Shannon Watts on Neurodivergent Leadership and Burning It All Down

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2:31Shannon Watts was a mother of five, newly remarried, had had a long career in public relations, managed severe, as she says, ADHD and OCD. And then one day when she learned about the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, took to Facebook and changed the world. She created Moms Demand Action, which is a grassroots gun safety group. It has chapters in every single state. It has over 11 million supporters. It has helped pass legislation for common sense gun laws. And it has helped elevate and inspire and mobilize women to run for office to stem the epidemic of gun safety in this country.

3:22Shannon is a hero of mine. As a former political consultant, I studied what she did in terms of movement building at Moms Demand. It was so successful. You would see these women in their red T-shirts at local hearings, at state hearings, and marching in Washington. It's incredible what she built. Shannon is a fire starter, and she now helps other women live on fire, as she says. And I wanted to talk to Shannon because I struggle. I struggle with living on fire. I live a pretty unconventional career. I've done a lot of really cool stuff. I am very, very emboldened to do what I want to do. But I struggle.

4:06I struggle because I want people to like me. I worry about getting blowback. And I struggle with my own desires in the world, my desires to create change and help people feel better at work, no matter how they're wired and be themselves. While I myself struggle to be myself and my hungry little heart seeks reassurance every single day. So Shannon helps me think about how I want to live on fire and she will help you too. Guided by your values, your abilities and your action. My conversation with Shannon Watts.

4:48how are you shannon i'm good how are you i'm good i'm good i'm so excited um i don't know if you remember i used to have another podcast a hundred years ago and i had you on to talk about your organizing principles and how you built mom's demand action um as a former political consultant, you are one of my all time heroes. So that is very flattering. And I really appreciate that. Thank you. Well, I just, you know, what you built is so incredible. And this is not a show about organizing or politics. But but it really, it really is, you know, and in reading your book, I also got a sense of how scary it was.

5:31Yeah, you know, I often say that there, as they say, there's that fine line between naivete and stupidity. And I was definitely straddling that line. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into. I did not know that there was this underbelly in America that truly hated anyone or anything to do with gun safety and that there would be immediate threats of death and sexual violence to me and to my children. Had no idea. And I'm so glad I had no idea because I probably wouldn't have done it. And so I always say, you know, you embark on something like this and you have a choice between backing down and doubling down, right?

6:13And that choice is presented to you so many times. And it was in large part because of the strength of survivors and volunteers that I was able to keep doubling down. Yeah. Well, I want to get into that. I mean, I think today, a, well, you sent out a substack or an email and it was about sort of burning it all down. You know, the metaphor that you work with is fire for women specifically. And I think women maybe in midlife or I guess out of any age, but I feel like your people in the book are mostly, you know, they're women. Um, and I was thinking about burning it all down, you know, in this sense that I have been going through a phase where I've been sort of playing with this concept called ego death of just like really trying to stop living for achievement and ego and anxiety and other people, but still feeling so scared that I'm going to anger people or that people won't like me or I'll, I'll fail.

7:19Um, so, so your book and your work came at the perfect time. So I want to talk about playing with fire and maybe burning it all down. Um, but first I want to ask a question that I love to ask at the top of the show, which is what does leadership mean to you? Oh, I have so many women come to me and say, well, I can see how you did this because you're a born leader. And to me, this is hysterical because in 1985, when I was 14, I was diagnosed with severe ADHD. And you know, it's severe if you're diagnosed as a girl in 1985, right? And because there was a stigma around Adderall and stimulants, I was completely unmedicated my whole life and still am.

8:03My brain has figured that out, but I barely made it through middle school. I barely made it through high school. I didn't even order a cap and gown. I barely made it through college, right? Like it was the grace of teachers who would just give me that D instead of an F because they knew I was trying, but I just did not have the executive functioning to be a good student, even though I'm a smart person. And on top of that, I had a debilitating fear of public speaking. I actually quit a job once because it required me to go out and talk to five people I didn't know and like, just tell them what I did for a living.

8:37I never would have started Moms Demand Action if I thought it involved public speaking. And, you know, I knew little to nothing when I started Moms Demand Action about gun violence prevention or the legislative process, certainly not organizing. And yet I was exactly the right person for the job. Yeah. And I just think when we talk about leadership, it's so important to remember that we are all leaders, every single one of us. If I'm a leader, and I can promise you no one thought I was a leader, you know, all the way up until in my 30s. If I am a leader, then you are a leader. And I just think it's important to remember we each have unique values, abilities, and desires.

9:16And when those come together, we can lead because those are our strengths. So if you were teaching a class and you had to define leadership, how would you define that? anyone who steps up anyone who locks arms with other people and wants to be on the right side of history and help other people get to a destination I'll be honest when I think of leadership I always think of it in sort of the feminine sense because I am a woman and I have tried both kinds of leadership I was in the corporate world and then I was in the non-profit volunteer world and they are very different types right one is very severe masculine energy where you know, I asked people to do something and I expect them to do it because they were paid.

