Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And that beautiful young woman on the other side joining us from Newport Beach, California, which is not her home, but she's on the road right now for all of us can see. There's a lot of her books behind there. Jennifer McCollum. Jennifer, would you like to hold up one of those books, please. So our audience knows. The book is called In Her Own Voice. And we are going to be speaking with Jennifer McCollum this morning. And, Jennifer, good day to you. How are you doing?

Jennifer McCollum
Good day to you, Greg! It is such a pleasure to be with you to be in California, where I've spent the last two days signing 750 books. It's really an exciting time.

Greg Voisen
Well, that is awesome. And I hope that all those people that get your book, understand the message and read it and really do something with it because you've really written words of wisdom here. And I'm gonna let the audience know a little bit about you. She's the CEO of Linkage, an SHRM company for all of you who don't know what's SHRM. It's Society for Human Resource Management, where she oversees the strategic direction and global operations of the leadership development firm. She has delivered workshops, keynotes, webinars and podcasts to 1000s of leaders globally, on live and virtual stages, including 100. Leaders live Marshall Goldsmith 100 coaches conference, she and I talked about Marshall used to live right here in San Diego County and I used to walk with him on Saturday mornings. Chief Learning Officer exchange, Chester Elton's, leading with gratitude, LinkedIn live John Bologna's grace under pressure, LinkedIn live candy, oh, Terry's. And the list goes on and on and on. This book just is coming out being released, as you can see, and we're doing this podcast, she has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Chief Talent Development Officer, CEO, refresher and real leaders and she's a member of Marshall Goldsmith, 100 coaches. Well, you got a great bio, and you're a person who's done a lot of deep thinking about women in leadership. And really, as you said earlier, guys, as well. So we're approaching both of you out there who are listening today. And you know, Jennifer, right off the bat, you know, you stated in the book, there has long been a shortage of women at the highest levels of leadership. And, you know, I think any, if you look at the ying and the yang, and the feminine energy and the masculine energy and all that we've been dealing with, as a country, you look at our Congress right now can't get it together. And it's a bunch of men, for the most part, it's a lot of men, a lot of older men, and I'm not trying to be biased here. But you mentioned that only 10% of fortune 500 CEOs are women, and 1% are women with color. So what's the issue? And how did the pandemic change things? And why did you write this book and why now?

Jennifer McCollum
Well, Greg, you started with the quoting in the book, there has long been a shortage of women leaders. So let's just set the context for a minute. And then I can talk about what's changed a bit. So long been a shortage. For generations, women have not been represented and still aren't, equitably in the leadership ranks, it is getting better. A new study just came out last week, the McKinsey leaning study that tracks this. And yes, we did cross the 10% barrier and the fortune 500 CEOs, we joke a little bit lovingly now that there are as finally as many women CEOs in the Fortune 500, as there are men named John. And so we are making progress, but we have a long way to go. And as you point out, only 1% of those are women of color. The challenge, however, starts way back at the beginning. So men and women enter the workforce at roughly the same percentage that 48% women. But the problem starts at that very first promotion to manager where it's become 60% Men, 40% women, and by the time you move down the pipeline, the numbers that are most distressing are right there in the middle. That director to senior leader, Senior Director, women and the manager level women are not changing. They've barely changed one to 2% in the last decade. And so why is that? Well, there are a couple of reasons and we never want to make men the bad guy. But the truth is, it's a numbers game. So when you start losing think women in the pipeline early by the time you get to the senior leader levels, there aren't enough there. But the other piece, and this is again, where we really need all men and women at the executive level, but 70% are, are men and the majority white men, they need to see their role in how to solve the gender equity gap. And this is where we move beyond talking kind of, to the head about the data and the business case that is so well documented for women in leadership and diversity and leadership at all levels. And we start talking to the heart. And we start talking about men with daughters, and men who see the benefit for them, as they help women rise at all levels of leadership. And we can talk more about that. But what has changed and you ask, the question to begin with, is that COVID really changed a lot of things, the way we live, the way we love the way we lead, the way we parents, and coming out now for the last several years, what we're starting to hear and this is reinforced in our leadership data is that the expectations of leadership are changing, and words that you hear now about what the most effective leaders do. And words like empathy, or vulnerability, or openness, transparency, inclusion, those are actually the evolving expectations of leadership and women, by and large spike really highly on those evolving leadership expectations. And so the world is so well positioned right now, to really support the acceleration of gender equity in leadership. So that's a long answer to your question, but it was a big question.

