250: Behind the Scenes of a Collaborative Book: Advice from the Authors of We Lead: Volume 2 (Part 3)

Hi there. You’re listening to the Leading Lady podcast. I’m your host, AliceAnne Loftus, and I’m a certified professional coach specializing in leadership and work-life balance. I work with clients to shift their limiting beliefs, insecurities, and self-doubt. This podcast will be filled with tools and strategies to help high-achieving women like you feel connected, empowered, and in the lead of your life, both personally and professionally. Let’s transform your life starting now. Lead yourself, the rest will follow.

AliceAnne: Hi there, leading ladies, and welcome to today’s episode. If you’ve been following along, you know that for the last couple episodes, I’m interviewing authors from We Lead: Volume 2, and I’m super excited to be joined by five authors today: Julie Campbell, Elizabeth Harris, Jen Howat, Sam Straub, and Val Anias.

Did I say that right? I’ve always wondered if I say it right.

Val: That was actually really good. I’m impressed.

AliceAnne: Oh. It was great. Thanks, Val. So I’m gonna let them introduce themselves and their chapters, and then we’re just gonna jump right into our interview questions.

Meet the Authors and Their Chapters

AliceAnne: So we’ll start with you, Julie.

Julie: Thanks, AliceAnne, and good morning, leading ladies. I’m Julie Campbell. I’m the president and CEO of the Severn Leadership Group, and my chapter is chapter four. It’s called Give and Receive Feedback Like a Pro: The Key to Excellence in Your Business.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Thank you. Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Hi. I’m Elizabeth Harris. I am a registered dietitian. I have a private practice based out of Annapolis, Maryland, where I offer one-to-one and small group coaching and corporate wellness activities. And my chapter is Get Out of Your Own Way: An Action Plan to Thrive in Life, Health, and Business.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Thank you. Jen.

Jen: Hi. I’m Jen Howat. I’m a content strategist and Kajabi specialist, and I help busy business owners grow and scale without burning out by taking what you already teach and adding it to an online space where you can have that be alongside what you already have to offer.

And I wrote chapter three, which is Harnessing the Power of Online Courses and Memberships: How to Impact More People Without Burning Out.

AliceAnne: Thank you. Sam.

Sam: Hi, everybody. I’m Sam Straub, and I own Teen Savvy Coaching, which is a parent coaching business for parents of teens and tweens, and I’m also a licensed mental health therapist. My chapter is number five, and it’s called Nurturing Kids and Career: The Motherhood Advantage in Business Leadership.

AliceAnne: Awesome. And last but not least.

Val: I am Val Anias. I own A Team Family Law, which is a family law focused law firm in Annapolis, Maryland. My chapter is chapter 21, which I titled Representation Matters: Turning Challenges into Opportunities for Growth.

What We Hope Readers Take Away

AliceAnne: Fantastic. Well, ladies, I’m thrilled to have you here today. These interviews have been a lot of fun for me. I don’t get to chat often with the authors as we’re writing this book. You would think that we would talk more during a collaborative book, but we’re kind of in our own lanes trying to get our chapters together and submitting them to create this book.

And I feel like I’m learning so much about each of you as I read your chapters that, I don’t know, I feel like it’s a book that has changed me in so many ways, even though I’m the lead author of the book. You would think that I would know everything that’s going in there. So I appreciate you being here and sharing your insight, and I know that you’re all from such different industries and perspectives, so this is a really cool opportunity to bring us together.

Julie, what are you hoping that readers take away from your chapter?

Julie: I hope that the readers will find the courage to give and ask for feedback more. I know that feedback is really hard. It’s really difficult for me, so my chapter really tries to make it more practical so you can make it a practice. Feedback is so emotion-ridden, so really just take away what you need for giving and receiving feedback more, so you understand your relationship with feedback first.

