Tami Simon: Welcome to Insights at the Edge produced by Sounds True. My name is Tami Simon. I’m the founder of Sounds True, and I’d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation. The Sounds True Foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely available. We want everyone to have access to transformational tools such as mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion, regarding of financial, social, or physical challenges. The Sounds True Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to bringing the benefits of transformational education to communities in need including at-risk youth, prisoners, veterans, and those in developing countries. To support the mission of the Sounds True Foundation, I’m thrilled to announce that we just opened registration for our first ever in-person fundraiser, The Sounds True Gathering. This inaugural event will take place at the end of September in 2019 at the 1440 Multiversity in the redwoods of California.
This special three-day gathering is an opportunity to slow down, to connect with nature, and to connect with ourselves, to enjoy wisdom teachings, shared meals, and heart-opening music, and also have the chance to meet new friends from around the world. This inaugural event will feature a lineup of premier Sounds True teachers and artists including John Kabat-Zinn, Snatam Kaur, Ruth King, Kristen Neff, Mark Nepo, Zainab Salbi, Adyashanti, Seane Corn and many more. And the best part is that 100% of the profits will go directly to support the important work of the Sounds True Foundation. This event will most likely sell out quickly. As a listener to Insights at the Edge. I wanted to make sure you heard about it first here. To learn more or reserve your spot, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org/event. Again, to learn more or reserve your spot at the Sounds True Foundation gathering, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org/event.
Jamie Schwab: Welcome back to Insights at the Edge, everyone. I’m Jamie Schwab, the associate publisher here at Sounds True, and I’m excited to be with you today. Tami invited me to host this episode, not only due to my deep connection to the authors we’ll be speaking with, but because, as a mother of an almost four-year-old little girl, I’m literally living this content every day. While my life as a mother has had many of the expected highs and lows, what I didn’t expect was how much my identity seemed to be absorbed by motherhood, and frankly, how lonely this journey would feel at times. And so many of the parenting resources available to me only perpetuated these feelings.
And then I found Motherly, deep in the middle of the night while nursing my daughter. Reading the content on their site, I felt seen for the first time in a long time, not only as a mother, but for all the things I am besides being a mother, too. It was as if they were whispering, “We see you. You’re still here. We’re all still here. And it’s messy and it’s beautiful and it’s frightening and it’s fabulous, and we’re all in it together.”
And this is the gift of Motherly and Sounds True’s new book, This is Motherhood. As you’ll hear today, the Motherly brand is committed to redefining the mothering journey and empowering mothers all over the world. I want to acknowledge that many of you listening right now may not be mothers. But the reality is that everyone on this planet has a mother. Seeing our mothers more fully and providing them with more holistic support could change our society and generations to come. It could even change this world. And that is something to feel hopeful about.
Now, without further ado, it’s my true pleasure to introduce you to Jill Koziol and Liz Tenety, the founders of Motherly and creators of our This is Motherhood book. Jill and Liz, welcome to Insights at the Edge.
Liz Tenety: Thank you so much. We’re so happy to be here.
Jill Koziol: Thank you so much.
JS: Okay, well let’s get started. Liz, I want to start with you. I’d love for you to introduce our listeners to the Motherly brand and why you and Jill started the company.
LT: Well, thanks again, Jamie. This is a thrill, and I loved the way that you spoke about how Motherly intersected with your own motherhood journey. So, I’m a mom of three. I have another baby on the way, and realized about four years ago after my second son was born, that the idea of Motherly was actually missing in my own life. That the media environment was really not keeping pace with the culture of millennial women coming into motherhood. And around me I was seeing highly educated, highly self-aware women becoming mothers and wanting a more positive, uplifting, expert-driven, modern approach to parenthood coming from the media. My background is as a journalist. I worked for about 10 years at The Washington Post and knew that the way that we talked about motherhood just wasn’t keeping pace with the lived reality.
And I knew Jill. Our husbands went to business school together, but we were both working at the time. And I knew Jill, but I didn’t know her quite well because we were both so busy as new mothers, and also in our respective careers. But just about four years ago, in March, I floated this idea to her to create a brand, really, that could represent this more positive, empowered, whole-woman approach to motherhood. And it just so happened that my interests and skillsets were perfectly matched with Jill’s, who just has a totally different background and skillset in many ways. And it was kind of off to the races from there.
