Cultivate Community, Find A New Path with Judy Schoenberg and Linda Lautenberg
In this episode of Good Enough for Now, EvolveMe founders Judy Schoenberg and Linda Lautenberg walk us through their career trajectories, pivots, and relaunches to show us how they’ve been able to cultivate a community of support, accountability, and inspiration.
After building out a program for women returning to work in the social impact sector, career-pivoter Judy and career-relauncher Linda realized the need for programming developed for the specific needs of women at mid-life. They founded EvolveMe as a way to help mid-career women kick-start their career transformation through curated programming and support from each other.
Tune in to hear how Judy and Linda have mobilized their complementary differences to create a partnership that fuels a robust community of women toward empowerment and success.
EvolveMe is offering two generous opportunities for listeners of Good Enough For Now:
Sign up for the next Reinvention Collective and save $500 off of tuition with the promo code special. Apply here.
Or, if you’re not ready to take that leap, sign up for a free 1:1 Breakthrough Session with Judy and Linda to determine if their programs are a fit for you here.
LISTEN NOW
Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
Identify the transferable skills you may not even realize you have in your toolkit
Discover the transformative nature of an empowering community of accountability
Reinstall the confidence you need to make a change in your career, regardless of where you are in life
Highlights
We chat with Judy and Linda as they embark on their third year of EvolveMe and prepare to launch their seventh signature training program, The Reinvention Collective.
They first met five years ago when they participated in a fellowship program for women returning to the workforce in social impact.
Judy: My heart gets all mushy and warm again, every time I get to tell it [the origin story] because it is so moving that we can do this in partnership because truly, as you know as partners, it's better together, right?
When the program leader got a full-time job, the startup founder tapped Linda and Judy to work together to rebrand and execute the program together.
In 2019, after hosting a summit for women returning to the workforce, they realized their audience wasn’t just workforce-returners, but also women in midlife looking for new opportunities.
Judy: We really felt like we found our niche specifically, you know, for women in midlife coming from both of our, you know, different, but complementary experiences. And that was like the kernel of how EvolveMe was born.
Their differences lie at the root of their compatibility, across all spheres of their lives. Judy was a career pivoter and wanted to change careers after fifteen years at Girl Scouts. Linda, on the other hand, was making a career return after being a stay-at-home mom for sixteen years.
Linda: We just fill in each other's gaps, even personally–our children are kind of just at like kind of stacked on top of each other in terms of ages. She lives in the city. I live in the suburbs. She never stopped working. I had a long break. So we really can span a lot of different experiences. She's got an educational background. I was like Wall Street and finance and business. So it's kind of cool that we bring both of those viewpoints together.
After the summit in 2019, the startup moved away from its focus on women. Despite this, Linda and Judy were energized by the experience of their partnership and the community that was created at the summit.
Linda: We were really disappointed because we were coming off such a high because it had been amazing…seeing women all come together to try to figure it out…just seeing women's confidence come back or clarity come to them.
As they started to narrow down what their niche was, they realized that all the women they worked with were in some kind of transition point in their life––may that be a career change, a divorce, or a return to the workforce after caring for children or other family members.
Linda: Just in general, those kind of inflection points seem to hit women even harder because ultimately we are the ones that are the caregiver. Whether it's children, other family members, whoever it is, we end up being that just by default. That's just kind of how it ends. And so our careers get derailed and have to zig and zag a little more to accommodate for that.
After working at Girl Scouts for fifteen years, Judy was eager to move forward in another direction. She decided to focus her energy on women and workplace issues.
Judy: It was just like so much a part of my identity…I just felt like I needed to shed that. I needed to shed the title, the role, the organizational affiliation, and really be out there on my own and leverage the experience that I gained in Girl Scouts and really take the research into a more applied setting and really use it to create practical action steps.
Judy: I really saw that we were setting the next generation of girls up to fail if we didn't tackle this issue, because I don’t wanna choose between can I be a mother or can I, you know, work?
Judy and Linda use their own experiences to help shape and form the practice and programming at EvolveMe. They measure their success and fulfillment with the impact it has had on the people and companies that interact with it.
Judy: We have all these groups that we support, but they also energize us. So we're paying it forward from what we've experienced, but there's nothing better than women writing to us and saying…“You know, being in your community and going through your programming has just been life-changing for me.”
We created what we wish we had.
Like Judy, Linda was also at a transitory point in her career when they first met. Originally a marketing major, she fell into a finance career and attended business school before leaving the workforce to become a stay-at-home mom.
