# Why the Skills You Use at Home Are Executive-Level | Aimee Rickabus (Bonus Episode)

An episode of [Minimalist Moms Podcast | Purposeful Life & Parenting Tips](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1159498258), 8 Jul 2026, 33 min.

Audio: https://prefix.up.audio/s/pdst.fm/e/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/mgln.ai/e/35/audio2.redcircle.com/episodes/8494dd39-9704-43bd-91c5-8fd2fd502c0f/stream.mp3

For those that are new around here, I release bonus episodes that serve a niche part of my audience, so if this content is something that doesn’t fit what you’re looking for, check out the other episodes that dropped this week or join me back here next Tuesday for a conversation that you don’t want to miss! ------------------------------------------- What if the work of managing a home isn't "just" parenting or keeping up with daily life - but one of the most sophisticated leadership roles there is? In this episode, Diane sits down with Aimee to explore the invisible labor so many mothers carry and why the skills developed through running a household deserve far more recognition. From anticipating needs and coordinating schedules to managing emotions, solving problems, and building systems that keep family life running, mothers are often practicing executive-level leadership every single day - without realizing it. Links Discussed in This Episode | • Checkout the podcast storefront for recommendations from Diane. • Connect with Aimee: • Website • Instagram • Book: The Manage Her: Unveiling Women’s Invisible Work & Sparking a Leadership Revolution About Aimee | Aimee Rickabus is an entrepreneur, author, and podcast host dedicated to redefining women’s leadership. As the author of The Manage Her and host of the podcast by the same name, she highlights how the invisible labor women perform every day translates into systems thinking, problem solving, and leadership skills that transform business and community. Aimee is also CEO of Tomahawk Information Solutions, a woman- and minority-owned technology company. A mother of six and lifelong advocate for women, she inspires audiences to see their potential not just as professionals, but as whole, powerful individuals. Episode Sponsors | The Minimalist Moms Podcast would not be possible without the support of weekly sponsors. Choosing brands that I believe in is important to me. I only want to recommend brands that I believe may help you in your daily life. As always, never feel pressured into buying anything. Remember: if you don't need it, it's not a good deal! Enjoy the Podcast? Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning into this podcast, then do not hesitate to write a review. You can also share this with your fellow mothers so that they can be inspired to think more and do with less. Order (or review) my book, Minimalist Moms: Living & Parenting With Simplicity. You can contact me through my website, find me on Instagram, Pinterest or like The Minimalist Moms Page on Facebook. Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out Cure Hydration and use my code MINIMALIST for a great deal: https://www.curehydration.com * Check out DeleteMe and use my code joindeleteme.com/MINIMALIST for a great deal: https://joindeleteme.com * Check out Wayfair: https://www.wayfair.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

## Transcript

[0:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: For those of you that are new around here, I release bonus episodes that serve a niche part of my audience.
[0:05] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So if this content is something that doesn't fit what you're looking for, check out one of the other episodes that drop this week and episode from the archives, or join me back here next Tuesday for a conversation that you don't want to miss.
[0:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's amazing what you're actually doing, the project managing skills that go into at the inventory management skills that go into it, the HR skills that go into it, the human relations of running a household, the emotional intelligence that it takes to run a household, like let's make the invisible labor visible and then let's elevate it, how it should be elevated within society.
[0:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We basically biologically have been wired.
[0:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The average woman knows we're 30,000 different objects are in her home.
[0:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And it's a biological function.
[0:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Talk about a master inventory manager, and we just need to own our superpowers.
[0:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think it's really important work raising our children, and we've undervalued the level of skill and the importance to society that being a mother really is.
[1:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: This is Diane Bowden, and you're listening to the minimalist mom's podcast.
[1:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: What if the leadership training you need isn't found in a certification program or corporate workshop, but in the work that you're already doing every day?
[1:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Today, I sit down with Entrepreneur Author and CEO Amy Rickabus to challenge the way we think about leadership, productivity, and the often overlooked labor that keeps our homes and families running.
[1:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: from anticipating needs and managing schedules to solving problems on the fly.
[1:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Amy argues that the invisible work many women carry isn't just domestic responsibility.
[1:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's the real-time systems thinking, strategic planning and operational leadership.
[1:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Together we explore how the skills developed through caregiving and household management are often undervalued in professional spaces, how language shapes the way we see our own capabilities, and what shifts when we begin to realize.
[1:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: When we begin to recognize every day of responsibilities as meaningful leadership training.
[2:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But quickly before we get there, if you have yet to leave a rating and review for the minimalist mom's podcast, I ask you just to pause for a brief moment or two, hit five stars, tell me your favorite guest, how the show has been impactful to you.
