108 - How to Press On as a Mom in Tech - Emilia D'Anzica & Sabina Pons

In this episode, my special guests are Emilia D'Anzica and Sabina Pons, both mothers in Customer Success. Emilia is the founder of Growth Molecules, and Sabina is its Managing Director. They co-authored a book called 'Pressing ON as a Mom in Tech' - a guidebook for mothers who want to thrive in tech.

In this video, you’ll hear about: 

• Sabina’s journey as a young mom in corporate America
• Emilia’s experience about what it looks like to be a mother in tech
• Maternity leave for women in tech
• Pregnancy discrimination at work
• Strategies for thriving as a mom in tech

This genuine talk, filled with useful advice and real-life stories, will make you feel seen. Tune in now for a dose of inspiration!

If you are a mom in tech, feel free to share your experience in the comments below.

Follow Emilia D’Anzica and Sabina Pons!

This episode is brought to you by Vitally.io. Visit vitally.io/women today to schedule your demo and get your Airpods.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, lovely, are you a woman who wants to continue learning, challenge yourself, teach, mentor, belong, inspire others and make an impact? If that sounds like you keep listening, because I just have to tell you something very important, I want to invite you to our brand new membership, the PowerUp Tribe. It is your ultimate destination in customer success. Yeah, you heard it well, this is not just a podcast. This is your customer success career destination. Here at the PowerUp Tribe, we all are on a mission to empower women to thrive in their careers through enablement, networking, mentoring and sharing inspiring experiences. So what will you find in our gorgeous new community and how will that help you? You'll find dedicated enablement, including master classes and roleplay courses so you can increase your business acumen and become more commercially minded. So, of course, you can increase the revenue, reputation and customer outcomes. You will find peer mentoring programs so you can develop your leadership skills and get clarity on your career direction. You'll find continuous opportunities to showcase your work through speaking opportunities and our regular connect sessions. Yes, you will find PowerUp Connect sessions, including podcast clubs, books clubs, coffee chats and ask me anything sessions with experts. You will also find monthly teams for creating content for your own personal development and developing your personal brand so you can become more visible and engage in more conversations. At the PowerUp Tribe, we are redefining what does real connection means in customer success. Join us now. Go to womenincscom slash PowerUp. Join us now and I'll see you there in our gorgeous PowerUp Tribe.

Speaker 1: 2:06

This episode is very close to my heart. As a mother in tech, I experienced so many ups and downs of trying to juggle and have different feelings about my career or about myself as a mother. If you are a mother or have any mothers on your team, I know and I'm convinced that this episode will help you understand somebody on your team. Or maybe you will be the one nodding on as you're listening, thinking about your own situations and experiences. If that's the case, I would certainly love to hear your stories and your experiences. The best way to share them is through our PowerUp Tribe. If you join, you can just share your stories in a safe environment.

Speaker 1: 2:50

Today's guests are Emilia Danzika and Sabina Pons, founder and managing director of the Growth Molecules Consultancy. If you've been following the global customer success community for a while, I am absolutely sure that you already know them. Emilia was already on this podcast in one of the early episodes number 34, when she was announcing her work on a book. Now it's been some times already. Emilia and Sabina co-authored and published a book called Pressing On as a Mom in Tech. It's a guidebook for mothers who want to thrive in tech.

Speaker 1: 3:30

So in this conversation, emilia and Sabina are sharing why they felt compelled to even write a book, to collect experiences from hundreds of other women and share some of the lessons with all of us. We also share our own experiences of being mothers in the workplace and our strategies to succeed. The sharing experiences is really wonderful and therapeutic, of course, and as you're listening, I am sure that you will recognize yourself in some of our stories and examples, but also listen to the end, as we will share strategies for succeeding in tech, no matter where you are in the world and what is your circumstance around flexible working or parental leave. I'm sure that this episode will help you gain the confidence to ask for help when you need it and give you even more ideas on how to be proud of yourself as a mother and as a professional without juggling different feelings, especially feelings of guilt for not being able to maybe do 150% of all of it at the same time. So stay with us until the end and let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 4:39

