Margaret Osborn (00:00)
All right, friends, welcome back to another edition of Unmuted and Unabashed. Ladies, might you introduce yourselves? We haven't done that in a while.
Lisa (00:12)
I am Lisa Jacobson Brown. am 53 years old. I'm not hiding behind that. Lots of experience. First and foremost, I am a mom. I am a wife. I have a dog too. And I work in a technology firm where I was recently given the title COO. But my background in my professional world is PR and marketing and HR.
Margaret Osborn (00:39)
Congratulations, Lisa. You own that. Own that. Brooke?
Lisa (00:41)
Thank you. Thank you.
Brooke Salazar (00:48)
Brooke Salazar. I am an attorney and I have my own firm KB Salazar Legal. I specialize in general counsel work, employment law training
I have three dogs. They're power breeds, they're German Shepherd, Rottweiler, Pitbull mix, Doberman Pitbull We're power pack here in this house. I'm trying, you didn't ask me this, Margaret, this isn't what we're talking about, but I'm gonna go ahead. I'm really trying hard define myself by the attributes that I can give to other people. Before I would have said like, my greatest role is an auntie, sister, daughter. I don't have kids. But I'm trying really hard in my 40s to be like, this is my season. I've never had my own season in my life before. And so I'm trying really hard to say, I enjoy traveling. I'm going to go cross-country skiing. I... enjoy spending time with my dogs and hiking and doing all the things. And so I'm really trying to embrace this season of my mid-40s
Lisa (02:01)
Love that.
Margaret Osborn (02:02)
Well, you are both just wonderful people. I love you to death. And if other people don't know you, they should because they're missing out. And I am Margaret Osborn. your host of the Unmuted and Unabashed podcast. So the three of us are the co-founders of the Unabashed movement. And I just turned 58.
And that's a lot to say. But hey, I'm happy to be 58, you know? And I love where I'm at in my life right now. I have reinvented so many times. I've had so many different roles. But where I'm at today as a wife to a man who just loves to have fun and keep it real. It's fabulous. We have two dogs. I've had a career helping other people build their personal brands and their company brands so they can make money. And I decided a few years ago that I want to keep helping people do that. But first and foremost, I want to do it for myself. So that is why we are here today. And we want other women to think about their personal brands. Right.
So that leads us into what we're talking about today. And that's why I wanted us all to introduce ourselves again, because we are talking about we're just going to call it reinvention.
Margaret Osborn (03:26)
And we do believe that women are constantly in a state of reinvention, hopefully constantly learning, building, deciding what they really want out of life and what they don't. there are a lot of women out there who feel like they are ready for more.
And that's also why we're here, because we want to help, right? And inspire. So today we're talking about when you feel like you want more, you want to make a change, but life just won't budge. For so many different reasons, you may feel stuck, but we are here to tell you that you don't have to stay still. It's about constantly learning Reinventing is not, I'm gonna quit my six figure job and I'm gonna go be a kindergarten teacher, which would be very admirable, because God knows kids need good role models these days. But it's those small changes, right? And those small learning experiences and those ways of recognizing, realizing what you want and what you don't want anymore and then ā doing something about it in microdoses. So.
I know from speaking to a lot of women, especially in midlife, mid-career, they get to a place and stop one day and ask themselves, my gosh, is this really it? I was there. I was there. And I think that feels and looks like something different for everybody.
Have you guys had moments like that?
Lisa (05:07)
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I, for me, I think it's when I'm and we've talked about this recently in another episode where I wasn't being authentic and I was playing a role. And I maybe wasn't even doing enough to make mistakes, to have failures. And for me personally in my career, I think it's very important to have this, I'm not saying catastrophic, catastrophic failures, but we need to fail to grow and learn. And if you're just moving along and you're not, you're just, you're almost robotic. That's what, those are the times where I'm saying, is this all there is? When I pushed myself, and I challenge myself and I question myself and I allow myself to fail, then those feelings stop.
Margaret Osborn (05:56)
I like that. You don't, you recognize that it's not a failure to fail, right?
Lisa (05:57)
Oh my gosh, we have to fail or we'll never grow. That's such an important lesson I think so many people need to learn. How do you get better if you don't fail?
Margaret Osborn (06:13)
Yeah, for sure. Brooke, what do you think?
Brooke Salazar (06:19)
When Michelle Obama said, I've seen a lot of men fail and fail forward where women don't. I get very, you don't want to be around me if I'm bored. If I'm not learning, I'm a lifelong student. My intellectual curiosity is intense. Ask me about sharks, I will tell you. So if I'm for history,
Margaret Osborn (06:46)
or history.