Greg Voisen
Well, you know, I, as I see these interviews, even, you know, our military, our military in the US, I'm not certain, but others. But, you know, we have seen a shift in the way in which people even in the military are dressing it. I think that, you know, kudos to the US government for seeing this promoting more women leaders. I think it's, it's well needed, especially in an area where we're, we see so much strife going on, right. So, you know, you mentioned, and I think this is an important point, that it was discovered that women leaders perform better, they stay at their companies longer, and they advance their careers, when organization or when the organization properly addresses what you refer to as these four critical dimensions. If you would, I think for our listeners, it would be quite valuable. What are the mention of four critical dimensions you refer to as the strategic framework to advance women leaders,

Jennifer McCollum
I'm so glad you start there. Because a lot of times, people who want to talk about advancing women in leadership want to start with the women themselves. And I want to be super clear, this is not about fixing women leaders, women, by and large, are fantastic leader leaders. As I mentioned before, when we look in our database, where I always like to start is where you started, which is what we call the Advancing Women Leaders strategic framework. And it answers the question, what do organizations and leaders in those organizations need to do to solve this problem? And the first is looking really squarely at their culture. And we track this data, this we call it our organizational accept assessment. We track the perception of women toward their organizations, and we've got 20,000 women in our database, and we ask them related to the culture. Do you feel like you belong here? Is your uniqueness valued? Because we know if it doesn't create the conditions, the culture for women can thrive, they won't choose your organization, nor will they stay. The second is around what we call people processes and systems. And this is the this is your talent systems in your organization. And the question here is, are your talent systems equitable? When you're looking at the talent acquisition process, so bringing women into the organization? Listen, I hear so many times where women will say, even inside the organization, a job opened up, a man was placed into the job and the job closed, and we didn't even know that it was available. And so that's an example of inequity in talent systems, but you can look at pay, you can look at promotion, you can look at stretch experiences or succession. So that's talent systems. The third is the hardest one. And that's called executive action or commitment. And this is when women look up in the organization, do they feel like there are executives who truly care and are committed and are taking action to advance women leaders, and this could look at like executive sponsorship, or executives being very vocal about the goals in the organization and how the leaders are going to be held to those goals for the advancement of Women are people of color. And then there's the last one. And the last one is, is my personal favorite. It's the second lowest scoring. But it's the one we can all do something about. And that's leadership development for women. Now, really important point. When you and I get this all the time, well, if we focus on leadership development for women, aren't we excluding the men? And here's the truth. What it takes to be an exceptional leader is the same across the spectrum of gender linkage has a whole another set of data and research and perspective on that we call it purposeful leadership. But the path to leadership is different for women. We experience unique challenges, we call them hurdles, and higher than others face. And that's what we need to focus on helping women become aware of those hurdles, and helping all leaders in organizations support women in overcoming them. Well,

Greg Voisen
you know, you face hurdles, just like men do, I think, and you've said that. And I think there's the human element side of this. And then there's the process kind of side of it. And in the human element side, the psychological hurdles, this show is about personal growth. I want to address this inner critic. You know, much of the book is focused on what you refer to as these hurdles that women face. But these can also be hurdles that men are facing as well. And you address these hurdles for our listeners, I'd like for you to and especially this mega hurdle that never goes away, according to you, which is the inner critic, and that is true no matter what sex you are. And the journey that women need to take to face these hurdles. Because it is a journey. There's a lot of other hurdles. But this one is probably one of the biggest hurdles is our inner voice, which the ego is saying you're not good enough. You can't do this. And this is a prevalent everywhere.

