Undecided | The Live One Video

Undecided | The Live One Video Transcript

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>>> Pria David Clemens: Hello and welcome to The Live One here on the BNET. I'm your host Priya David Clemens. This is the show where we help managers manage their business, their careers and even their personal lives. Today we're gonna touch a little bit on all three with mother and daughter team Barbara and Shannon Kelley. Ladies thank you so much for joining us.

>>>

Shannon: Thank you.

>>>

Barbara: Thank you Priya.

>>>

Priya: And also we have in studio Eric Schurenberg. It's a pleasure to have you here. Eric is the editor and chief of BNET.com.

>>> Eric Schurenberg:Thanks Priya. Nice to be here, the lone representative of the patriarchy. laughter That's for inviting me in ladies.

>>>Priya: And we're gonna be discussing this book today that Barbara and Shannon wrote it's called Undecided and this is a book that's gonna help well everybody out there learn a little bit more about the women's movement and how it's left women with a lot of choices but women unfortunately are finding themselves stumped in the face of all of those choices. How do they decide which path to take so if you've ever felt like the grass is greener, maybe you should be taking a different path, listen up to what these ladies have to say. So tell us a little bit about the writing of the book. This is a first collaboration for the two of you.

>>>

Barbara:Yes it is.

>>>

Priya: How was it a mother daughter team here?

>>>

Shannon: Ha ha laughter. It was good, it was good. You know it's kind of nice to do something like this with your mom because you know at the end of the day she's still gonna have to love you, you can be a freak and hang up or whatever, it worked out well.

>>>

Barbara: You know what I thought was interesting when I tell people that I wrote a book with my daughter everyone says oh that must be so wonderful, what a gift. When Shannon tells people her age they're saying ah you wrote a book with your mom but I think what was great was that we worked together as equals and you don't see that at least not in the media mother daughter relationships, it's either kind of mom as kind of fragile and out of touch, or mom as kind of overbearing but you never see a mother and daughter like in a business together like you see a father and son so I think this was fabulous.

>>>

Eric: You know Elisabeth Warren who's now the leading contender for the Consumer Finance Production Board wrote a book with her daughter do you know about that? A book about bankruptcy.

>>>

Shannon: I did not know about that.

>>>

Eric:I think that was a very successful collaboration too.

>>>

Shannon: Yeah.

>>>

Priya: And this book really is focused on women because you say in a lot of ways men have understood the rules in a way for a long time and women are faced with new choices. Let's talk a little bit about that. What's the difference between men and women here?

>>>

Shannon: Well I think I mean first of all all of these options are just new for women. You know men have always whatever options have ever been out there have kind of always been on the table for men.

>>>

Priya:You could do whatever you want with your life.

>>>

Shannon: Right, right and so for women it's new so we don't have a lot of role models but also the world is kind of set up so that women have a lot more to do. You know we have still kind of all of the domestic responsibilities but then we're taking on all of this professional stuff as well and it's not really the reverse is not exactly true.

>>>

Priya: And you talk a little bit about how this isn't just about having children or a family, you're talking about work life balance in a broader sense.

>>>

Barbara: Absolutely and I think Shannon just touched on it but I think the work place is still set up for someone with Betty at home to take care of business and no one lives like that anymore, especially in places like California where the cost of living is so high, it's a two career family and also the work week has become instead of 40 hours it's 52 so where do you find time for a life and I think it's very difficult and I think women are kind of hard wired to be pleasers and take on the home responsibility so it becomes overwhelming to try and make it all work.

>>> For those of you who are listening you can join the conversation just by clicking into the Live Chat window on the right hand side of your screen. We'd love to hear your comments and questions. This is a topic that's sure to stir up a lot of conversation. Again we're talking about this book: Undecided How to Ditch the Endless Quest for Perfect and Find the Career That's Right and Perfect For You. Now when you read that title and when you read through the book, the word that comes to mind is a word that we as women have often been taught is a bad word in our Lexicon which is settling. So what do you think about this concept of settling and I think in a way you're reclaiming it.

>>>

Shannon: Yeah yeah I think so. It is it's a dirty word and we don't like to admit that we're settling because part of the way the feminist message got translated was you know you can do anything and sort of this you go girl thing and you deserve the best and the more empowered you are the less willing you are to settle for anything less than the best but that becomes a problem because you're never gonna be satisfied and nothing's ever gonna be perfect and so I think accepting that makes settling, or compromising, or whatever you like to call it a lot more palatable.

