This is a story about courage, self-reliance, and how it’s possible to build a career in defiance of societal norms. Societal norms are nothing to celebrate because they exclude most people from participating in them. Honestly, most societal norms exist because they benefit a privileged few and in a professional context, privileged people benefit from systems of patronage. In systems of patronage, privileged people grant each other positions of power, and then they go on to make decisions throughout the course of their careers that uphold societal norms because they serve the privileged, and they grip so hard onto that privilege because it’s so comfy cozy to hold. Societal norms are not only exclusive and in most cases racist, classist, sexist, and capitalistic, they’re also boring. In this episode, I’m talking to Vivian Kaye, an entrepreneur who has started and scaled two six-figure ventures and one seven-figure venture despite the societal norms that exist to work against her, including but not limited to white supremacy and racism. If you’re listening to this episode and you’re in a job that you think you have to do, to keep up the status quo and problematic societal norms, I want you to pay close attention to how Vivian approaches entrepreneurship with a sense of curiosity and a personal commitment to self-reliance and resourcefulness. I think you’re really going to love this episode. Let’s talk to Vivian.

This is a story about why we need to flip the script on personal coaching, LIFE COACHING, so it earns the respect it deserves. My guest today is really special to me because she’s truly helped me, on a very personal level, through some of the many challenges I’ve faced as an inexperienced and naive self-employed woman. My guest today is Stephanie Rourke Jackson, an IPSAT certified life and leadership coach who is also one of the warmest and most genuine women I know. What I want you to really hear in this episode is how life coaching is structured and deeply personal when you work with someone who is trained, qualified, and accredited in coaching. The coaching marketplace is really, really saturated with untrained, unqualified, and non-accredited coaches who may be great cheerleaders and hype beasts, but not as well prepared to heal the traumas that lay beneath the surface and present as imposter syndrome and fear of failure. In my opinion, Stephanie and her style of coaching is the standard worth investing in. And life coaching is an investment. But the return on investment is massive if you work with the right person who can help you reap incredible results. In this episode, you’re going to hear about the true benefits of life coaching and why this particular form of therapy should be normalized and destigmatized as a frivolous, unnecessary expense — especially for ambitious businesswomen. Let’s talk to Stephanie.

This is a story about how a sense of belonging heals the wounds of loneliness for women. Loneliness is a human condition that has existed forever. But, if you’re an analyst of social, challenge, and change like me, you may have discovered that feelings of loneliness are increasing rapidly, a result of many factors that are different for everyone. I struggled with a serious bout of loneliness that lasted about two years, my first two years of self-employment, and feeling so lonely made it extremely difficult for me to focus on anything else. Loneliness made me behave in ways that didn’t align with my true self; I stopped seeing friends, I stopped taking care of myself, I stopped doing things that bring me joy, and I became really snappy and defensive when people tried to come into my life. I was really hurting so in many ways, I think my loneliness led to depression and for two years I didn’t know how to get out of it. In this episode, I’m talking with Rebecca Gill, an extremely warm and compassionate woman with a portfolio career. She runs a business called Shop Thing, which is an incredibly smart retail service that sends personalized sale items to your phone via video, check it out at shopthing.com, and Rebecca also runs Her People, which is like a new-age community centre for women who are struggling with loneliness, like I was. Let’s talk to Rebecca.

This is a story about how the recruitment industry is broken in Canada and in desperate need of an overhaul. In Canada, it seems like it’s nearly impossible to get the attention of a recruiter and even more difficult to hold their attention long enough to benefit from their help. In this country, for some reason, the recruitment industry is not the tie that binds qualified candidates and talent-hungry employers. From the candidate side, recruiters seem more like elusive lovers who seduce but loathe to enter into relationships. My guest today is an English woman living in Canada and has struggled with getting the attention of recruiters for over a year and a half since immigrating here with her husband. Nicola Lockwood-Hall came to Canada with an exceptional resume. She studied Law at Oxford University and got her MBA at Cambridge. She practiced corporate law for six years before becoming a senior consultant at Ernst & Young and then moved on to lead Talent & Organizational Effectiveness for LexisNexis. Then, she became a very successful self-employed consultant in South Africa, working with global organizations who deeply valued her expertise, before coming to Canada...where she couldn’t even get a return phone call from a recruiter much less a coffee meeting or referral for a position far too junior for her level of experience. The part of this story that irks me the most is how many times Nicola has been declined for an interview because of her lack of Canadian experience. For a country that markets itself as diverse and democratic and welcoming to all, this is one hell of misrepresentation of our supposed values. Let’s talk to Nicola.

This is an episode about the true value of personal branding with visual communication, and you’re in for a treat because I’m talking with the veritable leader of personal branding and personal style, Monique Bryan. Before we get into the episode, I want you to open up your Instagram app right now and follow @moniquebryan_co because, not only does Monique do daily lives and give away a ton of free information, also has a uniquely special energy that can brighten your day, any day. You’re going to hear a conversation about personal branding that is going to shift your mindset on the importance of personal style as an expression of who you are within the context of work. And this is really important — personal branding with personal style isn’t a frivolous expense or use of time, it’s a critical factor in how people perceive you. And if you’re a professional woman, whether you’re an employee or an entrepreneur, how people perceive you has a direct impact on your opportunities. They are directly correlated. And do you want to know what the most surprising thing is about personal branding with personal style? That we most often don’t represent ourselves well with our personal style, because we typically don’t think very strategically about the clothes we wear and what they say about us. Most of the time, we’re just trying to get clothes on our bodies and get out the door. Monique has built an incredibly successful business as a personal branding consultant for coaches, speakers and business owners, and today you’re going to hear the details of what her work entails, and the true value of leveraging personal style as a business tool. Let’s talk to Monique.