[2:11] \[SPEAKER_00\]: This is one of the best ways to help the podcast continue to succeed and grow, and to help others discover the show that might benefit from living a life with more intention.
[2:19] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So thank you so much for taking the time to leave those rating and reviews.
[2:23] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And with that, let's get into this conversation with Amy.
[2:34] \[SPEAKER_00\]: All right, well Amy, I'm so glad to have you here today.
[2:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We are going to be talking today about how what we're doing in the home can actually apply to the business world as well.
[2:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I mean, your story is going to shed a lot of light on that.
[2:48] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I guess, let's just jump into your story.
[2:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Why don't you tell me a little bit more about who you are and what it is that you do?
[2:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, so I'm Amy Rickabus, and I'm the CEO of Tom Hawke Information Solutions, which is a value-added reseller of Technology Hardware Software and Services.
[3:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We've been focusing on digital transformations since 2021, and so I also have six children.
[3:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: a very large homeschooling family and had to jump in to kind of doing a lot of everything all at once and was really grateful for the education I'd gotten running the house at very busy house when it came my time to take over and basically run the company while my husband was sick.
[3:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Oh, okay.
[3:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Oh my gosh.
[3:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Wow.
[3:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So much on your plate.
[3:32] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And absolutely.
[3:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I do think that women discount what we're doing in the home, the organization, the managing of schedules.
[3:39] \[SPEAKER_00\]: There's so much that we're doing that can be applicable into that business world more professional setting.
[3:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So why do you think that the skills developed in managing a home or in raising children are so often dismissed rather than recognized as leadership experience?
[3:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Like we actually are building
[3:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Absolutely.
[3:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think that because it's invisible labor, it's been invisible labor for such a long time and there may be, you know, biological reasons why women kind of hid this work and perform this work almost like little hidden fairies or gnomes that kind of did the work when no one was looking, right?
[4:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We don't really make a big McGillah about getting the dishes done or, you know, rotating closets or, you know, managing the inventory of the kitchen,
[4:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's amazing what you're actually doing, the project managing skills that go into at the inventory management skills that go into it, the HR skills that go into it, the human relations of running a household, the emotional intelligence that it takes to run a household, all of these things are actually incredible skills for leadership.
[4:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But it's about naming those skills and seeing them for what they really are, you know, basically taking the ownership back, like let's make the invisible labor visible and then let's give it the, let's elevate it to what it should really be, how it should be elevated within society.
[5:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Absolutely.
[5:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: In your book, you've met Fred to mention you're an author as well.
[5:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We wrote the book, The Manage, Her, unveiling women's invisible work and sparking a leadership revolution.
[5:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: In your book, you reframe invisible labor as systems thinking.
[5:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Can you explain what you mean by that and how that kind of thinking shows up not just in the home, but again, out in the professional realm?
[5:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, so basically in your home you've got three things.
[5:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You've got people.
[5:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You've got systems and you've got capital, which are the same three things that we have in business.
[5:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So what we're managing really the most essential thing that we do as women within the home is manage the systems.
[5:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The systems and manage the people, the systems manage the capital.
[5:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and so these standard operating procedures that we create around absolutely everything at our homes from where our spoons go, to when we buy more milk, to how often we purchase toilet paper, when we do the laundry, these are all standard operating procedures in our homes, and so basically our brains are wired to be systems managers.
[6:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: we basically biologically have been wired.
[6:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The average woman knows we're 30,000 different objects are in her home.
[6:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's a biological function.
[6:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm trying to condense that.
[6:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm trying to condense that.
[6:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, so like I talk about a master inventory manager and we just need to own our superpowers.
[6:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Like our superpowers really are organization and management and those are the same major principles of business.
[6:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, yeah.
[6:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I want to pause here and go back to I feel like I completely overlooked your story and you saying that you homeschool six kids, you stepped into this role with this business.
[6:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: You said your husband was sick.
[6:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Are were you taking on his business or just starting something from scratch?
[6:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So
[6:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: we started we actually have a couple of IT companies we have one that we started in 2012 which is a hardware business and then we have another one we started in 2014 which is Tom Hawk which mostly at that time when we first started it we had a government contract and it was kind of just like our little side burner project and we were waiting for the right time to grow out the commercial side of that business and
[7:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It seemed the right time was March 13th of 2020 the day before the world shut down for COVID.
[7:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That was when we hired our VP of sales, but we didn't really know the storm that was coming, you know, and our VP of sales went in and basically did all of this research during this time and developed a practice around digital transformation that has carried us through this time.
[7:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But what I didn't know was that I was going to be dealing with my husband's health struggles for the next few years.
[7:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and I had just gotten pregnant with my daughter who was our fifth child in 2020.