9:59And then there is what I think is more feminine leadership, which is more magnanimous and inclusive and encompassing. And to me, that's the real leadership. You are empowering other people to step into their values, abilities, and desires, as opposed to just sort of dictating and telling them what to do. Yeah. I think when we feel seen by a leader like that, we feel so amazing, right? Because they're trusting us. Yes. Yes. They're trusting us. And they're saying, oh, I see these qualities in you that you may not see, and I'm going to help you develop them so that you're a leader too. Like, I'm not just leading you to lead.

10:36I'm leading you to create more leaders. And I think of women who came into the organization. There's this woman you may know named Annie Andrews. She's actually running percent right now in South Carolina against Lindsey Graham. And, but what's So great about Annie's story is she's a trained pediatrician. She went to school for many years. And after the shooting tragedy in Parkland, Florida, Annie, a mom of three, decided it was time for her to get involved in the issue of gun safety as a mom and a pediatrician. And she showed up at a Moms Demand Action meeting in South Carolina and stood in the back of the room and thought, I have nothing to bring to this meeting.

11:15These women know what they're doing. They're leaders. They're all engaged. I'm not even sure I'm needed here, but I just want to be a part of this and I want to listen. And eventually someone realized who she was and said, we need doctors. Gun violence is a leading cause of death among children in America. We need you to talk to hospitals and fellow pediatricians and doctors and to go out there and tell the public why this is a public safety issue. and just that recognition that she was a leader in her field and that she could be trusted to go out and and work on an issue that she knew really not a lot about was passionate about made her realize that she was capable of so much more including running for office gosh that's so amazing it's very brave you're a neurodivergent leader what what is what is with the benefit of many years of hindsight, what does being a neurodivergent leader, what are the qualities that being neurodivergent has sort of brought to your leadership for both positive and for challenging?

12:25Yes. So I have severe ADHD still at age 55, and my brain has learned to compensate for that. But I also have a lot of different comorbidities that go along with what I've learned now in my midlife. I have something called ARFID, which is an eating disorder around sensory issues. I have OCD. I've had it my entire life. I have generalized anxiety. Just all these different things that I'm starting to realize are related, right? And to this neurodivergence. And I've really had to learn to navigate those things, particularly in interactions with people. I am an extreme introvert. People don't often think that.

13:07I can remember I went to this meeting early on with volunteers in Texas and they were all extroverts and they greeted me at the door and they were screaming and yelling and they were so happy to see me. And, you know, they were just, it was like this very loud energy the entire time. And I was so impressed by their passion dedication, but then I had to take a break and go sit in my rental car and just like reclaim my energy. And it was things like that, that I would communicate that to people, right? Like, it's not that you're overwhelming. It's that I am overwhelmed. Yeah. And not in a bad way.

13:39But if I don't figure out how to like regulate myself, then I'm gonna not be useful to anyone this day this year. And so what I realized, and again, I didn't have these skills or the self awareness in the corporate world. And I wish I had, I was a much better leader at Moms Demand Action, maybe in part because I was leading women, and I did feel vulnerable and I could trust them and to say like, these are things about me that are sort of different and make me a different kind of leader. And then that's not even negative. It's more just like, how do you operate in a world that is mostly neurotypical?

14:15I can tell you, look, I'm not a gun violence survivor. As I said, I knew nothing about this issue going in. I just, my soul had been insulted after this mass shooting at San Diego School in 2012. It was my ADHD that enabled me to go down rabbit holes from the moment I woke up till the moment I went to bed. I was a full-time unpaid volunteer for 11 years. And from the moment my feet hit the floor in the morning till the moment I went to bed at night, this issue was on my mind and strategizing around, like, how can we win? How can we win? Was that to the detriment maybe sometimes of being a parent and a wife?

14:50Yeah, for sure. I had to figure that piece out too. Like, how do I not get too lost in my own passion about something? And then, you know, the public speaking part of this, I can remember that very first speech I had to give in DC, just like a month after the shooting. And my hands were just shaking so hard, I couldn't hold a cup of coffee. And I read verbatim off a page, and then I kind of basically ran off the stage. And I thought, I just don't know how I'm going to keep doing this. and what's fascinating is the more I did it, the more I got used to it and the less afraid I was of it. I feel like I could go speak extemporaneously to thousands of people now and my heart would hardly speed up.

15:34Yeah. So I think the lesson there for me is the things that I'm not comfortable with in part because I'm neurodivergent are the things that I can eventually, if I practice enough, become comfortable with so that I don't feel like I have that fight or flight response. Yeah. Say more about getting lost in passion. That's so interesting to me. I think that it's something I hear a lot, especially from entrepreneurs who are neurodivergent, you know, and I think it's almost become like a trope, you know, like I had a single-minded focus to fix this and I wasn't going to stop until it got fixed. So I was super successful.

