Battling for Work Life Balance, with Emmie Brown – Episode 227 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

Southwestern Consulting Senior Partner and Southwestern Speakers President Emmie Brown covers the delicate balance of juggling an elite-level professional portfolio with a growing family life, the different ways that men and women prioritize, and how breaking down her daily schedule into 15 minute chunks actually helps her stay more present.

About Emmie:

It’s rare to find a business leader who can be both a top personal performer and a leading sales-team manager. Emmie Brown is one of those people. As a Senior Partner for Southwestern Consulting, Emmie co-leads one of the company’s largest organizations, with coaches across the United States and Europe. As a sales psychology expert and executive-level sales and leadership coach, she personally empowers some of the most successful company leaders across numerous industries to develop processes, build great teams, and maximize overall performance. 

Emmie is also President of Southwestern Speakers where she is responsible for developing strategic growth plans, coordinating business development, and leading the certification process for a premier group of authors, experts, thought leaders, and dynamic keynote speakers. As a speaker herself, Emmie has five dynamic keynotes to help motivate, strengthen and encourage audience members to take their performance to the next level.

In addition to her real world experience, Emmie has a psychology degree from the University of North Carolina. She has unique insights to help you more effectively communicate your point of view, be more persuasive in selling, and motivate your team to action.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Host: The struggle for work and life balance, or a better way of saying it, the struggle for work and life success. That is what we are talking about today. And I have the senior partner at Southwestern Consulting, Emmie Brown. She sold books for Southwestern Advantage, and she did that for nine summers. She was full-time in the field selling for six years, and then she was a sales leader. And one of the things about Emmy that always impressed me and has continued to be. She is one of the rare people who has performed in both recruiting and leadership, and then also the highest level of selling. Just a very, very rare and exceptional ability to both lead and get the best out of other people, but also to personally produce, and she’s an expert on all types of different things related to sales and leadership. So Emmie, welcome to the show.

Emmie Brown: I’m glad to be here.

Host: So there’s a lot of moms out there who listen, who they’re in sales or leadership or entrepreneurship or some type, but they’re also a mom. And then there’s a lot of men out there who are husbands or, uh, you know, boyfriends too or fathers of, uh, a woman who has a similar thing. And the first thing I just wanted to ask you is what do you think most women don’t understand about the pressure? That comes from being a working mom. Can you just kind of describe what that struggle is?

Emmie Brown: When I first found out that I was pregnant with our first child, I had a lot of fear. You know, I, I was working an extraordinary amount of hours and I was very dedicated with what I was doing. I had a team, I was selling. There were so many responsibilities that I loved at work that I was very fearful about how I was gonna keep all of that up.

So I joined every mom’s group that I could find, and frankly I couldn’t find, uh, really any mom’s groups out there while working mothers. All the moms groups I was able to find were for mostly stay at home mothers. And, uh, so I had so much fear about how I was gonna be able to make it all work, how I was gonna be able to manage, how I was gonna get it done, how I was gonna continue to produce at the same level, how I was gonna continue to leave and.

I really felt a lot of fear and uh, in hindsight everything worked out a lot easier than I could have even imagined. It. It’s kind of like you just put one foot in front of the other and you take that first step and then that next step and then that next step, and it really does just work out. I think so much of the fear that, that we.

Is unwarranted and we just have to learn how to trust that it will all work out. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Host: So do you, do you feel that poll I have to like be at home, but also to be working? I mean, how do you manage that or, or how do you coach yourself through that? Or what’s your, what is your mindset about managing that dynamic?

Emmie Brown: Well, all of us do feel pressure, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a stay at home mom or you’re a working mom or you work part-time, every single mother is gonna feel a lot of mom guilt. You know, we’re gonna feel guilt for working and missing out on, you know, going to a lunch at our kids’ school or being able to help with a fundraiser, or we feel guilt that we’re not, you know, if a mother’s not working or, or contributing or growing, like we feel a certain amount of guilt that way.

So mom guilt is very, very, very real. One of the ways that I combat that is actually being very intentional with my time. I live and die by my, my schedule. So I plan my work time extremely intentionally, and you know, to wear every single 15 minutes of my. Is mapped out in terms of what I’m gonna accomplish personally and professionally.

So, um, even my, um, personal time is very, very scheduled in terms of when we’re gonna eat dinner and, uh, when the kids are gonna go to bed, and when I’m gonna spend time with my husband. So that enables me to actually be focused. On the task at hand. I don’t wanna be at work and be thinking about, you know, all the things that I wish I could be doing or should be doing with my kids.

And I don’t wanna be at home thinking about what I didn’t do or I should be doing at work. I wanna live in the moment and give it all that I have at work and then give it all that I have at.

Host: When do you plan out the schedule? Give me like a little bit about the, the functionality or the technicalities of how and when you plan your schedule into what detail?

Emmie Brown: Well, I used to be able to sit down every Sunday night and religiously plan, you know, for an hour to two hours. Um, and that doesn’t always work in, in the world of kids. Kids don’t always nap exactly when you plan for them too. Now, with having two kid, it uh, has made it a lot more challenging. One of the things that I do believe is that you have to plan your week before your week actually starts.