You know how to prepare for giving and receiving feedback. You learn how to make it a conversation and not just a once-a-year thing, but really put it into practice. And you have a model to use so that meaningful feedback can be a habit, can be done, can be comfortable, and can really grow the relationships and trust with those that you’re giving and receiving feedback from.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Thank you, Julie. You know, it was so powerful for me to learn my relationship with feedback. I actually have this little meme on my desk, and it says, “When I ask for feedback, what I really want is a compliment.” So true. And I think it really opened my eyes to how difficult feedback can be. But feedback is necessary, and working with you, going through the SLG program, and reading your chapter really reinforced that for me personally.

Julie: Thanks, AliceAnne.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Elizabeth, how about you? What are you hoping readers take away?

Elizabeth: So my chapter is about my own journey with overthinking and perfectionism, and I guess I hope that readers will take away that there are all sorts of ways that we all get stuck in our own patterns and get in our own way.

A lot of my experience as an entrepreneur mirrors the experience that a lot of my clients have with food. And whether you’re overthinking or getting stuck or feeling frustrated because of business challenges or challenges with your health and nutrition, I hope readers will take away that they’re not alone, and there are ways to simplify things and to build trust with yourself and to build in flexibility so that it goes a lot easier and a lot better and a lot more smoothly.

And hopefully they will walk away with a tool or two that they can actually put into action to help with that, both in business and with their nutrition and eating.

AliceAnne: Yeah. It’s amazing, the parallels, right? This is true for anything that we do in our personal life. Chances are we do the same thing, the same behavior, in our professional life as well.

So working with you over the last few years and seeing the parallels of the relationship people have with food and their bodies and their wellness, those behaviors are often mirrored in their business practices as well.

Elizabeth: Yeah, in so many areas, just lack of self-trust or perfectionism or having a super rigid approach, which I fall into all of those. So yeah, lots of parallels.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Jen, how about you? What are readers taking away from your chapter?

Jen: Well, I hope that readers take away from the chapter that busyness and burnout do not need to be the norm in your life.

AliceAnne: Can you say that louder, please?

Jen: Busyness and burnout do not need to be the norm in your life. And I shared a personal experience where I was really hitting my stride living out the vision and mission that I had for my life, but in the process, I lost myself along the way.

And I realized that I was doing a lot of great things, but I really didn’t like the person I was becoming. I realized that if I allowed myself to stay in that space for too long, it would then affect the very vision and mission that I was desperately trying to protect by doing all of the things. And so I really hope that readers will see that busyness and burnout do not need to be the norm, and that what we do matters because we have this vision and mission for our life and our business, but who we’re becoming matters more.

And sometimes we need to step back and figure out, “How is it that I can still live out the vision and mission, but do so in a way where I guard my capacity, not only for my business, but also for the things that matter most?” And in my line of work, I’ve realized that there are ways that you can work smarter and not harder, and taking what you do to the digital space online is an option that could help you in that endeavor.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Thank you. And just to give our listeners a teaser, I’ve been working with Jen Howat for, gosh, the greater part of a year, and we just soft launched my program, which I’m not gonna spill yet, so stay tuned. But I’ll share with you, I was in therapy yesterday, and my therapist was like, “Hey, I thought we said you weren’t gonna be working more.”

And I said, “Oh, girl, I am not working more. I am working with this incredible woman, and she is helping me scale my business and not work more.” So I’m putting it into practice. This is amazing, and I love working with you, Jen, and it really changed the way I looked at how to scale. Sam?

Sam: I’m gonna give Jen props, too. In a few months, I’ll be able to say the same thing you just said, AliceAnne. And for anyone listening, Jen Howat is really an expert at what she does. She’s fantastic. Okay, props aside… Actually, not aside. It’s so important, right, to be women who are building other women up. But you asked what I hope readers take away from chapter five.

As I said, my chapter’s called Nurturing Kids and Career: The Motherhood Advantage in Business Leadership. And the story in my chapter is of when I was the sex ed teacher in my son’s school. It’s a story of the amount of overlap that there was between my personal life as a mom and my professional life as an educator and a counselor.