16:14But that can come at a cost. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Because you're so focused and you're so engrossed that you've shut out the whole rest of the world because you can only focus on that one thing because it is all consuming and obsessive. And I've been that way my whole life. I had a bizarre obsession with Watergate through my entire teens. Like that's all I focused on. Why in the 80s was I focused on Watergate? Unsure, but you know that's just sort of how my brain works and so when I hook into something and I have such a wonderful partner he always reminds me like I feel like I'm losing you into that dark rabbit hole that you go down and I just want to say to you you know you need to eat and drink and and also come hang out with the rest of us and so that's wonderful to have that reminder as opposed to anger I think that would be really hard to be with someone who resented that part of my personality.

17:17But as I've gotten older and more mature, I've also realized that that can have a really negative effect on other people and myself. Yeah. That I have to get outside and that I have to work out and that I have to do these other things or else I will absolutely burn out. Do you find transitions hard when you're deep into something? Um, yeah, that would be putting it mildly. Yes. Uh huh. I do. And I think that's what, you know, it's so cliche to say it's a superpower because it does come with side effects, but it is, it can be so, so, so helpful, but it can also be detrimental to the people who love you.

17:58Yeah. Well, I would also imagine that once you got to the point where you were like an executive, like a CEO that that deep rabbit hole passion wasn't called for as much as a lot of other skills around leadership like do you recall feeling a transition in how you needed to spend your time and your energy it's actually such a great point so it was like running a startup I would say that first year that every quarter it was completely different and changing and figuring out how to grow and how to pay people and widening our aperture on, you know, it's not just school shootings. It's all gun violence, including with handguns and being strategic and focused on electoral, legislative, cultural work.

18:44And so it was a whirlwind, I would say, especially that first year. And I was doing everything soup to nuts. I had brilliant women who were helping me, but everything went through me. I was even posting on Facebook. I think the entire first year that That was all me, right? I did all the social media for the organization. And as we grew and became more, you know, just we were more equipped to take on more things. It was really difficult for me to let go of a lot of that. I have a new driver in my family. And as an anxious person, who boy is it testing me. And that's why I love Hey Polo. Hey Polo is the family safety app built on trust.

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23:21You can write your own money story with Monarch. Use the code Achiever at Monarch.com and get your first year of Monarch Core at half off, just$50. That's$50 off your first year at Monarch.com with code Achiever. you know whether it was ego or you know worrying people couldn't do it as well as I could or feeling guilty for giving that work to other people that was like it's a whole set of things but I also realized that I was setting an example that if the organization all ran through me it wouldn't be helpful in the long term and just to take a step back I tell the story of I was on a conference call with a bunch of women who had volunteered to help me and a group of those women were in Silicon Valley.

24:08And as we're getting off the phone, one woman said to me, just sort of out of the blue, whatever you do, don't get founder syndrome. And I said, of course not. And I hung up and then I had to Google what is founder syndrome. What is founder syndrome? Tell us. Yeah. So it's this idea and it's, of course she was in Silicon Valley because it's prevalent in the tech world. It's this idea that when you found something, and I personally think this can apply to anything, including parenting, when you create or found something, your ego can become so enmeshed in that thing that when it's over and everything ends and it should end, that either it cannot exist without you because you're so integral to its success or you want to burn it down because you don't want it to succeed without you.

24:54And I just thought, how embarrassing would it be to create this entire organization and then make it about me? And then when I, you know, which I inevitably would leave that it fell apart or I embarrassed myself by, you know, burning a tail. And so I had this practice every year for the 11 years that I was at the helm, which was, is this the year that I leave? And it was always like at the beginning of the year. And those first few years, it was no, because we were just so crazed. And then in the middle, it started to be like, maybe I think the organization would be fine. But then there would be, you know, this important piece of legislation, or there would be horrific mass shooting tragedy.

25:34And I would think, okay, I got to stay. And then a decade after I started Moms Demand Action, I was in the Rose Garden and President Biden was signing the Bipartisan Saver Communities Act, the first federal gun safety legislation to pass in a generation. And I just had this inner knowing that this was a bookend to my activism. Like I just felt very serene, very calm, very self-assured that this was, this was it. And so I just spent the next year saying goodbye. And I just, I think it's really important to listen to, to those cues and to know when you're needed and when you're not. Now in the book, you talk about the fact that you didn't take a salary, which is such a, there's so much gender stuff in that, I think.

26:26Yes. What was that about? You built this huge organization. You raised a lot of money. What was that about? I mean, I've had to unpack all of this since stepping back. At the very outset, I thought, look, I'm a privileged white suburban mom. And my husband has a job. And if I take money, then that makes me a lobbyist. And I'm no better than Wayne LaPierre. Who's the president of the National Rifle Association. The president of the National Rifle Association, who's making millions of dollars, a very corrupt organization. And I thought, OK, well, I'm on the moral higher ground. And that's a story I told myself.

27:12What I can see only in retrospect, and I just want to be clear that. So I founded this organization, Moms to Men Action. We ended up partnering with Mike Bloomberg. Mike and I started Everytown for Gun Safety, which was the umbrella. And then we started Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action, all these different groups under the umbrella. And all of the men, mostly men, but women too, who ran Everytown were paid significant salaries. No one ever asked me at any point, would I like to be paid, by the way, which I also think is interesting. But I just, I think I martyred myself, right? I thought, I'm such a good girl.

27:48I'm a woman who's a leader. I have pretty sharp elbows. I'm pretty pugnacious. I'm very provocative online. I'm taking on this very male-oriented issue, but I'm not getting paid. So I'm still good. I'm embodying all these masculine traits, but there's still this feminine part of me that is pure and good. That's how I think I was really operating in retrospect. and and there's this thing called the passion tax it's this idea that women are always if they love what they do going to be asked to do more for free or at a lesser pay because they're being exploited I exploited myself I martyred myself I think I was exploited and I set a really bad example for our volunteers and if I had to do things over I would have given a stipend or some kind of money to chapter leaders because that is a full-time job and they were volunteers like me and I think I created that culture oh gosh you know so I in my old business we had an influencer database called the mission list and it was all women mostly lifestyle mom bloggers back then now that you would call them content creators or influencers.

29:10And our client base was probably 75 % nonprofit. All social impact, some politics, but a lot of issue advocacy. We actually did some work for mayors against illegal guns, which was, I think, an antecedent to Bloomberg and every town. Anyway, I, from the start, said, I'm going to pay the influencers who take part in our campaigns. Because we would get paid by a nonprofit. We got paid well, not corporate rates, but we got paid well. And I said, I'm going to pay the bloggers, just like Pampers would pay them, to write about diapers or a shampoo brand would pay them. And that news got out. And I got so much shit for it.

29:59There was one woman influencer who was well known as being like a social cause kind of passionate influencer who took to Facebook and like basically just accused us of stealing from nonprofits. That is so interesting. Yeah. And I, oh God, I was at Harvard Business School. I had a big meeting in Harvard Business School with some professors to do some work with them. And I would check my phone and all these people were emailing me like, have you checked Facebook? And I cannot tell you, Shannon, the shame, like a hot shame that I felt. Like, oh my God, I'm stealing from nonprofits. I'm stealing from donors because it, that stuff runs so deep.

30:51Yes. The shame. The shame. You know, I don't deserve to get paid. I shouldn't be paying these women. They should be doing it out of the good of their hearts. We should all be doing it out of the good of our hearts. Yes. I like that took me like a year to get over. I'm not sure. And so interestingly, you're being criticized by women for it. Oh yeah. Men would, men would never. I don't think men would ever criticize me for it. That is fascinating. And we, you know, Irodsky calls this complicit in your own oppression, C-I-Y-O-O. And that's just such an interesting idea to me that we become so inculcated by these ideas of what is shameful when it comes to women that we even join in it.

31:34Right. Because it's so deep. And I, and I mean, I think also there's, you know, there's something in the sort of nonprofit it's, and it's a, it's a hard issue. And I actually had this debate. I had this debate with the representative of a certain royal who was doing a campaign and was asking moms to take action and write posts and create content. And I was like, we have to pay them. It's about women's equality. They were like, oh no, we're not going to pay them. It's just so exciting that we're working. They're going to be working. And I was like, the passion tax, you know, they get, they get excitement instead of money.

32:09They get excitement, they get exposure, they get influence, you know, all these things. And anyway, that's only to say when I was reading about you not taking a salary, and I'm sure you worked 80 hour weeks. Yes. You know, it, it rang so true. And there's something about doing good in the world that is especially hard to be compensated for. We see that in nonprofit salaries. We see that in so many ways. For women. For women. For women. Well, for men too, in terms of nonprofit salaries, I think. Oh, not where I was. Yeah. Yeah. Fair point. Yeah. So there's a lot of shame. There's a lot of anxiety.

32:52Yes. That you are going to be seen as bad. I mean, that's so intrinsic in us, right? Am I a bad girl or am I a good girl? Yeah. And good girls do good work and they do it for free because it is incumbent on us as women to save the world and to protect our families and our communities. And, you know, people always say, well, why moms demand action? Why not parents? Why not Americans? Well, I can tell you that, you know, when men start to feel like there is a sense of urgency around issues like this and get involved, then they should change the name. But, you know, I did it for 11 years and even my own husband was not interested, right?