Jennifer McCollum
You're absolutely right. And you started at an important point, which is all of us face an inner critic. It's just that the woman's inner critic is a little bit louder. And it can prevent us from taking action. And I'm going to tell a story because I think it illustrates it best. So we start with the inner critic, we call it the Uber hurdle. It's the one that weaves its way through all of the other hurdles, because it amplifies them, and it makes the others worse and harder to overcome. The trick is to get in touch with your inner hurdle to become aware of it and to pause and to become more compassionate with yourself. And to question that inner critic. So here's my story. When I was approached, and this is about five years ago, I was approached by a very well-known Headhunter headhunting organization, about the potential for me to be the CEO of linkage. Now, I was, I was taking a small sabbatical to try and figure out and get clear about what I wanted to do next. And on paper, this seemed like the perfect job. But my inner critic went crazy. And it sounded like this. You're not ready to be a CEO, you've never been a CEO before, you need to be a number two first. So you can be properly groomed, or a CEO has to manage her way all the way down the p&l, the balance sheet, the cash flow, you've never had to do that. In publicly traded companies, you've only stopped at the gross margin line. You don't know enough about finance, op X, EBIT, da net income, you're not ready. And my favorite was, What kind of mother are you? You've got a kid in elementary school and middle school in high school, with a big job taking you to Boston every other week from Washington, DC, you cannot be the type of mom you want to be with that job. So it was relentless. This these voices that were really preventing me from even responding to the opportunity. And I'll tell you in a moment how I overcame it. So does that inner hurdle, as

Greg Voisen
well, one of the things you know, that you mentioned, and the book is that you used to get your clarity, which was one of the hurdles. And actually Bill Burnett has been on the show designing your life. And you took this sabbatical, to actually take the course that Bill and Dave Edwards created. And I went through it as well, and I understand how important it is. But I'd like you to take a few minutes if you would to talk to the audience about, you know, this process that you went through to get this clarity and really advise our listeners about creating a clarity statement because this is The point in your life where things were very conflicted. You had all these inner critics. But you found this great little course and took this little bit of a sabbatical. And I love Bill Burnett. I mean, he's wonderful. So I think that it's probably this isn't a plug for them, but it is a plug for what they do.

Jennifer McCollum
Yeah. So in clarity is that we actually introduced the hurdles in order and clarity is one of the earliest hurdles and the idea is you if you can overcome one of the earlier hurdles, it will help you with the rest of them. And, and clarity is one of the ways I overcame my inner critic back to the original story. So what had happened during that time and the reason I reached for Bill Burnett's book by the way, there are many ways to get clarity, we talked about those in the bulk of this, that's not the only way. But it was one of the things that I chose and that designing your life book is based on design thinking principles applied to your own life. And so I spent actually spent many weeks you don't have to quit your job to do this. By the way, I did it with a group of girlfriends, so I call them my vision Easter group. And we were committed to making our lives better and supporting each other and doing so. I personally was focused on my career, another friend was focused on relationship. Another friend was focused on her health. So clarity comes from getting in touch with what brings you joy. What brings you energy? Conversely, what's what drags you down? And how do you fill up your, your fuel tank, if you will. And so for me, coming from publicly traded companies, the easiest thing for me to do in my job search would have been to jump to another publicly traded company and run a business unit, I'd been doing that for the better part of 12 years, I was talking to the Deloitte and the Accenture's, and the Miller hymens the Heidrick and struggles, but I wasn't, as I talked to those companies, my heart was not full, and it felt draining to me. So in the designing your life process, you actually prototype your life multiple different ways. And so that was the easy thing that I could have done. The next thing it was but if that doesn't work, what might you do? So the fact the second thing that I explored was, well, I've been a consultant before, what if I start my own business again? Or what if I go work for another startup. And so then I explored down that track, and I had conversation after conversation. And it was fascinating. There were opportunities. But again, there was something inside of me that said, you love a platform, you love a team, you love data and intellectual property that you can productize and bring to market you love creating a vision of a large vision that takes people and money and resources to, to execute? What about this middle market size company where you could be a CEO, or a number two? And Greg, I tell you, as I started exploring that kind of 20 to $100 million size companies, where I could conceptualize myself as a senior leader, maybe not the CEO, but I could see myself at the C suite table, I started to get very clear that that's what I wanted. And I explored nonprofits in that space, I explored academic roles like executive education. And then I discovered private equity backed portfolio companies. Greg, I didn't even know what private equity was, I didn't understand the business model of private equity. But once I started down that path of prototyping my life and telling people what I wanted, the size of company, the role that I had in the leadership space, the universe conspired to help me get that. And within 90 days, I had three different job opportunities. That was that I was actively pursuing, completely different from the publicly traded space or the startup space. So we're on that

