Why you need to let Superwoman go
Our focus for this Season is ‘Fitting Life and Work Together’ and today it is my absolute pleasure to welcome Dr Joanna Martin, founder of One of Many as my guest. Today we’ll be talking about ‘Why you need to let Superwoman go’.
A big thank you to Karen Skidmore: Business, Life & Leadership for sponsoring our second season. Karen and her team are on a mission to put a stop to midlife burnout by helping women to create a new rhythm and flow to their professional lives and are offering you a free easy-to-follow Energy Tracker to help you see how your monthly cycle contributes to your productivity levels. Download your free tracker here.
About this episode
Our focus for this Season is ‘Fitting Life and Work Together’ and I’ll be talking to some incredible women about their careers, work, family and how they juggle everything life throws at us. It is my absolute pleasure to welcome Dr Joanna Martin as my guest today. Joanna is the founder of One of Many, the fastest growing women’s leadership community in the UK. We first met several years ago when I participated in one of her leadership programmes and she has been a firm supporter and friend of mine ever since. She joins me today to talk about being in ‘superwoman mode’ in her early career, her concept of soft power and ‘Why you need to let Superwoman go’.
Resources
Download your free Energy Tracker: www.karenskidmore.com/theconfidenceconversation
This free easy-to-follow resource from our sponsor, Karen Skidmore: Business, Life & Leadership, will help you to see how your monthly cycle, hormones and seasons all contribute to your productivity levels throughout the year.
Forbes article with Joanna: Soft Power Not Superwoman: Why Leaders Need A Well Of Emotional Strength Rather Than Stamina
One of Many website: https://oneofmany.co.uk/
Episode transcript
Joy Burnford: Welcome Joanna to The Confidence Conversation.
Joanna Martin: Thank you, I'm really excited to be here.
Joy Burnford: Lovely to have you here. As you know, retiring Superwoman is something that is very close to my heart. And I've been in Superwoman mode a lot over the years. And it wasn't until I met you, Jo, about five or so years ago, and I joined the One of Many community and spent a year on Lead the Change that I learned to think differently about what success means, and how you can still be a high achiever without burning out. So I think when you said to me, when we did a Forbes article together recently, we were talking about this topic, and you were saying, you need to be more like a willow blowing in the wind, rather than a rigid tree that can break at any point. And I love that, because I think it's a really great way of summing up what you talk about. So two of the most important things I think I've learned from you, which I'm hoping we might be able to touch on today is one is about the need to take time out to replenish. And as I was just telling you now that's what I did last week, I went off to Center Parcs with some girlfriends, and really took time out of my busy working life to get away from children, the house, working from home, and all that kind of stuff. And just really taking time out for me to replenish, which is so important. And something I've learned from you. And the other one is about batching for energy matching. And I don't know whether we'll touch on that today as well, but just about how you manage your day to day life to become less in Superwoman mode all the time.
Joanna Martin: Yeah, I look forward to it. Where should we start then?
Joy Burnford: Let's start with you. I think let's start with you and tell our listeners a little bit about your career and background. I know that it's quite difficult in a nutshell, because you've done a lot.
Joanna Martin: One thing that my career is not is a nutshell.
Joy Burnford: So tell us in as much of a nutshell as possible how you ended up in Superwoman mode.