33:32Like, I just think when you feel protected because you have 75 % of the 500 ,000 elected positions in this country, because you're 90 % of Fortune 1000 CEOs, there's just nothing inside you that says, I have to work to protect other people because you just inherently have this sense of power and okayness. And I do think the reason Moms Demand Action resonated was because women felt empowered. They felt like badasses, right? To take on this powerful, wealthy, special interest, to wear their red shirts when they showed up in city councils and state houses and Congress to protect their families and their communities.

34:14Like this was all righteous, good stuff. But there was that societal stuff that was laid on top of it. That was laid on top of it. Okay. So I want to talk about Firestarter. I want to talk about how to do it. you know it's so interesting you're you're you're very you're very soft-spoken in person you have this very like calm energy online you you are like no fucks given so interesting to me right the dichotomy so so talk about sort of the elements of fire I want I want listeners who are thinking, God, I just, there's a piece of me that just wants to burn it all down, find my, find my passion and just not care anymore.

35:04Like talk about what it means to be a fire starter and talk about the elements of fire. I can remember, you know, I was in the parade. I was dressed as a house. I think I was with my realtor. I think that's why I was dressed as a house, but it was a 4th of July parade. And my Congresswoman, Louise Slaughter was walking in front of me. And I just thought this woman that she is, you know, there weren't that many women in Congress in the seventies. And I just thought this woman is such a badass. Like she's so brave. She's so courageous. She's so powerful to me. That is someone who is a fire starter and you don't have to be a member of Congress.

35:41Fire starting can be as big as running for office or starting a nonprofit or, um, you know, getting out of a bad relationship or it can be as small is having a difficult conversation or deciding to go to therapy or setting a boundary, right? And so to me, a fire starter is any woman who has figured out how to align, we talked about this earlier, her values, abilities, and desires. Because I don't have a lot of impulse control or executive functioning, I went through my life until my 30s really just making a lot of impulsive bad decisions, getting married right after college, getting pregnant three months later.

36:18I had three children by the time I was 29. And it really took getting a chronic illness, which was for me, eczema, and sitting in an emergency room one day in my mid-30s and realizing I had sort of this breakdown in this doctor's office that I was at a crossroads in my life and I was going to have to do things differently or I was going to live the rest of my life unhappy. And it was then that I started to figure out, okay, what are my values? you know I was a young mom to protect my family and my community what are my abilities I had a 15 to 20 year career in corporate communication what's my desire from Watergate on I've always been interested in like justice and democracy and so I really wanted to stand arm in arm with a badass army of women and so when the Sandy Hook school shooting happened because I had been spending sort of like five years thinking about who is it and what do I on.

37:13I'd left my marriage. I'd left my career. I ended up remarrying. I was blending a family of five. When that shooting tragedy happened, it married all those values, abilities, and desires. And for the first time in my entire life at age 41, I finally felt alive. I finally felt like everything was aligned. I felt like I was stepping out of my shadow self and into my light. And then I held the hands of thousands of volunteers and watched them do the exact same thing. And many of us had very different values, abilities, and desires, whether it was a woman who was a data entry specialist and came into the organization and helped us figure out how to call our own data, or it was a retiree who had all this wisdom and free time to make welcome calls to volunteers.

38:01Just all these women again and again and again in community, figuring out their values, abilities, and desires and bringing that all together. And what I've learned is that that's a practice. Just like in an organization, you're always trying to reach the stasis of not being too bottom up because then it's chaotic and not being too top down because it's controlling. The same exact thing with your practice of being a fire starter. Just keep reminding yourself what your values, abilities, and desires are. And they hopefully change throughout your life. They should. and that will lead you in the right direction, right?

38:36Moms Demand Action was not my purpose. It was the thread through my life, which is empowering women, summoning their audacity. And so I can continue to start Big and Little Fires for the rest of my life, even after that's over. How do you get to the practice? So it's values? Yep. Abilities? Values, abilities, and desires. And desires. Look, there are thousands of values. Brene Brown, you want to open a book by Brene Brown? She can guide you to thinking about what your values are. Susie Welch, I just want to tell listeners, one of my favorite episodes, I think from last year, I'll link it in the show notes, was with Susie Welch, who has the Values Bridge.

39:14I think it's free online. It's really good. She's amazing. And her last book was great. So what are your values? I'm 55 now. So my values are much different than they were when I was 51. I'm an empty nester. And this is sort of like the second prime chapter of my life. And so, you know, my, my values are right now, I would say, you know, about still empowering women and also protecting democracy. My abilities have changed. I'm now a women's coach, something I never saw for myself, you know, in my life. And, and my desires are much different. I'm thinking about what is my legacy? And I don't mean that like a big L, right?

39:52Not my name on the side of a building or starting a philanthropy. Like when I die, do I, will I feel like I lived a life that was true to me? What one of the hold on, let me just interject, because this is, I think, important. One of the things that you say in the book is that when we hear desire, we think sexual desire, because we're women and right where we're sort of sexualized, sexualized. So talk about what desire is before you. Yes. Desire is nothing to do with sexuality unless that's what you desire. Which is good. Yeah, it's great. But this is really about passions and fulfillment. And I talk in the book about how there are false fires, whether it's busyness or happiness, or one of them is purpose.