Greg Voisen
private equity in that private equity segment, you know, they're really looking for a leader and they're giving leaders usually autonomy. And I think you're very curious woman, I can see that and nobody is going to repress your curiosity to come up with new ideas and figure out what to do. But you know, in this inner critic, you had a diagram in the book that spoke to I think the listeners and US and in fact is that it is grounded in the expectations we place on ourselves. And I think, you know, no matter what it is, you know, if we get tied up into expectations, whether they're internal or their external. There's a challenge with that. There's an old Buddhist philosophy around that don't get tied to the expectations or get it attached to them, I should say, because life works, the way it's going to work, there's kind of a master plan, talk about the one app or one I should say the one down or one up concept. I found it interesting. And also, if you wouldn't have the same kind of question rolled into that, you have this free assessment at Sherm dot o RG that people can take around calming the inner critic.

Jennifer McCollum
So I love that you're going deeper and deeper into the inner critic, and you talked about expectations internally or expectations externally. And when we, when we speak about the inner critic, we actually focus purely internally, because that's what you can try to control, we're not going to control the external bias or the external expectations that people life, family, boss may place on you. But we can look at how we internalize that. And we call that internal bias. So when I, when I got going back to the job opportunity example, at linkage, when my inner critic and that was an A, it was in a one down and one down is we're very critical or judgmental of ourself, and it can shut us down. Because the voice in our head is so loud, we it prevents us from taking action. So in this case, I was in one down. And when I got in touch with what is that inner critic grounded in, we need to look at internal bias. And I clearly had an internal bias, it was a belief that was not serving me. I mean, sometimes internal biases serve you very well, in this case, the bias was, you can't be a good mom, with a CEO job, or a big job. You can't be a CEO, unless you've managed the financials from top to bottom, which is when you stop and pause and look at those either one of those biases on its own. You can kind of dissect them and say, Well, wait a minute, I've run huge jobs and publicly traded companies I was I had the type of mom I wanted to be there. And you know, the truth is most of the time I was? Or do I really need to be a CEO, to have been a CEO, if I if I have never been a CEO? Well, when you start to think about it that way, every man who's a CEO had to have a first time CEO job, right? So you start to dissect these things. But here's the internal bias that most women really struggle to overcome, especially when they're in one down in that inner critic. And it's this. If it's going to get done, right, I have to do it all myself, or I have to be perfect. Now, again, it may be external bias or society or family putting those pressures on you, but that those internal biases are preventing us from being all we can be. And I'll pause there for a second and get your perspective. I haven't yet talked about one up. And that's when we project judgment toward others. And that also can cloud our voices in our head. Well,

Greg Voisen
I think, you know, look, it just a comment. But I think with leadership, and time and wisdom comes trust. And the reality is trust is such a huge element associated with delegation. That's what leaders need to do. They need to trust the people that are around them. They need to feel like they have a good team. And, you know, I was listening to a podcast at Tim Ferriss did. And it was interesting, he was speaking about his own trust issues. But the trust issue is an inner critic, because it's saying you, you have to do it for it to be right. And he is authoring a book right now with somebody wouldn't mention who it was because I think it's probably a big name, first book that He's authored in seven years co-author. He's never co-authored a book period. But he finally found enough trust to be able to co-author a book. Now, you might say, well, co-authoring a book isn't anything like running a company to a degree it is when you have a team coming together to do it. It is and the reason I mentioned in this is because trust is such a big thing. And I want to take you back a bit in your career, because you wrote about this in the book. You speak about this great story when you were the public relations manager for Coca Cola. And your first assignment was to manage a new media and branding for Coca Cola is titled sponsorship for the Olympic torch right rally. Can you relate the story for the listeners? And the point about women being able to take charge and take care because I think this was just like it's perfect timing for this question.