Hi everyone, this is Marius Kovepile and you're listening to Women in Customer Success podcast, the first women only podcast where remarkable ladies of customer success share their stories and practical tools to help you succeed and make an impact. If you want to learn more about customer success, get career advice and be inspired, you're in the right place, so let's tune in. It is an absolute pleasure to welcome my two wonderful, remarkable guests today on the show. They are Emilia Danzika, founder of the Grote Molecules, and Sabina Pons, managing director of the Grote Molecules.

Speaker 1: 5:25

I'm just super excited for this for so, so, so, so, so many reasons. But it has been two years since I spoke with Emilia on this same podcast and she was excited talking about the book that they're planning to write, and they just published a survey finding out so many different stories from women in tech. And two years after, oh my gosh that book has become one of the bestsellers for women in tech. It has been published already a long time ago. Those ladies have written this book so quickly and I'm so inspired by the pace, how they moved in that project and just in everything else that they do in life, because, since I'm following them, I can just think, oh my gosh, they are awesome and when I grow up I want to be like them. So I'm just super excited to welcome you ladies here. Sabina and Emilia, welcome to Women in Customer Success podcast.

Speaker 2: 6:21

Thank you for having us. It's been two years since we last were together on this show and I'm really excited that Sabina is on the show with us today as well.

Speaker 3: 6:32

Yes, thank you for having us. It's been also an honor and a pleasure watching you and your journey as a mother, as a customer success leader and as the founder of this whole movement. I will call it a movement for women in customer success. So, thank you, we're happy to be here.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Thank you, ladies, and thank you for always be there to support all the initiatives for women in the industry. There's so many things that I want us to talk about today. Let's start with maybe talking about our family circumstances, because I'm sure that that will absolutely help us all understand the motivations and reasons behind being in tech, writing a book sharing our experiences and stories. Emilia, shall we start with you? How old are your kids?

Speaker 2: 7:17

Sure you bet. So I have. I married my husband 19 years ago. He had an 11 year old son at the time. He's now 30 and lives very close to us in Santa Rosa, California. I also have an 18 year old who's soon off to college, and then I have a 12 year old who is trying to grow up very fast and thinks she's 18 as well. So we have a very busy household.

Speaker 1: 7:47

Excellent. What about you, Savina?

Speaker 3: 7:50

I also have been married for a long time. We just actually realized yesterday we were engaged 19 years ago and this fall will be married for 18 years. We have a six year old daughter and we have a 10 year old son.

Speaker 1: 8:08

That is lovely and very similar kind of with my circumstances, minus the marriage. Mine is it's been 11 years, so our children are going to turn. My daughter is going to turn nine and my son is going to turn six, both of them in the next like 10 days. So there is lots of birthday parties, preparation in our household Again very busy, as same as yours Lots of activities, from music to sports to everything that we mothers are trying to do for our children, right so they could have well rounded education opportunities and, of course, probably lots of opportunities that we didn't have when we were growing up. So now, when we established that, I'm really interested to find out from you your life in tech before you started. Firstly, your own company how was it and how? What did it look like being a mom in tech in corporate America? Emilia, let's start with you.

Speaker 2: 9:14

Sure. So I will say that it is so refreshing to see changes happening in corporate America. I know the United States is one of the few countries in the world that doesn't offer the same maternity leave that countries like Canada and many in Europe offer. So for me I really struggled. I really didn't want to go back to work, because having a baby for the first time and then being expected to go back after six weeks was traumatizing. I'm also from an Italian family where my parents could not understand why I had children and wanted to go back to work. So I ended up staying home for nine months when I really felt confident enough to figure out how do I keep pumping, how do I maintain my corporate life and be a good mother. And so it took nine months to figure it out.