[7:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then I had another child in 2022, my son Paul, a number six.
[7:49] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so it was for me a very interesting time in my life where I
[7:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: absolutely had to apply the principles that I'd learned in the household, as far as emotional intelligence, organization, management, and then really prioritizing things too, because I only have a certain amount of time in the day, and I had two infants during this time.
[8:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I was really trying, so I built a company that could be run very easily.
[8:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I was so lucky that I was able to have employees that were smart enough empowered enough that could own their lanes.
[8:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so I think that we kind of built something in a very different way than we built our first company because of the need.
[8:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, the kids were out of school.
[8:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I had to start homeschooling in 2020, so I had to manage that.
[8:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I actually started a school at our house for the neighborhood like you do.
[8:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I had to do something, I have one child who is severely dyslexic and the Zoom thing just really wasn't working for him and then going back to school, we're in California, so going back to school with masks and all that stuff, he's got sensory processing, so that wasn't going to work for him.
[9:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I was like, what am I going to do?
[9:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So that summer of 2020, I got together with some neighbors and I hired a teacher for us and it turned our play room into a classroom.
[9:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So we ended up having nine children over the next couple of years at our house with the teacher and, you know, it's funny, but it's just like I became the principal of the school at the same time, but we kind of build systems around the things that we need build systems around as women.
[9:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we're really good at being doing that on the fly.
[9:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think we do it all the time.
[9:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, whether it's, you know, you forgot a diaper.
[9:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: What are you going to do?
[9:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I mean, we have to make quick decisions.
[9:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I've read somewhere that a mother makes a thousand micro decisions every single day.
[9:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: All the while being interrupted on average every three minutes.
[9:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So we are like these super power.
[9:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I mean, most CEOs don't have to deal with that kind of decision-making decision fatigue stress, sleep deprivation, all the things that moms do.
[10:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We're already in like super mode.
[10:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So to apply that, I was already in that mode while I was scaling out this business.
[10:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If that makes sense, I was in this mode.
[10:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Which which was like mommy mode, but it allowed me to build this company in a way that would serve me at the in the season of my life, which is motherhood.
[10:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I do want to also pause here and talk to the woman that's listening and doesn't necessarily have the desire to go back into the workplace, but does want that recognition in the home.
[10:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I think for most of us, we're like, I at least maybe I'm just speaking for myself.
[10:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm pretty good.
[10:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: not getting the recognition, but then sometimes if it's critiqued, then I'm like, hey, wait, way, way, way, way, like notice everything else that I'm doing.
[10:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I guess what encouragement do you have for the woman listening, the one start articulate the real value that she's providing in the home.
[11:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, and I really think the manager of this book really gives us the words to give the value back to the invisible labor, to rename the invisible labor and to basically give it the weight and value that it deserves in our household with our spouses with our children.
[11:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Because, you know, once we, I love being at home, in fact, I get to be home a lot more.
[11:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: My husband is well now and it's so nice to be able to be back in that mommy role.
[11:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and I love being able to stay.
[11:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The days I get stay home with the kids, it's fabulous.
[11:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think it's really important work raising our children and we've undervalued the level of skill and the importance to society that being a mother really is.
[11:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So
[11:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think in the book, it's going to give you the words, the standard operating procedures, and a lot of it is just doing, it's basically, it's a workbook.
[11:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So you read and then you'll do exercises.
[11:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I have a lot of women who've come to me who've done my book.
[11:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I'm like, oh, I can now speak to my husband about what I'm doing.
[12:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I'm not feeling so resentful about carrying this extra load of work.
[12:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: quietly and resentfully, I'm actually able to communicate better what I need from other people in my household to help me out.
[12:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Because, you know, we don't have to do all this stuff invisibly.
[12:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We can do it visibly.
[12:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We can ask for help.
[12:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And it's actually really important that our partners get to be partners.
[12:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: that they do get to have some ownership in the management organization of our households.
[12:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that our children get to have the ability to learn within the home because they need to learn to cook.
[12:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They need to learn to take out the trash, do laundry, clean the house.
[12:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: These are like real life skills.
[12:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And when we do everything for everyone, we're not really
[12:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: giving the opportunity for it to be a teachable moment in our house.
[12:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So it's kind of like reevaluating what we're doing in the home, why we're doing it, what's motivating us, and how to communicate what we really need, so that we can create a better and more harm at more harm on this home.
[12:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[12:57] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I am curious to know, asking you personally, if this was, we'll call it the internal dialogue and internal monologue that you had.
[13:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Was it always one that was focusing on the positive and focusing on the things that you were doing?
[13:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Because I also think that a lot of women don't know how to speak that to themselves.