Jennifer McCollum
So this is this is a big one. And I'd like I'm going to tell you the inner critic the double bond Same story, and then I'm going to come back to the trust issue and bring it full circle. Because women more than men do faced trust challenges in letting go. But we call it the reason why we have a hard time letting go may be different for men. So I'm going to plant that seed, because I want to come back to a really critical foundational story that illustrates why women have these unique challenges we call hurdles. And the story I'm going to tell you is grounded in the double bind. So let me introduce the concept. And that is, this is a very well researched concept, I think it comes to life better with a story. But it's the idea that women, unlike men, have to be seen as fulfilling the stereotypes of both a leader and a woman. Now, when you layer in other forms of under-representation, like race, or ethnicity, or disability or sexuality, it becomes what's called the triple bind. But for simplicity, let's talk about this, the expectations we all have in the stereotype of a leader in our mind. And it doesn't matter who you are, we all picture an athletic, strong white man, usually a handsome one. And the characteristics we associate with that are kind of strong, assertive, and competitive and ambitious. So we are expected as women to fulfill those stereotypes of a leader. But we're also expected to fulfill the stereotypes that we all hold of being a woman. And that is sweet, soft, kind, collaborative. And unlike men, the expectation is that we can be one or the other, but not both. So if a woman is too masculine, and fulfilling the stereotype of leader were often described as too aggressive or too assertive, and not likable enough for that job. But if we fulfill the stereotype of a woman, and they see us in that way, then we're too soft, or we're not ready because we're not tough enough for that job. And so we're constantly toggling between these expectations and men don't have to face that. So here's the story. I was in my this is 27 years ago, I'm in my mid 20s. And I am trying to prove myself in my first incredible role at the Coca Cola company. You may remember it was 1996. The Ocarina was the number one song of the summer, and it was my job to ensure that the Coca Cola rings, the Coca Cola, sorry, the Coca Cola brand was associated with the Olympic rings and the Olympic flame. So Coca Cola paid millions of dollars to be the title sponsor, we took the Olympic flame across 42 states 15,000 Miles 10,000 torchbearer with 10,000 torchbearers over about three months. And when we landed at the, the, the Atlanta, Coca Cola headquarters now realize I had fought my way through three months of really being a little bit competitive with the Olympic Organizing Committee, because they don't want the Olympic rings tarnished by any corporate branding. But we wanted the corporate branding aligned to the Olympic rings. So I had a nemesis who was the Head of Communications at the Organizing Committee. And he came up to my boss, and said to him, that Jennifer Scheer is like a cupcake with a razor blade inside. My boss relayed that to me with great humor and joy and thought it was a massive compliment. But I'll tell you, that image has never left my mind of being described as a cupcake. What, with a razor blade, would a man ever be described that way?

Greg Voisen
I doubt it. I really doubt it. And I hope that I hope we have Halloween coming up here I hope you're talking about I was like, oh my gosh, don't give up cupcakes with razor blades. But I get the analogy, right, that you had two sides of yourself. And I think, you know, you have to learn how to coexist with these elements as a strong leader as a woman. And, you know, I think we this is really important because one of the things that's talked about today is loneliness and happiness and how people are coping with all of this. The all of the challenges they're facing in this ever evolving modernity that we're living in today. Um, you know, and you and I both have a similar mentor and it's Marshall Goldsmith, and he was on here not recently speaking about the same topic, and he helped you understand the achieve that achievement and happiness are independent variables. And I think this is so important. Could you speak To the women and men, about the independence of these two variables, because, you know, it is I say, all the time, if you're expecting somebody else to make you happy, you're never going to be happy. Because it isn't someone else's job to make you happy. Achievement, on the other hand, you know, is like, hey, well, I'm supposed to be this great leader, great woman. And I'm supposed to be happy. And I'm not always happy. And I'm not always achieving what I want. So speak about those two independent variables. Yeah, and