Joanna Martin: Well, that wasn't my intention. When I said that, let's just be really clear about that. But look, I started my working life as a medical doctor. And I think the medical system is fantastic for breeding overachievers, and martyrs, you know, people that will put their needs at the bottom of the list, it's ensconced in the culture of health care, that the most important person is the patient, which is reasonable and makes sense, right? They're the one having the life threatening illness or whatever it might be. And then what usually happens is you secondarily, prioritise your co workers, and that they're, you know, they're doing okay. And then you come last after, if you didn't have, you know, family of my own back then. But, you know, at that point, it was flatmates and whatever else but I was at the bottom of the list. And I think for women especially, we grow up in a cultural paradigm. You're beyond just healthcare, which was my working paradigm, but we grew up in a cultural paradigm where we are taught by society that our needs should come last, you know, we often grow up with mothers and grandmothers that gave themselves the crappy piece of fish that went to bed when all the jobs were done. That, you know I remember my mom prioritising herself over our needs, she would tear around all over the countryside. And I'm grateful for it. But I never saw her say, No, I need to do this for me. And so we grow up thinking that that is the way to be, you know. So for me that was very much endorsed in my medical career. Having said that, I didn't love medicine, I was good at it, it felt like I was making a difference, but I didn't feel I was making my difference. And so I made a decision, which can sound quite revolutionary when I said out loud, but wasn't at the time, and that was to leave medicine and go to drama school. But I had acted the whole way through school. And you know, my other career if I wasn't being so sensible would be an actor. And after having done my first foray into personal development was the artists way by Julia Cameron. And I'd been doing that for about five years. So I want to say it took me five years to be brave enough to leave a medical career and go to drama school, but I knew that I would always wonder what if, you know, so I did that. And at drama school, I loved it, but I still didn't feel I was making my difference. And it was, while I was there, that I came across this entire industry of personal development and leadership training. You know, it certainly wasn't at my career's day, you know, no one mentioned it at school. And as soon as I saw, I was at an event and I saw a speaker up on the stage, and I looked at him and I thought, that's it. That's what I want to do. That's me. It's that blend of telling stories, performance, you know, and so on, but also of helping people in a way that was meaningful for me. So that's when I started coaching. And very quickly was headhunted by the organisation that certified me in the early days, I became their head of research and training and I was all over the world, you know, LA, Los Angeles, London, Sydney weekend per weekend, then I'll do seven days straight one day to travel seven days straight one day to travel, which was very glamorous, you know, like the, the 28/29 year old me was like, look at my life, this is frickin awesome, you know, but at the age of 29 I found myself trying to hold my eyes open with my fingertips, exhausted, saying what's wrong with me, the men in this organisation can tolerate this gruelling travel schedule, they can get up, they can do the trainings, go out party all night, what's wrong with me and what I realised now was there was nothing wrong with me I was just using all of my great personal development skills to fit even more into my life, to be even more effective, coming from the energy of Superwoman. So I wasn't suffering from a deficiency of Vitamin D or iron, I was suffering from an oversupply of Superwoman energy and for me that was a big wake up call because I nearly burnt out by my 30th birthday. And that's when I stopped working with that organisation and just did nothing after that, for what started out to be four months turned into nine or 10 months and I used that time just to kind of step back and discover there's got to be a better way of operating in the world because this one's not sustainable.
Joy Burnford: And isn't it interesting that we don't get any of that education. I mean obviously through One of Many you're now educating people around this area, but there's just never been anything like that.
Joanna Martin: There's not, we don't teach this at school. I mean I look at my kids you know and it breaks my heart every day, clearly something needs to change here, but you know, I drop them off at 8:30 in the morning, James gets home after 4pm at night then he's got homework and then there's clubs he can choose and all of his mates are choosing two or three clubs and I'm saying no, just have one club and then we want to fit in the play dates and everything we just feel our kids lives with so much stuff. I think lockdown was just a blessing in so many respects because it actually caused us all to take stock and go, do you know what I don't need as much in my life to be happy, a bit more than lock down, yes definitely.
Joy Burnford: No more homeschooling please!
Joanna Martin: Yes I'm okay with not the homeschooling but we didn't need, I know it was not the same for everybody but certainly in our family we discovered we didn't need to do as much in order to be happy and it's just this culture we’re brought up into to squeeze so much into our lives and it's not necessary.
Joy Burnford: Absolutely. And I know you've talked a little bit about your family and you know you do have a busy family life as well as running the business. How do you personally manage to fit it all together? Because you know, it’s quite easy for people to say well, you know, you've got it all and you know, what's the secret?
Joanna Martin: People, people and more people is really the bottom line, you know. Because I do get people saying like wow Jo, you get so much done. I don't get so much done, what I manage to do is somehow get the kids out the door to school in the morning, I work from approximately 9:30 until about 3:30. I mostly work school hours, we occasionally have weekend events and things like that. So they're the exceptions, but predominantly, I work during school hours, I probably work, I don't know, 30 hours a week, maybe on average. And you know, I take my kids on dates after school, so they get some one on one time, I should spend more time exercising, that is not something that always gets priority. But I do move my body somehow, most days. And I spend time investing a lot in my relationship. And I would say that especially, you know, through lockdown, we had a tough time, and we've really recommitting to each other, which is just delicious. And I've got a couple of good friends. And that's about it. I don't do a lot more than that, because that is well enough. My mission and my purpose in life is all encompassing of my creativity and my energy. And so how I can lead an organisation that is growing at the rate that we are, and impact as many lives as we are able to impact, because we've got, we've had probably 100,000 women come through our ranks over the last eight years that we've been doing what we do, you know, quite a few thousand of those have done our higher end programmes with the high touch programmes. And we've got certified coaches now, about 400, or 500 of them in 18 different countries around the world. And that's how we do it. Do you know, I have an extraordinary team, I delegate very effectively, I have had to get over all of my control freakism to be able to let go more and more and more. And one of my best pieces of advice is I have a lot of help at home. I don't do my own laundry. Half the time I don't even do my own groceries. Like the things that don't need my creativity and my love, I don't do. And yes, that's an affordability thing, but it's also a sanity thing. And I think for many women, especially corporate women and the kind of women who are listening to this podcast, you know, we can delegate our ironing, we can organise ourselves with some batch cooking, I do a lot of batch cooking and stuff, you know, people, getting help, and it doesn't have to be paid help. It can be sisters, neighbours, you know, organising carpooling. All of these things can eek you out the time that you need to be able to prioritise your rest and your replenishment
Joy Burnford: And not being afraid to ask for that help, I think is the key, isn't it?