What I hope readers take away is that parenting is not a distraction on the road to your professional success. It’s something that can get integrated. It can inform your professional approach, and frankly, how you work professionally can inform your parenting, which is what the chapter’s about. These are not two parts of yourself that need to be compartmentalized. They need to complement one another for both to go well.

AliceAnne: And I will die on the hill that Sam saved my life, and probably my teenager’s life when she was a teenager, because she helped keep us sane, and truly, you helped me blend being a professional and raising teens. And your point is spot on, that you really cannot compartmentalize it. You have to figure out how to be able to gracefully, or sometimes not gracefully…

Sam: Sometimes not gracefully, right.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Val, what are you hoping readers take away?

Val: So for me, I went on a little bit of a journey on my own to try to figure out how to paint what I thought was really important, and I think the most important thing I took out of it is that your value is not determined by other people.

That was something that, when I was writing, or experiencing it, I was having a hard time with. I’m a lawyer. I thought what other people said I should do is how my value would come back. And then I got to that point where it’s like, “Oh, wait a second, they actually don’t determine my value.” My values are mine, and once I start living and practicing them authentically in both my personal life and my professional life, that’s success.

And I think what I really hope people get out of it is that your value is yours. Don’t let anybody borrow it or steal it.

AliceAnne: Yeah. And what I appreciate about you, Val, is how you do show up authentically. It challenges the status quo. It makes us think outside the box about how we’re showing up. Are we truly showing up as ourselves? And if we’re not, why not? What’s the narrative that we’re telling? Are we scared? And so knowing you these last how many years…

Val: Yeah, three.

AliceAnne: Yeah, you’ve really helped me lean into not being afraid. You and I are polar opposites. I’m about the girliest girl you’ll ever meet, and I love that you call our meetings your… What do you call them?

Val: Lady club.

AliceAnne: Lady club. I love that. And I can unapologetically show up as a pink powder puff girl and…

Val: Absolutely. And I will do the polar opposite, and we both exist in exactly the same way. Yeah. I like being a lady too.

AliceAnne: We love having you in our lady club.

How Writing Shaped Our Leadership

AliceAnne: All right, so our next question is, how has writing this chapter informed you of how you are showing up as a leader? What has it brought up for you? What have you learned about your own leadership style? Julie?

Julie: Okay, so writing is a therapeutic action, and for me, it really deepened my understanding that I have a crisis of emotion when it comes to feedback, mostly receiving feedback, but also giving feedback when it’s hard feedback to give.

And so it really helped me understand that I’m human and everybody else is human, and this is really a hard thing to do, but still necessary. It’s really caused me to be able to empathize better with people because of how I struggle with it. People who had read it kind of saw themselves giving me feedback, ‘cause some of the folks that have supervised me in the past read it and really thought, “Oh, gosh, now I know why this was so hard.”

AliceAnne: Like, “Oh, that makes sense.”

Julie: Yeah, “That’s why she acts like that,” which could be shutting down or getting defensive, right? So it helped me see that in myself, which I probably didn’t want to realize, but it’ll make me a better person. We’re all on this journey. And the other thing that I wanted to say is that we at Severn Leadership Group are making the world better through virtuous leadership.

That’s our vision, and we use these virtues in everything we do, and I really saw the power of using love, integrity, truth, excellence, and relationships for all the aspects of feedback. And so it really proved to me that this is working, and it’s so important as you build that foundation, whether it’s feedback or anything else, but it was really important on this feedback journey.

AliceAnne: Elizabeth, how about you? How did this give you insight into your own leadership style?

Elizabeth: Well, my chapter is the story of how I launched my podcast and essentially got in my own way in that journey, but really in all things business, and…

AliceAnne: Not you.

Elizabeth: I know. I’m the queen overthinker. But writing for me is very vulnerable, because I’m by nature an extremely private person, and so putting anything about myself out anywhere publicly is very, very hard. And to write these chapters and for them to be meaningful and helpful for people, you have to be vulnerable and share things that you may or may not normally share.

