the term bisexual, but that is truly what I am, like my, my sexual drive comes from emotional connection. Um, and so yeah, I, I definitely feel like the, the mix of Carrie and Samantha, cause I just have no filter too. So that's why I said the Samantha.

FRANCENE: 25:13

Yeah, I mean I dream of having that little piece of snap in me, but I'm so Charlotte. It's unbelievable. I'm definitely on like the prude and honestly, it's through doing this podcast, I've interviewed, um, someone that specializes in sex in sex therapy. Yeah, it has been. Awesome to talk about it. The more I speak about it, more comfortable I become, but it is crazy how much like my pans will like sweat up when we talk about it and I'm like, oh, I'm so, I'm so Charlotte. Um, okay. If you could pick only two skincare products, what would they be?

AMANDA: 25:54

So, I would definitely say like I now with our, our serum, I don't wanna just say like, I, I use that every day and it's like now kind of replaced a couple of my other ones I'm gonna say. So I use Vaseline a lot. Yeah. I do like, it's if I could only have something that's in my arsenal, I have very combo skin, so I use Vaseline, um, like over things or, or just alone. And it's so cheap. And so I feel like that's like probably number one. And then number two, uh, like a skin pharmaceuticals retinol, like that transformed my skin immensely. So if I had those two things, I would be like, set for life.

FRANCENE: 26:44

Yeah. I mean, Vaseline is definitely one of those products that you can use so much. Yeah, so much for like, everything. Um, what is the best compliment you've ever gotten?

AMANDA: 27:00

Best compliment I've ever gotten. I mean, whenever someone compliments you on motherhood hits in like a new way, like. Beauty fades. Like businesses come and go, like my identity is not wrapped up in in, or at least I'm trying to unlearn that my identity is wrapped up in any of those performance-based metrics. And when someone meets my kids and says something about my children, to me, it's not even a compliment to me. If they're polite or they help someone or they're like that. If I, if I'm raising kids who will try to make the world a little bit better and more loving and and less divisive, then to me that's the best compliment because that's my, like, legacy. You know? That's what's gonna last way beyond. Hopefully, you know, my time here. So I think it the, that's what really like lights. Yeah, that's a great

FRANCENE: 28:08

way to think about him. It's always nice when your kids are polite, Yeah, I'm forever striving for that. My daughter can sometimes be a little bit shy and when new people come up to her, she will go quiet and I'm like, no, no. Say hi Yeah, like it's okay to say hi. My, my middle. Also like stranger in danger. Danger.

AMANDA: 28:32

Right. My middle is really shy and so we have a lot of talks on, you know, what do you feel when, you know, you meet new people and it's like, oh yeah. You know, sometimes like, cuz I'm an extrovert and so is my oldest daughter and so her two models that are like, I could talk to a tree for an hour, and so she. I'm like, you know what? There's lots of people that, you know, when they first meet people, they, they're quiet, and then maybe there's a question you could ask. That's like how I frame it. It's like, here's a question you can ask them, like, what's your favorite color? And so that way they, she feels equipped to like ask them a question because then it'll get them talking. I was like, the best part when you don't wanna talk is like get the other person talking so that you don't have to talk. Yeah. But I totally feel that's my middle. Literally like you can feel her just like retreating behind my legs to be like, I don't wanna see anyone.

FRANCENE: 29:28

Yeah, it is, it is wild as they grow their like personalities. Um, and then once they're out there, you're like, okay, you can come back in You're good. That's enough. Um, okay. And what is your life motto or favorite fa um, phrase that you live by?

AMANDA: 29:48

Um, I have on my like wall, I have a couple things. Like I have, life is tough, but so are you like, at the end of the day, like it's choose, you're tough. Like everything is, there's no easy path in anything. And so I, I, I really do settle on the fact that like, Not going to the gym is hard. Going to the gym is hard. Like, yeah, you know, building a company is hard, but working for a company is hard. Like it's just choosing your hard and knowing that you can do either of them and, and so I think that one, I, I think about a lot. I love it.

FRANCENE: 30:24

That's perfect. Thank you so much, Amanda, for joining me. Um, I've very much appre appreciate this conversation and everything you've accomplished and also just the space that you're trying to. Great so well for women and to be able to have these conversations so openly, um, is very inspiring and I know, I hope my listeners will appreciate it too. But please go check out House of Wise, um, as I mentioned, I have been using, um, the face serum, so I'll post more about it on my Instagram page. And, you know, we mentioned some more of their products, so please go have a look. Um, but yeah. Thank you so much, Amanda.

AMANDA: 31:05

Well, thank you. I really appreciate this conversation and all the, the topics that you cover on this podcast. So thank you so much for doing it.

FRANCENE: 31:13

Yeah, anytime. And I hope you enjoy your time in Chicago. Um, and I will let you know once this goes

AMANDA: 31:19

live. Awesome. Thank you, Franc.

FRANCENE: 31:22

Thank you. Bye bye.