JS: That’s great. Thank you. And yes, what a momentum has been built by this company. I mean, it’s just amazing to see the response and that clearly you all have filled a need out in the market. Jill, do you want to speak to this as well? In your eyes, I’d love to hear what is Motherly and also, what is Motherly not? Because I think that you all have a really clear vision for that, and I’d love to hear you share more about that.
JK: Absolutely, thank you. So, Motherly has been, has really evolved over time. We launched out as a media business, as Liz said, and always with the intent of being a brand that could solve this woman’s deep and urgent needs across her entire journey of motherhood, from planning a pregnancy through pregnancy, the toddler years and beyond. That we would grow with her through her journey. And for us, Motherly, and for this generation, motherhood and being motherly is an opportunity to nurture, not lose, your true sense of self. And that’s a radical thing in our culture. The concept of motherhood in the past has been around self-sacrifice, and words like nurturing and caring and sacrifice are what one would associate with this concept of motherhood. And as Liz said, we didn’t see that as being the full picture. That it really left us wanting, and didn’t feel like it was really defining us individually as mothers, and really this entire generation beyond.
And so, Motherly is about expanding that definition of what it means to be motherly. It’s allowing being driven to go alongside with being nurturing, and being strong as well as caring. And so finding a way for those things to live together, because truly this generation is incredibly diverse, incredibly educated, and also the first that’s digitally native, in really this level of awareness of the resources that are available out there, means that she has a lot of choices. And so, we’ve tried to build a community and a brand that women can really relate to individually and that we all together can redefine what motherhood is.
JS: [Yes.] No, I love that. And this idea of growing with her throughout that journey, and in terms of nurturing the sense of self, I think as well, not only in the mothering experience, but as a digitally-native generation, so much of our sense of connection can be removed from one another actually. And so, I think the Motherly brand has really helped to enhance connection versus what you often hear about the media experience sometimes being isolating. And so that’s been really meaningful to me as well.
And I want to transition to the book a little bit here, in terms of how this relates to your overall brand and this gift of nurturing mothers and their true sense of self. This is Motherhood is a collection of reflections and practices from a variety of voices, as you say. I mean, all these different perspectives about the journey of motherhood. And I think we’ve done a great job of not only providing inspiration and support, and I think some shoulders to cry on along the way, but tools for all kinds of mothers and mothering experiences. Being written by mothers for mothers, this is an opportunity for all of us to see ourselves in this book, which I love so much.
Jill, you’ve said that this book is an anthem, and I want to hear you speak more about this and what this means in terms of an anthem and also to the next kind of phase of Motherly as a brand.
JK: Yes. I’m so proud of this book and what all of team Motherly and the Sounds True team has done together to bring this to life. And it is a way for us to bring the Motherly brand to life in physical form, to take that digital experience into the physical. And we are redefining motherhood. And so, the title of this book, called This is Motherhood is really us putting a stake in it and saying that, “This is motherhood.” We are defining it together. And it doesn’t look the way that it did in the past. And so, it was really important for us to have a variety of experiences from different cultures, different backgrounds, different ways in which women became mothers as well, to be reflected in this book. And for us to be able to say that everyone is defining for themselves what motherhood looks like. And we are so proud that every woman, we believe, can be herself in this book as well.
And so, this concept of it being an anthem for us and really for this generation is what we’ve tried to pour our heart and soul into with this book. At the end it’s an anthem, but it’s also our love letter to all the women that walk alongside this journey with us.
JS: Absolutely. What a nice way to say that. And I also think that it’s not only redefining the motherhood journey or motherly journey for all of us out there, but I’ve found that even engaging with the community, engaging with this book and these practices is helping me redefine all the time how I see myself as a mother, and what things actually are “motherly.” And what a gift to be able to have that sense of empowerment and to see ourselves in this variety of perspectives and so differently.
LT: This is Liz.
JS: Yes.
LT: Can I do something on that theme?
JS: Please.
LT: Because we very deliberately wrote this book and sort of structured the book to be accessible to women at any point of the motherhood journey. And I agree with you that I’ve found going back to even some of the practices that we have, that just depending on what challenges you’re having as a person, as a woman, as a mother in that season that we have these extra practices at the end of each chapter that give you a new way of finding purpose and meaning in whatever stage you’re in. And just a big part of why, frankly, I wanted to start Motherly and why we’re also so proud of this book, is that the stories that we tell as a culture about women and about motherhood, they shape us. But when those stories aren’t true, they negatively shape us.