Jennifer McCollum
in the context of that in my book, and yes, Marshall, Goldsmith is a dear friend and mentor and coach to me. And he did help me see, the trap that I was falling in with what we call the proving your value hurdle. And you made a really important comment a minute ago, so I don't want to I want to gloss over it. You said, look, we're all you know, women need to be multifaceted and demonstrate both sides of themselves, I would extend that and say, Look, we're all multifaceted, right? It's okay for men to actually demonstrate more of that cupcake side. And it's okay for women to demonstrate more of that razor. So pointing that now at the topic that you just raised. And I'm glad you talked to Marshall. Because when you talk about this independent variables of achievement and happiness, the way it comes to life for women in what we call the proving your value hurdle, and by the way, it's the number one hurdle that women face. So we spend a lot of time here. And it stems from the belief that if I just put my head down, and work harder and harder and harder and harder, without pausing to celebrate without pausing to ensure that people notice me in my competence, then I will blank, I will be happy, I will get the promotion, I will get the raise, I will get the resources. And so the tendency of the women is to believe that if I keep achieving, then some dangling carrot of a reward will come. Again, I'm not saying that men don't do that. I'm saying that for women, it creates this cycle of perfection, exhaustion, burnout, and unlikely that people will see you and reward you. And so the story I have here, actually, and this is where you know, where Marshall helps me, you know, helps me pause so that I can reflect the this this book that was it has just been launching, I got about four weeks ago, I got multiple boxes dropped right on to my doorstep. I wasn't expecting them. They were about a month early. So I opened the door. And they're all these boxes. And I looked at my husband and I said, I think I think this is the book. And so we drag all the boxes in, we open them up, I hold him up, I said to social media that take a picture, take a video, done, done, done, check the box, I put it down and I said I gotta get back to work. And it was this, I need to move on to the next thing. And I stopped myself, it took me a while it took me about 24 hours to realize I it was an incredible achievement. And I needed to honor the achievement for that achievement I needed to celebrate. But that achievement on its own, was not going to make me happy, I had already rushed off to the next thing, thinking that if I could check one more thing off my list, then I would be happy. Now the good news is when you're aware of this, you can stop yourself much faster. So what I did, and it was the it was the US Open it was the CoCo golf winning, winning final match. I invited some girlfriends over and I said this is going to be a celebration, Coco golf is going to win the US Open. And we are going to celebrate the launch of this book. And you know what? That is where happiness came from? Well,

Greg Voisen
I think it's a great story because it does come from you pausing, reflecting and understanding the achievement. Right? to just move on. It was I'm glad you did that, because it's so valuable. I think if you actually look at I would tell every author of this because I've been doing this now 17 years and I've had 1000s of books across my transit, some better than others some a little worse. But the point is, is that if you actually looked at what it took for you to write, edit, great the cover, come together with this team. And here's the part I think many authors don't. And I happen to actually see this from Brian Johnson the other day, he's got a new book out how its manufactured. How is the book go through the press system? Right? And he actually took videos into where the people were putting the books together to actually string in his own mind what it was like to get those books on your doorstep right for that book to show up at Amazon, for all the people that are involved in this process, and to send blessings to everybody out there who's helping you get that book. So I think that it's really and that really comes down to this. You know, you mentioned that once you've anchored, how do you bring value, the book is already value, you mentioned that we should categorize our work into four segments. And you did this on page 110, which I'm sure you've remembered, because you've been through it. But I wanted you to mention those four segments. And then I'd like us to wrap up this interview with you summing up three takeaways that you'd like to leave the listeners with about leadership, personal growth, and creating a purpose and meaning in their life. Right. So

Jennifer McCollum
that's a small question, Greg.

Greg Voisen
Yeah. Well, I mean, look, if you've been working with Marshall Goldsmith, you certainly have been working on your own personal purpose and bringing meaning in your life.

