Ever felt the pressure of juggling a high-flying career while carting your kids to soccer practice? Ashley Quinto Powell certainly has, and she's here to light the way for working mothers everywhere. With her book "Executive Motherhood" as our guide, we traverse the tightrope walk of work-life balance that so many moms face. Ashley, a trailblazer for mothers in the workforce, unpacks the societal expectations that nudge women towards deprioritizing their careers post-parenthood. Her anecdotes, coupled with tips on boundary setting, support systems, and strategic scheduling, offer invaluable counsel for those striving to nurture their professional and personal lives simultaneously.
Tune in as we discuss
the gender pay gap's outsized impact on women of color and mothers
the new blueprint for working moms
why we need more community action in support of single mothers.
Take a seat at our table of empowerment, where we honor the grit it takes to chase down dreams and be a bad@#$ mom in today's world.
Connect with Ashley Quinto Powell:
Her book Executive Motherhood: The Art of Having It All Without Doing It All - https://a.co/d/gITT3qV
Ever felt the pressure of juggling a high-flying career while carting your kids to soccer practice? Ashley Quinto Powell certainly has, and she's here to light the way for working mothers everywhere. With her book "Executive Motherhood" as our guide, we traverse the tightrope walk of work-life balance that so many moms face. Ashley, a trailblazer for mothers in the workforce, unpacks the societal expectations that nudge women towards deprioritizing their careers post-parenthood. Her anecdotes, coupled with tips on boundary setting, support systems, and strategic scheduling, offer invaluable counsel for those striving to nurture their professional and personal lives simultaneously.
Tune in as we discuss
the gender pay gap's outsized impact on women of color and mothers
the new blueprint for working moms
why we need more community action in support of single mothers.
Take a seat at our table of empowerment, where we honor the grit it takes to chase down dreams and be a bad@#$ mom in today's world.
Connect with Ashley Quinto Powell:
Her book Executive Motherhood: The Art of Having It All Without Doing It All - https://a.co/d/gITT3qV
Did she really do that? You, betcha? She did Hello and welcome back to you, betcha. She Did the podcast where female entrepreneurs, changemakers and leaders, especially from the Midwest, share their wit and wisdom. I'm your host, raina Rakiki. Today in the studio we have Ashley Quinto Powell. I am super excited to have her here. I saw her at the Green Bay Women's Leadership Conference and I've kind of been a fan girl ever since. Just to give you a little background on Ashley she is a serial entrepreneur and national speaker. She's the author of Executive Motherhood the art of having it all without doing it all, which is key, right there, right, as mothers, we always feel like a little crazy, but we don't have to do it all. She's also the founder of the virtual assistant agency, myvarocks. She's spoken about motherhood for TEDx, anitaborg, the University of Chicago's Polsky Center and many more. She lives in Madison, wisconsin, with her husband and two children. Ashley, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, raina. I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, Like.
Speaker 1:
I said, I'm really excited to have you here. So one thing I love about you is that you are recognized as a champion of moms, and I know a lot of my listeners are moms not all of them, but a lot of them are moms. Can you share with us your one defining moment or experience that really inspired you to advocate for mothers, especially working moms?
Speaker 2:
Sure, well, when I started having babies I was in the prime of my career and it was going up, and one of the reasons that I decided to have kids at all was because I was doing well, I had a stable job, I felt really good about the future. And then, sort of the minute that I started looking pregnant, the people that I was working with started sort of subtly asking if I was coming back and if I wanted to reduce my workload. And it was, frankly, the farthest thing for my mind and it was such a bizarre thing and I know everybody goes through it right. We have all of these subtle or not so subtle cues that we're supposed to leave the workforce, or we're supposed to go part-time, or we're supposed to be so devoted to our children that we leave the workforce for the first couple of years. And that's great if that's what you want to do and that's in your heart and that makes sense financially for your family.
Speaker 2:
But for so many of us it just doesn't make sense at all and we deserve to be able to be exactly as ambitious as we were before. And let's face it being moms make us better managers, better people, operations, folks. We just are amazing at what we do, and we do it really efficiently, and so we need to protect the executive pipeline, right? We can't send mothers home the minute they start having babies and then scratch our heads and wonder where all our female CEOs are Exactly. We sent her home and we stopped her career in its tracks and told her that she should be elsewhere and not at work. And it's not. It's not great.