40:31You know, this idea that we are just put on earth to do this one thing, and we're going to spend all this money figuring out what that is, we're going to buy books, we're going to take courses. And then if we don't figure out that purpose by the end of our life, like, does that mean our life was not worth living? To me, it's more about fulfillment. You know, instead of living a life for a purpose? Am I living a life on purpose? And so I think really what we're talking about when we're talking about desire is what are the things that light us up? And those get so covered under shoulds. We have all these shoulds.

41:01You should be busy. You should be at work most of the day. You should be a good parent. All these shoulds that are put on women that we start to mistake for our desires. And so there is this process and I have a lot of exercises in the book where I really want women to figure out what is their true desire? What is the thing that lit you up maybe when you were little? What's the thing that makes you feel most alive? And it doesn't have to be work. It doesn't have to be something that makes money. It doesn't have to be something that is for the benefit of others. What is it that you really want to pursue?

41:37And again, it can be very big, and it can be very small and very simple. I just want women to start to take steps toward those This episode is brought to you by Vinted, a secondhand marketplace app. You know, I love clothes. And I love when the seasons change to spend a good amount of time, you know, moving out, reviewing my summer stuff, bringing in my fall stuff. I live in New England, so I love a great sweater. I love a great tweed blazer. And now I have a way with Vinted that I can sell clothes I no longer want, but I know someone else will love, and buy some new clothes. It really solves a problem for me, which is running out of closet space and also feeling guilty about buying new clothes.

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45:56That's$50 off your first year at Monarch.com with code Achiever. I think a lot of us probably are comfortable with values because and virtues, right? There's a difference between virtues and values because we are raised with values. We're raised to have them. They're supposed to be a good thing. I think abilities is hard because again, shame, hide your light under a bushel, don't stand out, don't brag. So abilities is interesting. But I think by the time you get to your forties, you kind of know your, you kind of know your abilities. I think you do. I, I struggle. I still struggle with desires.

46:43I, if I said to you right now, what are your unfulfilled passions or desires? Do you know? Well, I have a value. So I was actually thinking about this when I was reading your book, because I was like, you know, I'm a, I'm a person who's lived a pretty unconventional career and a person who like you probably people look at and think, how did she do that. But for me, what I really got in touch with recently is that I have a desire that I'm ashamed of, which is that I want to be an authority. I want to be taken seriously. I want to play with the big boys. I love that. But I never felt when I was running my political consulting business, because it was a women's business, it was called Women Online, we did women's issues, we had women influencers.

47:44Even now in my work in workplace mental health, like I still have this kind of desire to be seen as an authority that hasn't in my mind been met. What would meet that? I don't know. What would happen? I don't know because everything I think about is like an external stamp. Like you would be a best, you'd get a New York Times bestseller, or you'd be a professor, you'd be appointed somewhere, you'd get a title. And so I was really struggling with the desire because my desire is really to help people love work no matter how they're wired. I have been doing that work for 20 years. It is my passion in life.

48:28But my desires, I don't know. They feel more conflicted. It's really fascinating because most of the women I coach say to me, who would want to hear my story? Yeah. Who would listen to me? Or why would they think that I had something valuable to share? And it's so interesting that you feel sort of shame around that because I would just argue that, A, you are very successful and B, you are an authority, right? but it's that desire for other people to tell you that or to stop fighting so hard for it yeah stop hustling let me ask you another question do you have any fear about a deathbread regret you might have

49:14if you were to god forbid tomorrow was your last day what would be a regret of something you didn't do. I don't really have any. That's excellent. Because that's often a guide to your unfulfilled passions. You know, I asked this question when I interviewed over 70 women for my book. And I thought they would, I just, it was a throwaway question because I assumed they would all say what the most common deathbed regret in the country or in the world is, which is that I didn't live a life that was true to me. Do you know what they all said instead? What? And most of them were moms. I didn't spend enough time with my kids.

49:51That I pursued what I wanted at the expense of my children. Yeah. Oh, I feel that. I feel that guilt. Yeah. That's so fascinating. I mean, these were state lawmakers. These were, I mean, so many different kinds of women from all walks of life who you think, oh, this woman hasn't figured out. And yet that's her biggest concern that I will pursue what I want at the expense of my children. And, you know, I'm on the other side of that. My kids are grown. And what I can tell you is none of them say, I have five, they don't say, oh, I can't believe you didn't go to that soccer game in 2006. I can't believe you didn't go to the fifth showing of my Cinderella play.