Lisa (06:49)
or Taylor Swift.
Brooke Salazar (06:50)
or Taylor Swift, the intellectual curiosity in me is strong. So if I'm not constantly improving, if I'm not constantly learning, if I'm in an environment where, I said this recently in a LinkedIn post, I never wanna be the best on a team, I wanna be on the best team. I never wanna be the smartest person in the room, that means I'm in the wrong bloody room.
Lisa (07:17)
Right.
Brooke Salazar (07:19)
That's a high, at this point in my career, I mean, that's a kind of a high bar. So, but by doing that and then surrounding myself with people like you Lisa and you Margaret, and the community of people that I've built that are constantly achieving and constantly striving to get better and that I can learn from, that to me is ..., I don't know if it's reinvention or if it's evolution, but I'm constantly evolving. And if I'm not evolving, there is a huge problem. And Margaret will ask me if I have recently seen my therapist. So, which only the bestie can do.
Margaret Osborn (07:59)
ā True.
Brooke Salazar (08:02)
But 1000%, if I'm not evolving, I'm stagnant. And if I'm stagnant, I am not regulated. My mind is not regulated. There is an issue.
Margaret Osborn (08:13)
Yeah, yeah. So what we're talking about today is, we've all been there at some point where we're like, why in the world am I doing this? Or, I have Sunday scaries, or I find myself being really terse to people at work, I'm just, I'm not happy.
The crux of what we're saying is that you don't have to live like that, even though you might feel like I'm stuck. I can't do anything about this. I make six figures. I carry our insurance, if I wait 10 more years, I'm going to retire with this great pension. I can't leave. We're here to say that, well, maybe you don't have to leave, but how you approach work or you approach your life outside of work, all of that can change. So you do have choices that we recognize sometimes they're very, very hard. We've all had them to make.
Maybe you're new in your career and you're just finding your footing. Or maybe you're midlife and you are saying, what the hell am I doing with my life? Can I change jobs? Can I change careers? Yes, you can. And a lot of that is really identifying what you want to do and what you don't want to do.
And you do have those choices. And to Lisa and Brooke's points, a lot of that is adopting the mindset of constantly learning and growing. So we're talking about reinvention mode as being one of those eras or seasons in your life.
And as women, we have to think about it so much more deliberately than I think men do because we constantly feel like we're trying to catch up, right? What do you guys think?
Brooke Salazar (09:57)
You know I've often said that to me I feel like there is no perfect age for women. I love my 40s. The older you get team the better I feel, I get more confident. I may be hotter than I was before like heat wise, but I'm a lot more confident in my experience than maybe I was before. But every era that you're in has positive and a negative to it and you're constantly reinventing and I don't think for society there is a perfect age for women. You're either too young to be experienced, you're either too much in your mom mode to be of value at a lot of organizations, or now you're old.
But I think that reinvention... I went back to law school. I worked full time and went back to law school. Anything is possible. all things are possible.
Margaret Osborn (11:01)
You have more power than maybe you think that you do. A lot of that is making these micro changes and quietly pivoting. It's making a choice whether or not to move forward without necessarily blowing up what you have today. So before we talk about how women can make these micro changes let's talk for a minute about what to stop because a lot of us have gotten into these habits that are actively working against us. I know I was all about my career. And frankly, burned myself out physically and emotionally ā twice not once. I didn't learn the first time, I did it twice. But a lot of us have these habits that are working against us. And the first thing we have to do is become aware of that.
We were talking earlier about imposter syndrome. Let's work through that for a minute.
Brooke Salazar (12:06)
Well, I think we were talking about, the link between imposter syndrome, how it can defeat that "I deserve more" feeling.
Lisa (12:17)
Yeah, I've struggled with imposter syndrome multiple times, I think throughout my career. And it's sort of like an up and down thing for me personally, And I think also the more I like what I'm doing and the more I'm willing to challenge myself and feel trust in my own ability to in my own creativity or problem solving skills, I can be creative. I can help other people. I can do this. I remember when I was younger, I also burnt myself out. I remember feeling like I need to climb this ladder, but I was climbing a ladder, pushing out things that I didn't believe in. And I felt like I'm trying to sell things to people that they don't need. So I think it's the context too of all of that. for me, it's like very much like a roller coaster comes and goes.
Margaret Osborn (13:12)
So imposter syndrome, I think any anybody or maybe more specifically any woman who says, "I've never felt that" they're just not being honest with themselves. And that might be harsh, but I do believe that. I mean even like as a mom, Lisa, did you have all the answers when you had your first child?
Lisa (13:32)
My gosh, no. nd in hindsight, like even more so I'm like, ā geez, I had no, no clue what it was doing. was clueless.