JS: Absolutely.
LT: And we wanted to more accurately provide the real story about motherhood, that it’s powerful, that’s it’s transformative, and that it’s not just one single event of becoming a mother when your first child is born. But all of the ways that the challenge of this experience continue to redefine us as human beings throughout our lives. And for me that’s why we’re just so proud of it, because it’s telling the true story of what motherhood really represents in our lives.
JS: Absolutely. Yes. And I want to speak about the self-care practices in just a minute, because I know those are very meaningful for you, Liz. I wanted to hear from you and Jill about self-care in your own lives and how you practice that. But one thing that you’ve spoken about in terms of the definitions or some of the assumptions that we inherit or absorb as mothers, something that this book and that Motherly kind of focuses on, is how motherhood unites us in so many ways. And that’s rather than dividing us. And I think that when you look out into the culture and media, that’s not always how mothering is portrayed. In fact, I would imagine there are a lot of moms listening who would say that the mothering experience is actually filled with some unfortunate opportunities for judgment and comparison, and the things that are not as nurturing and supportive as what you all are trying to create. And so, I’d love to just speak a little bit more about how the book and Motherly, as a brand, exemplifies this spirit of unity in your own eyes.
JK: So, this is Jill. In many ways, the American nuclear family has killed the village, and we really felt like that is hard. Parenting, if anything, has gotten more challenging as the rate of change in the world continues to accelerate, and that we’ve really felt like we need a village. Generations and generations of history have always had this village concept that was there to support women and families forever. And as that’s gone away, specifically in the U.S., but really increasingly around the world, that this need for a digital village is really there. And that yes, I experienced it myself, also, as a working mom who at one point was a stay-at-home mom in transitioning mode really had a hard time feeling like there was judgment and things imposed on me that really impacted how I saw myself as a mother.
And we exist, Motherly exists, as a way of really empowering women to make the choices that’s best for their family. And so, we in this book and in all of our content is not prescriptive, but rather is there to inform and inspire and to help women feel as though they can make the best decision for their families. To trust themselves, to see themselves at the end of the day with the confidence that they’ve got this, and doing that in a way that doesn’t impose a value one way or the other on the choices that are made. Because at the end of the day, we are all as mothers and as parents, trying to do the best that we can. There’s love at the core of every choice that we’re making, and there are hard choices and challenges across the entire journey.
And so, we are here to try to push forward this concept of “you do you,” and that that doesn’t have to be a judgment against a different choice that maybe I made in my family.
LT: Yes, Jill, I love that. And this is Liz. So, my background again, was really in media and publishing. And what I realized is that this idea of the Mommy Wars wasn’t just outdated, but was also, frankly, invented by media outlets to drive traffic and pageviews and audience by outrage, by pitting women against one another. And I think, in a very artificial way at times. I’m not saying that we can’t be judgmental of one another and experience negative things in our real lives, but that it just wasn’t really reflective, culturally, of how women in general behave and see one another. And so, that was a realization of, “That’s just wrong.” Women deserve better than media companies trying to anger them to drive an audience, right?
And we thankfully have proven that you don’t need to do that to talk about motherhood in a meaningful way. I also think that social media is playing a unique and constructive role in the representation of parenthood in the broader culture. Because for the first time, women are able to share snapshots and slices of real moments as mothers that were effectively unseen, right? A funny story of potty training that they post on Facebook, or a sweet moment at the end of the day that they share on Instagram. And that parents are, millennial parents in particular, are really giving and insight into the struggle and reality of parenthood and modern parenting. And because of that, what we see is a surge of empathy and largely non-judgment of people saying, “You’re doing the best that you can,” or what we hear so much at Motherly when we share our stories and the stories of our community is, “I needed this today. I don’t feel so alone anymore.” And that idea of using the digital experience to help people not feel so alone is just so powerful and real and unique to this generation.
JS: Yes, absolutely, and I think as you’re saying, these similarities that are between our experiences or common among our experiences, it’s not so much of like, “Are you breastfeeding or are you bottle feeding?” Or, “Did you have a natural birth or a medicated birth? Are you working or are you not?” I mean, we’re all in this, the similarities far outweigh some of those differences that we have. And I think that so much of the stories that you’re telling on the site and also through this book are really, there’s a commonality that we can continually see this thread of, frankly, some of the funny and raw and, in my world, sometimes absurd parts of being a mother are all represented there and are really true, and they’re celebrated, as opposed to being seen as oppositional.