Though she actually really enjoyed working in the home, she had a difficult time completely embracing her new role.
Linda: It took me, I would say, probably a solid five years…and one other child to really get comfortable with the fact that I am a stay-at-home mom and that's what I am, And you know what? I am really lucky that I can do that. And I should just be bathing in this because I really, really like it. But because I had done all this work up until then, and I had gone to a prestigious business school, that was a heavy mantle to carry around. So I felt really guilty, just kind of enjoying this time in my children's life, but I eventually got past it and just really dove into really loving community service, you know, volunteering at some non-profits and things, but it took a long time for me to get there.
When her kids grew older, Linda decided to re-enter the workforce. The skills she’s found herself utilizing in her current role are the same ones she’s spent the last sixteen years cultivating through motherhood and community service work.
Linda: I wish I had been paying a little more attention to it, but all that work that I did as a stay-at-home mom, all the nonprofit work, all the juggling kids…all the skills that I was developing then are what I'm using now in my role… it didn't seem like that to me then, but that is really those skills and not any spreadsheet analysis or deal-making. That's not what I'm bringing into EvolveMe. It's all the other, the soft skills, the transferable skills, supportable skills, the figure-everything-out-on-your-feet kind of things. That's what I bring to my career right now.
Judy and Linda work with very talented and highly credentialed women, many of whom have experienced success in their careers before. Despite this, they find many women lack the confidence to make the change they feel they need to make in their careers during midlife.
To help them to regain that confidence, EvolveMe encourages them to think critically about the things they’ve engaged in and the transferable skills they cultivated that they perhaps unknowingly have been adding to their toolkit.
Judy: What are those transferable skills, those social and emotional skills? So leadership skills, communication, conflict resolution, all those things that they probably have. They're not really thinking that they belong on their resume…we help them see that they do.
In addition to helping the women identify their transferable skills, Judy and Linda encourage them to think deeply about their values and what fuels them.
Judy: Your values can be your north star, right? And like for women who are making a change, it's not so much about a title or role as much as like a culture fit now and the right people in the right environment…When you identify your own values, you can look for workplaces that really resonate and reflect your values.
At EvolveMe, women from different fields at similar places in their lives share the same space–a space that quickly becomes one of possibility, inspiration, and accountability.
Judy: The magic is in the cohort…When you have women across all different fields come together, they'll see things in you that you might not have even ever, or your colleagues, might not have recognized…You'll hear a management consultant say to a graphic designer like, oh, did you ever think about this? And then the sparks start flying and then you start seeing new possibilities and you start internalizing that new identity for yourself too.
The experience of the cohort is the glue that holds EvolveMe together to drive its impact forward. By offering a space where women can connect and check-in with one another regularly, the community becomes accountable for one another. It is this accountability that rebuilds the confidence many women need to step forward in a new direction.
Judy: We have accountability pods for women to continue to meet with on a regular basis. And that really gives them the momentum to know that it's really just taking one step in front of the other and experimenting your way. And it doesn't mean that the next thing is going to be the job that sticks for the next five to 10 years, or maybe even a year. But each move you make–even the smallest move–gets you closer. And that reinstalls confidence.
The job market is responding to this confidence with enthusiasm. As more companies embrace hybrid and remote work post-COVID, more women are realizing the possibility of returning to the workforce.
Linda: We keep having women or companies reaching out to us asking, you know, we're looking to fill rules with women that are returning to the workforce. People are seeing that value and realizing that it's really just all this untapped potential of people that have had to step away.
When discussing how they make their partnership work, Judy and Linda credit their success to the understanding, open communication, and trust they have built with one another.
Linda: It goes back a lot of it to being just women and mothers and daughters and community members.
Linda: You have to trust the other person. You have to be working with somebody that's really smart that you don't feel like you always have to double-check their work and that, you know, they've got your back… you have to really be working with the right person, somebody that gets you.
Judy: I think that we just have each other's backs, and I think that underlying that is trust. I trust her 100% to make decisions on our behalf if I'm not around and vice versa, I trust that she's working as hard as she can, even when she's dealing, you know, we, each other are dealing with our own lives outside of EvolveMe.
What Good Enough For Now means to Linda:
It is not only good enough for now, but like really enjoy the now. Be aware of what now is instead of thinking about good enough for now because I have to get someplace else.
Pay attention to everything around you, pay attention to what you like. What are you enjoying? What gives you flow and what are people coming to you for help? And what skills are you using?