Speaker 2: 10:12

With my second one, I was living in Oklahoma, unfortunately, where the maternity leave there was just as challenging, and I went back after six weeks. But I didn't have any maternity leave there. So I had to save up all of my vacation days, and I use vacation days. I actually went back after five and a half weeks because that's all I had saved up, and it was really, really hard. I didn't end up breastfeeding as long either. It was just too challenging with all the travel. So I will say I really suffered. I had to make sure that the conference rooms where I was working there was always at least a piece of paper and some sort of lock, and if there wasn't, I'd go in a closet or something to be able to pop. So it was a traumatizing time, and so I'm so excited that things are changing and companies are being more accepting of mothers in the workplace.

Speaker 1: 11:21

I'm really glad to, let me say, to hear one part of your experience, which is the experience of pumping and wanting to at least give your child the best that you can, even if it is not breastfeeding straight away but it is giving your own nil. Again, I wish everybody can feel empowered, firstly, to make those choices and not feel that they need to follow what society tells about them. You know, whether it's either or, I myself have experienced just different situations with two children, one that really wanted to be breastfed, another one couldn't care less. But I'm just happy to see how you had a choice and you really wanted to just do it and not even feel that OK, if you're going to a conference room, it's automatically no, for you know, let's say, breast milk, you still wanted to provide it for your child. So I'm really glad to hear that.

Speaker 1: 12:25

I'm, on another hand, saddened to hear your experience of how it all looks like, and you know the lack of maternity leave in the United States. Unfortunately, now that here in Europe almost every country has at least 12 months, which is such a normal thing, it is completely unbelievable for us and unimaginable to think that somebody is going back to work after a few weeks or three months. So I do acknowledge that we are pretty fortunate of the side of the pond. Sabina, what was and how was it for you being in the corporate and being a young mother at the time?

Speaker 3: 13:04

It was challenging and hearing your remarks about how different it is for you and how stark of a contrast our way is. It's actually catching me a little bit emotional thinking about we don't know any different and in fact, talking to the women that came before us, they had it even worse. In preparation and research for the book, I had conversations with my own mother, who was a working mom and it parts a single mom as well, and the things that they had to do. They didn't have any concept of maternity leave in California at all, let alone a few weeks. So those stories, and then she also mentioned and pointed out the requirement for pantyhose, like the nylons and high heels, and all that on top of it. That's the last thing you want to be worrying about and wearing when you're, when you're healing from having a baby. But from my particular story, it was a little bit of an interesting start in that we waited for about seven years to try to get pregnant and the time took a little bit longer when we finally started and my first pregnancy unfortunately ended in miscarriage, and so it was about nine or ten weeks pregnant and the silver lining, the positive, is that my body handled everything naturally, so I didn't have to have a procedure to help me heal from that. So when I did get pregnant with my son, it was the fear can I even carry a baby full term? Am I even? Is this ever going to happen? Am I actually going to be able to have a baby? And so I was so nervous and so worried with anxiety the whole time I was pregnant with him, and then I'd be managing a large team of people and they would come to me with something silly. Like you know, I didn't like that computer. I wanted a different computer, like with a new hire or you know, they worked out that they didn't get the percentage pay increase that they wanted. When I'd fought really hard to get them even the 3%, well, they thought they should get the 6%. And so being able to compartmentalize and know I'm like freaked out that if I say something the wrong way or get my body too stressed out about something for work, that I might lose the pregnancy, and so that was something that was constantly on my mind and I wanted to say to my employee you have no idea what's going on right now, like go deal with your small problem by yourself. But obviously as a leader, you can't do that. Well, the you know. Spoiler alert my son turned out beautiful and fine and healthy and he made me a mom.

Speaker 3: 15:40

I was also able to breast feed biologically. He very much liked breastfeeding and it was a really important goal of mine to breastfeed for one year, and I also like a lot of us on this call. I get the impression that we are drivers who set goals and work to achieve them. They call it the type A personality and that was very much me self-imposed pressure to breastfeed for a year and it was so hard, not because of my body and so hard because of the baby, but it was so hard because of the work. I went back to work with my son and also my daughter who came after at 13 weeks, and that was like Amelia. I had saved some vacation.