>>>

Eric: I would say so far I haven't heard anything that wouldn't be true of men as it is of women, that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. For men there's a certain amount of pressure in this you know economy for men and for the new sort of endless work week for men as well as for women. I think that perhaps the dichotomy that you were drawing between men's lives now and women's lives now is false. I mean not to say that women have you know that the research you've found and the interviews you've had with other women is not true but that it might not be that different as you think for men.

>>>

Barbara: I'm gonna disagree.

>>>

Priya: Go for it.

>>>

Barbara: I think one of the differences is you've been raised you know with a father or grandfather all the way down the line to know that your role is to go, seek and conquer, to be the guy who goes and flays the dragons while the pretty princess waits at home in the castle and I think you have generations of experience behind you saying, confirming your role and saying this is what you do, this is how it's gonna play out, there may be trade offs for you but we've done it before and we can help you out. The difference for women is we don't have those role models yet. You know a generation ago women were told they could be a nurse, a teacher, or a secretary and then all of a sudden the doors open, the flood gates open, it's no you could be a producer, you could be a doctor, you could be lawyer, but the message because there wasn't the experience or the role models got lost which is they're gonna be challenges and it's gonna be difficult and I think that's what we hit on in our book is that the challenges are deeper than we were lead we were to believe they are.

>>>Priya: Well you're also saying that perhaps men and women have equal opportunities now but they react to them differently in a way, that women face this indecision paralysis in a way that men don't is that accurate?

>>>

Shannon: Yeah I think so and I also think I think another big point is that you know there's still structural inequities that women face that men don't and it goes very contrary to all this messaging and its sort of like you know we are set out into the world believing that you know we're equals and we can have it all and we can do everything but then it doesn't quite jive in real life. You know last night I was talking with somebody and we were saying you know if a dad is doing carpool duty it's kind of like everyone's like oh so sweet, he's so involved, what a guy and like if the mom is doing carpool duty I don't' think anyone notices you know so it's not the same.

>>>

Priya: Eric We'll toss it back over the table to you.

>>>

Eric: Ok yeah I think it's true the challenges are different but the challenges are there for men too. The days seem to be pretty full for most of the men I know and so you get props for being a carpool dad but then you get the opposite of props if you are not the bread winner or the stress of losing your job is very different and a lot of men are losing their jobs and as you note in the book men have a tendency to define themselves by their career so the role models that you know may have worked for my father and grandfather don't work as well for me and the causes a lot of stress for me, a different kind of thing but the world is changing for us all and flexibility is key and it's hard to achieve whatever your gender.

>>>

Priya: Yeah

>>>

Shannon: Here's something interesting: One of the interviews in our book is with Ellen Galingsky assumed spelling from the Work and Family Institute and she said the most recent study she did of kind of stress levels and well being found that women's stress level was staying the same, which is not necessarily a good thing but men's stress level was rising and she interpreted that to mean that men are doing more, assuming more of the home responsibility, which is good but then they're starting to get really stressed out, which is probably not so good but I think it indicates that maybe there is a shift going on. You know I'm an optimist so I think structures ultimately will change but we have to talk about it I think.

>>>

Priya: Well again we do have this live chat feature and some of the viewers who are writing in are talking about the role models that have been around for decades, as you were speaking of both for men and for women but they're saying there are some powerful female role models out there. We were talking a little earlier about Michelle Obama and Oprah for example as some powerful female role models who to the outside world may seem on first glance that they have it all

>>>

Shannon: And I think they do seem that way but I think in sort of the traditional definition of it all, which would be you know a fabulous career, a fabulous marriage and parenthood, they don't, Oprah doesn't have kids and Michelle Obama is not working at the moment but they certainly seem to have fabulous lives and I think it's actually a really good example of the fact that every choice is a tradeoff and you know whatever you're doing there's something that you're not doing, you can't be in two places at once. You know I can't be here and taking my dog for a run at the same time and so I think that's really kind of the heart of what we're saying.

>>>

Priya: Eric for you do you feel that not to put you on the spot as our sole representative of the male patriarchy over here right.

>>>

Barbara: Let's put him on the spot,

>>>

Shannon: I know let's do it. Do you feel in the same way

>>>

Eric: Right I'm acculturated to it, go ahead.