You are growing no matter what you're doing at every stage of your life. You are growing and developing and learning new things that may not be obvious to you to be something that somebody would pay you for later…Pay attention to what's going on now and enjoy the ride.
What Good Enough For Now means to JUDY:
I guess good enough for now, to me, means there's a season for everything.
The careers don't have to be linear. I thought that they did for a really long time that that's what success looked like, what advancing from one role to the next, to the next, along this very clear trajectory. And there is a season and there's a time for different things, to express who you are and what you care about in different ways. And if you could be okay with this in this season, this is good enough for now, this feels good to me–I think that that would give people just a sense of grounding and compassion too for themselves, and they'll be able to extend more of that to others.
ABOUT
Judy Schoenberg and Linda Lautenberg are the co-founders of EvolveMe.
Before founding her company, Judy Schoenberg was Chief Research Executive at Girls Scouts of the USA and her work has been featured at the White House, MAKERS, npr.com, cnn.com, Reuters, Forbes.com, USA Today, The Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post. With a Master’s of Education from Harvard University, Judy holds board roles at several nonprofit educational institutions. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two kids.
Linda Lautenberg is herself a career returner and before a break to focus on caregiving, she led a highly successful career in real estate finance and securitization. Linda holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, is a Chartered Financial Analyst, and was nominated to the Forbes 50 Over 50 list. She lives near the Jersey shore with her husband, is a recent empty nester with 3 children.
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Harper: (02:50)
Welcome Judy and Linda. We are so happy to have you here today.
Judy: (02:54)
It's great to be here. Yes, we're really excited to be here. Thank you guys.
Harper: (02:59)
Absolutely. So tell us where you are in your life right now. Judy, if you wanna start and then Linda.
Judy: (03:05)
Sure. Well I am speaking to you all from Brooklyn, New York and I am the co-founder of Evolve Me here with Linda Lautenberg. And we are in our third year of our company. Um, it's hard to believe and kind of emerging from the, I guess we could say post pandemic ish moment. So are really excited to be getting out and meeting new people like you all on virtually and in person now. And I'm a mom. I have two sons. I just had a transition in my household over the last week. The oldest one went to high school. So dealing with that kind of back to school time, definitely a transition point for our family. And also I have a little bit more time for myself now in my business as my kids are getting more independent.
Stephanie: (03:54)
Congratulations. And Linda, where are you?
Linda: (03:59)
So normally I am at the Jersey Shore and Judy and I kind of meet in the middle when we work in the city. But right now physically I'm in Fresno, California visiting my oldest daughter. So we're really excited to be in our third year of Evolve Meet, launching our seventh signature training program, reinvention Collective. So we're gearing up for that in October. We're so excited about that. And personally, I am also going through some transitions in my life right now. I just empty nested. So my third daughter just started in college. Um, she's, it's her first day of school today, you know, and I'm out here in California helping my oldest daughter through something. So it's transitions and transitions.
Stephanie: (04:41)
always the only constant is change. Right. So speaking of change, you two got together in partnership to launch Evolve Me, albeit maybe during or as the pandemic began. Tell us about how that came to be and what paths you took to get there.
Judy: (05:00)
Sure. I feel so lucky every time we're on a podcast just to call into my co-founder and to retell our story. I feel like my heart gets all mushy and warm again every time I get to to tell it because you know, as partners it's better together, right? So we met a few years ago at a startup where we both got a fellowship to do a program for women returning to the workforce in social impact. And I had a career in the nonprofit sector. I had never kind of left that sector, but I left my role 15 years and I was um, looking for a group of women to kind of figure things out with. And so there was this fellowship at this startup and I did it also for research purposes cuz I thought I might wanna do that training and facilitation work with women.
Judy: (05:45)
So I'm a career pivot. Um, Linda joined the program right after me at the fellowship as a career returner can she'll tell you more about that. But she had a 16 year, uh, break from the paid workforce. And long story short, the woman who was leading this program got a full-time job in Connecticut and the startup founder tapped Linda and I to work together to rebrand the program. We had a tremendously successful summit in 2019 for women returning to the workforce specifically in social impact. Um, and then from there we brought a group of women together to do a deep dive training with. We had a lot of success with the summit and then things changed. Uh, this was even before Covid, but the startup wasn't focused on women anymore and kind of lost some of its funding. And Linda and I really felt like there was something there there.