If not, you’re starting the week out. Re. So, um, you know, I wanna plan each day before it starts. I wanna try to plan the next week before it starts. It. It doesn’t always happen on Sunday night anymore, but I can take some time on Friday afternoon to think through schedule for the following week. And I can take some, I always take some time before I close out my current day to think through my following day.

And yes, I do plan all the little stuff. If you were to actually look at my calendar, you know, I plan, um, you know, this is Mommy Dawson time and, uh, this. Is when I’m eating breakfast. Like it, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s down to the mic. Do in a ridiculous way. You know, I have everything in there.

Host: I don’t know how to convey really to people at what an ultra level of performance that you are achieving. So do you feel like you have to make a choice at some point? Like, it’s either gonna be my family or it’s gonna be my production?

Emmie Brown: Well, you can have it all and at the same time you can’t have it all. I’ll explain a little bit about what it is that I. So I have over 30 team members that I lead and manage.

I have 16 coaching clients that I coach one on one. Mm-hmm. I also sell and deliver consulting. I speak and self speaking. I co you know, obviously I coach and I sell coaching, so I’m working across all the different divisions of our, our company. So I am pulled in a lot of different directions, you know, plus being a mom and, and a wife.

You know, there’s, there’s a lot on my plate. And, uh, sometimes we can feel an incredible amount of pressure and guilt when we’re not producing at the level that, that we want to. And sometimes that pressure causes us to freeze or to stop and. It can’t be done. I, I’m not gonna be able to handle it. You know, I won’t be able to fit that back in, and I just have to ignore that pressure and ignore that guilt.

Guilt is a huge killer of progress, and I have to ignore that. And actually, I give myself the emotional permission to just do my best, just do the best that I. In any given moment with my, you know, God given abilities, you know, I wanna do the best that I can to serve the world at any given moment with the pressures that I have on my plate.

And that’s all that I can do. And um, and I have to remind myself of that daily. And when I relieve myself that pressure and I relieve myself of that guilt, that opens up the possibility to be able to handle more and more.

Host: For the men that are out there listening, maybe there’s a male who is the boss of the supervisor of a woman who just had kids and is, you know, she’s in a role where she is being asked to, you know, perform and work.

Or in the role of more of a spouse or you know, a partner where, uh, you, they’re either the men listening who’s the husband or the boyfriend to somebody who is a mom or whatever. What’s the advice that you would give to men? What are some of the ways that you think that men could actually support their ladies, particularly if they’re working mom and they’re having to have a foot in both world?

Emmie Brown: That you asked that question because it is very different for men than women. We have a very young company, young, in terms of time that our company has been around and also young in terms of, of age, of the, I mean, we were building this, um, when many of us were in our late twenties, so I was the first person who was a female.

To have a young kid, to have a baby in our company. And so I, I really didn’t know if it was gonna gonna work because it’s very different for a man than a woman. There’s just different freshers and different responsibilities. Um, it’s definitely, you know, a physical challenge for, for a woman. And then women get their fulfillment from different avenues.

Oftentimes, uh, a man gets his fulfillment and his sense of purpose and confidence from his production or from his co, you know, financial contribution or who he is in business. And a woman is a lot more likely to get a lot more of their fulfillment, not always a lot more of their fulfillment from their family.

I relish in the family, um, a lot more than, than my husband does, and I have to understand that we are different and my husband. And all husbands or significant others need to understand that men and women just think differently. Women are gonna put more pressure on themselves to spend more time with their children.

They’re gonna put more pressure on themselves to, you know, be there for certain events. Those events are gonna seem more important. They’re gonna feel guilty when they’re not and and men just need to recognize that and be okay with it. And every woman is different. For me, I know that I am better being a working mother than a stay at home mom if I was home.

When I am home with my kid all day long, I get irritated. I get just aggravated by by little. And I know when I’m, when I’m working during the day, I feel good about that. And then when I come home, I can be very, very focused on my kids and give them my undivided attention and, and just be completely present and joyful and in the moment.

But I need more of that time. I need more of that intentionally focused time than my husband does. And I think men, um, a boss or significant others, but men need to recognize. To women, it’s very important to have more time than they might want, and uh, it’s also important for them to you take their child to that doctor’s appointment or go to that school event, and that’s okay. The priority is men and women are just different.

Host: Yeah, I think that’s good for everybody’s sanity to just remember. So the last little question I have for you Em, is if there is somebody out there, listen, right now, let’s say specifically it is, it is a working mom and maybe it’s a, a new working mom and she is feeling that kind of pressure.

What advice would you give to her just as she’s thinking through and sort of preparing for what’s ahead in, in terms of the, the various challenges of being a, a high performer at work while also being an amazing mom?

Emmie Brown: Well, the first piece of advice I would give her is to say that it will work out. The second piece of advice I would give is to say you can’t do it on your own.

In the past, I have been somebody who has, uh, tried to do everything on my own. I have a tendency to not ask for help or sometimes not accept help. When people give it to me, but I couldn’t do it, uh, without a team. We have a full-time nanny. We have a full-time executive assistant. Grandma is incredibly helpful, so be willing to, uh, both seek out and accept the help that you need.

Because if you have the help that you need, you’re gonna be more likely to flourish than if you try to do it all on your own. Be carry the weight of the world on your two shoulders.

Host: Hmm. Emmy, we just, we appreciate you and on behalf of our team, we wish you all the best.

Emmie Brown: Thank you.