Margaret Osborn (13:41)
Right, right.
So it's not, it's not just work. You know, I'm an imposter. People are going to find out. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. It's, it's, it shows up so many ways in our lives and it's, it's negative in our psyche.
Brooke Salazar (13:58)
Lisa's gonna laugh but like I've been really blessed to be around a lot of mediocre men. And I will tell you I have never seen them struggle for advocating for themselves. Not one time and so you're talking about imposter syndrome, and Listen, I have a lot of things happening in this brain 1000%. Imposter syndrome not one of them and it is because I have been around brilliant folks. I've been around a lot of mediocre folks. I've been around a lot of "We failed so many times that now we're in executive leadership" folks and Men do not struggle with that. They don't have that experience. Right? So I, I will say that I, I coach women too and I heard, one of the most talented lawyers that I know and adore. And like she's old enough to, in my mind, know how good of a lawyer she is. And we're talking and I was like, what are you saying? What do you mean you don't know if you can do X, like what are you talking about? Okay, I need you to like pump the brakes. You're a first generation lawyer. No one taught you how to get here. You've climbed the law firm ladder. Explain to me why this next step is gonna be so hard. Like if you don't get it now, when are you gonna get it? Like are you gonna be 80 and struggling with this? What are we doing? And so one of those things that I, like I have a mantra.
Before I go into those meetings, I also rap by the way, like I will do Forget About Dre if you're asking. It does help with diction and confidence and there's neuroscience behind it. But anyways, I say I am Brooke (bleeping) Salazar. Are you kidding me? You have this. This is ridiculous. Even if they don't choose you, then they've made a poor choice. Like that's on them sis.
Brooke Salazar (16:07)
But if we don't learn it now, when are we going to learn it?
Margaret Osborn (16:07)
That's right. That's right.
So they they're micro moments and just think of them as little experiments and it becomes less, ā less...
Brooke Salazar (16:25)
daunting.
Margaret Osborn (16:25)
daunting. There you go. That's the word.
It's not an all or nothing kind of thing. We've got some small experiments that you can build on.
The first thing you have to do is be aware of where you are just putting up with things or going through the what are some small ways, let's just call it at work, that women can, have a micro moment and start taking action.
Lisa (16:58)
So I'm gonna just, comes back to the work thing, but this is something that Margaret and I experienced together. And I think, that it made a huge impact in my life and being able to identify some of those things that I wanted to change. I asked Margaret if she wanted to try this meditation place with me and we both wound up becoming members. The place closed, but, going to those sessions and just being able to kind of peel the onion of my own brain, so to speak, man, that made a huge difference for me. It really shined the light on what it is I like about myself.
Maybe what I didn't so much like about myself and why, you know, and what I wanted to do to change it. And I think that everybody needs, whether it's meditation or something else, you need to stop and just like embrace the quiet and kind of just look inside and, and what is it that I, what's important to me, you know, and it's a journey. It's not like it hits all at once, but I will say for me, personally, meditation was a huge part of that and where I wanted to go. And it's helped me stay calm through some challenging things that's helped me stay in the moment and not worry about, oh my gosh, what if, what if, what if, okay, no, I'm staying in the now. So I wanted to put that out there and so I'm not trying to sell anything, but I think it's important to have that center.
Brooke Salazar (18:42)
To give yourself the space, like the head space to be able to actually think about what you want instead of the normal thing we do, which is work, take care of every living being around us, eat, go to bed, do the same thing.
Lisa (18:42)
So, yes.
Margaret Osborn (19:00)
Yeah.
Lisa (19:00)
And we all deserve that. We deserve the downtime. We deserve to be able to lay down and think about nothing except be in the moment. it really changes perspectives for me anyway.
Margaret Osborn (19:12)
I agreed to do it because Lisa is definitely one of my besties and it was an opportunity for us to spend time together. But I do agree that it forced me to just stop and just be, and it absolutely changed me as well. I was very sad when the business closed because I loved that damn heated floor. That was amazing. so good. so sad. but I will say that, you know, we all have different ways of centering ourselves and opening up our mind enough, either really consciously through meditation or not consciously through, for me, it's doing something creative. Brooke.
I know that you have an activity you enjoy when you need to just center and not think. What is that?
Brooke Salazar (20:13)
I will say like I say with love and affection my brain is a little different. One of the things I'm working on is I'm either at zero mile per hour or I'm at 160 mile per hour and sitting with myself and having compassion for myself. It's very challenging.