Judy: (06:37)
And you know, not only did we have women coming to us who were returning to the workforce, but we had women who were working and saying, Do you have something for us? I'm in my forties or I'm in my fifties and I wanna do something else. I have it in me to have a next chapter. Do you have anything that would help me go through a similar process? So I'll hand it over to Linda, but we really felt like we found our niche specifically for women in midlife coming from both of our different but complimentary experiences. And that was like the kernel of how evolved me was born. And it was born right before the pandemic and the end of November of 2019.
Linda: (07:15)
Yeah. And me too, I feel so lucky to have Judy to work with. You know, we were kind of thrown together by this company and it just turned out that not only our skills were so complimentary, but even what Judy likes to focus on and what I like to focus on, we just fill in each other's gaps. So when we decided to start evolving, we were really wanted to decide where to meet stand. And we realized that all the women that we had worked with, there was some kind of transition point in their life and it all seemed to be happening in midlife, including the women that were coming asking us if we could help them make a career change. Some women were coming off a divorce, some women's kids, they were older so they needed them less. Some women's kids were older so they needed them more.
Linda: (08:00)
You know, there were a lot of sandwich generation people having taken a break from workforce to care for an elderly parent. There was one woman that had had to take a break for her own illness. Mm-hmm. , whatever it was. The transition point seemed to really impact, not that they don't impact men as well, but in general those kind of inflection points seem to hit women even harder because ultimately we are the ones that are the caregiver, whether it's children, other family members, whoever it is by default. That's just kind of how it ends. And so our careers get drilled and have to zig and zag a little more to accommodate for that. And so those are the women that we are looking to support and serve.
Harper: (08:44)
I love that. And what's so special about your story is that this founder of the startup identified that you too would be a good pair. It's not like you guys had already come together, this founder did that. And here you are having built a business after that, which I just think is absolutely incredible. Can you share with us a little bit more about what led you to be interested in these topics given your own careers and lives and your own journeys?
Judy: (09:12)
So for me, I worked at Girl Scouts of the USA for 15 years. I was chief research executive at the end of my tenure there and I focused on women and girls leadership development. So that's a passion of mine. And I led a lot of national studies on the topics that we get translated into program development and marketing and branding materials and all of that. And so I did a lot of project management and a lot of research and writing and speaking engagements and I loved all of that. But I felt like I always waffled between kind of doing the more desk job work versus working more directly with people. And I yearned to really have more of the one on one or one to group experience directly with people. And I saw myself coming up on the magic number of 50, well I left Girl Scouts when I was 44 and I said, you know, I had started here right out of graduate school.
Judy: (10:06)
You know, I've changed so much as a person in so many ways and I had it in my mind that I did not wanna turn 50 here, that I knew that I needed to take a leap to have my own professional growth happen for me. And so working for an organization that's like a household name, like you go to a cocktail party, everybody knows Girl Scouts, like you have the coolest job, what do you research cookies? Like all of, you know, like so much a part of my identity. And so I've just felt like I needed to shed that. I needed to shed the title, the role, the organizational affiliation and really be out there on my own and leverage the experience that I gained in Girl Scouts and really take the research into a more applied setting and really use it to create practical action steps.
Judy: (10:54)
And I was specifically focused, I really had in my mind that I wanted to work on women and the workplace issues because I really saw that we were setting the next generation of girls up to fail if we didn't tackle this issue. Because I didn't wanna choose between can I be a mother or can I, you know, work And like I ultimately decided to to stay in the game and work. But it wasn't easy and I, I did consider leaving it multiple times over the 10 years when I was there when I had children. And I just felt like this was the nut that I wanted to crack even like just kind of tip away at it in the next iteration of what I did. And I found it so isolating when I took that leap to be out there on my own. And I also had a career coach for a little bit of time, but nobody really helps you figure out what you wanna be when you grow up.
Judy: (11:47)
Like not out of college, not out of graduate school certainly doesn't really happen in your role because you know those roles are there to retain you. And so I felt like I needed to think about this with a group of women. And I always go back, I have a lot of different friend groups, like that's my go to figure out problems with a group of like-minded smart women who I could also call colleagues and friends. And yeah, I was lucky to find that group in the startup and that was just the tip of the iceberg because really now I feel like with Linda and I have like we have all these groups that we support but they also energize us. So we're, you know, paying it forward from what we've experienced, but there's nothing better than women writing to us and saying like being in your community and going through your programming has just been life changing for me. Like we created what we wish we had. So yeah, I feel like we're succeeding. And also, you know, obviously we're learning as we go, we're like flying the plane um, as we're building it. But it's really actually thrilling and exciting to be an entrepreneur. I never thought I would be one. And we have more support in the women's entrepreneurial community than I ever had in my career.