And really, the whole chapter is about getting out of my own comfort zone in business. Since I launched my business five years ago, it’s been all about getting outside of my comfort zone and continually challenging myself and working through a lot of the self-doubt and perfectionism and overthinking that goes along with it.

And in the space that I work in, I work with women, helping them primarily heal their relationship with food and their body, and that’s an extremely vulnerable space to step into with someone. And even though I may not have had the same exact struggles with food, I’ve certainly had similar struggles in other areas, and it makes me a more understanding, more compassionate, and more effective leader for the people that I’m trying to guide and support.

For me, writing the chapter is like a microcosm, on a smaller level, of what happens in life on a bigger level.

AliceAnne: Yeah. I mean, you have been my coach helping me ditch diet culture, and it is vulnerable. It’s painful. And I’ve been your coach in business, and it is vulnerable, and it is painful to peel back those layers, those narratives and rules that we tell ourselves.

And I think some of the greatest breakthroughs of any change come when we step out of our comfort zone and allow ourselves to be vulnerable to the hard things.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I agree.

AliceAnne: Jen, how about you?

Jen: Well, I have pivoted a lot in my life, and I joke with my 20-something-year-old son and say, “Don’t worry about trying to figure out what you want to be when you grow up, because that will evolve and change as you do.”

I used to see that as a detriment to my leadership journey. And this reminded me that actually everything that I’ve learned has made me who I am today, and has gifted me to be able to do what I do today. And it took me back to my why. As I’m writing this and sharing my story with other people, and encouraging them to remember that who they’re becoming is more important than what they’re doing, I’m realizing this is not one of those things where you just set it and forget it.

We always have to be so aware and diligent and intentional to fight for margin and space. No one is gonna do it for us. We have to do it for ourselves, unapologetically, in whatever way feeds our souls. And I realize even today that I still have to fight for that. I still have to ask myself, “How’s it going? Here’s all the things that you’ve done. It’s great to review all of that work, but who am I becoming?”

And at the end of the day, no matter who we are and what we lead in our businesses, we are human beings. We’re not human doings. And that is something that I need to remind myself of constantly, and I think it’s a good reminder for all of us.

AliceAnne: Yeah. I love that. A human being, not a human doing. That’s powerful. Thank you. Sam.

Sam: Being invited to be a part of this book project was a huge honor, and for me, it was something that I would not have sought out, but I wanted to have sought out. Over the years, people have said to me, “You should write a book,” because I have a lot of things to say about raising kids and teens.

AliceAnne: And you’re very funny.

Sam: But I like to talk. I like to have written things. I don’t like the process of writing. Does that make sense? So I like it when it’s done, and I’m proud and pleased when it’s finished, but doing it is not joyful for me. I’m not compelled to write. I write because it’s a means to an end.

So as I was thinking about this chapter and what I was gonna write, I sat down and I thought, “Okay, well, what are the components of parenting that overlap with business leadership, or leadership in general?” And I cranked out an outline in about 16 minutes. It was so fast. I was like, “Oh, and this, and this, and this.”

And I thought to myself, “Boy, this chapter actually could become a book. This could become a book unto itself.” I had a lot more to say under each of the components that I wrote about. So this is all to say that what this taught me is about my background as an educator. And educators, I think, are notorious… I think we all have a little bit of Stockholm Syndrome, like we’ve got to stay in our underpaid lane. I’ve been in education for 26 years, and making the jump to entrepreneurship was a completely new place for me. And so I’m echoing what some of the other experts here have said about being vulnerable and stepping out of your comfort zone.

I guess what writing this chapter did, among other things that I’ve done in my business, is it solidified that I have something to say, informed by my past, but it doesn’t just apply to my past. It’s relevant for other environments, and I really liked realizing that about myself. And I think that most, actually all of us, undersell what we bring to the table.

AliceAnne: Oh, gosh. Clap, clap, clap. Snaps. Hallelujahs. Amens. All the things. I have often said that we’re not meant to do this alone, and when we share and read and listen to each other’s stories, we learn that all of us are either going through it, have gone through it, or will go through it, and we need each other to walk alongside us through all of that. And you so eloquently narrated that, so thank you.