Jennifer McCollum
I love you. So I actually like how we've been swimming around the inner critic, and this proving your value hurdle. As I mentioned, the proving your value hurdle is the hardest one for women. And the story of the book and honoring and blessing. Every buddy, including yourself that has been through the whole process is such an important it would have been one of my three lessons at the end had we not just talked about it. But this is one of the ways to move out of this cycle of perfectionism and putting your head down and doing it all yourself is to lift up and enjoy the enjoy each piece of the process. So going back to writing a book, it took me six months to write the book. No, could I did I? Did I stop? With every completed chapter, bless the chapter, bless the team that worked on it alongside of me, and then move in after six months into the editing process, where it comes back again and again. And each round, could I enjoy and celebrate that piece? We're in the launch process. Now this is the ending of this book coming into the world. Did I truly enjoy the entire 18 month process as opposed to wishing it to a destination? And I think that's a really valuable for any stage of life or any work that you're doing in the world. Okay, so how do you get around this propensity to put your head down, do too much and perhaps take on more than you can which leads to burnout? And the or

Greg Voisen
don't think you're valuable enough? I want to add that because, you know, look, that's that inner critic again, right? That's the ego side of us that saying, you’re not enough, you got to bring more value. So that's when the books arrived, you spent two minutes you went on to the next thing, because you didn't believe your brain enough valuable that 24 hours later, you've turned around, came back and realize that how important was it for you really, to savor in that with your friends. And I think that's, that's a really look, if all our listeners take away is that from this whole interview, it was worth the time we spent, you

Jennifer McCollum
know what, Greg, you just helped me, I think we're on to something here. And this might be another internal bias that I'm holding, because we've been talking about this, this happiness, achievements, independent variable, variable thing, like I will be happy when, but I think it's equally you could it's you could remove happiness, and you could say, I will be worth it, when I will be valued when, and I think that's the inner critic as well. And that deep seated internal bias, where our value is really defined by our accomplishments, or our happiness is really defined by our accomplishments. And this is how all of us, but again, this is a huge challenge with women, our tendency to put our heads down and hope and believe people will see us people will value us, people will notice us and give us something, the reward, the money, the job. But here's how we get around that. And this is page 110. And this is, you know, clarity is really helpful with this. If I'm going back to our designing your life question, if I'm really clear about what I want, what success looks like for me about my life purpose, then you can look at your calendar and you can look at all of the things that are dragging you down and keeping you so very busy with your head down trying to prove your value and you can isolate them into four categories. And I did I do this again and again and I just did it this past year. The first is know where do I need to focus and shine. And this is I can't let it go. I Can't let it go because I'm uniquely able to do it. And you have to really be uniquely able. So for me, writing the book, as the primary author was something that I could not let go, it was mine to hold. So here you want to really focus in shine. But then there are other parts of your work or your life where you can advise and consult doesn't mean you can't be a part of it. But you don't have to own it. So an example here is no, my husband is actually an incredible shopper. He dresses me in fact. So it's up to me to help him see that, you know, our, our last child at home is growing so quickly that he's out of his jeans, do you think that Hunter needs some new pants, but I can let that go and completely believe that Hunter and ship will figure out the best pair of pants for him, I don't have to get involved with that, which also means I can't criticize it. Right? I have to fully let him own it. That gets back to the delegate and empower, advise and consult, I might have a perspective, I might notice something delegate, as Empower is saying, look, this is for my team, you can take this, the budget for the book we created together, you can manage the budget, I trust you to do that, and stay out of their way. And then finally, the quick and easy. I don't love expense reports. I don't love administrative tasks. I don't love writing performance reviews. I love delivering performance reviews. So what can I do really quickly and easily. To get out, I have to do it. But to then to really focus on the places that that light me up. So for me, I spend a lot less time doing the administration a lot more time engaging my staff. Mm