Stephanie: (13:00)
It's interesting because in some ways you could look at the story that you just outlined and say, oh she just sort of fell into this. But I think the thing that resonated most for me is that you at some point, whether by happens dancer intentionally, you found other people and you created a community. And I think especially for women who find themselves taking on more roles in their lives, whether it be because of a relationship, a caregiver, you know, a pivot in their own health and wellness, oftentimes we are so isolated and we don't wanna admit maybe everything isn't as good as it looks on the outside. So Linda, can you talk a little bit about some of the internal challenges you had in getting through your pivots and times? Maybe you did question, am I playing the right role in my life or what else do I want?
Linda: (14:00)
Absolutely. And I have to say like, I love the name of your podcast because it's so fitting for so many points in my life. So really quick, my backstory is when you talk about falling into your career, I was a marketing major in Minnesota and I took the job in finance just because it was in New York. I was like, oh I could live in New York. Okay, I can do that. And then 10 years later now I've got a finance career, right? I never had any interest in finance whatsoever. So just because you can't do something doesn't mean you should. But when you take that first job, then you get promoted, then you go to the next thing and the next thing, now all of a sudden you're going to get a master's degree for that and you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, but you just keep moving on.
Linda: (14:46)
Right? So I was very fortunate to be able to take a break from the workforce, but at the time I didn't see it that way. I mean it was a family decision. So my husband's a physician, we were living in Manhattan, he joined a practice in New Jersey, we moved, there was barely internet at the time. You certainly couldn't remote work and not in the kind of work that I was doing. So I kind of fell out of the workforce really more as a trailing spouse. And I think that happens to women a lot more than we realize. And now I guess you could maybe maintain a career online or something, but I couldn't at the time. So I would say that it took me because I wasn't thinking about what was good enough for now , it took me, I would say probably solid five years and one other child to really get comfortable with the fact that I am a stay at home mom and that's what I am.
Linda: (15:38)
And you know what? I am really lucky that I can do that and I should just be bathing in this because I really, really like it. But because I had done all this work up until then and I had gone to a prestigious business school that was a heavy mantle to carry around. So I felt really guilty, just kind of enjoying this time in my children's life. But I eventually got past it and just really dove into really loving community service. You know, volunteering at some non-profits and things. But it took a long time for me to get there. So fast forward, you know, three kids, the oldest one is getting ready to go to college, all of a sudden I'm like, okay, I got a little too comfortable here. So now I'm working myself out of a job. I don't feel really qualified to do anything other than scheduled children and unload a dishwasher.
Linda: (16:29)
I mean I'm doing, you know, all the like good nonprofit work I'm doing too, but I'm not recognizing those as skills. And so I started thinking about what do I wanna do next? And I was really just spinning my wheels. Like I had no idea. So that was really hard and what Judy says isolating, it was really isolating because I lived in a community where it was honestly a lot of single income family, so I didn't have anybody to bounce us off of, you know? So then what happens is your husband starts suggesting things and trying to be helpful. So I did, I turned to my alumni group really just because they were starting a new women's group. So just to kind of try to turn that professional, you know, switch on a little bit mm-hmm . And then I happened across this program that I did with Judy the first time.
Linda: (17:20)
It was a four week program. We went into city four days and all of a sudden I turned that switch and I was back. But it was the first time that I had felt like a human being all by myself, not a mother and a wife really. I wasted about three years from the time I started thinking about going back to work, to the time that I started actually taking steps, life happens and families make choices and you should be able to come back into the workforce. And I guess what I really realized at the end of it, and I wish I had been paying a little more attention to it, but all that work that I did as a stay at home mom, all the nonprofit work, all the juggling kids, all the like the different things, all the skills that I was developing then are what I'm using now in my role. It just didn't seem like that to me then. But that is really those skills and not any spreadsheet analysis or deal making, that's not what I'm bringing into evolve me. It's all the other, the soft skills, the transferable skills, supportable skills, the figure everything out on your fee kind of things. That's what I bring to my career right now.