Speaker 3: 16:22

We have a couple different programs in California and then in the country that will at least protect your job, because it used to be that if you left your job to have a baby, you would lose your job. So now there's a law that helps protect us for keeping the job and then there's a little bit of pay that goes in to help cover your leave and your salary while you're out, but not much, and so I didn't. I actually only made $900 a month when I was on leave, which is not much compared to where I was after living in this particular geography and normal salary. So it was hard.

Speaker 3: 16:57

They didn't have a pumping room for me and they thankfully made one, and just the logistics of keeping the milk refrigerated, making sure you get it out of the refrigerator or out of your ice pack cooler, which is what I had to take to home because that was the milk for the baby for the next day of daycare. It put a whole new meaning for me to that expression, at least that we have here in the US, that's don't cry over spilled milk, and that's supposed to mean don't get too upset over something that's not that big of a deal. Well, you know as moms, that's liquid gold and so if your milk spills for your baby's daycare the next day, that's a big deal. So all those little things were really challenging, but by the time I had my daughter it was a little bit better. I was at a new company, they I was a first woman in the company's 10 year history to have a baby.

Speaker 3: 17:47

Yes, and it was. It's very, it was a great balance of gender roles. It was just no one else had had a baby. The men had had wives who didn't work there who had a baby, but I was the first woman, so they were great and they knew that they had a policy, but they didn't know how to execute the policy to help someone. They didn't have a pumping room, so they built one. I mean they, they just hadn't had to do that before, so thankfully they were great.

Speaker 3: 18:10

I found that I was pregnant very early on in my new job. I was there for five months and I was so nervous to tell my boss hey, I know, I just started this job. I didn't expect to get pregnant this easily because with my son we had some medical help and he jokes with me and he's like you do know how babies are made right and he's, he's a father, he's wonderful, he's one of my dearest friends. Still to this day, he still mentors me and thank God I had a good boss. But that's, that's the long story of my experiences with motherhood, at least getting pregnant and getting the baby and breastfeeding Very interesting.

Speaker 1: 18:44

It's a fascinating story actually, just what you said a few moments ago you were almost apologizing for for being pregnant to your boss oh, I didn't expect it to be so soon. Are we like? Do we feel as women, that very often we are apologizing just for naturally being mothers, right? Why is that so Do like, do we? Is it only in our minds that we feel we are perceived in that way? Oh, if I tell them you know I want to have a baby or I I'm pregnant, it will be seen differently. In my career I'm I've definitely heard so many stories from women who are so afraid to almost think about, you know, second child, just because they may lose the position. Was there anything on that team in your book in the research? I wonder what are the stories that you are hearing? Because it's just amazing even hearing you telling me that experience. Now you were still apologizing for becoming pregnant and somehow that's like, why do we do that? But there are so many reasons why we feel we should be apologizing. Almost Tell me about other women.

Speaker 3: 19:57

Yeah, one of the women in our book is.

Speaker 3: 20:02

It was interesting because she identifies as more androgynous in her appearance.

Speaker 3: 20:06

She dressed more neutral, not too feminine and not too masculine but and she's a lesbian and her and her wife decided that they wanted to expand their family. And while she was in her her role prior to becoming a mother and she's from Australia, so she'd say a mom before she became a mom she was. She said she could kind of ride in with the guys, kind of fit in the boys club, the men's club, and be treated kind of like one of them and got the promotions and got the opportunity to speak and negotiate some of the bigger contracts. Once she became a mother they they had the wife had baby, her partner had the baby. She said it changed as soon as she had to leave at three o'clock to go pick up the children from school or needed to go be with her wife to support her when she was not feeling well, to help take care of the children, that her career trajectory stagnated, that she suddenly didn't get to find out important information as soon as possible, and that to me was a big surprise.