LT: Absolutely. We are always looking at what are the real, the balances of what are the real struggles that women go through, the real achievements they celebrate? And so much of it is universal. It’s unique to your story, but it also connects to this universal, sort of undefinable, experience of motherhood.
JK: It’s also, this is Jill, one of the things that I think also sets this book apart and our approach to motherhood apart, is that we are woman-centered, versus baby-centered. And that this is one of the first times that women have stood up and said, culturally at this time, and said, “See me, too. See not just me as this vessel for this baby, but also see my importance in growing this child and in caring for this child. And the importance of the health and well-being of Mom.” And really starting to put motherhood up on the pedestal where it belongs as well. And for the first, what feels like the first time, to really see Mom as a woman as well as a Mom.
JS: Absolutely, yes. And that’s, I want to get back to this concept of self-care and seeing each other, or seeing ourselves as something that is worthy of care. It’s not us after all the things in our lives and after everyone else is cared for. Yet this concept as we are always hearing of, “Put your own mask on first on the plane.” Taking care of yourself so you are able to show up, not only for your family, but for yourself in ways that nurture you. And Liz, I know that in the process of creating the book together, self-care practices and journaling exercises were really important to you, as you’ve already mentioned here. And I just want to speak more about the importance of that in your mind, and also I want to hear about self-care practice in your own life and what that looks like.
LT: Absolutely. Well, I am a self-care work in progress. That absolutely was critical for us in this book to not just give women space to reflect, to see other stories that reflect their own experiences. To read about other stories, for example, we had a woman who experienced infertility sharing a story about her own journey. I have not gone through that experience, yet some of the takeaways and lessons she learned along the way were incredibly powerful and meaningful to me as a woman. So, finding those insights and sort of moments of wisdom from all of those stories, is really, to me, a powerful experience when you get at the diversity that we’re representing here. But we didn’t just want to inspire women. We didn’t just want to give them different perspectives. We also wanted to kind of leverage what is always a motherly approach, which is working with experts to give women easier access to tools that they can use to be truly more empowered in their daily lives.
And what we determined in this book is that those were going to be called these practices. And these 10 practices at the end of every chapter that guide women through some reflective practice that they can then journal about and put into practice in their daily lives. There’s many that I loved from the book. One certainly sticks out in light of a conversation we had, we’re having about the role of the village, to share one example.
In this case, the idea here is that, as Jill mentioned, the traditional concept of the village has gone away. And yet mothers need that village more than ever. And so, we had a women’s health coach walking the readers through how to think about, define, own her own village. There’s actually nine different steps that she can take. One of them that I love so much, and this relates for me personally on how I sort of interpreted this, is number six, which is,”Do your part, and only your part.” So, it’s tempting to fill our lives to the brim. Only doing your part is key. So, to me, that has for me, gotten into my own practice. But having experts guide us simplifies what can be an overwhelming time in our lives, doesn’t mean every piece of advice works for us. But we try to present a diversity of types of experts to help women in those different areas that they might really be struggling.
JS: Yes.
LT: And for me, personally, I can certainly share more about of how, what I personally consider self-care.
JS: Please.
LT: And in the context of this book. I think probably my favorite chapter is the Simplify chapter. And it is really all about giving yourself permission to not have to do all the things all the time. And it sounds basic, but from a self-care perspective, I had to learn how to give myself permission to go to bed early enough in the day. And it felt like, for me, that I could never be done. Of course I’m never done. I’m a mother. I help run a business. There’s always more work to do. But on a very basic level, learning how to let myself go to bed, that is a very important practice in self-care that I learned and also refined through working at Motherly.
JS: Yes, that’s really, really helpful. And I think that permission to see ourselves and to prioritize what our needs are, it’s really tempting to, “Well, I can do this one more thing, and this is my only time to myself.” And so, I commend you for that, and it’s something I’m working on in my own life, too. Jill, I want to hear from you. What’s your self-care experience, and I don’t know if you have anything you want to highlight from the book in this regard as well.