Harper: (18:27)
I'm obsessed with you saying that and I think it's such an important thing for our listeners to hear. And I think what stands out to me is how do you then coach and support your cohorts in going through these moments of being a stay at home mom or whatever life pivot is going on that then is going to lead them to want to go back to work and society is basically saying, no, no, no, no, no, you have this gap on your resume, you're worthless, you're not valuable to the workforce anymore. And you are proving so clearly Linda that that is not a thing. So how do you navigate that with your cohorts and help support them in realizing they do provide value and they can find a job or an opportunity that they're suited for?
Judy: (19:15)
Yeah, I mean one of the most valuable things that we can do with the women that we work with is we work with very talented, highly credentialed women who've had success in their careers before but they come to us often with the lowest confidence because they don't think that they can make a change, right? Because they've taken a break or because they've just been siloed in one industry. And so one of the most powerful things to help them regain that confidence is, you know, one of the things that Linda mentioned that she did herself was like think about what they have been engaged in. Cuz chances are they haven't been doing nothing, even if they were like not in the paid workforce for a few years. So thinking about what are those transferable portable skills? Now sometimes they're called power skills because they're so coveted in the workplace, especially with hybrid and remote work and building teams remotely.
Judy: (20:06)
Like what are those transferable skills, those social and emotional skills, the leadership skills, communication, you know, conflict resolution, all those things that they probably have and they're on their resume that they're not really thinking that belong on their resume. So we help them see that they do and they also belong in your LinkedIn profile and we go through a whole process to help them update, you know, their toolkit. But another key factor is also like remembering their accomplishments. So actually going through their career trajectory with them and helping them pull apart like their accomplishments and also what they love to do, right? Because you know, as I think Linda said before, you know, just because you can do it and you have the skills, it might not mean that you want to leverage those. Now what do you love to do right now? And we go through a whole process with them, you know, identifying what some of their accomplishments were, what they love to do now, and then their values.
Judy: (20:59)
Your values can be your north star, right? And like for women who are making a change, it's not so much about a title or role as much as like a culture fit and the right people in the right environment. And so when you identify your own values, you can look for workplaces that really resonate and reflect your values. So that's a big piece of it. One of the biggest takeaways in terms of making it possible for women to see that they can do this is other women, the magic is in the cohort. So we bring women together, it's an industry kind of agnostic group of women. So usually professional development is done in silos. Lawyers with lawyers or you know designers with designers, when you have women across all different fields come together, they'll see things in you that you might not have even ever recognized or your colleagues might not have recognized it because you're only working with people who are like you.
Judy: (21:53)
But you'll hear, you know, like a management consultant say to a graphic designer like, oh did you ever think about this? And then the sparks start flying and then you start seeing new possibilities and you start internalizing that new identity for yourself too. Like if this woman who's who I really admire can think that about me, like maybe it is true. And so you start taking that all in and then you also have accountability. It's easy to like Google and you know, you find something and you, you go to go to an event and then you come back and you're with yourself and you're like, okay, now what do I do? So we have like accountability pods for women to continue to meet with on a regular basis and that really gives them momentum to know that like it's really just taking one step in front of the other and like experimenting your way and it doesn't mean that the next thing is going to be the job that sticks for the next five to 10 years or maybe even a year, but each move you make, even the smallest move gets you closer.
Stephanie: (22:55)
Well I think one of the things that strikes me when you were just describing that is how the participants see themselves and a reflection of themselves by the other women in the cohort. Correct. So to me I feel like that just screens identity. So how do we all understand that we have different identities at different times in our lives and we're all, you know, maybe the same person but we use different skills and we put different goals associated with that. Our ambition doesn't go away just because we've taken on a different part of our identity for a certain amount of time. So that's the internal piece. But I'm wondering if you guys could comment at all on what you've seen externally in terms of how employers are finding the reflection of of identity from some of the women that you work with and are you seeing any trends or changes there?
Linda: (23:50)
Well I think one of the things that's really different now and you know, one of the gifts of covid, you know, so many gifts.
Stephanie: (23:58)
Yeah.
Linda: (23:59)
One of the things is that, you know, career breaks and gaps have become much more normalized because now kind of everybody's had them. And so people are realizing that the zigs and the zags in your career don't matter quite as much and if it's accompanied where it does matter a lot, then that might not be the right fit for you. Right? I mean it's so important to find that cultural fit more and more in our inbox we keep having companies reaching out to us asking like we're looking to fill rules with women that are returning to the workforce. People are seeing that value and realizing that it's really just all this untapped potential of people that have had to step away. And I guess now between that and the fact that remote and hybrid work is possible, it is just making it so much more possible for companies to tap into women that have had breaks in their career.