Joanna Martin: That's exactly it. Because again, we're taught to be martyrs and taught that we're weak if we don't cope with all of it all by ourselves, but it just isn't true. And it's the only way to be effective, I believe.
Joy Burnford:*** I hope you’re enjoying the conversation so far. I just want to take a moment to tell you a little bit more about the free Energy Tracker that our sponsor is offering you. If, like me, you sometimes find it hard to keep up with life and work, it doesn’t mean you have to keep your head down and work harder. Karen Skidmore and her team are on a mission to empower businesswomen to create a new rhythm and flow to their professional lives in order to fulfil their potential and increase their level of impact. To help redefine your work patterns, the free Energy Tracker will help you to experience the cycles that affect your flow and how your hormones and the seasons all contribute to your productivity levels throughout the year. You can access this free energy tracker today over at www.karenskidmore.com/theconfidenceconversation.***
Joy Burnford: So let's talk a little bit about soft power, just introduce the concept of soft power for our listeners. Obviously I know what that is, but perhaps you could just give us a little bit of a flavour of what you mean by soft power, and how we let Superwoman go and then we can talk about some practical tips.
Joanna Martin: So for me soft power is the antidote to the Superwoman way of operating. Back in the 80s there was a book called How to be a superwoman, it was celebrated, being able to get it all done all by yourself. But we don't need that. What we do need is a way which is more aligned with the way that we operate as women to our cyclical nature way, which is aligned with purpose and allows us to be, as you said, right at the top of the call, like the willow, kind of, you know, yielding to the wind rather than that hard, immovable creature. And here at One of Many, we talk about three centres of power that we need to activate to be able to step into our soft power. One is our inner sense of power, because most of us think that in order to be effective, we need to be Superwoman, and that has the inevitable result of burnout for most women. That isn't the case. We talk about five women's power types. Back in the day when I nearly burned out, I was like there's got to be another way, I saw no role models of strong feminine energy around, I didn't see them. So I turned to archetypes. And that was what set me free. Working with archetypes, and the five that we work with, are the Mother Energy, the Lover Energy, who is the centre of our self care and looking after ourselves, as well as the centre of sensuality and sexuality but pleasure and having a good time of life. We work with the Queen Energy she that can set boundaries that sees the vision for the realm, who's very clear about her purpose in the world where she's headed, we work with the Warrioress Energy, who is the part of us that is very independent fights for injustice, and has a damn fine time of it along the way. And then the Sorceress Energy, which is the part of us that connects to that something greater, and we all have a different name for that it might be God, Allah, it might be, you know, Jesus, it might be Mother Nature, it might be quantum physics, what we call that highest something doesn't matter. But there's a part of all of us that connects to it, if we allow it. So we activate these centres of energy in ourselves, the power types. Then the second centre of power we need to activate is our relationships with others, recognising that soft power is not possible to be done alone, it is not an individual pursuit, you just can't sit on your own in your office and work on your power types. And think that you're going to get there. This is about reaching out, asking for help, being of support to others being collaborative, practice of collaboration. And then the third power centre is that connection to source, knowing that that is a power centre, that can be trusted and relied upon if we bring it into our lives. So that's how we approach soft power. And we noticed that the women in our community who've come through our programmes like yourself, and done Lead the Change, when they make that shift, and it takes a good 12 months to make that shift. There's a groundwork, there's a foundation, then that is laid, that means that they become even more fruitful than perhaps they were able to be before. Even more effective, even more impactful, but they feel like there's more space in their lives. They feel like there's more richness in their lives, and they're not tearing around in the same way that they used to.
Joy Burnford: Absolutely, I remember trying to work out, looking at the power types and working out which was my strongest, which is my weakest. And I’ll never forget me going I don't understand sorceress. I don't understand that what is that. But also just being aware of where you're strong, and Queen is one of my strongest, and Warrioress, because that's kind of typically where I've been, but actually really understanding what Lover meant for me. And actually, it's what probably my most difficult one that I focus on, but thinking about Mother and trying to be more present with your kids and things you know, I do find that very hard, you know, sometimes just getting away from the phone or whatever it is, being present. But just having those different archetypes is so helpful, I think in understanding where you are.