Speaker 2: 21:14

Yeah, and I'll add that we have a whole chapter on what happened during COVID. How many women ended up leaving tech? Fast forward two years. We on our LinkedIn page for pressing on as a tech mom, we we post articles that we're seeing about women in technology and it's really sad. Things haven't changed as much as we would have hoped over these past two years with COVID knock on wood while behind us now. But the reality is women will will take the back seat over their partners. If the children are involved in, one of them has to decide, often because of the salary discrepancy. And that really became apparent during COVID. When suddenly our children are all on zoom, they're trying to learn a new way of learning, and then the teachers are trying to learn how to teach on zoom. Well, guess who becomes the babysitter and is facilitating all of that? One of the parents. And that's really when it became apparent that we were making so much less.

Speaker 2: 22:24

And the fear of losing those jobs when we did go in the office full time, that fear of going in interviews. You make it to the final step. Your heart is pumping, you're hoping they'll make an offer, but now you have to break it to them that you have to leave by 530 every day to go pick up your kids or your daycare will start charging you an hour a minute, a rate per minute, that you're late and you only have so many chances before they kick you out of daycare. Meanwhile you've been on a waitlist for a year for that child care and so that kind of pressure. You have such a fear going into these interviews and I still remember to this day or when I had to leave early, had to tell my boss, or he was in a meeting, you know, trying to figure out how to tell that person that I need to leave. Something's wrong. There's just so much of that pent up fear that that goes into these type of roles and writing that book.

Speaker 2: 23:26

Those 300 plus women who filled in the surveys were so grateful for the 12 women we feature in the book. It really validated Wow, I wasn't alone in this journey. We were just silent, we just didn't speak up because we didn't want to lose our jobs and we so badly wanted to grow our careers. Little did we know that maybe the woman next to us was having that same pain and anxiety. That's really what this book did for me, like made me feel less alone in this journey.

Speaker 1: 24:00

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Speaker 1: 24:41

So, from 300 experiences gathered, you featured 12 women, and I really like how you said if one woman is experiencing that, probably all the other women around her are doing the same, and I am absolutely confident that either it is the topic of, you know, having children or becoming pregnant, or wanting to get pregnant, or you know, wanting to even negotiate a salary. There will be so many of the topics that every woman around us is facing right now, and I feel for everybody. But I also am encouraged now, seeing we all are in it together and there is something we all are struggling with. But I would like to hear from you, give me some hope. What were some of the positives that surprised you in this experience of writing a book and speaking with so many different women. I know there are so many challenges, but what is that resilience that women have and that they still keep on pressing on as moms and tech? Because I know that you found so many of those amazing stories of women, tell me something about it.

Speaker 3: 26:00

I think the fact that we're here with you right now is a pretty compelling case for the way that things are starting to change, the fact that we're able to have this conversation, the fact that there were women who were willing to share their story with us, and then the book is, in fact, about acknowledging those challenges, but the point is to encourage women to get into tech and to stay in tech and then to thrive in tech, and so it's meant to be a motivational book at the end of the day, but we have to root it and ground it in reality. The positives that we're seeing is more awareness and more of an opportunity to talk. So, while Amelia's insight was exactly mine as well, where people were silent, now there's a conversation. There have been several large companies and universities that have brought us in to speak and to talk about these things, and so the book is also for allies. At the end of every chapter we have what did we learn from this woman? What are some key tips and things, resources to further that topic or to further advance someone's learning, and then also, what can we do for our allies? What's the message for them?

Speaker 3: 27:12

Because a lot of men want to support us and they know that there have been historical challenges, but they don't necessarily know where to start to help make it better.

Speaker 3: 27:23

Or maybe it's uncomfortable Because of course there's the Me Too movement that happened, and so there's also the fear of a misperception of something.