>>>

Priya: where women have this concept and this struggle to have it all do you feel that men have that same struggle? I think for women it's very much this feeling of I have to have the home and the career and I have to make it all work and I have to be fabulous at all of it. Do you feel that men really struggle with that concept in the same way?

>>>

Eric: No, no it's different, it is different and I agree that the one of the by-products of feminism was to say that you could have this whole different life without giving up the life that you had before, as if being a mom wasn't a full time job.

>>>

Shannon: Right.

>>>

Barbara: Right

>>>

Eric: So it's different for men but I think with men since you're so defined by your job the economy has changed in a way that means that your job is no longer something that's under your control and so that is a source of stress and you know to a certain extent, although to a lesser extent then women have been moved into careers, men have also been moved into home so you feel bad if you are the dad who doesn't go to the soccer games, at the same time you would feel bad if you were the manager who didn't go to the sales meeting and so there is there just aren't enough hours in the day we have been given more responsibilities and you know not enough time.

>>>

Priya: Right and let's go back to this concept of more choices for women because that's really the crux of what you were looking at in your book. More choices for women that lead to a lot of anxiety and stress so in your research as you were talking to different women what did you find were the hardest things that they were facing when it comes to the plethora of choices there before them? What was the response that was difficult?

>>>

Barbara: Well I think one of the toughest things was being afraid they would choose wrong. Barry Schwartz is kind of the guru of the psychology of choice and one of things he says is that when you have many, many, many options psychologically you assume that one of them must be perfect and he uses the analogy of shopping for jeans, which we all know is a nightmare and he said when there are two kinds of jeans Lees or Levis you know you would choose one it didn't matter, gone, but when you go into a store where there are hundreds, different swatches, different styles, didn't fits, you assume that one is gonna be perfect for you and of course it won't be but when you get home and it's not perfect you think oops I chose wrong and so there is a sense almost of failure with a lot of these young women that if I'm not perfectly happy, if I haven't met these high expectations and standards, it's my fault, I chose wrong and so the fear I think of choosing wrong is paralyzing a lot of young women.

>>>

Priya: It keeps women from choosing.

>>>

Barbara: Exactly, exactly.

>>>

Priya: And so it ends up making them stay in jobs for shorter terms, which was one of the things I noticed and also feeling restless when they're in their work, always looking for what's better and what's next.

>>>

Barbara: Yeah Yeah, I had this one student who came to me after this topic first came up in an article I'd written and she said she and her mom had stayed on the phone a long time that night talking about it cause her mom had read it too and she said you know we grew up with all these expectations and she said I always felt that I had to do something really amazing with my life and I just feel awful because all I want to do, as if all was the appropriate word, is teach little kids and you know because in the messaging it was like that's not good enough

>>>

Priya: And didn't that woman end up going to teach little kids overseas

>>>

Barbara: In Japan.

>>>

Priya: Then suddenly it was good enough right?

>>>

Barbara: And she was there during the tsunami.

>>>

Eric: Oh wow.

>>>

Priya: Wow! I'm gonna take a little bit of a left turn here and pop into popular culture with the movie Bridesmaids that just came out because Shannon you just wrote a blog about this.

>>>

Shannon: I did.

>>>

Priya: Give us a little bit of setup and then we're gonna watch a clip from the trailer.

>>>

Shannon: Well what I wrote about it in the blog is how it's kind of there there was kind of like a movement online like go see Bridesmaids, we want to have a strong opening weekend because you the future of female driven movies hinges on this and but kind of the deeper idea is that in our culture there's still a little bit of all things that are male are mainstream and all things that are female are fringe or other and so it was kind of encouraging people to go see it.

>>>Priya: And this was definitely a concept that we've seen before with male characters but we haven't seen it with women so much. So Chris is our technical producer here and I think he's got it cued up and we'll look at a little bit of this preview.

>>> Look around and you notice like oh

>>> I am in my 30s, I'm $40,000 in debt. I live with a weirdo.

>>> You do have a super creepy roommate.

>>> You read my diary?

>>> Well first I did not know that it was your diary, I thought it was a very sad hand written book. laughter

>>> I have big news.

>>> Oh I can't wait.

>>> I'm engaged.

>>> What?

>>> Will you be my maid of honor?

>>> Of course

laughter

>>> You'll love the rest of the bridesmaids.

>>> I'd be more than happy to handle the bachelorette and the shower.

>>> I think I can handle it.

>>> Annie what is this place?

>>> I know it looks a little scary on the outside. The food here is really, really good.