This is a story about using your transferable skills to go for it anyway — when you don’t really know what you’re doing. I would estimate that over half the clients I work with on career branding are senior-level managers who want to change industries but they’re not sure how to do it, or if they even can. I know that you totally can change industries if you want to, and you can also change job types — in fact, you can do whatever you want if you allow yourself to think creatively about all the different ways that your skills can be applied. That’s the first step. The second step is changing your mindset around change being a dangerous and risky pursuit to become more flexible. In this episode, I’m talking with Laura Bryce, co-owner of Dresst.ca, a Canadian clothing rental brand that Laura and her partner, Kelly Pigeon, started after 10 years building a career in an entirely different industry. Kelly and Laura didn’t just change jobs and industries, they changed job types too, from employment to entrepreneurship, with a gut feeling and loads of gumption. Most of the conversations I hear about women entrepreneurship are sugar-coated and gloss over the strategic thinking involved in building a business. I’m excited to have Laura on the show because she does a really good job of explaining the step-by-step process she and Kelly took to build Dresst.ca to become a successful brand in Canada by not working hard to reinvent the wheel. Let’s talk to Laura.

This is a story about reframing the recruiter-candidate relationship to become significantly more personal and supportive. How many nightmare stories have you heard about ridiculously bad experiences with recruiters who don’t reply to emails, have no critical feedback to offer on your CV, and seem all too willing to just leave you to look for new career opportunities by yourself? There are exceptions to the rule, of course, and today I’m talking with Maria Meally who is one very notable exception, and I’m so eager for you to meet her. Maria is the owner of Theory Y Search, a recruitment agency for the financial services industry in New York and Toronto. She’s from Ireland, moved to Toronto and lived here for 7 years, and then recently relocated to Brooklyn, where she lives today. What she does so differently is take into account how critical it is for her to form meaningful relationships with her candidates and her clients because recruiting really is a business founded upon relationships, but very few recruiters invest in them. And I just don’t get why not! Neither does Maria, which is why she operates her business differently. Working with her is like getting a therapist, a recruiter, and a life coach in one. I am so passionate about this topic and I think it’s so overdue for the recruitment industry, particularly in Canada, to be disrupted by recruiters who think differently about their work, play the long game and are fiercely committed to relationships and supporting the self-esteem of their clients through the job search process. Let’s talk to Maria.

This is a really special episode because it’s the first international episode of Women Talk Shop! Today, I’m talking with Kate Surala and Sarah Wagner, the co-authors of a new book called Unleash Today, a non-fiction book that empowers young women to unleash their full potential in the workplace. Today we’re talking about the little things that add up to make a huge, negative impact on our self-esteem in the workplace. Women tend to overcompensate for our relative inexperience as professionals by working doubly hard and thinking we need to do more, be more, and take on more than men in order to prove ourselves. And, when we aren’t PERFECT at work, or we don’t perform PERFECTLY every day, we shame ourselves and minimize the good work we have done, and all the things we are capable of, as forms of punishment that prove our low self-esteem justifiable. In other words, we look for confirmation bias that we’re not good enough yet, so we need to work harder. This is a pretty thick conversation that ultimately relays back to the importance of self-promotion so sit back and enjoy the conversation with Kate and Sarah, and please share this episode with a friend who you think is way more impressive than she gives herself credit for. Let’s talk to Sarah and Kate.

This is a story about the value of investing in relationships and being a genuinely kind business woman EVEN when you’re in a powerful position, and especially when you’re in a power position. There’s a common stereotype of women who have successfully climbed to the top of a corporate business ladder — that they’re ice cold and driven exclusively to perform, and have little time for niceties and kindness towards the less powerful people who surround them. This stereotype is sexist and meaningless. It’s not justifiable to judge a woman who isn’t motivated to nurture her work friendships or be affectionate towards her colleagues. However, the value of nurturing our work friendships isn’t so that we can easily use people to get what we want but rather so that we can better ourselves with the help of others — not to climb higher but to perform better... as the best version of ourselves. My guest today is Katie Green, the CEO of August Strategy, a strategic communications and brand development company, and former senior director of global communications at ALDO Group. Katie has built an incredibly successful career for herself and has always led with kindness and invested in her relationships. Katie and I went to the University of Ottawa together and were both in the same communications program, so I’ve seen her grow from our lecture halls to becoming a global communications leader, and in my opinion, she’s always been the standard to strive for in terms of how she conducts herself as both a good person and an incredibly smart businesswoman. If you tend to shy away from work relationships, or aren’t really sure how nurturing your network can pay you back in spades, this episode is for you. Let’s talk to Katie.

This episode is about how self-esteem and resilience intersect with failure in business. You’ve heard me say it before but I’ll declare it again: business is in fact very personal, and I think that business growth and success are only possible once failure has occurred and our feelings of self-worth and self-esteem have been challenged so many times that failure becomes normal, and expected. It’s at the point, and only at that point, when failure feels normal, that we can acknowledge it and make the decision to get on with business anyway. That’s how we build resilience and our self-esteem authentically, over time and with failure. In this episode, I’m talking with Joanna Track, the founder and executive publisher of Bullet Daily Media Group which publishes The Bullet, and NewsworthyCo Inc., which offers “editorial as a service” to organizations around the world. Joanne was also the founder of Sweet Spot and eLuxe here in Canada. She’s a brilliant businesswoman with incredible foresight for future trends in media and commerce. She’s also experienced her fair share of failure and feelings of self-doubt, which I think are likely contributing factors to her continued success in building her third successful venture. Let’s talk to Joanna: