You know, the dream of having it all, a thriving career, an active social

life, present time with your kids in adventures and travel. But how

the f. Can we actually do it all? Welcome to the

new modern mom podcast. I'm your host, Barbara Migdahl, a former

tech exec turned entrepreneur and mother of two. My superpower is

creating order out of chaos, and I want to help ambitious moms feel unable

to do the same. In each episode, I'm interviewing vps,

c level executives, and founders to learn the real proven

strategies they use to find work life fulfillment. Together,

we're building the playbook for the new modern mom.

Hey, guys. I'm so excited to have Kim Chappell on today's episode.

She was such a must for me when we were building the show's lineup because

not only is she a c level executive, which we need more females

and c level roles, period, but she is leading

so much change at a disruptive brand, drastically changing the formula

industry. And she has three kids. Three

kids, guys six years old and under. I wanted to know how

she made the leap from news anchor to tech to CPG while having all

of these kids and moving from San Francisco to Austin. I

just can't think of anyone better that I want to know. How do you do

it? I think you're going to love this conversation. Welcome,

Kim. It is so good to have you here. Hi, Barbara. It's so

good to be here. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. Kim.

I have admired what you've been building at Bobby since its

inception because it really normalized combo feeding

for me at a point in my life where I had a three month old

baby and my milk supply was just struggling.

And it really made me feel validated in the choices I needed to make as

a mother. I think it is apparent in how you

show up on LinkedIn, how you show up in work and just life in

general, that you are an absolute powerhouse. And I want to know

how you've taken your professional superpowers and applied them to your personal

life. So let's get into it. For those who

don't know you, can you please give us your elevator pitch?

Include both personal and professional aspects of your life.

Yeah. Thank you. And thank you so much for that very kind intro. My elevator

pitch. So I am a mom of three. I have

a two, four, and six year old. I joined Bobbi in our

CEO's basement in 2020.

So I was the first full time marketing hire that that Laura

made and helped build this company and this brand

from the ground up. I had just had my second baby. I

previously worked in tech, and prior to that I was a news reporter for ten

years. So when you say you're a marketer, I still have

imposter syndrome all the time about am I a

marketer? Do I actually know what I'm doing? And maybe that's why

we've shown up differently, because I don't have a background

in growth and performance marketing. It's not my strong suit, and it's not

how I approach things. I approach things from a news reporter background, which

is what's the story that we're going to tell? How do we pull through the

emotion of this? How are we going to connect people to what

we're doing? And that's really been the core of our brand since

day one. And I live here in Austin, Texas, with my three kids,

working remotely for Bobbi, which I joke is my fourth baby. But it's also

not a joke because it is beyond a full time job

working at a fast paced, high growth company

that is nonstop. Absolutely. As

someone who has come from the startup world and tech world, I

resonate with that so much. And I can only imagine. You are a mom to

three kids, two, four, and six. Very crazy busy,

high touch ages, and you're spearheading an incredible movement. So

set the stage for what life looks like for you right now.

It's, it's just depends on the week. And I know that sounds

trite, but because we're a remote company, I

have the fortune of being

able to not have a commute every day. Like, I can take my kids to

school in the morning, I can drop them off, I can come and sit at

my desk, because I don't have to hit that morning commute grind. I don't

have that. At the same time, when the day is done

and I walk out of my office into my living room, like my ten steps,

that is my commute, where I have to decompress from whatever the fuck just happened

during that day and go into mom mode instantly. I don't have a

transition time, and sometimes I find that to be really hard. So I

actually have this guest room in our house. I turned it into an office, and

there's little french doors right here. Sometimes I sneak out the french doors

and I just walk around the block so that I can have

five minutes or ten minutes of just decompressing, thinking

about everything I need to get done for the next day, or what I need

to pack away for later after bedtime, and then walk into the

house and put my mom hat on. That has been challenging. And I think sometimes

if I've had a really stressful day or if something's on fire that we have

to deal with, it's really hard to compartmentalize

those things when you're working from home. And that's probably one of my

biggest struggles, is not bringing the heat of my workday to my

husband or to my kids or finding the patience. When you

feel like you have run out of patience in your workday, you have to refill

your patience cup for your kids and

proactively do so, you know? And I

think, like, with that, too, is so I'm fortunate to be home with

them. If I have to go to a parent teacher conference or a pediatrician appointment

or whatever it is, not only do I share that with my team, but I

have the flexibility to step out and go do that. And I really, really,

really find it needed and necessary to empower

our team, who are mostly mothers of young children, same

ages, to normalize the normal.

Like, we have these crazy lives. And there is fluidity in and

out of any given day on having to deal with your kids and also showing

up for work. And I think the more that leaders, especially female

leaders, can do that, but also the dads out there, they should be involved in

their kids life. It's not just on mom. And they should have that fluidity, too,

and be transparent about it so that we can all stop pretending like we don't

have this whole other thing happening in the background at all times.

Amen. Yeah. And, like, the other thing is, like, I'd say,

because we're remote, it does lead to a lot of travel for

photo shoots or marketing shoots or off sites with, like, little

mini off sites with core team members or our C suite. And so

that does drain me in a way where, like, I book

the latest possible flights or the earliest possible flights so that I can sneak

in one more bedtime or be there for one more flight school drop off.

Because, like, those are kind of the moments that count in a day where you're

helping out your spouse, you're there for your kids, they remember it, and then it's

like you haven't really been gone that long, you know? And maybe that's my own

mom guilt in action, actually, as I'm saying it out loud, but it helps

me feel just a little bit better about having to leave. And I've had

to build a really strong infrastructure of support around

me in order to be able to hold down this job and to go on

those work trips at a, you know, drop of a coin or, you

know, I have three trips coming up in the next weeks.

Like, it is constant. And, like, if I can be

really honest with you, sometimes it's kind of Nice. Like,

sometimes it's kind of nice to have a reason to leave the daily

Grind, to get out of my House, to go be present with other

adults. And it's a nice break from everything.

I absolutely get it. I do agree on there being something

very special about waking up and just worrying about yourself.

But I wanna go back a little bit to the topic of traveling

for work and rewind back to a moment earlier

in your career where you had this fresh little baby at home,

brand new mom, and you needed to travel while you were breastfeeding.

And it's actually wild to think about how formative

that Experience may have been with where you landed at working with Bobby.

But can you tell us a little bit about that Experience and that story? I

will never forget the palpable emotion,

like, the heaviness in my heart of feeling, like, how am I going to leave

this baby at Home? I get almost makes me emotional just even

remembering it, because it felt like I was

such a shit mom. Like, how could you possibly leave your baby who needs

you to feed, like, to live, and you go on a flight to go

to your job? How dare you, kim? You know, but we were living in

San Francisco at the time. I worked at an amazing company that was

very supportive of new moms and working parents called Weebly.

And I had bills to pay, I had daycare bills, I had Rent, which was

insane. And, like, it wasn't an option for me. I had to go to work.

And I'm really glad that I did go to work, and I love my jobs,

but I remember going back to work, and I had to go to New York,

and I was in San Francisco. So this is a big Cross CounTRy trip,

and there's a few things that hit different for that. I'm breastfeeding her

exclusively at the time. And I was like, how

am I going to keep this going? Like, I have to pump. I'm running out

of Freezer supply, which was like, you know, I now have a totally

different perspective on this. Like, feed your baby, not the freezer, but

I was running out of freezer supply. My milk supply was, like,

up and down based on, like, stress at work and everything else going on. So

I found had just heard about this was 2017. The service called Milk

Stork, which I think a lot of new moms have heard about at this point,

but I didn't know about it at the time, and I had just heard about

it, and I emailed our CFO, who was a

woman, she was a mother of two boys, Kim Jubal. Shout out to her.

And I emailed her and said, hi, I'm going to New York for this trip.

I really would like to continue to be able to send my breast milk home

for my baby. I found this service called Milk Stork. It's going to cost me

dollar 500. Would the company be willing to cover it? And

I think in that moment, I was so scared to send that email because I

was like, who am I to ask for more from this company again,

how dare you? You feel like you have to tread lightly and not make anyone

uncomfortable and not ask for anything more and just get along with it and be

one of the guys. And she replied within three

minutes. And she said, absolutely, of course. Have a great time in

New York. Just send us the invoice. I remember

feeling so overwhelmed in that moment of, like, empowerment.

Like, I just advocated for myself and for my

baby. And damn, that felt good. And she said,

yes. You know, and it was like, that was the moment for me. That was

my moment of when you become a mother, you inherently

become an activist, because you are constantly advocating for

either yourself or your baby. And how the, the levers in which,

like, how strongly you do that, or maybe you don't even realize when you're doing

it are different. But for me, that was, like, a

tangible one. And I was really proud of myself coming home from

that trip. I actually have a great picture I'll share with you of me pumping

in a New York stock exchange, shipping my milk

stork breast milk on the streets of New York, like, putting it in the ups

thing. And I was proud of myself for

overcoming that fear, overcoming that guilt. And I knew that,

like, one, my husband is capable of taking care of our daughter, and he can

do it. Two, if she has to take a bottle of formula, it's not the

end of the world. It's okay. Three, these services exist. Thank God

for moms as CEO's. And four, Kim, you can keep your job. You can

keep doing this. You're going to be fine. And you've

evolved like, you have evolved to another stage of a mother. So it was a

really. It was a really awesome experience. I love

how you found the courage and the confidence to just

unapologetically ask for what you needed. And I think so many of

us, as women, working in the corporate world. You're

right. Don't feel like we can advocate for our needs because we feel like we

owe the company something, not them owing us anything. And we,

as high achieving women, we need to take care of ourselves

in order to do our best work. And I think finding an environment that

appreciates that and accepts that is so important. I

think on the topic of having a baby, working for a company,

you've now had three, right? You. Just two years ago. Right. Somehow

here we are. Never thought I'd have three kids, but here we

are. So, I mean, every

maternity leave, you probably learned something new on how to

advocate for yourself. And so I'm curious, you know, what did you implement

by the time you got to baby number three? That was extremely helpful for you

in returning to work from attorney leave. Like, I'm curious on if you have any

recommendations on how you structure your, your days to make sure you could fit in

pumping or create those boundaries or create those moments still with

your baby. What advice do you have? I think I

have advice that I have, and there's advice that I also need to take myself.

But one of my key things is, like, it was really easy with

one kid to rely on family or your partner to

help look after your baby. It's, like, very easy to do. On the second

baby, I kind of leaned into my parents. We used

some of the people that worked at daycare as babysitters, and I trust them. And

I was so careful with who I would let into my house and who I

would let look after my kids. Okay. By the time baby three comes around,

I am desperate at this point because I have a

newborn, and if I need a babysitter, it was almost like I needed

someone to look after the newborn, and I needed someone to look after the two

and four year old at that point. And I didn't have a stacked bench

of help. And this is where my secret

is. If you live in a town with a university or a

college, there are sorority girls up and

down who are, they have Facebook groups, and they are more

than ready to jump in and help look after your kids and go have fun

with your four year old and play tickle monster at the playground and have the

energy to wear them out. There are medical grad students who

are just looking for that extra money, who you can trust. And so

I would say with the third, that's when I learned that, like, this is not.

I can't ask my parents. They're getting too old to deal with this. It's too

much for my husband, who is on your roster that you can call, and

it can't just be two or three people because they're never going to be able

to help you on a dime. Like, you need a list and a

forum and a chat and a place to go where you can get that

help whenever you need it. Just a group text of people

that you trust to be like, I have a group text of ATX girls, ATX

Babysitters club. And I'm like, is anybody available on Friday night from blah, blah,

blah, blah? And I'll get a reply. No, no, no. Yeah, I can make it.

It's like, it has helped me carve out windows of

time for myself, for my marriage, for my family. When you get

invited to that last minute thing and you still want to feel like a human,

it's like, I want to be able to go, you know, and even if you

have a nanny, I think this is the other, like, misconception is, like, when you

have a nanny and you're paying them for 40 hours a week, guess what? They

don't want to help you on the weekend. Like, they're tired and they need to

refill their own cup from watching your baby.

And so who are the people that you're going to call? Like, I just. I'm

a really firm believer in, like, stacking your bench with

trustworthy people. And it's not one or two. I'm talking like six or

seven. Yes, I'm taking note. I am going to go look for these Facebook

groups because I've never, I've never thought about that. I have an au pair, so,

like, I've leaned on the au pair circle. They're friends and friends and friends. But,

yeah, I love this idea. And get references, right? Like, get

good references from people. I mean, obviously don't want a total

wacko coming to your house, but I find that

the university college girls are

wonderful, full of energy. I've had a great experience. And then going

through referrals for other people, it will help you a lot to relieve some of

that burden of feeling like you have to be everything to everyone all the time.

It's impossible to sustain. Definitely. And like you said

earlier, you have a very demanding job. And

so, you know, you're traveling, you have all of these different

events happening, and so you kind of need that roster. Which

brings. Brings me to my next question for you, which is, you went from, like,

kind of larger tech company to, like, this tiny little

startup that was likely probably pretty risky at the time.

Unfortunately, for sure. While you had very

young kids, can you kind of talk me through? Because I feel like most people,

once they have kids, you know, they're like, you know what? I'm going to look

for a stable job. I'm going to look for a bigger company with all those

benefits. So, like, walk me through how you navigated landing in this new

role. So I knew Laura Modi, our

CEO and co founder, through mutual friends in San

Francisco. We were not best friends or anything, but we both had our

daughters around the same time in a time in SF when

people were not really having kids. So we kind of found each

other because we were moms, and there was not a lot of moms that were

our age in San Francisco. And so she asked

me to join this company. She said she's starting a formula company. She wants me

to join and lead marketing. And I said, laura, I'm not a marketer.

I don't know how to do that. I'm a comms person. I'm a brand person.

Like, I don't know how to run marketing. That spooks me. I had immediate imposter

syndrome and said, no. She goes on, she, like, starts to get it together.

She's like, please come join Bobby. I said, I just don't

know. She had, like a more of a formal courting of me to see if

I could do this job. And she's like, I love that you haven't done marketing.

Like, that's going to be your superpower. Come join Bobbi. And these

conversations continued. And I had just had my second baby, Hughes,

and he was about five months old, and I was in the throes of

my own feeding journey and my supply going up and down and all the things

that happened. I was buying formula from

Europe because that's what we felt that we needed to do to get a

high quality formula. And I saw the gap. I was experiencing it, and I

was like, you know, there's something that we could do here to make a difference.

So here's what it came down to for me. I walked away

from a job with great benefits, equity in

a publicly traded company. Okay, great snacks every day.

Okay. There's, like, all the benefits of working at square.

It was great. And I really loved my boss at square, too, Demetra.

She was incredible and a woman, and it was wonderful. And

I kind of thought to myself, isn't this why you're in San

Francisco? Isn't this why people move here to

get. Not at the company that's already successful, not at the company that's

already IPO'd, the one that's, like, in the basement that's like, on the

cusp of something great that you can get your hands in the soup and,

like, make the soup. And that just excited me. And

then I. The thing that sent me over the tipping point, and this is what

I tell to people all the time of, like, are you thinking about taking a

job? And they're like, umming and ahing about it is if you saw someone

tomorrow on LinkedIn that said, I'm so excited. I just got

the XYz job, and I can't wait to start tomorrow. Would you

be so insanely jealous and would you want, would you

wish I should have taken that job? That was my job. Like, would

you feel territorial about that? Or would you be so happy for that

person and say, best of luck, good for you. And for me, I was like,

I would want that job. Like, I would be mad if that weren't my job.

And so I. I just was like, all right, well, we're going to take this

risk. And, of course, had the support of my, of my husband, too, to go

do that. And I'm, you know, very, very grateful and very

fortunate has worked out to date. Not all of them do, and I

respect that. But I do think no risks, no reward. I love

it. And clearly you were looking for that excitement. And I love the framing of,

if there's an opportunity in front of you, what does your gut tell you? Right?

Yeah. That's what you were just referencing. It wasn't like, what does the data tell

you? What do the reviews say? It's like, what does your gut tell you? And

I think as moms, something we all develop

after becoming moms, is that innate sense of, like,

knowing to trust your gut. And it's not always. I

completely agree. And I think people, when they want to go and move to a

new job or they're unsure, they want it to be such an even trade. They

want to make the same money. They want it to feel like not as much

of a risk, and they, um. And awe about it. I took a massive pay

cut, okay. To join Papi. I'm going to be totally honest with you about

that. And it was. And I knew that I was going to have to make

some life changes, but if I could build this, I could get back to where

I was. And so I think you also have to be willing to know that,

like, of course, you're going to have to give up something. Of course. Like, that's

the. That's part of the risk. But on the other side of it, it's

been the most rewarding career experience of my life, and

I feel eternally grateful and blessed to be a part of this company. Yeah.

And also, like you as a professional, like, you

have multiple young kids, you've built this incredible brand, and you've

gotten promoted to a c level title, like, in the process, which

I just think is. Is so incredible. One, we need more c level female

executives in general, but I would love to

know what some of your strategies were for, like, navigating this

big jump with a young family. And also, I think,

with. With more responsibility. Right. Comes the

need for more resources and supporting your team. And, like, how did you

advocate for all of that in the process? Oh, wow. That's such a

loaded question. I have felt like at

every, every six months at Bobby since we've started, we are a different

company because of how we change, how we grow the funding. We bought a

manufacturing facility. We have new headcount. We are doing a new product.

Like, there's always something. And how are you

able to not do what got you

here, but do what's going to get you there and

constantly evolving what the business needs from you,

not how you started. If I were still doing the same things I was

doing two years ago or even a year ago, we wouldn't be as

successful as we are, and none of our c suite would be, you know?

And so I think there's this. This. The ability to

continue to change how you show up when the business

scales up, and all of a sudden, you're a series c, 100 million dollar company

with a hard asset manufacturing company, and you have a board of

very intense investors who I love. I love you all. But, you know,

you have to answer to that. Like, you have to evolve and how you show

up, not only to them, but to your team. How are you carrying the weight

of where we're at and sort of the gravity of what we're doing and

making sure that people feel that responsibility along with you. And

so I feel like I've somehow been able to

evolve as this company has grown. And I have

to say, like, it is not, it is not me. It is the marketing team.

That is incredible. It is 18

incredible mothers and women who never cease to amaze me and

what they can get done in a single week. The amount of deliverables, the

ideation, the creativity that comes out of this

team is insane to me. And, like, I think I've been

very fortunate to make the right hires along the way.

And going with my gut, going back to that gut call of, like,

okay, maybe they don't have the perfect resume, but I really feel like she's going

to be right for this brand. And hiring these people along the way that

have helped us get to where we are and helped me as a leader

during tough days or rough months or whatever it

is, I rely on them, too. And so there's a really great,

dare I say, sisterhood, in a way, on our marketing team of how

we show up for each other as moms, as empathetic leaders,

and help to kind of carry the responsibility and the weight of

what we do. Hire the right team, that is. Hire

the right team. And I think to that note, like, the right

team doesn't always look like it should on paper, and

that's okay. Like, that's okay. Do you get excited

to have a one on one with that person? Like, are you jazzed

to jump on the zoom with them? Do you want to hang with them all

day? Do you want to go on three night trips with them to wherever you

have to go for the marketing shoot? Or are you like, oh, this person is

a drain. Like, this person is draining me. They need too much from me. Like,

yeah, they're great on paper, but it's like, whoa. Like, everything has to be

so processy and, like, that's not our style. Or, you know, like,

it's okay if it looks different if you get the good vibes.

I'm a good vibes person. I love it. And some of

my fondest memories are I was just, like, reliving, like, my work,

my favorite work trips with, like, my now friends who I don't even work with

anymore, but I contact with the dream team,

right? Yes. Yes. I tell my kids this all the time, too, of, like, are

you a fountain or are you a drain? Are you giving? Are you

enjoyable to be with? Are you pouring out or are you sucking people's

energy? Are you draining people? And, like, I'll call them out. I'm like, you're being

a drain right now. Like, stop it. Be a fountain. And so I feel the

same way about people. You can tell very quickly, I think, who is going to

be a fountain in your company and in your team and for you as a

leader and who's going to be a drain? Don't be a dream. Absolutely. And how

is that translated to your system's and processes at

home? You mentioned child care being a key pillar. Like, who else is

part of your home system that makes just, like, the chaos a little

calmer. Okay. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to be totally honest with you.

I have a full time live in nanny. She's amazing. We, she

used to babysit for us and then I was like, do you want to move

into my guest room? And the reason why that happened is because

my kids, because of their ages, they're at sort of three different

schools, if you will. My little two year old just does like two days a

week mommy day out for socialization. But the schedules and

like what they needed was all over the place. She is

mostly in charge of the two year old and then some afternoons and then

I have somebody that helps me for a few hours a week and helps me

do grocery shopping, helps me do birthday party planning, helps

me make sure if I ping her and say, I need 16 Easter eggs with

some organic snack shoved in them for school tomorrow. Or like, what are

all of like the mental load things as a, as a mom that at the

job that I have, I just don't have the capacity to do but has to

get done. And she helps me get that stuff done. And then I have this

great babysitter that I found that I try to bring in every

other Sunday or whatever it is from eight to twelve. And from eight to twelve.

The kids love her. They have the time of their life. And my husband and

I get 4 hours. 4 hours. Okay. A

week to ourselves. And that could mean anything

from sleeping until noon. If I'm absolutely dog

tired, which sometimes happens, it can mean going to

brunch with my husband and enjoying our time together. Sometimes I go to a workout

and sometimes I just like literally walk around anthropology in a

total daze. But it's my time and it's the only time of the

week that is my time, you know? And so I. I've found

a way to protect that. It's like my new thing that I'm on my mountain

of hire a babysitter for Sunday morning. Even if it's just 3

hours. Like for you to know, even if you have nothing planned

Saturday night. Like if you know that that's going to happen for you on Sunday

morning, you, you know that a break is coming. The mental,

like, relief that you feel from knowing that on Sunday morning you're going to have

a break to yourself. It like gets you through a marathon Saturday

and three birthday parties and all the things. You know what I mean? Like, it's

just. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm going to plus one to that Sunday morning

ritual. Like, that is one of my favorite things. To do. We do it

about once a month, but it's like we get a hot yoga together and then

we go to brunch and then we'll go home and do nothing. We'll just

hide from the kids, you know, like, it is kind of

life changing knowing that you have that to look forward to for the weekend. I

know. And then it's like we come back and we have the whole rest of

Sunday with them. They're excited. Like, you still feel like you're

spending adequate time with your kids over the weekend and you're not entering

Monday completely burnt out because that what was happening to me,

I would wake up on Monday and I'm like, oh, my God, I'm so tired

from this weekend. Like, how am I going to get through this week? And it's

not sustainable, you know, so. No, it isn't. So you've built these

systems that are creating sustainability in your life. And I love

that. And I think the other component to it as well is mindset. I think

mindset is such a huge part of being effective when you show up to work.

And there's this one quote from you, this is insider feature. You said

there are no zeros in the season of life as a mother with a

job. Except the zero fucks I no longer give with pretending

I can do it all. Yes,

that was a good one. Talk to us about this evolution of

getting to a place where you could let that go.

I just feel. That's such a good question.

I feel proud of my

job. I feel proud to be a mother of three and proud

to be a working mom at a great company that is changing lives.

And that means I'm not going to be

the mom that hosts the Easter party and the mom that's

able to go to all the soccer games. And

that's okay because I'm also the mom that, like, can show

their children what it means to have a

job that you love and that work doesn't have to be awful

and that you can make a difference in the work that you do. And

I'm really proud of that. And part of being proud of that and

being a great mom to my kids means having to give zero fucks about

the things that you're going to miss out on. And now I will say this.

I am so grateful for the stay at home moms because they make the world

go around, they make the class parties amazing. They text me and remind

me about the Easter eggs. They help make things so special. And I'm

so grateful for all that they do for our kids in our community, too.

But, like, you cannot be everything to everyone. I can't tell

you how many times I have to say no to my friends here in Austin

who are like, we're going to brunch on Friday. Can you come? Hey,

we're getting happy hour today at 04:00 can you come? I'm like, no, I

can't. I'm really sorry. And you have to just not care because you have to

be excited and proud of the work that you're doing. I think all

of us could take that as a lesson to start saying no to

more things more confidently. And I think it kind of goes back to what you're

saying, right. It's like, what is your priority? And how can you focus your

time where you've set that priority?

Absolutely. Can I say one more thing on that note, though, because I do think

it's important. I have found in Austin the community

is very involved here, more so than it felt like in San Francisco, where

everybody was heads down on their career like that. It's not the same vibe here

at all. And so there's all these opportunities that come at me all the time

to give back and get involved. And I think that you can't say yes

to all of those things. But what I have found is value in

picking one or two things a year where I'm going to carve out

the time, where I'm going to block time on my calendar to go be a

part of this board, or I'm going to chair this event for

my kids preschool. So instead of saying yes to everything, pick one or two things

and be really good at it and show up for that, and people will remember

that, too. And so finding that balance, I think, is important as

well. I think that's such a transferable skill that you likely

really honed in on at work and then transferred into your personal life. And so

I think my last question for you, I would love to know what your

professional superpower is and how you've seen that show up in your

personal and family life to manage the chaos of

motherhood. I have a saying that I want to put on a mug, which is

that every day is a day at Bobby. You just never know what cards you're

going to be dealt. Expecting the unexpected, being able to put

out many fires, being able to celebrate big or small

wins in the moment. And every single zoom call if I'm on.

I'm sometimes on Zoom from literally nine to 06:00 p.m. Bouncing around from

meeting to meeting. The headspace is finance, then it's

brand marketing, then I'm going to growth, then I'm, like, talking with retail. I'm brainstorming

for babies only, which we just bought last summer. I'm thinking about hiring. I'm doing

a one on one, like the way in which you're able to context

switch at work throughout your day. The same goes for

at home. It's like, again, like, how am I there for my daughter all of

a sudden? I'm like, I'm laser focused on learning the Alphabet with my two year

old. I then have to go move to my six year old. She

had a bad day at school, so emotionally she needs me in a different way.

How am I switching and gear shifting? My four year old is my little softy

sweetheart. He needs extra hugs and one on one time. So I'm like, okay.

I'm, like, shifting here and going here, and it's like the ability to constantly context

switch and be what that person needs from you in that moment.

I feel it all day long at work, and then it's like, all day long

at home, and then it's like, my husband too. Like, what does he need? Does

he need a little snuggle, or does he need, like, alone tv time? What do

we need to catch up on? It's like, so we're not just talking logistics in

our life. And so I would say that, like, that is the

superpower of work, and that's how it kind of comes to life for

me at home. I love that.

And I'm smiling because I feel like,

at work, as female executives,

context switching is the name of the game, right? Like, that's part of the job.

And I've never thought about it in the sense of being at

home. And I think it's one of, personally, one of my struggles has always

been, like, thinking about work still when I'm with the kids. And if I kind

of put that mindset back into where, like, no, I'm gonna be laser focused on

this for the next x amount of time. Like, I know personally that would

help me a lot. So I'm going to try that. Thank you for sharing that.

I have one more thing. Can I say one more thing about this? Because something

else just came to mind for me. I have this saying where it's like, look,

it has to be polished, not perfect. And there's

times where things need to be polished and perfect. Like, you need to

right size what you're working on and how much energy and effort you

put into those things. And I think sometimes on the home life, it's the same.

I prefer showed up to a birthday party a couple weeks ago and I was

like 15 minutes late, so tired. I was there on a Saturday

and the wrapping paper is like falling apart. The tape didn't stick. It was like

old tape. And I was like, here you go. Happy birthday. And she just

laughed. And I'm like, it's the best we can do today. And, you know, it's

fine. Like, she got her gift. We went to the birthday party, and it was

fine that I wasn't like the perfect mom with the perfect bow and the monogrammed

tag on the gift and, like, know the moments where

it does matter to show up polished and perfect and the times when

it's like, it's fine. Just get on with it. Amazing

advice, Kim. How can our listeners keep

connected with you after they listen to this episode? That's a great

question. I would say go to LinkedIn. That's where I probably

fire off the most, especially on topics like this. My instagram is quite

boring, actually. I got hacked a few years ago and I lost

all the followers that I just haven't cared since. So find me on

LinkedIn. Well, I can agree LinkedIn content is strong.

I love following you there, Kim. Thank you so much. I loved

our chat today and I really appreciate you being here. Thank you for leading this

conversation and I hope to connect with some of the moms that listen. I appreciate

you.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the new Modern mom podcast.

I hope you can use the story shared today to simplify the chaos of career

in my motherhood. If you like what you heard, dont forget to subscribe to this

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