Greg Voisen
hmm. Well, helpful, you know, yeah, it was very helpful. And I think, Jennifer, look, self-compassion, reduction of anger, when I say reduction of anger, you know, people when things don't go right, oftentimes the way they expected to go, the first thing that happens is the emotion of anger. It's like, oh, it should have been better and some angry, why did this happen this way. But if you are having compassion, and something just came across my transit this morning, about tick non Han, there's a book that some lady has written around that, or the Dalai Lama, when you see him laughing all the time, you know, he's constantly laughing. And I come from a background in spiritual illness, which is around Eastern philosophies. And I look at this part about attachment, and how it creates anger, because you get frustrated, you get angry, but to have compassion, and women in particular, are the species that's supposed to be more compassionate, or loving, or caring, or nurturing, more, whatever, we're going to use the worm to describe it. And I think it's so important for everybody to take away the man as well as the woman, that this is something we all can have. And we all need to actually heal as a society is more compassion and more understanding for one another, for greater clarity of communication with our teams, with the world with how we send that email out to that next person. So if you would, because this was kind of the sum up question for the interviewer, I think leadership, personal growth and creating purpose and meaning in our life is really the most important thing. And when we get this right, we become not only an example to ourselves, but do an example to others, to actually say, okay, I like that Jennifer McMullen, what she's doing and what she stands for. What would you tell people today, that you'd want them to take away from your book?

Jennifer McCollum
I love, I love picking up where you leave off. This has been this has been a beautiful back and forth. This idea of compassion, compassion for self compassion for others is at the root of the inner critic. So the first thing that I would want people to take away with, take a way is this, make the investment, make the investment in yourself to stop and to become more self aware and to become more compassionate for yourself? For me, that took really, really looking at my life design and trying to figure out, where do I shine? Where do I thrive? And then being honest about where I don't. And so moving toward what's bringing me energy and what's bringing me purpose, and that creates a better contribution either as a leader, as a mother, as a as a friend, as a partner. So that's number one. Number two, I would say, seek clarity. Because when you identify through self-awareness, that that that purpose and passion, how it manifests in the world there is there unlimited ways that it can manifest asked. And I like what you said about we don't have to be too attached to the outcome. But I do like to be attached to the story of what success looks like. Because when you can share that story with others, again, it can be success at work, it can be successful relationship, it can be sex success and health or spirituality. When you share that with others, the universe really naturally creates energy for you to achieve that. And I have countless stories of things, and you do to have things falling into place, seemingly impossibly. But I believe it's because we've set that intention and put that energy forward. And then the last thing I would say is, surround yourself with people who lift you up, who support you. I didn't tell you the end of that story with the inner critic, but I'd like to end with it now. When I was stuck, and the inner critic was so loud that I couldn't even throw my hat into the ring for the CEO job. It was two men in my life who were peers at the publicly traded company. We were all our company had been acquired, and we were all looking for new roles. And as I was talking through this opportunity with them and saying, I'm not going to interview for the job, they sat me down. And they said, Jennifer, if we believe that we're ready for a private equity back CEO role, why do you believe you're not ready? If not now, when?

Greg Voisen
Yeah, great story. You know, look, you've covered a lot of ground. And for my listeners, will you hold up a copy of the book again, in her own voice? There you go. There you go. A woman's rise to CEO overcoming the hurdles, Jennifer, it's been an honor and a pleasure having you on and being able to speak about the book, your personal stories and journeys, as well as the personal stories and journeys of other women as well, which you've related in the book through research. And through your wisdom and knowledge of having dealt with so many women. I appreciate having you on inside personal growth, sharing your story. And for all of my listeners, we're going to have a link so that you can go get this book, it will be at Amazon. We also have a link to the Sherm page, it's S H R M dot O RG, and we're going to put a link there, because there's a great profile of Jennifer, as well as the website. If you have any need to reach out to Jennifer, go to that website, send her a personal email and let her know. And by most importantly, go to Amazon. And after you've read this book, leave a review for Jennifer about the book as well, because that helps others really understand that you liked the book, what you liked about the book. And if you didn't like something about the book, that's okay, too. But we appreciate everybody listening. Jennifer, thank you so much. Namaste to you have a wonderful rest of your tour with your book. It was fun having you on and being able to dialogue about the book and all the stories. Thanks.

Jennifer McCollum
Thank you, Greg. I so appreciate the work you're doing in the world.