JK: Yes. So, one of the mantras that we have at Motherly and that I try to live myself is that, “Self-care is not selfish.” And that it really is required. We have to, we can’t put ourselves at the bottom every time. We can’t make sure that we show up last for ourselves. And as Liz said, it’s a work in progress always, especially as mothers that are nurturing and caring for so many other’s needs. But for me, about a year after we launched, or I guess a year after our first conversation and about three months after we first launched Motherly, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And that was a really defining moment for me, that I first actually write about publicly in this book, This is Motherhood. And through that experience, just being very blessed to have amazing access to medical care and the fact that I will never hopefully fully develop MS, it really shook me to my core to realize that I was not taking care of myself across a wide variety of things.
There was certainly the stress and the work related to launching a business like Motherly, which is all-consuming. It was also having two young children, and just always putting myself last. And so I did make some changes along the way, and for me, it is about finding small moments in my life to exercise self-care, whether that’s actually going for a walk while on a conference call. It’s taking that 30-minute turbo yoga class. It’s also knowing the power of saying no. I think that for me personally, and for a lot of women, saying no can often seem that we can’t handle or take on something can feel like weakness. But I’ve learned that that can actually be a point of strength.
And that one of the easiest ways to actually protect oneself is to not even say no immediately, just when asked to do something, whether it is to run that bake sale or take on that new initiative at work, rather than immediately saying yes or even immediately saying no, just taking that moment to say, “That sounds like a wonderful opportunity. Let me think on it and get back to you.” And allowing yourself that grace of a moment of self-reflection, for me has allowed me to figure out how I want to prioritize that option in my life, and what do I have to get rid of in order to do that thing. What those trade-offs are like. And it allows me to come back and to feel confident when I do say no about something, or to also feel really confident when I choose to say yes and to take on something more, that I’m able to give it my all, without sacrificing my own health or the other things that I prioritize in my life.
So, for me, that ability and that power of no and knowing how to do it, to exercise that muscle, has really been a really freeing form of self-care for me.
JS: That’s great, and something I’m sure that so many moms can relate to. Yes, go ahead, Liz.
LT: No, I just wanted to add one element as well. So, within that Simplify chapter we have an essay, and the title here is “See Yourself the Way Your Child Sees You”. And for me, I love this essay because it’s so freeing, and the things that we can get wrapped up in. It’s a really beautiful reflection, but it also reminds me, and I think this is a core value of what we represent at Motherly, that we need to mother ourselves as well. And in all the ways that we make sure our children get enough rest, and have time for fun, and don’t spend too much time on their screens, it’s a realization that mothers need to be mothered as well. And having a self-awareness around that, that we deserve all of the balance and care that we provide for our children. Just as much, because we’re also running—in many cases—running these households, and we need to be strong, rested and resilient in order to be there for the journey.
JS: Yes. And I think that, I love the theme that we keep coming back to in terms of mothers deserving more. And I love that that’s a priority for you all, and for the brand. I think something that is also such a gift in terms of the perspectives shared in this book and Jill, it’s one of the essays that you wrote. You touched on the fact that you’re still learning to be a mom. And I’ve really held onto that and used that in my own life in so many ways. I feel like all of a sudden we’re mothers and we’re expected to know how to do it, and to be perfect in that journey, and to be all-knowing and prepared and to anticipate all the different needs.
And the reality is that we’ve never done this before. And that grace, that invitation that you provide in your essay about, “I’m still learning to be a mom,” and sharing that with your daughter. I’ve shared it with my own daughter now. That really resonates with her. She’s like, “You are.” I said, “You’re learning how to be a human. I’m learning how to be a mom. We’re in this together.” But what a gift, to allow mothers to relax into that realization as well, that this is literally a practice.
JK: It’s so crazy to me, Jamie, how much pressure we put on ourselves. And to be truthful, were it not for Motherly, I would not have taken the time to reflect and to see the amount of pressure I was putting on myself. So, Motherly has been such a gift to me, honestly, and to my family. And so, this essay that you’re referencing, I mean, I smile and almost tear up when you reference it, because it has been so transformative for my family and for my relationship with my daughter, also. I had an experience when I wasn’t at my best with my daughter when she was only about three years old. And I think I had raised my voice or had just been too hard on her. And when I saw how she crumbled under that, and how what an impact I was having on her, I in the past would have berated myself for that. I would have taken days, right? I would have just been “bad mom.” All of those things that we have coming at ourselves a lot.