Joanna Martin: Yeah, well, the thing is, all of them are strengths like you're strong Queen and Warrioress mean that you're really able to hold that big picture, you can hold a vision for your realm, and you'll fight for your cause as you are with My Confidence Matters, you know, championing this cause in such a powerful and public way. The downside is both the Queen and the Warrioress are very independent, they're very alone, they're very solitary in a lot of respects. Queen will work with them through others, but she's not connected intimately with them. And so that's why we can see those strengths, and each of us has those strengths, but then recognising that it's not that there's something broken in us, it's just there's other energies available inside of us, which if we work them through and we nourish them, nourish those power types, you nourish your lover energy, so you're prioritising yourself care, you nourish your mother energy so you're coming from that place of unconditional love with everybody, then you'll find a richness to your life and connections that make all of the difference in the world.
Joy Burnford: Yeah, and I remember you talking about lover. And I think one of the conferences we came to and you said in the break go and use your lover when you go and buy a coffee or something. And I'll never forget that because it's just like flirting with the person in Costa Coffee to get you a free coffee or something, which is just like, you know, one way of tuning into that in a different way.
Joanna Martin: Well, that's right. And we always say lover is not about outcomes. She's not about manipulation and crazy sure, I wouldn't have said go and flirt your way to a coffee. We probably would have said is have some fun bringing your lifeforce energy to people around you and see what magic happens.
Joy Burnford: I think it was also you, Jo, that you told me about Winston Churchill and how he organised his life around relationships, hobbies and replenishment. And I think you know, some may have found in the last year working from home has been really challenging, others it may have suited them really well as you said it did for you. What advice would you give to those who are struggling with defining boundaries between home and work life, you know, how can they be more like Churchill in managing their time?
Joanna Martin: Yes. I mean, Churchill was absolutely amazing when you read through how he lived his life, you know, prioritising his breakfast, prioritising painting, prioritising sleep, having naps, and then working when he was most effective, which was, you know, in the midnight hours, it's really telling and not that I would say Winston Churchill is a role model of soft power exactly what we're talking about, but he is a role model of prioritising his needs first, and then being generous with what he was able to work with. And I think that's it. What we need to be able to do if we're struggling with boundaries is we've got to start right where the problem occurred. And that's in our upbringing, when we're taught as little girls that our needs are less important than everybody else's. Because I think our culture is rubbish at children generally you know, we don't have space for children and their needs in our society. So children grow up thinking that their needs are not that important, that turns into adults who think that their needs are not important that’s irrespective of sex, you layer over that, that women, especially little girls, watch their mothers and their grandmothers seeing that they are the ones providing for everybody, and it's right there. So we've got to start with unpicking that programming and having women realise that having their needs met is okay. Not just okay, but it's necessary, if they want to make the kind of impact in the world that the sorts of women that come into your community and my community Joy, want to make if you want to make an impact in the world. You would never set out on a journey from London to Scotland, with a quarter of a tank of petrol, especially at the moment, you might just do it and cross your fingers at the moment. But that's exactly it. Right? That's exactly how we're driving at the moment is exactly how we have been treating ourselves our whole lives, we just wouldn't do that. And I think it's important to understand that there is a massive difference between the passive verb rest and the active verb replenishment because we might stop and watch Netflix, we might stop and go to bed but sometimes that's not enough we need to nourish ourselves and we need to be okay that we deserve it, that we shouldn't feel guilty about it. That actually tending to our needs and when I'm saying needs I'm not talking about. I'm not talking about a manicure right? I'm talking about getting to bed on time, having a decent meal, drinking enough water in the day, moving your body when you need to move your body, it's the basics and we think that it's selfish to somehow take time to move our body if you know if your mother if your children need something or if your sister needs something so that's the first thing you got to know that it's okay not just okay but necessary if you want to impact the world in any way that you take care of your needs.
Joy Burnford: Absolutely, as I said earlier, I went away last week to Center Parcs of all places without my kids, can imagine what they said! But just taking time to do poetry painting for example was such you know, sitting there with my two girlfriends and we sat there and we spent an hour and a half painting pottery and it was the most amazing feeling of just being, just thinking about ourselves which was so lovely and it does feel selfish sometimes but you just need to think no, just you know you can't think like that. So I definitely recommend that Center Parcs without kids it's definitely worth doing. So Jo, you always seem to me very positive and confident. Are there any times when you still struggle?