Sam: Well, thank you for the opportunity to say it.

AliceAnne: All right, Val. How has this reflected your own leadership to you?

Val: It’s a little bit of everybody’s. In having to condense how I got here, it almost told me my own story, and now it’s something I have to hold myself accountable to, right? So that was very eye-opening.

And one of the biggest things for me was really honing in on the aspect of community, because I often felt like I was on an island. And so I was just on my island. But it wasn’t until I leaned into the community that I grew, and then realized, “Oh, wait, hold on. When I’m presenting as myself, being authentic, knowing my values, that’s what I bring to the table.”

And in doing that now, since having written this chapter, I keep my four little prongs by me, because when I’m thinking, especially in today’s climate and with everything that’s going on, it’s about making sure that whatever decision I’m making is honoring the story that got me to where I am, what I’m proud of, and where my values are.

And if I continue to do that, and I continue to do that authentically, because I’ve determined it, because I’ve defined it, I think that is a sign of a good leader leading by example. And if somebody else sees that… it’s terrifying. It is terrifying. I’m still scared, but it’s something where I can say, “No, this is what got me here,” taking that leap, being in my fear, sitting in that discomfort. And if I continue to do that, it’s going to be better for me and whoever is impacted by me as well.

And so that was a really interesting experience.

Writing It Down Holds You Accountable

AliceAnne: Yeah, and in my last interview, I had an author say the same thing. She was like, “It holds me accountable.” Like, “Oh yeah, I did those things, so I got here, and I have to continue doing those things.” And now it’s in writing.

Val: Exactly.

AliceAnne: And I felt the same way when my first book, Take the Lead, came out. I felt like I was walking outside naked and saying, “Here’s who I am, and here’s how I got here.” And then everyone’s like, “Oh, but does she do it? Does she live that way? Is she walking in those values?” Not that we’re under a microscope, and not that we can’t be flawed, but writing it reminds us of who we are and what we stand for and how we want to put ourselves out there.

Val: Yeah, you don’t wanna do the “do as I say, not as I do.”

AliceAnne: Yeah. Sometimes I do.

Val: Yeah. Right.

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The Most Challenging and Most Rewarding Parts of Writing

AliceAnne: All right, to close us out, let’s go through and share what was the most challenging part and the most rewarding part of writing your chapter. So Julie, we’ll start with you.

Julie: Okay, challenging. You keyed in on it, talking about who we are. For me, I’m an engineer by trade, so in my mind, I can write technical reports, but I can’t write a story, or I can’t write something like this.

And so for me, it was getting that notion out of my mind, right? And writing with emotion, showing emotion, ‘cause feedback is so intense with emotions. And so really, I had to change my mindset and get excited, and listening to the chatter as we talked about our chapters together gave me the courage that, yes, I could do this.

And then finally, there’s so much to talk about in feedback, and I feel like I just scratched the surface. So narrowing down what was most important, something that people could take away and put even just a piece of into practice, was probably the hardest thing for me.

So most rewarding, here’s the drum roll, please. Watching you all write and do what you do, and how your expertise came alive in these chapters, gave me this idea. My organization is a nonprofit, and we work with hundreds of volunteer mentors who have these amazing stories and have this amazing gift for mentoring that they’ve learned, and they’re growing and learning along the way.

So I put out to 60 of our long-term mentors the opportunity to write a chapter in a collaborative book on holistic mentoring, and I have a waiting list. I have 25 authors signed up with a waiting list, and we kick it off in a few days.

AliceAnne: Oh, amazing, amazing, amazing.

Julie: Yes. I’m so excited. So thank you for the courage and for the ideas, and for this wonderful process and the beautiful product that it’s going to bring to help others mentor well.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Elizabeth, the most challenging and the most rewarding.