>>> Oh look you can get a check cashed next door laughter.

>>> Helen aren't you having any meats

>>> like to eat a big meal before a fitting.

>>> This is some classy. I want to apologize I'm not even confident of which end that came out of.

>>> I think I got food poisoning from that restaurant.

>>> Everybody go outside. Be careful.

>>> We've all got the flu, such a coincidence.

>>> Her life is going off and getting perfect and mines just like.

>>> Come on.

>>> I need you to touch your nose with your finger.

>>> If I was drunk would I be able to do this?

>>>

Priya: And I think there was something so poignant, I mean obviously it's hilarious and you know I'm looking forward to seeing it at some point but there's something so poignant at that moment where Kristen Wig says I feel like her life is going on off and becoming pointless and mine is or hers is becoming you know amazing and mine is so pointless.

>>>

Shannon: Yeah I think that is a way that you know all of this options plays out between women. You know we it sort of affects our friendships. Like when a friend is doing something different than what we're doing, we sort of have the tendency to interpret it as a statement about what we're doing of what we've chosen and so I think when you know friends kind of take different paths you kind of are left sitting and thinking man should I have done it that way?

>>>

Priya: Yeah absolutely Barbara.

>>>

Barbara: And I think another issue is Facebook. Social media it's a big echo chamber and you look on there and you know that your own profile is kind of fake but you see other people's profiles and you think oh that's real you know they're doing it better, faster, quicker, making more money and having more fun and so you're it's always this sense of oh grass is greener. You know I should be living her life and I think that's really destructive I think. It's difficult for women or men to be happy with what they're doing themselves when they have this constant barrage of people doing it better.

>>>

Eric: You offer a two word piece of advice for how to handle that sense of comparison with other people and knowing what's going to make you satisfied and that is laugher

>>>

Priya: Oh oh oh got it, got it, got it. Embrace failure.

>>>

Eric:That wasn't it.

>>>

Shannon: You're right.

>>>

Eric: Alright it is shall we call in Watson for this. It was know yourself.

>>>

Priya: Yeah yeah yeah. Ok so who would like to say that: know yourself?

>>>

Shannon: I'll take it. I think you know it's huge and that's sort of the work that we're all here to do but it's all I mean it's the most important thing and if you're feeling insecure about your life or your choices then perhaps you need to do a little bit of you know re-evaluating and thinking about ok what is for other people? What am I doing to kind of please others or because I believe I'm supposed to, or I should, or my friends are doing it and if you're feeling not so great then probably it's because what you're doing isn't so in line with what you really should be doing.

>>>

Priya: You're watching The Live One here on BNET and we are speaking with a mother and daughter team and authors Barbara and Shannon Kelley who've written this book: Undecided How to Ditch the Endless Quest for Perfect and Find the Career and Life that is Right For You. You can write in and join the conversation with the Live Chat Window on the right hand side of your screen. One of the questions that just came in is about the impact of women who are undecided when it comes to career in their workplace. In society in general what is this doing to the workplace when you have these cadre of women who have joined it and aren't quite sure where they're going with their lives?

>>>

Barbara: You know I think partly obviously it's bad because there's a lot of transients and people jump careers a lot but the other things is especially with millennials they are pleasers from the word go and overachievers, at least that's what I've seen at school

>>>

Priya: And millennial is again approximately the ages

>>>

Barbara: 20- early 30s and I think they're good employees because they have been raised to succeed. These are the kids who get tears in their eyes when they get a B+ you know and they're always pushing to do as they're told and do what's expected of them. On the other hand, dissatisfied jump ship. So it's a mixed bag.

>>>

Priya: Yeah as a manager then how do you deal with that? How do you cope with employees who are like this?

>>>

Barbara: I don't know. I think part of it is making sure they have challenging assignments to keep them engaged often. You know I don't have the answer because I've never you know I'm in the classroom I'm not really a manager but

>>>

Priya: Well the cause of it part of it is in what you say the most important thing for their work, which is that they find it a calling and it's not just a job that they go to 9 to 5, or that any of us go to 9 to 5 that we have some meaning behind our work so in finding the ways to impart meaning to the employees

>>>

Eric: I was gonna say that too with millennials more than other employees, although it's good practice whoever you're leading is to make sure that the mission is clear and that the importance of the mission is clear

>>>

Barbara: yeah

>>>

Eric: so that you feel that you're part of something bigger than this quarters PNL or pleasing the boss above the boss but actually doing something that's good in a larger sense.

>>>

Barbara: The other thing though is because of all of this messaging that you have to do something amazing, it has to be perfect, I think that employees who are just working for the paycheck there's nothing wrong with that but the message out there is no, no, no, not good enough, you should be doing something that's making a difference in the world, that's your calling, that has spiritual merit to it and so I think that also makes employees a little bit more dissatisfied than they should be.

>>>

Eric: I think no matter what you're doing you should convince yourself that you're doing something that benefits society whether you're a checkout person at Circle K, or whether you're the leading a major non-profit.

>>>

Priya: Also the same time we are seeing women who are coming up through the ranks and having fabulous positions and doing very well professionally and breaking ground, breaking glass ceilings. In a way do you feel that you're portraying women as more fragile than they really are?

>>>

Shannon: I don't know I don't think so. I think that we all put on a good face but it's and it's not that we're fragile, it's just that this is a struggle, it's an ongoing struggle and we're kind of all you know a little bit you know there's a voice somewhere inside each of our heads going I don't know if this is quite right and I don't know if I'm alone here, am I the only one that feels this way so I don't think that's necessarily fragile.

>>>

Eric: In happiness studies, Stan Gilbert and other people refer to something called the hedonic treadmill, it's not gender specific but it just means that whatever you get is eventually going to be not good enough and you'll want something more.

>>>

Shannon: Right

>>>

Eric: It's probably part of human nature you can see how in evolution that would be a good thing for a species to have, to always keep striving and maybe that's what part of what's at work here.

>>>

Barbara: I think we're raised to be very apparitional; it's always looking to the future. You know this is good but the next job, the next house, the next boyfriend whatever and things will be better. Going back to the idea of the hedonic treadmill: there is a study done by a psychologist and I think EC Riverside and she quantified happiness or measures of happiness and what she found was only 10% of your happiness is related to changed circumstances. The rest is either genetic makeup or how you deal with those circumstances, which I think is really interesting.

>>>

Eric: That is interesting. Let me ask you a question about role models since that is where we started this conversation.

>>>

Priya: We have to start wrapping it up believe it or not.

>>>

Eric: There have been it's a been a generation now since feminism really took route and women entered the workplace in large numbers. There are a lot of great female role models and not just for women. There are lots of people I admire like Elizabeth Warren for example or Hilary Clinton. Aren't they enough for women to serve as role models for how to lead a satisfied life?

>>>

Barbara: I think they're scary role models because they look so perfect and accomplished.

>>>

Shannon: Yeah I think they're the anti role models cause it's not real you know. I was sick a couple of weeks ago and on the couch I watched I'm ashamed to say I watched an episode of Bethany whatever, the real housewife and she was like doing the ice skating with the stars and like launching this business and you know talking about how it was expanding into all of these states and you know happily, newly married, brand new baby and half of the episode was her in her you know shrinks office being like I got everything I ever wanted but I can't deal with it I don't have any time to enjoy any of it so it's like no matter what's going I don't know there's just you know looking at anybody and thinking oh she's got it, it's perfect, that's a recipe for disaster.

>>>

Priya: Alright well we've been talking with Barbara and Shannon Kelley, their book is Undecided How to Ditch the Endless Quest for Perfect and Find the Career and Life that's Right for You. They have a blog at Undecidedthebook.com/wordpress is that right? Undecided.com wordpress there you go we've got it up go ahead you can give the address.

>>>

Shannon: oh undecidedthebook.wordpress.com.

>>>

Priya: And we'll have a link to it here on BNET as well so that's an easy way for you to click over there and chat with them a little bit more about this fascinating topic and bring them all of your comments and questions. Ladies thank you so much for joining us here in studio.

>>>

Shannon: Thank you.

>>>

Barbara: Thank you this is great. This is really fun.

>>>

Priya: Well great and we loved having you and Eric any last thoughts.

>>>

Eric: No I want to say thank you to Shannon and Barbara for raising the issue and just don't forget about us poor guys.

>>>

Priya: Eric Schurenberg Editor and Chief of BNET. Thank you all for joining us. Have a fabulous weekend. We will see you back here on Tuesday morning. Have a wonderful Memorial Day on Monday. Tuesday morning 10AM Pacific 1PM Eastern. We'll be right back here talking about the 8 worst management mistakes. Come on back.

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