50:27What they say is I'm so grateful, A, that you had something else to focus on besides us. And B, that you set an example for the kinds of things that we can do. And that mom guilt, which is man-made, right, is just so prevalent and it can really quash the desires that we have. I mean, it does. It does. And you know, this is a show also about anxiety. I mean, I think if I did have one regret, it would be that I spent so much time being anxious. You know, when I was looking at my daughter and I, we were looking at old photos last night. She loves to look at old photos on the phone. And I was thinking, in all of these photos, I probably was a million miles away in my head worrying about something.

51:09So I would say that is my deathbed regret but it's not it's not a huge one yeah but it's such an important reminder about the need for presence oh god yes isn't it god yeah and for me mindfulness has changed my life like exactly it's never too late to become mindful it's never too late but desire is desire is a hard one because I think desire requires us also to indulge our yes selfish animal like ego driven not good girl instincts sometimes too do you find that oh yeah I mean think about the word selfless yeah right we are less of ourselves and I think it's Glennon Doyle who says we need more women who are self-full that there's a reason that women don't live on fire and live on fire is just a metaphor for like what's calling you and what's limiting you right and there's a it's not because we're weak it's because we're wise we see all the obstacles in our way and we realize it's easier to just not pursue those passions or those desires and I just think it's so incredibly really important that, you know, I think about my mom who, when she turned 40, was sort of supposed to go sit on the sidelines and take up a hobby.

52:32And like, she was done because she was no longer fertile, right? That was it. And we, we are the wealthiest, healthiest generation that's ever existed, Gen Xers. And we have this whole opportunity in front of us to live an entire second half of our lives when you turn 40, 50. And so I just think we have to encourage one another, even if it's through a whisper campaign, to decide what that second half is going to be, because it can be anything. I feel like I could go to medical school if I wanted to. I don't want to, but I could. And I try to highlight those stories in the book. One of my very favorite stories is a woman named Carol Frick.

53:13She wanted to be an author. She ended up being a gym teacher to pay the bills with his ed teacher. She did it for 30 years. She retired. She went to volunteer in an animal shelter. At the animal shelter, she had this idea of writing a novel about a couple who falls in love there, but she didn't know how to write a book. So she spent a year researching how to write dialogue, how to create chapters, how to write a book that was coherent and good and compelling. She writes a novel in her spare time. And then she decides, you know, I deserve to be published. I don't just want to self-publish this book.

53:43I deserve to be published. she sent her manuscript to 225 publishing houses oh my god on the 226 letter a man who loved dogs gave her a two-book deal and she became a published author in her 70s it's amazing like your desires are there you just have to unearth them and you deserve to go after them no matter how old you are and your children your children know when you're unfulfilled your children yes They know when you're aching and your heart is aching. They, they're so intuitive. And they will carry that, right? Like I tell another story in the book about this woman named Stephanie Baker, who was so into being a mom.

54:27Like she thought it was, it was just all encompassing. She made homemade chapstick and cheese sticks. Oh, bless. And it was during the pandemic that her children, like she had them so busy, just like her. They were doing all these extracurricular activities. During the pandemic, they just sat on the couch. They refuse to do anything. And she said, it made me realize I could rest. Like those kids set an example for me that I was living in a way that was not good for any of us. Right. And we should be living the lives that we would want for our children. What is the way we're behaving is our, is being unfulfilled a good example.

55:07And it's not. I want to talk about something that I found very moving in your story and I can only imagine what it felt like which is being disliked being hated

55:28I think for me the last obstacle in my self-actualization is the fear of being told that I'm full of shit and I don't know what I'm talking about. And I have this new - Blowback. Right. Blowback, you say. And I have this new book coming out. It's not coming out for a year, but it's about neurodivergent leadership. It's a very, I love the book. I stand by it, but it's a very hot topic online. I'm very anxious about the blowback potentially. I've always been the kind of person in a way who's very bold and yet very scared of criticism. and I was reading your section on blowback and thinking I just I don't want to not like how how well first of all this comes to what I call the double bind of fucks giving which is that women are expected to be very soft in the world and to care about everyone and everything and we're also needed to be very hard in the world because when we do care about those things, we get a ton of criticism and hate.

56:36And I have no solution for this, except to say that when you know there is a double bind of bucks giving, then maybe you can go out into the world knowing you are expected to be both soft and hard, and that that is an impossible conundrum. You know, blowback, all of it is predictable, none of it is personal. And if you remember that, that it isn't about you and it's about the person giving the blowback, you can start to separate what is truly constructive criticism from what you don't care about. When I started Moms Demand Action, you know, it wasn't just the hate and the threats and the mockery, right?

57:13Especially about my looks and my weight and, you know, everything. It was also even the blowback I got from people I cared about. People who I called about starting this organization, they said, you're not the right person. You can never do this. It can't be done. Don't do it. My own dad who said, you're undermining the constitution. This is disgraceful. You know, why are you doing this? Like I, there was so much blowback from places I sort of didn't expect. And even, you know, my husband who our marriage was, we'd only been married three years. You know, we were still in what I call the merge.

57:45I mean, this idea that suddenly we're going to go from spending every second together to me being busier than I'd ever been in my entire life, in my career. You know, he wasn't thrilled about that. So I do believe our ability to live on fire is directly proportional to the amount of blowback we can withstand. And that that too is like, we're talking about the practice of buyer starting. Enduring blowback gets easier the more that we do it and the more that we can put it in perspective. And I'm so honored to interview people like Sharon Salzberg and Kristen Neff and others who are mindfulness experts who gave me tips, you know, that when you get blowback, think about who it's coming from.

58:22Yeah. Yeah. Does it matter? Sometimes it does like from my dad and, you know, we had to have a lot of conversations. He eventually became a mom's demand action volunteer. But does it come, does it, do I care about the blowback I get from, you know, 25 year old men who are living in their mom's basements? Probably not. Also, you know, how do you talk to yourself as you would talk to a friend or someone else who is enduring this blowback? The kindness, the compassion instead of the self judgment. And then how do you let it go? How do you just Think of it as a thought and then release it as opposed to absorbing it and ruminating on it.

58:57And all of those things take practice. To get rid of the who does she think she is blowback trope, which I think a lot of us will relate to. I have, that has been my struggle. And I've resorted to everything from like, I literally have like a brag book of all the reasons why I may think I have something worth saying. I do mindfulness but that core can run so deep yes yes it absolutely can and that's why I do it like my fear of public speaking the more I did it the less afraid I was of it the more you take blowback and live to fight another day and realize that's someone else's projection on you and not the truth.

59:44But as you said, it can be so difficult to dislodge as a woman. And I think that's, if we want to live a life on fire, it just is part and parcel of being brave. Do you have a self-compassion practice or what do you do? I love loving kindness. Kristen Neff has written amazing books about this. Sharon Salzberg has written amazing books. Personally, my favorite, I do Jack Kornfield. I download his meditations on my phone and loving kindness has you send it to yourself. It has you send it to the world. And then it has it send you send it to your enemies. And I just find it to be an incredibly beautiful centering practice.

1:00:32I also practice affirmations. And I suggest my coaching clients do the same, You know, this idea of what is your greatest fear? What are your core wounds? And how do you continue to reaffirm to yourself that you are aware of what those things are and that you are working to overcome them or to balance them out with the opposite energy? And sometimes just that self-awareness is enough. I agree. I think there's also a piece of shifting neediness. You know, I think a lot of us women, certainly Gen Xers, we grew up not getting a lot of what we needed. yes that's an understatement and um I think you once said to me because you got you got married so young and you had kids so young that like you were trying to solve something to fix something right yes and um that that we we were so needy and I think for me like my kids would be like mom you're so thirsty like why do you need all this praise like what do you know and it was really profound for me.

1:01:34I was like, what, you know, I gotta let, I gotta, I gotta patch in those holes. It is time. You are full. You know what I mean? Yes. Yes. And look, we all have different personality traits and we all have different types, but the fact that you know that about yourself, I mean, that is more than half the battle. Needy, needy, needy. I'm the opposite. I need to be more, more vulnerable and more needy. Really? Oh yes. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Um, What are you working on now that you're so excited about? Oh, it's just been such an interesting journey. You know, when I stepped back from moms, I thought, okay, well, I finally, after 11 years of working harder than I've ever worked in my life, I'm going to take a break.

1:02:17And I was on the treadmill. I looked down at my phone and says, Maria Shriver is calling me. I obviously knew who she was, but I didn't know her. And she said, I have this book in print. I would love to you to write about everything you've learned about women. Like, okay, well, that, that could be a big book. um and so I spent you know the next year was actually in a wonderful transition to get me out of what we talked about earlier founder syndrome right to to put my focus on something else and it just ended up doing very well and it is it has turned into as I said you know working with and coaching women and just figuring out how to help women get into community because and you know keeping with the fire metaphor I refer to this in my book as bonfires I don't think you can live on fire unless you are surrounded by community and support.

1:03:02It's so important. And that goes against all my instincts as an introvert often, but it is, it is, you know, coming, it wasn't just starting Moms Demand Action that was changing me. I mean, we certainly transform the issue of gun safety, but what I realized was that the community was transforming us. Yeah. And to be witnessed by other women and to be in the presence of other women and to lift one another up in a post-polarized, post-pandemic, post-social media world, that to me is the secret sauce for wherever we're going together as a country, as a nation. And I have just seen the incredible difference community makes to women.

1:03:46And so to me, that's what I'm working on right now is how do I keep bringing women into community? Beautiful. Shannon, thank you so much. Thank you.

1:03:58That's it for this week's show. If you like the show, follow us and tell your friends. And please leave us a review. It really helps the anxious achiever get found by people just waiting for our content. I'm your host, Maura Aarons-Mele. Lots more to come in the next episode.

1:04:29Thank you.