Elizabeth: That’s amazing, Julie. Congratulations. Super excited for you. The most challenging thing for me, and this is the third collaborative book that I’ve participated in, is always figuring out what to say and what to write about. I’m a little bit like Jen. I’ve pivoted many times in my life, and I have a lot of different backgrounds that on the surface seem to have nothing to do with one another, but I’ve learned a lot from all of them.

But I think the most challenging part is figuring out, “Well, what stories do I have that actually will be interesting to people and helpful to hear?” And then finding the courage to tell some of them, ‘cause some of them are not necessarily things I would normally want to say. So the most challenging thing is always basically what I said before, being vulnerable.

And the most rewarding thing: unlike Sam, I love writing. That’s my preferred form of communication because, spoiler alert, I can tinker and tinker and tinker with it until I feel like it’s perfect, whereas speaking off the cuff, not so much.

So I really enjoy writing, and I think it’s very cool to have a finished product like that and look back, and also to realize I actually have a lot of stories, and they matter, and they’re interesting, and they can be helpful.

AliceAnne: Love that. Love that. Jen, how about you?

Jen: A lot of what Sam and Elizabeth have been sharing absolutely resonates with me. If you could see me, I’m clapping and talking out loud, like, “Yes, yes, that’s so good. I totally understand.” There were guidelines that I was not in control of. There was a timeline that I was not in control of. And what I have realized about myself is when things are really hard for me, I will go and distract myself with other things, and I didn’t realize that before.

And I am totally owning that now, not ‘cause I’m proud of it, but because I think I need to realize it in order to then do something different. But to stick with it, that was super challenging. And again, having so many stories, how do you figure out the one thing that’s gonna be most helpful? And for me, I was a writer, but then I spoke publicly for 14 years, and I got away from using manuscripts and just had ideas.

And so now I had to retrain my brain to go back and figure out, “How do I put this in words again?” Because I will painstakingly try to figure out the best way to phrase each and every sentence. So that was super, super challenging.

AliceAnne: But that’s what makes you a good content strategist too.

Jen: Thank you. Yes. And I think what was most rewarding was something that Val said, and Elizabeth and Sam too. Well, first of all, I completed the project on time, because I will meet a deadline for someone else, but I will scrap it for myself. I will not come through for myself. And so it was good. I came through, I had the deadline. I did something hard in the timeframe that I was required to do it.

And then when I read it, I thought, “Gosh, I do have something that my life could say and mean to someone and be impactful.” And it made me realize how closely knit together we are. And so it was rewarding to be able to feel like I had something of value to offer, because in turn, every person I work with has something of value that they give me along the way. So it made me feel very connected to people, even though I have no idea who has read it.

AliceAnne: Yeah. So true. And we all have value. I mean, that’s the whole point of the book, that our stories matter, and we never know who it might reach. Even with Take the Lead, I said, “Even if one woman reads this book and says, ‘Ah, that helped,’ it did its job.”

And back to the timelines, I am very thankful for our publisher, Laura Di Franco, with Brave Healer Productions, because she runs a tight ship, and I appreciate that. Because like you, well, you know because you just built this program for me, I will push back deadlines and timelines. That’s probably why it took us a year to launch this, but yeah, I really appreciate Laura Di Franco on that. How about you, Sam?

Sam: Definitely the most challenging part was writing it, and I don’t mean putting words down on paper or on my computer screen. That was part of the problem, but it was actually finding the time to do it. As you have all mentioned, the turnaround time was tight. For me, it felt like AliceAnne was like, “Hey, would you like to write a chapter in my book?” And I said, “Yeah, I’m honored. Absolutely.” And she’s like, “Sit tight. I’ll tell you when it’s starting.” And then a few weeks later, we get this email, “It’s starting, and I need your chapter in 10 hours.” Right? That’s how it felt to me.

AliceAnne: It wasn’t quite 10 hours.

Sam: No, it wasn’t 10 hours. In the timeframe, it was more like three weeks. That was really about what it was, and in those three weeks, we had a family vacation planned. I was doing some traveling. I had mapped out those three weeks. I’m a type A lady, and I have plans for my time, right? And those weeks were spoken for.