Speaker 3: 27:31

But they also want to be supportive and so that's what was been great, where we got to go speak at Mint Mobile, we got to speak at University of Irvine and Thought at Board and a few others to influence and uplift their employee resource group programs and we had, in many cases, just as many men as women who showed up. So I think that the women who shared their stories at a good job of highlighting where they were, where they are and where they're going and how they're helping other women along the way, and that, I think, is a big positive aha that came from the book and then, as we started to share about the book, having the opportunity to come speak and companies would say is it OK if we open this up to the whole company, because this is an important thing, and that felt really good and I think that's a sign of where we're going and how the three of us here today have daughters. I definitely think it's going to be better for them. I agree.

Speaker 2: 28:26

And it's been so inspiring for me to have large companies like Informatica, who invited us to come, speak to their women in revenue, for example, having men log in to the call as well, having women speak up from all over the world you know it's late at night for them and they are sharing their stories To me. That just confirms women are unapologetic. Now, this is something that we are so lucky to be able to do is have children, and we should be celebrating it because, as tech companies, women are buyers. Mothers are buyers of your product. We have a voice in a decision making process and, as a result, why wouldn't you hire us? We can influence the product so that it's more suitable for the buyers, the consumers, us.

Speaker 2: 29:27

And so writing this book and ensuring Sabina and I really wanted to have a whole chapter on imposter syndrome. I believe that's what holds us back and being able to write about it, giving tips to help women overcome it. Anytime I'm feeling where it might be creeping in, I'm quickly reminding myself no, what you're feeling is absolutely normal. We need to speak up about it and embrace it to overcome it instead of silence it. And by speaking up, we're inspiring others to speak up as well and we can't apologize anymore for it. This is life and as much as you want to separate personal and personal and business, there's some elements where you have to accept they're going to influence each other and that's absolutely fine.

Speaker 1: 30:20

I love that you're giving us all a mandate to stop being apologetic and just to be confident, being who we are, being mothers, and embracing it for so many different purposes. And I love how you're emphasizing yes, we all are economic buyers, we can thrive in tech, and I just want to also remind everybody. You mentioned how there are so many men who wanted you to speak and who wanted to support. I have experienced that as well within Women in Customer Success. There are so many men who want to do so much they just don't know where to start and very often they just haven't been given the opportunity to help and to support. And very often we as women might be, as we said, apologetic or maybe even afraid to ask for something that we shouldn't be, because we should also think from the perspective. Very often others are not aware of the context and of situation, but if they knew about it, they would absolutely be ready to help and to support.

Speaker 1: 31:29

I just want to give very brief example of what happened to me when I was pregnant with my second child. I was an individual contributor and I just knew in my head oh, I don't want that. My pregnancy looks like I'm less of a great professional. Of course I would go and travel and visit customers on site. Of course I would do all of that. Just because I'm pregnant doesn't mean that I shouldn't do my job on 100%, as I did before, and little did I know. We had a company off site and I was seven months pregnant and I went there. But I need to say I never asked would it be okay that I don't go? And I'm sure I would be told yeah, you don't have to go, you're on high pregnancy. But I wanted to be seen as a great professional, right, and I went there.

Speaker 1: 32:23

On the way back Next day I got contraction in the airplane and when I was measuring I didn't know what was going to happen. Luckily the flight was short, but I ended up in the hospital that same night. Even doctor didn't know what would happen. But next morning I gave birth to luckily very healthy boy, but it was two months earlier.

Speaker 1: 32:46

I have no idea, you know, in my mind did I cause that anyway? Just because I didn't even ask to be excused, just because I thought that, yeah, I'm pregnant but it's all fine, right, I have to do everything exactly like before. And I learned a big lesson that you know you, being a great professional doesn't always mean doing everything the same in every stage of your life, including pregnancy. That's the lesson that I have learned. Women, take care of yourself and your body and ask for permission sometimes to do things differently. I knew if I asked, I would have been given permission not to go on that trip. That's the lesson that I have learned, probably the harder way. I just wanted to emphasize how we absolutely could and should be asking for things and for support. Others are really happy to offer support, but they don't know about it if we don't ask.