Linda: (24:52)
So I feel like there's really a moment for that. The flip side of that though is that if companies allow some remote or hybrid work and not everybody is doing the same thing, oftentimes it's going to be the moms that are taking advantage of that. And so we also like to remind women that it's so important to keep their communities together and stay involved and connected with each other at work and with other professional contexts outside of work because otherwise you can kind of become kind of shun to the side when you're not there for the water cooler talk, the coffee breaks the drinks after work. So that part of it is, it can be kind of a little bit of a blessing and a curse.
Stephanie: (25:33)
Yeah, I think a lot of companies are dealing with that. Mm-hmm , how do you engage employees and have everyone feel part of a bigger goal or a mission without those one off conversations, the happy hours, the things that while sometimes might have seemed superfluous. Mm-hmm were really important to be team focused.
Linda: (25:55)
Important to be team focused and also important for companies for people to feel committed to their companies and feel like they're a part of something and that they wanna stay.
Stephanie: (26:04)
Yeah.
Judy: (26:04)
Right. We have a whole other stream of work, um, which we won't get into too much here, but in terms of like women connecting with each other within their companies, we started to work with women's employee resource groups because we see that that connection isn't happening and you know, women wanna meet each other like across departments, across regions. And so there's a lot of opportunity there too for programming that makes those connections and gives women, you know, the professional development boost that they need.
Harper: (26:32)
I think that also is the blessing of Covid is that all of this stuff is being brought to the surface. Mm-hmm and it has to be addressed whether employers want to or not. They're being forced to address employee culture and ensure that people are happy. I mean also on the health and mental health front. Mm-hmm , they're having to prioritize that because employees are gonna leave if they're not in a place that they feel supported in. So I love the work that you guys are doing With that, I'm gonna pivot a little because I'm really interested to hear about your partnership. Obviously Step and I are a few months into bringing this podcast to life and doing these interviews and I wanna hear a little bit more about your experience in any sort of practices or routines that you have put in place for yourselves and each other in order to manage the relationship, do good work, and also respect each other's boundaries.
Linda: (27:29)
I'll go first. It's really a lot of it's just been very organic so we were blessed with the opportunity to work together before we launched our business. So we already kind of had a feeling for that. But again it goes back a lot of it to being just women and like and mothers and daughters and community members. And so there are ebbs and flows where there are times when I just, I don't see how Judy can have one more thing on her plate and you know that when that happens then everything explodes, right? So when that's going on then I will be trying to pick up the slack. Like a really good example lately is I had a trip to Paris bringing my daughter to college and the week leading up to that I was just, everybody's emotional pillow lately, but there is no more beautiful example of how our partnership works and Judy really has like been taking on the lion's share for the last three weeks and I knew she had my back and I knew that going forward I'm m empty nesting and when she's gonna have things for kids and things I'll be able to take on more.
Linda: (28:37)
So it's been very organic and you just have to trust the other person. You have to be working with somebody that's really smart that you don't feel like you always have to double check their work and that you know they've got your back. And also there's times when um, we're just supportive of each other. Like sometimes you have a little imposter syndrome with your partner where you feel like, oh no I haven't been holding up my end of the bargain, you know, and they're right there saying, What are you talking about? You have to really be working with the right person, somebody that gets you. And I feel like you guys really have that, you know, but that just like gets you and that you're comfortable with.
Harper: (29:15)
I really appreciate you saying that about us. We'll take it, we will take all those compliments, , but I think about when Ste and I first met in person to address the podcast and start working on this in brainstorm, she said to me as we were leaving each other, we both had like Ubers on the way. And her last question to me that I think about regularly was, what's your biggest fear in doing this together? And without a second of thinking, my response was being responsible for reporting into you and checking in with you and the partnership because I'm going on eight years of running a business independently and while I've outsourced work to freelancers and I've worked collaboratively in many many ways, I've never been in a partnership like this. So it's really interesting to hear your story and your perspective and it gives us hope for knowing what can come of our relationship personally and professionally. Judy, did you wanna add anything to the question related to your partnership?
Judy: (30:19)
Sure, I agree with a hundred percent of what Linda said. I think that like we just have each other's backs and I think that underlying that is trust. I trust her a hundred percent to make decisions on our behalf if I'm not around and vice versa. I trust that she's working as hard as she can even when each other are dealing with our own lives outside of evolve me. Um, I think open communication. I wish sometimes we had that more in my marriage. Like it's like it's like a marriage , you know, you see the similarities and speaking of that, we've become good friends too and like our partners have become friends. It kind of evolves like that because you're so intimately involved in each other's lives and I think that we make time I think which is important. Like at the beginning of the week, what happened over the weekend?