So my chapter was written, and I’m not kidding, in the backseat of first a friend’s car and then our car, driving to Maine and driving back from Maine. And we live in Maryland. So my neck was stiff by the end. I just put it on airplane mode and wrote a chapter in the back of the car, and I revised it at my desk.

So that was the most challenging part, literally wringing time from my already spoken-for schedule. And the most rewarding: I have this habit, and I’m sure most of us do, of accomplishing something and then quickly putting it in the rearview mirror and looking ahead to whatever the next thing is, not basking in it or really taking stock of it.

And so one of the things that I’ve been trying to do with this, with becoming a published author… I’m just gonna say that. That’s kind of a cool thing to be able to…

AliceAnne: A bestselling published author.

Sam: Thank you. Yeah, to be able to say that. Instead of always looking forward to what is between me and my next plan, or the next thing I wanna accomplish, I’m trying to stop and turn around and look behind me at how I got here.

And one of the things that I can say is that this book helped me clarify my ideas. It gave me confidence. It showed me that, like Jen, I’ll rise to somebody else’s deadline. If I commit to something, I’m not gonna let anybody down. I’m proud to have been able to participate, and I’m proud to be able to say that I’m a bestselling published author.

And again, it felt a little awkward saying that right there, like taking credit for work that I’ve done, but we all did it. That’s, for me, pretty rewarding.

AliceAnne: It wouldn’t exist without you, so thank you. All right, Val.

Val: So I think it’s a little bit of everybody’s. I tried to back out of it because I got panicked and overwhelmed with the timeframe. I had back-to-back trials, four kids, my business, and I was like, “Nope, I’m out.” And AliceAnne’s just like, “Ha, no.” I said, “Okay, fine. I will do it. Right, my bad. Let me panic here for a moment.”

And so there were a couple things at play. The timeline is hard. I struggled with it, and I don’t know what I thought, because it’s not my first time. But I guess it felt like it was my first time. The other thing is the imposter syndrome. What could I, this young person in this field, possibly… I don’t know how much longer. At what point can you stop saying that? I’m not sure. But right now, I still…

AliceAnne: Oh, we are still young. We are young.

Val: A young person in a very white, male-dominated field, what am I going to offer to anybody? But then I said, “Pause. Who is my audience? Am I looking to talk to white men in my field?” Not really. That’s actually not my audience at all. And so I panicked: imposter syndrome, I don’t have anything to offer.

And then once I wrote it, I was like, “Oh, wow. First off, this poor young person who was 25 years old, trying to figure out where she fit in the world, and obviously had no idea.” And so it was bittersweet. I felt bad for the younger me, and then I wanted to be like, “It’s okay. You’ll get there. You’ll figure it out.”

And then I saw that I did have something to offer, and what I did have to offer doesn’t just apply to attorneys, or really just to women. It could apply to anybody, but it’s just so important for women to hear. And so that was the most rewarding part, to counter my imposter syndrome.

Your Stories Matter

AliceAnne: Yeah. Well, ladies, thank you so much. Your stories matter. I hope you know that you made an impact on me. I have worked with and known each of you for a long time, and every time I’m around you, every time you share even just a little bit of who you are, I feel inspired to be a better version of myself. So thank you.

Thank you for participating in the book. Thank you for being here for today’s interview, and thank you for sharing your stories with our communities.

Julie: It’s an honor, AliceAnne. Thank you.

AliceAnne: Thank you.

Julie: Thank you. Thanks for having us.

AliceAnne: All right. Until next time, take the lead.

Thanks for tuning in for another episode of the Leading Lady podcast. You can find all of the links and information mentioned in this episode at www.leadinglady-coaching.com. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow the show so you don’t miss any future episodes. And while you’re there, it would mean the world to me if you would take a few seconds and leave me an honest review. This will allow me to be able to help other high-achieving women find inspiration, connection, and develop strategies to live and lead with purpose and intention. See you here next week.