Speaker 2: 33:50

Thank you for sharing that story. I think it will inspire so many more women. It is sad that we have to have fear about asking something like that. I know as educators Sabina and I we teach through our Growth Molecules Academy. Often we see that when we do teaching in person, we always ask will there be people on Zoom? You need to incorporate people because it's going to influence how we set up the room. We need to make sure that they have the right sheets with them so that they can join us. We recently did this. We had 115 people in Florida. About 45 of them were on Zoom.

Speaker 2: 34:37

Being inclusive like that is incredibly important, especially today For the people who don't have children, for the bosses out there who feel like they can't help us as mothers. Just being able to ask how can I support your success? And letting there be silence for that person to think and then saying is there anything else you might need to be successful? It's so simple to do Just ask the question if you don't know. It just starts with being curious and genuinely wanting to help. That starts the conversation and will allow people to perform it their best because they're not working under fear I have an add-on to that.

Speaker 3: 35:23

Just two weeks ago one of my clients said that, excuse me, one of our clients said that they want to accelerate their education program with us because they found out one of their team members is pregnant. They want to make sure that they can complete the certification program before she goes on parental leave. The leader was a female who rolls up to a male boss and the two of them were really adamant about making this happen. That felt my heart, was really happy and I said we will do whatever we can to accommodate that. It's pretty bad ass is what I'll say. It was really thoughtful and kind and a sign that things are moving in the right direction. They asked the question. The employee said that would be great and we're working with them to make it happen. It's wonderful to hear about that example?

Speaker 1: 36:14

definitely. We already mentioned how let's not be apologetic we can thrive in our tech careers, we can ask, and we all should ask, for help and for support and just for what we need, what we feel is right, because if we don't ask, others are not aware of it and they can't help. What would you say were some of the other takeaways from the book for women who are currently in their career and probably facing so many of these questions or dilemmas about their family lives? What would you tell them?

Speaker 3: 36:51

One of the ones that I learned from the women in the book and I have also used as a leader myself, is that we don't always have to be perfect. It's not possible. It's not humanly possible. We have this idea that our children's birthday parties have to be interest perfect, as people say, that we have to have organic, homemade baby food, that if our children don't have triple filtered water and a glass water bottle, that we're failing. And that's something that's really common with women in customer success. We, by definition, more often than not have and people in customer success, men as well. We, by definition, have an innate desire to please people. We have an innate desire to make sure that our customers are seeing value, that they're smiling, that they're happy, that they love the software and that they want to renew and hopefully expand, hopefully be a reference and do a case study. We are programmed to drive that. So in our personal lives, most people I've encountered in customer success have that element and we're hard on ourselves. That is our measure of success, both literally and figuratively. And same thing as parents. Of course I'm generalizing, but the women in our book and I know me and Amelia and a lot of other women. I'm going to use that as my sample size to say that the permission that I've been able to give women who work for me and I try hard to give to myself is that our A plus best, 100% work all the time is not possible and I tell women it's okay to do B level work because your work ethic and your experience, your intelligence and your kindness at B level is still better than most other peoples and I'm honored to get to work with you. I'm honored to be in your presence.

Speaker 3: 38:48

There's so many stories we talked about some on other publications and interviews we've done in the past about the realities of motherhood. You're dropping your baby off at daycare, the diaper explosion situation, and now you're stopping at the store to buy a new blouse because you can't fix the damage in the bathroom. It needs to be thrown away. So that meant I was a few minutes late to a meeting and it is what it is and that's okay. And in giving us that wiggle room to know it's okay, there's some days where I'll make food for my kids and I make a lot of dinner so I know they can have it for lunch for three days. That's boring to them and they don't like that, but that's the best I can do. And they're still getting food, they're still getting nutrition and that's got to be okay. And I think just giving us that wiggle room, like there may be a day where you don't wash your hair it's dry shampoo or maybe where you, you know, forgot today we almost forgot the musical instrument for my son's music day that happens, it's okay.