Speaker 1:
No, no, it's not. I know it's interesting, it's, I agree with you. Like once you become a mom, all of a sudden it's like you're not allowed to have interests outside of motherhood or it's frowned upon. You know what I mean. Like there's these strange societal expectations, whether we put it on ourselves or you know wherever it comes from, but it's like why can't we just keep going with what we're doing and and you know, still be a mom to sure, but like why can't we do all those things? So how have you been able to handle motherhood and working and advocacy for mothers like that? That can be challenging, to have any advice or what do you found that's worked for you?
Speaker 2:
Well, I've tried all sorts of different things.
Speaker 2:
For a while I was working in Chicago for days a week and I had an apartment there and that put a state line for me between work and home and my kids were really young, but actually I loved it.
Speaker 2:
The only reason I stopped was because there was a fairly inconvenient global pandemic Small issue Stopped my travel. Right Now I think about work life balance way more holistically and like when I go over my week with my virtual assistant to sort of plan and like where am I going to be and what support do I need, I'm looking at all the calendars and looking at the kids calendars, my husband's calendar, my count, my work calendar, and so these days I take a really, really holistic approach, but I'm very shrewd about asking for help when I need it, which is not so easy, and sort of setting boundaries around both work and home in ways that work well for me. And you know, some of the things that I outlined in the book absolutely will not work for everyone. But the trick is figuring out what's going to work for you and your family, because it does not have to be what we think a traditional family needs to look like.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I like that. That's great advice to put in your pocket, your back pocket. It's like it doesn't have to be the way people think and delegate. You know what I mean. You and your partner. You're a team, so don't feel like you have to take on all those roles. Figure out who has strengths in what area and then and take it from there. Is this, is this what caused your book to come about, like what made you want to write executive motherhood? Did that come out in the pandemic or before?
Speaker 2:
Oh, way before I had been putting together groups of what I called executive moms and sort of the people that were pushing their careers forward while raising kids. And I come out of tech, where women in tech or not, you know we're not equally represented, and then parents even less, and I was bothered by not seeing any other moms, especially moms of kids that were a little older. Something has to happen to them. Either they're dropping out or they're moving up, and I wanted to make sure, frankly, that they were moving up, and so I put everybody together and then sort of started hearing the same, the same complaints and the same experiences happening over and over and over again. And, as it turns out, there are a lot of women who really feel powerfully about. You know, I can do amazing things at work. You sort of have to trust me to do them and not be subtly pushing me out.
Speaker 2:
And sometimes parents need more, a little bit more support or different support, and and it's so easy to provide. But we just you know, companies need to know to do it, and companies need to take it very seriously that having working moms in their, in the company means really good things for the company. I refer to sort of the the baby index, the marriage baby index about it. When we look at a startup, lots of those folks are young and hungry and that's great. Once they're ready to settle down and have kids, they go elsewhere. They go somewhere that's stable. If we see people getting married and having children in our organizations, we need to see that as a sign of success, that the health of our company is such that people that work with us feel comfortable planting roots, and that is exactly what we want in our companies and what we want for our senior level talent.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah. We want that loyalty to build over time and then have them feel comfortable staying. Do you feel like childcare is one of the biggest issues, like what mothers should do and well, not just mothers, but what parents should do, like, okay, now we have children, how do we manage the childcare issue and the lack thereof for a lot of people?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely. Actually, these days, I get really mad at politicians, especially who claim to support women or small business owners and don't take childcare and universal healthcare to be the utmost priority.
Speaker 1:
Keystones yeah, 100 percent. It's like you can't support women, working women or families without healthcare for everybody, because then everybody wins what I mean? And we're not struggling in the meantime.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely. I don't know where we got this idea that if you have children, you're punished into figuring it out on your own. We don't care what happens, and that's actually probably not what we want for society. We want to take care of the people around us, especially as we're thinking about the future of our ability to compete in a global market. Anyway, I agree, I can get on that soapbox forever.