Judy: (31:10)
Okay, how is this, how is that so that we really are starting off like downloading about our whole lives. And actually that's goes to a point of why it really is moving to me to be doing this because for so long I really wanted to bring more of my whole self into my work and I wasn't able to do that in the organizational culture that I was in. I couldn't really talk about my family that much or having kids or being a mom or who knows what you know is going out outside of my work life. And now I get to do that with Linda but also with our whole community. So like that's really important to me and we're just really encouraging of each other's ideas too. And yeah, I could never imagine doing this alone. I probably wouldn't do it on my own. So I'm glad that I found Linda.
Stephanie: (31:59)
Yeah. Hence why I thought about doing a podcast for probably almost five years and it wasn't until Harper and I met and she had had a podcast and we were talking about it and kept in touch once she moved to Tel Aviv and we were both having these chats and saying we should be recording this. Why are we not sharing this? Everyone we know is going through some kind of reevaluation or transition. We need to be bringing people into this. Mm-hmm . So I'm so glad that you said that. I do think openness is so key and common ground, which brings me to the common ground question we ask every guest at the end of our conversation. So I'm gonna start with you Linda, it's your turn. What does good enough for now mean to you?
Linda: (32:47)
I think that apart from just being kind to yourself and realizing that you're juggling a lot of things and you're doing the very best that you can, I think the other take that I'd put on it is not only good enough for now but like really enjoy the now. Be aware of what now is instead of thinking about good enough for now because I have to get someplace else. Like if I was going to do it over again, what I would do differently. What I recommend to women that I talk to when they feel like they're in this middle fuzzy place is pay attention to everything around you. Pay attention to what do you like, what are you enjoying, what gives you flow and what are people coming to you for for help and what skills are you using in things? Because no matter what you're doing at every stage of your life, you are growing and developing and learning new things that may not obviously to you be something that somebody would pay you for later. And not just in your work life, in all aspects of your life, in your volunteer work, in your family, work everything, you know, pay attention to what's going on now and enjoy the ride.
Stephanie: (34:04)
Oh I love that.
Judy: (34:05)
Yeah, I, some of what Linda said I was going to say about just living in the present and enjoying, you know, the now but also reminded me of something we were talking about earlier about identity and I guess good enough for now to me means like there's a season for everything. And I actually remember like when I was at Girl Scouts for quite some time, I was thinking about my role and my job in that way. I was like, I have two young kids, like this is a great job and it's also good enough for now because I've had a lot of change and I need to keep things status quo. I, you know, I was growing and developing and getting promoted in my role but like I kind of knew that I wanted the next chapter, but that role was good enough for now.
Judy: (34:51)
And like I would say that this is great for now, not good enough, but we're doing. But just to reiterate that careers don't have to be linear. I thought that they did for a really long time that that's what success looked like. Looks advancing from one role to the next to the next along this very clear trajectory. And like there is a season and there's a time for different things to express who you are and what you care about in different ways. And if you could be okay with in this season, this is good enough for now, this feels good to me. I think that that would give people just a sense of grounding and compassion too for themselves and they'll be able to extend more of that to others.
Harper: (35:34)
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us and for doing the work that you're doing that clearly is really necessary for this demographic. Can you share with us where listeners can find you and learn more about your upcoming cohort?
Linda: (35:49)
Sure. So our website is Evolveme.work. It runs for 12 weeks. Truly. We have had women come through the program saying that it's absolutely life changing and that has a lot to do with the women that they're working with together in the program. It's a virtual cohort. We drop a module every week. We meet online together as a collective once a week, then they meet in a smaller accountability group once a week. And we have everything time so that it's comfortable for as many time zones as possible. Um, because we do get women all over the country and sometimes outside the country, which makes it super interesting.
Stephanie: (36:32)
This is a great time dimension. If you're listening to this episode that Judy and Linda with Evolve Me are offering two generous opportunities for you. First you can sign up for the next reinvention collective and save $500 off your tuition with the code SPECIAL. Or if you're not ready to take that leap, set up a free one-on-one breakthrough session with Judy and Linda to determine your next steps and if their programs are fit for you at this link breakthroughsession.work