Joanna Martin: Oh never, I never struggle ever! Yes, of course. Of course, I'm human and it's interesting because of course you know I'm a public person you know, I'm the brand ambassador for One of Many so most of what people see of me or when I've got my makeup on and I'm here doing these sorts of things and I'm being the part of me that is inspiring and is able to land the truth and is able to wake people up and move them to action you know, that's what most people see of me. What most people don't see of me is the day after an event where I don't peel myself off the sofa, where I am the least inspiring person in the world. I'm still pretty positive because I know what's going on in my body. I've just sacked it because I've delivered you know a training for three days. So I'm being gentle to myself. I'm very boundaries. I'm very very boundaries with my partner with my kids, with my family with you know with my friends, that it's very clear what people can and can't expect from me. But absolutely, I mean I'm just saying this last week Joy there are days where I have fallen apart at the seams probably five times in the last 10 days watching what's going on out in Melbourne at the moment. My hometown. You know, I was born there. And I've lived there for part of my life. My sister's there. You know the grief that I'm feeling about what is going on in my country, the distance from being away from my family, it's knocking me around. And everything feels really hard. I had a joking kind of team call just before this one with you, with my head of sales and marketing. We're like, why is everything so hard? Like just talking about the petrol thing, just coming together for our strategic planning tomorrow is a feat of monumental proportions. Plus, I had to go and do a blooming COVID test with my son this morning to make sure that he doesn't have COVID so that everybody comes like, everything's got 15,000 steps before we can finally do the work that we want to do. And sometimes it does feel too much. And I'm just as sensitive and vulnerable to that as everybody. However, I think what I do well, and many of the, you know, women and coaches and graduates from Lead the Change do well is they recognise that isn't looming depression, it isn't anything that’s terribly wrong with me, because I'm feeling these things like, Oh, hello, I'm full up with feelings. And there's no problem with being filled up with feelings, it's just a sign, I need to empty the feelings. So we go off, and we will do a dynamic meditation, or I'll do some journaling, or I'll go for one of my walks, and empty the feelings out or have the cry without judgement. And then Hello, back to positivity again.
Joy Burnford: And it's when you when you feel like you can't take any more in or you know, that sort of feeling of like, oh, no mental load and everything else. It's like, yeah, just get rid of it, let it go. Because we can't keep piling things on top.
Joanna Martin: Exactly, it just kills our executive function, right? We know that executive functioning is a limited resource. And if we've had to use it, like this morning, I had to drop the kids at school, take James for COVID test. And then make sure the five people who are due to be arriving at my home tomorrow, know that don't leave home, because of the petrol shortages, until I text you to tell you that the test is negative. All of those steps had to happen this morning, before I could come and do my workday. So executive functioning and planning is deplete before we even start the day, you know, we have to give ourselves credit at the moment because we think that things are returning to normal. There is nothing normal about this, do you know there is no automatic pilot, we are able to go on, automatic pilot is a blessing for our executive functioning. And we don't have many areas of our life at the moment where we're able to rely on auto pilot, and that makes it tougher for the big stuff, you know?
Joy Burnford: Absolutely. That's been such an inspirational chat. Jo, thank you so much for joining me today. And if people want to find out more about you and the amazing work that One of Many are doing, where can they go?
Joanna Martin: Well, our website is www.oneofmany.co.uk you can come and have a look at the website, there's loads of great free resources to get started with, you can find the overwhelm first aid kit there for example, if you're feeling particularly overwhelmed at the moment, and you could join our Facebook community, we have an amazing Facebook community of women and it’s a really safe and supportive space where women open up and are really quite vulnerable about what's going on which is powerful. And all of that you can find through the website. And you can follow me on Instagram and Facebook I'm most active on, so look out for Joanna Martin.
Joy Burnford: Thank you so much, Jo. It's been a pleasure. And I'll speak to you again soon.
Joanna Martin: Thank you very much for having me Joy. Bye.
Joy Burnford: And that’s it for this week. Thank you very much for listening and I’ll be back again soon with another Confidence Conversation. If you know anyone who might find this podcast useful, please do pass on the link and it would give me a real confidence boost if you could subscribe, rate and leave a written review (on Apple podcasts here or on Podchaser here). If you like what you’ve heard, sign up for updates where I’ll be sharing tips and notes from each episode and you can send in your ideas for future topics.
And remember you can download a free easy-to-follow Energy Tracker to help you see how your monthly cycle contributes to your productivity levels at www.karenskidmore.com/theconfidenceconversation.
Thank you, and until next time, goodbye.