And instead, I just took that moment to be really, really real with her and sit down and tell her that I’m sorry. I apologized to her, and I explained to her at even three, that I, all the things that she was going through for the first time, that I’m going through them as a mom for the first time, and that I’m not going to get it right every time too. And that everybody makes mistakes, and we’re going to make a lot of mistakes together along the way. And for your daughter who’s four, and mine, who I think was three at the time, it’s amazing how powerful that can be for the relationship and for each of us as individuals.
Claire, my eldest, takes such pride in the fact, she talks about it still, now at almost seven years old, that she is helping teach Mommy how to be a mommy. And it’s really strengthened our relationship. And yes, it’s freed me up from this vision of perfection that I was never going to meet. And I think there’s more authenticity and more realness and real love in our relationship as a result.
JS: Yes, what a gift to give to our children, as well, in terms of allowing us all to show up and have an authentic human experience that is not always perfect. And so, we’re going to make mistakes, and model mistakes being made, and allow that to be an invitation for them, as well, to have a genuine and authentic human experience. So, well thank you for that. It’s been really meaningful for me, and it’s something I carry around all the time in my heart as a reminder.
Before we move on, I want to ask about the culture at Motherly, as a branch. Because I know there’s so many things that you all stand for in terms of values. And as a business, how do you help influence or bring those values in to the people who work at the company?
JK: So, so this is Jill. This is so critical to what we’re doing. We are very proud to be for women, by women at Motherly. We are living and breathing this motherhood experience and this experience of women every single day, and creating, we strive every day to create a culture inside Motherly, on what we call Team Motherly that is inclusive, that is empowering and that is also really authentic. And we do that in a lot of ways that are tangible and intangible. Some of the tangible things that we do though are, we are a 100% remote organization. We are really trying to create this next generation workplace that can enable parents to thrive. And so, we really try to talk about work-life integration versus balance, and finding ways to ensure that a breastfeeding mom can be working with feeding their child and on a conference call with us or a video conference call, which is something we try as a remote company to leverage a lot. So, that’s one of those things.
We also are here to celebrate the small and the big moments in each other’s lives. Whether it’s buying a first home or a child’s first step or first day of kindergarten, those real moments in women’s and family’s lives, really being there to support those, and encouraging each other through all of them. Another thing around the culture of Motherly is the fact that we put our users and their deep needs at the center of every single decision that we make. We are a brand that we are monetizing. We are a business. And so, when we work with other brands to reach and to talk to our audience, we don’t talk about just creating wins for Motherly and for that brand or that customer of ours. But we always talk about how to also create wins for our mom, for our user. And that is at the center of every single decision that we make, and it’s something that we’re really proud of. And we feel like that is reflected in our community and the loyalty that they have for us as a response to that.
JS: [Yes.]
LT: This, if I can add one more thing, this is Liz. We also talk a lot internally, but also externally and in the book, about superpowers. And I think for me and Jill, we did have parallel lives before we met, but we are incredibly different kinds of women, kinds of mothers. We have very different professional skillsets. And we’ve discovered that truly playing to our superpowers at work is sort of part of our secret sauce. Like I know what I do best. I defer to Jill at what she does best. And that value is one that we take into our company as well, like really celebrating people’s superpowers and helping them find and hone their superpowers.
And, I would add that that is absolutely something that is a core value of Motherly. In the world, that we really believe that motherhood helps bring out superpowers in us often that we didn’t even know were there. And for every woman, that is something different. And that we just want to be here to celebrate what it is for you. And so that the strengths of those superpowers is what we talk about with Team Motherly in the world and also internally as co-founders and with our team.
JS: Well, and it’s also here at Sounds True now, because we’ve been talking about it on our team since working with you all. And what I love about it is not only celebrating these gifts that sometimes emerge as part of motherhood, but also seeing your strengths as superpowers. I think that oftentimes it’s a given and something that we just take for granted, and to be able to recognize that in ourselves and in one another is just yet another gift of this experience of working with you all.
Okay, I’m going to transition to something a little more personal here as we come to the end of the time together. And as you all know, this podcast is called Insights at the Edge, and in the program we’re always trying to explore our edges in terms of our own growth trajectory as people and humans in this world. For example, my own growing edge is really slowing down and ensuring that I’m taking the time to deeply connect with my daughter and my husband, and that in all my interactions with them, I’m prioritizing our relationship. Not all the shoulds that live constantly in my life, but them. And us. And trying to lead with love, so my daughter always feels seen and loved in my interactions with her, and my husband as well.