Speaker 3: 39:50

Don't beat yourself up over it. And help each other. Give ourselves grace, hold each other accountable, cause many times, even in our appearances as young women you know Amelia's daughters, you know junior high, high school we put more pressure on ourselves as women to look a certain way, whether that be certain hairstyles, clothing, our body image or better weight. So as women, we're hard on ourselves and we're also sometimes hard on each other. So I think, the more that we can remember, let's not be harder, let's empower and support and give each other the permission to know that it's impossible to be perfect, that some days you're gonna do really well at your client presentation and you might not have the greatest meal cooked that night, and other days your meal's gonna be awesome and maybe your client presentation had an accidental issue, typo. That's okay, and I think we just need to remind ourselves that cause. We are naturally programmed, especially as customer success professionals, to be people pleasers.

Speaker 1: 40:48

That is such a good call out and I liked that empowerment again, not everything always has to be perfect, but also embraced how it is life and it is natural. And even if you have, you know, few accidents before a call client call, it's okay if you drop the note saying you know there was a little accident, I'm gonna be late. You know nothing actually big in the universe will happen. When you're open about some of those situations. I actually feel it can help person on another side as well to empathize and just to you know, get permission for themselves to be more of a human. I think that definitely can go a long way for everybody, especially for women.

Speaker 1: 41:30

Ladies. I can obviously speak with you forever about so many of those different topics, but I would like to thank you for coming here and for sharing these experiences. Thank you for all the other opportunities that you are taking to speak with other women and allies about these topics. I know you are incredibly busy and you know just even taking time to do that is incredibly valuable for so many. So thank you for firstly, being dedicated to gather those experiences, to write the book so we all can learn from it and we can all get inspired and for everybody listening, I just hope that you felt not only inspired.

Speaker 1: 42:10

I know you did, but I hope that now you have permission, that you're giving permission to yourself to be proud mother, to be celebrating your achievements and, as you said, sabina, even the presentation that might have a typo well, it's not the end of the world. You might have just, you know, opened up so many opportunities with that customer just because you share something about yourself and your family. There are so many ways to really shine and thrive as a mother, just when we embrace it. So that's hopefully my call out for everybody listening. Is there anything else that you would like to share with all the awesome ladies listening and making sure that they are really taking the best out of this whole experience?

Speaker 2: 42:59

My takeaway is just keep showing up. Don't give up. You can be really depressed, have a really bad day, feel great remorse because of an action you just took as a parent, or maybe you snapped at your partner or at work you did not bring your best self. Just be forgiving. Keep showing up. Try again tomorrow. Whatever happens, forgive yourself, and I think that's been my saving grace is keep showing up, even if I don't feel I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm gonna try again this morning and that's been really helpful for me, sabina.

Speaker 3: 43:42

I would say, as women, check in with other women and give them the space to share how they're really feeling. Don't necessarily feel that you have to solve the problem. Sometimes they just wanna verbalize it and you can send them a virtual hug or, hopefully, one in person.

Speaker 1: 43:59

That's a wonderful call out. We are all here for each other and it is so much easier to share all of those feelings together. Thank you, ladies, so much. Everybody. You can find out a book on Amazon and online and it's called Pressing On as a Tech Mom how Tech Industry Mothers Set Goals, define Boundaries and Raise the Bar for Success. I just realized the whole day, the whole episode. We haven't even mentioned the name of the book, but it's a wonderful title as well Pressing On as a Tech Mom. Yes, you can succeed in your career and being a wonderful mother. Thank you, ladies, so much for coming to this episode. It has been wonderful.

Speaker 2: 44:43

Thank you for having us. It was wonderful to see you again. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 44:50

Thank you for listening. Next week new episode, Subscribe to the podcast and connect with me on LinkedIn so you're up to date with all the new episodes and the content I'm curating for you. Have a great day and talk to you soon.