I am working with a professional. Trickle down therapy you guys are welcome. ā But I love coloring But it's because I get obsessed with the little pieces and so It for me. I think when I think about like the most important like micro things that you can do is Understand, and I tell this to law students all the time or people thinking about changes in their career. What do you want your personal life to look like? So how do you want to show up at home? And not like if you live by yourself, if you have a family, how do you want to feel in your body? And what circumstances around you dictate that?
So for me, knowing, and again, it's this like self-awareness and understanding your behavioral drivers and how you operate best in what environments.
Okay, so how are we gonna adjust and how are we gonna fit that? So I think understanding what you want your life to feel like and how you wanna show up outside of work. I think understanding that is the first step to starting to create your path.
Margaret Osborn (21:56)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (21:57)
Yeah. And also not deciding what to do because you think that's what it's supposed to be because that's what society tells you it's supposed to be. Like you're supposed to manage a team because that makes you seem important. You know, if it's for you, great. If it's not for you, also great. You know?
Brooke Salazar (22:11)
Mm-hmm.
Margaret Osborn (22:17)
Right, right.
When I was trying to decide, am I going to go back to work for somebody else or am I going to stay self-employed, one of the best exercises I did was, it's like a pros and cons list, only it's what I want to do, what I don't want to do in the other column. And I spent a lot of time with that and I was really honest with myself and it seems like a very simple exercise, but I guarantee you most people don't even think about it, let alone put it down on paper. And I think that for anybody listening to this who feels like they're stuck or they're not that happy in their job or they think they want to make a change, but they're not sure what it is, it could be like, maybe I want a divorce.
Or maybe I wanna leave my job or maybe I want another dog. I don't know. But don't do it, Brooke.
Brooke Salazar (23:15)
I saw everybody's faces panic. It'd be a hoarding situation at that point. Yeah. We understand.
Margaret Osborn (23:19)
So the best exercise you can do is to really spend time thinking about what you want and what you don't want. You have to be very deliberate about it. And we do have resources on the Unabashed website. The simplest one that I created, it's called Flow versus Friction, and it's a self-awareness tracker.
It's literally one or two pages and it's meant for you to sit down and do this over a course of a week or two weeks. Think about it, you know, different points of different days. What really lights you up and what really drags you down? And it could be at work, it could be at home, anywhere.
Brooke Salazar (23:47)
That's so cool.
Margaret Osborn (24:06)
Very, very simple to do.
Brooke Salazar (24:07)
So one of the things that really has helped me in the past is starting to record my wins and why they're wins. are they like monetary value towards the organization?
if it's a big win that I must have enjoyed doing it on some level, what did I enjoy about it? Right? And so that was part of that friction versus flow or friction and flow that I think is so important to lean into things you really like instead of stopping like a peg in a round hole or square and round hole. But once I started recording my wins and I would write it like I was writing it into my resume.
It really gave me some power back into my future, which when you're applying for jobs and you're trying to find a job and you can't, you feel so powerless. And that is so defeating. I have been there. But once you start recording your wins and even like however little they may be, you will start to remind yourself "I am worthy of the next step."
And if you're like, well, Brooke, what do you mean? Well, I mean, I've been a receptionist before. Like I didn't drop any calls today. I had a 99 % correction rate because I didn't drop calls
Start practicing.
Get comfortable listing your accomplishments. So when you are, the door does open or crack or window for an opportunity, you can immediately slide in and be like, have a 99% appropriate call rate or whatever that win may be.
Margaret Osborn (25:45)
I love that and it is so important. I did like a whole month of like reflection. cause I really, was at a point where I had to decide, do I want to go back to work for somebody else? Do I want to do my own thing? And what is that thing?
So I was downsized from a job. What did I start doing? I immediately started interviewing. And then when I'm on that second, third interview, I'm feeling sick to my stomach. Like, I don't want this job. I don't want this big chief marketing officer job. I don't want that anymore.
And it was through writing down where the friction was, where the flow was, What am I willing to give up? That I realized like this, what I'm doing today is what I want to do. Does it mean my husband and I are OK with less income coming in? Absolutely. It was a conscious choice. But You don't know that until you're collecting the data. And Brooke's point of writing down your wins or your lessons is so important. It's important because you're going to forget those things. I think journaling is so important to learning and reflecting and to not making the same lessons over and over, or same mistakes over and over, you have to record your wins and your lessons learned.
And unless you collect that data. You're just, you're not going to have it.
Brooke Salazar (27:19)
Well, how many of us remember, I don't even remember what I did three days ago. Right, so when you're moving really fast and getting a lot done, which I think 99 % of women are, it's really easy to lose track of how far you've come. So whether that is journaling at the beginning of your divorce, whether that is... we were just talking about imposter syndrome. Yeah, but look where I was two years ago. my gosh, I've come so far or I've come so far in six months and that is the neuroscience that builds confidence. It's not about not being able to to know all the things at once. It's about having the confidence to say when it's time to make that decision, I will be able to deal with the consequences because I've done all of these other things.