And as a person who prides myself on crushing to-do lists and getting things done, slowing down to experience life with more presence is my own growing edge. And I want to hear from you all about the growing edges in your life. So Liz, do you want to start us off?
LT: Absolutely. Well, actually Jamie, you introduced me to Tiffany Dufu, who wrote the book Drop the Ball. And I actually recently interviewed her for our own podcast, The Motherly Podcast. And her philosophy of not worrying about doing it all and focusing on, frankly, what your superpowers are, where you can make the biggest impact in your family life, what you want to go big on in life and what you can let go of, for me that’s where I’m finding a lot of personal growth and meaning, and challenge! I’m about to have my fourth baby. I’m the co-founder of a startup. My life is incredibly full. And so, for me it’s about learning how to be… in almost a disciplined way, and frankly, discipline is not a superpower of mine. So, in a disciplined way, just being incredibly intentional about how I spend my time.
That means not mindlessly scrolling through social media. It means going to bed early. It means having clarity of purpose at work. It’s incredibly easy to try and crush through the to-do list, just like you mentioned, Jamie. But being so focused and intentional on where I’m making a difference at work, or I’m making a difference in the world, or I’m making a difference at home with my family, and what I want to really focus on with my children, that is a
moment-to-moment challenge that is really top of mind for me.
JS: Yes, thank you. And so, so, relatable. Jill, what about you?
JK: So, I would say, it’s the start of a new year still, 2019. At this point, we are incredibly busy women. And one of the things that I’m seeing as a growth opportunity for me is to focus on one of the most important relationships in my life, which is with my spouse, with my husband. And that we have a five and seven-year-old daughters, we both have incredibly intense careers. And we’re coming up on almost a decade of being married. And during that time, it’s so easy to let the relationships with children take over, and work and other things to always take priority, similar to self-care.
And I’m really focused on, kind of my edge right now is nurturing that relationship, and making sure that we’re finding time for each other. Because in many ways, as a family, our time with our children is actually a gift that’s limited in time, and that the gift that we have for the rest of our lives is with our spouse, with our partner. And so, making sure that I’m taking that time to be purposeful and present with him, and that we’re prioritizing that relationship, because that’s the biggest gift that we can give ourselves and frankly, our children.
And so, we’re really being a lot more intentional thinking about that. And I should say, we have that gift now, in part because our youngest child is five. And the physicality of parenthood is not what it used to be for us. And so, we have a little bit more of an opportunity to do that now. But I’m really excited to be pushing ourselves to make sure that we’re really connected along the way.
JS: Yes, something that can get lost along this journey as well. Okay, my final question for each of you, because we’ve been talking a lot about superpowers, actually, is what are each of your superpowers? And how did you come to see them and experience them in your life? And did you identify them for yourself? Did you have some help identifying them? Just what was your experience of that unfolding? Jill, do you want to start?
JK: Sure. We talk so much about superpowers. There’s really two, I’d say, that kind of show up a lot in my life right now. One is from my consulting days. So, I was a consultant for a dozen years, and when one is a consultant you have to jump from project to project along the way, and really kind of have that mind space shift quite often. And I’ve found that that is an amazing superpower, especially in a startup, as well as in parenthood. The ability to compartmentalize information, and even emotion in some things, so that work doesn’t necessarily have to carry over into that moment with my children, so that I can be really present with them. And that I can shift from one challenge to another on the work side of things, that has been a superpower that I feel like parenthood has strengthened, my consulting days have, it helped create. And that is really key to success for me at Motherly right now the ability to compartmentalize.
And then the second one I’d say is actually around brand, and really understanding the power of brand when building a business. And for us at Motherly, we weren’t setting out to build a media company, or to build a product company. We were really setting out to build a brand that could have generational longevity, that could be here for a really long time, and that women and families could take on as their own and really define it for themselves. And so it’s something that I’m, I mean, Jamie, I think, through the book process, you can attest to this, I’m pretty obsessive around brand.
JS: Not you!
JK: I take that on as—
JS: Not you! No, I’m teasing. Yes.