Speaker 1:
It's like don't we care about this next generation of citizens? Let's make sure everybody's taken care of? And it leads right into really good schools and so on. And the whole gender pay gap really gets under my skin too. It's like why are we still making less than men? If you're a woman of color, it's worse, and if you're a mom, it's worse. It's like this is crazy. You might have seen it. There was a really great little video.
Speaker 1:
Gloria Steinem was talking and she was saying, if we paid women equally, the economy would be doing so much better because we wouldn't squirrel our money away to some Swiss bank account, we would be spending it and we'd be nurturing. And I'm like, yeah, that's a great point. We're going to pivot a little bit One of the things I love that you talked about at the conference with this idea of how more women need to be going after these big, hairy, audacious goals. I love that because often, sometimes women are risk takers, but sometimes we just like to just nudge along and take the next step and the next step. But it's like how we should really be getting out there and just trying it. You had this hilarious example involving Arnold Schwarzenegger and I was wondering if you would share a little bit of that with my audience.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think the whole thing is very, very inspiring and actually, to be fair, arnold Schwarzenegger does have an inspiring story. But leaving aside the actual story, it just seems to me that we should take some cues. Arnold Schwarzenegger we know him as first a bodybuilder. He's this little kid in Austria who decides he's going to be Mr Universe, with no evidence to support that that is even possible. He goes on to become Mr Universe. Then he decides he wants to be a famous American actor and he makes it absolutely to the A-list where he's a huge box off the start and no evidence that going from Mr Universe to huge box off the start is actually possible. But he puts his mind to it, he does it anyway.
Speaker 2:
Then, after he's done with that, he decides he wants to be in politics. He runs and you know what he gets the highest position he can possibly hold as not a natural born citizen, and is running. I think California is the third largest economy in the world. Let's say that's the top of politics for him. And there again, no evidence that going from blockbuster actor to successful politician is actually going to work. I imagine that the amount of faith he has in himself and the amount of confidence is overwhelming and we need just a little of that because you know, to wit, there's not much talent there, right Like he's not a talented actor.
Speaker 1:
I'm not sure he's a talented politician?
Speaker 2:
I'm not sure, you know it's not. It's not based on, it's not even based on talent. So if we can look at that and say, okay, this is someone who, despite not having any evidence that it will be successful and having no talent, just hard work and confidence, presumably he made it to the top of three professions. And so imagine what we can do with all of the talent that we have and if we put hard work and confidence behind it. I know we're already putting hard work behind it. We need confidence behind it and it will run the thing.
Speaker 2:
But we need to look at examples like that of people who are truly audacious and who are doing things that are not. You know, we don't need the entire world to agree that this is a good idea. We don't need the entire world to agree that it will work. We just need to try it. And I think that's probably the secret to somebody like Arnold Schwarzenegger's success. But I would love it if many more women looked at that as an example of you know, there was no reason that that made any sense. And if-, yeah for him to do all those career rights Right. So I, with talent, certainly can do anything I want.
Speaker 1:
Exactly, you're like I've got more talent in my back pocket, I mean Like I got this Right. Exactly exactly. I love that Cause. It just makes you think bigger. You know, you had one more great story where I think you were working with a career coach and you were like you know, my big goal, I wanna make 250,000 in two years in my company. And then I think your mentor was like oh, were you talking about 250,000 a month? And I remember you said you like paused and you were like wait, what? Like? That's even someone's reality 250,000 a month. And it, you know, makes you step back right and say wait, how come? That's not my reality?
Speaker 2:
Maybe it should be, maybe I need to yeah, there's absolutely a level of professionals that are making way more money than we understand. And until someone helps us understand that, we're never gonna be capable of even dreaming that big. And for me it was a big catalyst for re-imagining what my business would look like. I launched my VA Rock shortly after that and you know a follow up to that conversation I had with someone who said why couldn't your business do a million dollars a year as it stands right now? Give me three reasons. Go. And you know we need people in our lives who push us like that, who say you know, the possibilities are really and truly endless, let's get you there. And so often we miss the opportunity to really support our friends in that way because we're used to thinking inside boxes and we're used to everyone sort of occupying their own box. I'll occupy mine, but if we wanna be really good friends to someone, we'll help explode that open.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I love that Like challenge them to really think bigger and use those talents and see where they go. Let's talk about your company. My VA Rocks all about a virtual assistant agency, so tell us how did it come about and who does it serve.