Lisa (28:10)
And in addition to keeping track of your wins, ā but I also want to keep track of my failures. And then I want to know, I want to dig deeper in those personally for me. Why was that a win? Why did that make me happy? What do I like about that? What do I not like about that? And it helps complete the journey of where you want to go moving forward. How do all these pieces fit together? What brings you joy? What makes you feel challenged? What makes you feel useful? What makes you feel fulfilled?
Brooke Salazar (28:47)
Same lesson different font. Same lesson different font. And whether that's personal or professional, I only my I strive to only have to learn that lesson once. And it's when I have to keep relearning it and relearning it that that depletes my confidence that that is negative on my self esteem because I'm like, just feel like I should have already learned this. What is stopping me from learning this lesson?
Margaret Osborn (29:21)
This is just speaking to my heart, because I believe the reason women stay where they are is because they don't, they don't take the time to really reflect.
Really reflect on when was I happy, when was I not happy, what was a win, what was a failure and why. And we have so many resources on the Unabashed website. I'm going to put them all in the show notes. But this has changed. This changed my life.
You know, there's so many lessons that we all don't know we learned because we didn't...
Brooke Salazar (29:55)
Maybe we earned them. We earned that. And like my dark humor, I earned that humor. These lessons, I've earned them. And so I think through Unabashed, it's sharing them. So hopefully other women can feel seen and or not have to go through that. Right.
Lisa (30:04)
Mm-hmm.
Or not feel alone. Not feel like you're the only one who's struggled with this and why am I like this and everybody else seems so confident. We're not, we're not. Right.
Margaret Osborn (30:29)
All right, and we go down those rabbit holes.
Brooke Salazar (30:29)
Everybody else seems so happy on social media. No, absolutely. Absolutely not. So if you can adopt these things especially mean no matter how old you are. But I wish I would have learned some of these lessons earlier in my career.
Brooke Salazar (30:56)
It's a muscle. You have to work it. It's a muscle you have to work. You have to practice it.
I think especially being on the HR side and seeing how many people got jobs and it had nothing to do with the other candidates. Didn't mean they were less than, it didn't mean their experience was less than. It literally meant there was a spark between the hiring manager and the candidate, which usually meant that they reminded them of them, which that shouldn't be a thing, but it is not a reflection of your self-worth.
Margaret Osborn (31:29)
Amen.
Yeah. So let's land this plane, ladies. Reinvention mode is not about being stuck. It's about being strategic about how you learn and grow, right? It's the micro moments, the slow burn before you have that breakthrough and the truth is you just have to recognize it when that happens. And however you do that, if you journal, if you just put things in a spreadsheet, when you have those moments and you realize that was a breakthrough or that was hard for me, just write it down. You have to be able to recognize it first.
So our homework for everybody is to think about it and name one reinvention moment, one small moment where you had a breakthrough, past or recent and acknowledge it. It was a win. Acknowledge that. Reflect on what you want and you don't want. What brings you joy, what weighs you down.
Identify one skill your future self needs for you to like, you want to move on to another role or you want a promotion. Or maybe you do want to break from your husband, but you don't understand how to manage money. Think about one skill your future self needs. Write it down and start working toward that. Take a course on Coursera.
And then I'm to say one more thing about LinkedIn. Change something that signals who you're becoming, whatever that thing is that you want to become.
Announce it to yourself, write it down, put it on LinkedIn.
Brooke Salazar (33:13)
What I always encourage is to put voice, it helps our brains to write it down, right? Get it on the emotional side, let it process into the rational side. Put voice to it, right? Put voice to it. It gives it power.
If you need somebody, Tag us on LinkedIn, tag on a bash on LinkedIn. We will celebrate you 1000%. The community will celebrate you because it is about being able to be in a safe space. Put that out there.
Margaret Osborn (33:40)
Absolutely.
Brooke Salazar (33:47)
And then experience the positive reinforcement. And ā that is why all of us are doing this and we would love nothing more than to help you celebrate a win.
Lisa (34:00)
For sure. So well said.
Margaret Osborn (34:02)
So well said. OK. Well, that was amazing. Well, until the next time, continue to grow and learn. connect with us on LinkedIn. ā And we do. We want to help.
Lisa (34:14)
Yes.
Margaret Osborn (34:16)
And we want to champion you, we want to celebrate you.
So, be unabashed.