JK: But I take that superpower on as being one of my roles at Motherly is to be custodian of our brand. And I think that it’s one of the reasons that we’ve been able to grow, and to be able to translate now this digital brand into a physical good brand, through the book as a starting point for that.
JS: Yes. And I actually really admire how much clarity you have around the brand, and how able you are to hold that in the highest regard, and how much you all have done to define that. And you’ve put so much care and attention into that. And so, I think, I’m teasing you in terms of how stringent you all are in some ways about maintaining the brand. But it has really served you well, and frankly, it’s a beautiful brand. And so, it’s something that worth getting behind in a big way. So, kudos on that.
JK: Thank you.
JS: Yes. Now Liz, what about you? What are your superpowers?
JS: Well I’m laughing over here because never in a million years would the things Jill described be used to describe me. I think that’s a very good thing for us. But it’s actually hard for me to describe the first superpower. I’m also going to name two. I think I’m really good at identifying how things connect together in our business in ways that are hard to see, or not obvious. And to toot my own horn for a second, Jill and I just pulled up a recent e-mail of the original idea for Motherly that I sent her over e-mail almost four years ago. And the vision that I was sort of laying out of where women’s needs were intersecting with evolving businesses and evolving media environment, like, I kind of nailed it. I was really excited to see that we’re really living up to the vision of what was kind of living around in my head. But it truly needed Jill and her operations understanding and clarity to help bring Motherly to life. But I think sort of seeing those intersections in the world is a superpower of mine.
Secondarily, I would add, I think that understanding digital audiences and just having a laser-sharp content focus and understanding of the power of digital content is a superpower of mine. But it’s also something that I’ve honed for a decade. And so, to anyone listening, a superpower doesn’t mean that you were born knowing how to do this thing. Maybe it intersects with a natural talent of yours. But I have been running digital media operations for 10 years and it is an incredibly intense data-driven experience. And so when you do that over time, you develop. It’s a muscle. It’s an intuition. And I’m really proud that I’ve been able to bring that skillset to Motherly in a way that helps serve the daily needs of validating and encouraging women.
JK: The funny thing about that, Liz, is I was just thinking you often say that you’ve been doing it for 10 years. But it was 10 years before Motherly, and you are doing that every single day, so it’s actually 14 years now. We are getting old, is what that means.
LT: Exactly. Mother of four. Yes.
JS: Yes.
LT: Exactly.
JS: Yes. And this is only a few of the superpowers that you all have, in my experience. So, thanks so much for outlining those. And also just for encouraging all of us to think in that way. I find that really liberating and validating to recognize that we all have these within us.
LT: Absolutely.
JS: What a wonderful conversation today. Thanks so much for your authenticity and for really showing up today for the conversation. And I also just want to express my gratitude for building such an amazing community and resource for mothers. Myself personally, of course, in terms of how I found you all, but for so many millions of women now. So, thank you for being here with us.
LT: Thank you, Jamie.
JK: Thank you Jamie, for the opportunity. You and Sounds True have been an amazing partner through this experience, and I’m so excited that it’s just the beginning.
JS: Yes, indeed. I’ve been speaking with Jill Koziol and Liz Tenety, who created This is Motherhood, a new book from Sounds True and Motherly. This is Motherhood will be released on March 12th, 2019, and it will be available everywhere you like to buy books. This book was such a pleasure to work on and a true heart project for me personally, and I hope you enjoy reading it.
For Sounds True and Insights at the Edge, I’m Jamie Schwab. Thanks so much for listening today. SoundsTrue.com, waking up the world.
TS: Thanks for listening to Insights at the Edge, produced by Sounds True. At Sounds True, we are dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely accessible. The new Sounds True Foundation exists to remove financial barriers and make sure that people in communities of need have access to transformational tools and teachings. You can find out more at SoundsTrueFoundation.org.
I also want to invite you to our first in-person Sounds True Gathering, which is a fundraiser for the new Sounds True Foundation. Join us and connect with some of your favorite Sounds True authors in the beautiful redwood forests outside of Santa Cruz. It’s a three-day experience filled with learning, exploration, nature, and connection. It’s all happening September 26th through the 29th, 2019. To learn more or reserve a ticket, just visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org/event. Again, that’s SoundsTrueFoundation.org/event.
Thanks again for listening, and I look forward to being with you next time. SoundsTrue.com, waking up the world.