Speaker 2:
Sure well, I had used virtual assistants forever. Actually, when I was going back and forth to Chicago, I was always drowning in email and I felt terrible about it because I'm supposed to be this like. First I was an executive, you know, working in Chicago, living in Madison, and then I was a consultant, you know, traveling to meet with all my super important clients, and I can't even keep on top of email and I could hear my dad's voice saying if you were real professional, you would get back to email me in box zero at the end of every day, which I have never, ever been able to do. It's not even today. In box zero is not a goal, it's laughable. Now we've my goal is in box 10, it's not even zero, but I was feeling super, super guilty about it.
Speaker 2:
And as we progress in our careers, we lose the ability to keep up on the little stuff, but we gain the ability to feel really guilty about it. And there's so much in sort of in the like upper pieces of our career trajectory that require strategic thinking and time for that strategic thinking, and it's definitely not ticking off small things on a task list. It is definitely getting the big, important stuff done, but we feel so guilty about the little stuff and we're so used to judging our own productivity by the amount of tasks that we get done a day that we really run the risk of being penny wise and pound foolish. Right, we're worried about the little stuff and missing the big strategic stuff entirely, or we're making ourselves miserable by trying to do all the little stuff at home or after hours or in the middle of the night. So, anyway, I had used VA's for some time for myself, and then in my consulting practice I was recommending that my clients use virtual assistants so that we could get all of that stuff off of their plate so they could do the work I wanted them to do.
Speaker 2:
And then, frankly, pandemic parenting was so tough I mean I didn't have a unique experience, right, like it was miserable for everyone. I had a, I had a four K and a first grader when we went into the pandemic, so my poor daughter had to learn how to zoom before she could read. It was awful. I kept talking with women in corporate who you know would privately vent with me about how awful this was. And we're putting such an enormous burden on women and moms and we're not. There's no relief and no, no sense that like, oh, we should really societally do something for the people that are now working several full-time jobs at a time while stuck in their homes.
Speaker 2:
And I knew we were going to lose a lot of women from the workforce and I thought, you know, if that was me, my brain would atrophy. I remember when my mom went from being a pretty big time entrepreneur to taking care of me and my brother, who was sick at the time, and she would go to the library and get a stack three feet high of books every week. She just I mean, she just was cranking through them because her brain, you know, was used to firing in all cylinders. And now she's essentially like child rearing and mostly in a hospital waiting room, and we need the opportunity to stay vital and to stay sharp.
Speaker 2:
And so I thought it was a hidden labor pool and I could scoop up some really great folks and offer a soft landing to keep. You know, I'm pretty serious about keeping women in the workforce if that's where they want to be, and the rest is kind of history. Today, of course, I don't only hire women and I don't only hire moms, but we have lots of entrepreneurs and a ton of caregivers and for so many people it just does not make sense anymore to go back to a traditional job where you need to be in the office and the hours are super rigid and someone is watching you work the whole time. We're, you know, we're all adults.
Speaker 1:
We deserve to have lives and professionalism granted to us, right, right, yeah, I like that. One thing that really resonated with me was that whole idea of when you're in a higher level job, you get distracted or you feel guilty about the low hanging fruit, like you said, like I'm going to tackle the email, I'm going to tackle these things and I feel like I'm being productive, but you're not really, because you're not getting to, like you said, that big visionary thinking or the problem solving, because your brain is disjointed and you're like, oh, all these different things, yeah, if you can have someone take that off your plate so you can focus on the things that you're really good at, that's a game changer right there, absolutely. So what's next for you? You've done a lot of stuff so far. What's your next big, hairy, audacious goal?
Speaker 2:
Well, I'm focused now on growing my company and working with more. You know, we have some really awesome clients who are doing really, really important work. We have a grants program that helps small nonprofits who haven't had many or any grants so far get their first couple of grants and establish, like, all of the right processes for applying and monitoring grants, and so I think I'm going to expand those sorts of things and drive my business bigger, and that's what I'm really, really excited about. And I have some, you know, like personal goals nothing bigger or more audacious than like getting healthy but for now it's all business focused.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that sounds good, though. Keep making change. Keep. I love that you're just trying to give women a choice, like, if you want to work and keep being ambitious, we want to make sure that that opportunity is there for you, and if you choose something else, that's great too. But it's the fact that you have a choice and you're not forced out and we can make things a little bit more equitable Awesome.
Speaker 2:
We know it actually has been. I didn't. This is what happens with women run companies. Right, it's not part of the business mindset that it was the right thing to do. Right, that's what you do. It's the right thing to do and, frankly, it has made our culture incredible and our turnover is super, super low. You know, when we, when someone moves on, we tend to celebrate it because they're going on to bigger and better things. We have people who, whose business that was sort of simmering in the background is at a full boil and ready to take them full time, and that's really exciting and we want to champion that. We have people who go back to, you know, whatever job they were doing before and now they're. You know, now the kids are a little older, or, but they're ready to go back and it has really meant that the talent we're able to keep and attract is in.
Speaker 2:
I have PhDs on my team. I have I have people with multiple MBAs. The talent is just incredible and that's not that's not why I did it. It's certainly a fun perk, but again, this is what happens when women run companies. We sort of do the right thing and and it rewards us. Right, this is the. This is what happens and we're not. I mean, I'm not trying to kill my competition. I'm not trying to grind the people that work with me into a stump. I'm not trying to exhaust anyone or get all my money out of someone. I'm not trying to watch anyone work, and what happens when you stop all that is? People are free to do their absolute best work.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and then they thrive and you see the results of that, which which is the best. Before we go, do you have any last advice for women, especially maybe women in the Midwest, just on anything that's a big question right there but just maybe on how to kind of pursue big, audacious goals.
Speaker 2:
Sure. Well, I would say that asking for help for Midwestern women is particularly difficult. You know, it's part of our culture that, like, we can do it. We're going to do all the things, we're going to plan it, we're going to execute it all entirely ourselves. And the book who, not how, is really a terrific book. But one of the things that it says and that I practically knocked me on my butt was the idea that you're keeping yourself small because you imagine that you have to be the one who does all the execution of all the goals. And how much bigger could your goals be if you weren't actually the one doing all of the work, if you could have someone else do outreach for you, for instance, how much farther could you get If you could have someone do research, if you could have someone you know put something to put XYZ together and then you sell it whatever it is. If you can get some big proportion off of it, off your plate, you can accomplish so much more. And for Midwestern women, we really need to get better at saying, hey, here's how I feel supported and here's how I don't. Here's what I would love from you, without you know.
Speaker 2:
At this point I have that conversation with my husband three times a week and it's not, you know, it's not. Nobody is. Nobody's ego is offended and no one's. You know, it is definitely a place that a relationship can get to, but that's where we really need to be, and usually, rena, a follow up to this is well, what about single mothers? And actually I have finally articulated how I feel about this. Single mothers are already doing everything that they could possibly do. You cannot ask single mothers to do anything more. They are already doing all that they can do. There's no tip, no trick that is going to make things easier for them. We, as their neighbors and as fellow moms, need to jump in and say, hey, I'll run carpool or I'll pick up snacks, or I'll. You know what support do you need? And we need to be supporting single mothers way better than we are.
Speaker 1:
Yes, I love that. You know what that's been simmering on the back of my mind, too, just for quite a while now, because, just, you know, society tends to shame single mothers Like it's somehow their fault and it's like this is just things that happen. And, yeah, why are we making it harder than it already is? And I love that, like, if more women can reach out and, yeah, say like you said, do you need carpool? You need to pick this up. I'll take care of this here, let me, let me drop off a meal tonight, like whatever it is, just so they get a little breathing room. Because, yeah, it is not easy. Yeah, let's, let's make that our next campaign. I feel like that's super important, that's like the next step for everybody. Yes, awesome, absolutely Well.
Speaker 1:
Ashley, thank you so much for being on the show today. In the show notes I'll have links to all of your businesses, your book, the book you mentioned, as always. Thank you for listening to you, betcha, she did. If you like what you're hearing, don't forget to share this episode, the show, with a friend, a neighbor, a sister, a coworker. You never know who's going to need this information. And please leave us a positive review wherever you get your podcast Until next time, take care.