[13:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They think I'm just a mom or I haven't been in the workplace for a while.
[13:18] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So how does the language shape how we perceive even ourselves from our own capacity?
[13:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, I think that's, you know, your inner dialogue is actually one of the most important things that we have for ourselves, you know, your inner cheerleader, whether, you know, either you have an inner cheerleader or you have an inner critique, and I think it's up to us to really edit that voice in our head.
[13:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And if it's telling you something negative, I think it's okay to take a minute and say, is this true or is this false?
[13:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Because the things that our mind tells us
[13:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: you know, sometimes it lies to us to protect us.
[13:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But it's really, you know, we about changing our inner dialogue to say, no, I have valuable skills.
[14:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I have managed this household.
[14:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I've kept everyone alive.
[14:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I've kept the dogs alive, the plants alive.
[14:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Everyone has had healthy meals.
[14:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I have everything.
[14:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I know where all these different objects are in my home.
[14:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I can manage all of these calendars and all of these closets in the garage,
[14:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: this place schedules and the school schedules and the homework and all of the things that we have done with our time, you know, taking that back and really creating some value for ourselves as women in the in the work that we do have been doing quietly for generations and almost that.
[14:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Well, a lot of this quiet, invisibleness comes from a place of toxic femininity, comes from a place of martyrdom, comes from a place something negative that we learn from our mothers, that they learn from their mothers.
[14:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think as we move into the future, that's something that we can let go of as women.
[14:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'd like to see us let go of that.
[14:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And if you're doing something you hate doing, ask someone else to do it.
[14:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If there's something you really, really don't
[15:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah.
[15:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Would you say, maybe this is a redundant question, but we'll just see if you have a different answer for it.
[15:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But I am curious to know for women that are listening, uh, that feel like they're falling behind.
[15:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: What is a shift that they can make to feel again competent in the skills that they are offering their families?
[15:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, so for me, I like these, this is my audit.
[15:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I like to go, do I absolutely have to do this thing?
[15:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Can I automate it?
[15:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Could I delete it?
[15:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Or is it essential that I do it?
[15:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Or can I delegate it to somebody?
[15:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So it's, you know, we can, we have options.
[15:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So we need to kind of audit all the tasks that we're doing.
[15:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There's a lot of automation.
[15:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: options for us now in our homes that weren't available a year or two ago.
[15:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And it's what I do in my company is automate technologies for big huge companies.
[15:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I've been able to see how automation has not just increased the employees' time, but also their mind shared.
[15:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And for us, that's us.
[15:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: our minds are full of all of the invisible things that we have to do and if we're able to automate some of those tasks in my books, that's really the second half of my book I really get into how we can use emerging technologies to make our lives easier so that we can be more productive, have more time, be more present.
[16:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think that's, you know, that's the world we're moving into right now.
[16:20] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yes, absolutely.
[16:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Curious to know here, if you've encountered resistance when it comes to reframing this invisible labor and what hope you have for organizations in the future to take this seriously.
[16:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yes, you know, you get some negative remarks like on YouTube.
[16:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: One of the first videos I put up some man said, women belong in the kitchen.
[16:43] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I was like, I mean, we left to someone and love to be in the kitchen.
[16:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'd like to cook, too, but you know, I also like to build things.
[16:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think that that needs to be okay.
[16:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think that the Proverbs woman from the Bible was a merchant woman.
[16:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And she was doing it all.
[16:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And she was still a biblical woman.
[17:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And she was worth her weight and salt.
[17:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And all of these things, you know, this is not anti-
[17:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, this is, this is not a negative thing for a woman to be everything she wants to be.
[17:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Whatever she wants to be.
[17:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Even if she wants to be a state home mom and do that full time and that's her whole heart and passion, heck yeah, our society needs that.
[17:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We love that.
[17:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If you want to have a state home and create a side gig for yourself so you can have a little side income,
[17:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: that's awesome too do that you know i think that there's a lot of options for women and we're we're moving into a time where the corporations need to see the value of the work that women do the invisible work that we're doing you know i've been working with a lot of women to get policy changes made in this direction doctor Daniel downing has a book called good girl bad mom and she
[17:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, she's working on basically moving this conversation forward as far as policy like this work is worth money.
[17:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The fact that women perform $3 trillion a day.
[17:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Women and girls perform $3 trillion a day in unpaid labor globally.
[18:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, so we at some point need to start looking at policy to say, okay, if a woman wants to stay home with her children, how can we compensate her for that?
[18:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Or if there's a way for corporations to create positions where women can have more flexibility or create, basically, if we have to pay for child care, like my our oldest daughter, she's 27.
[18:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: She got offered a job at a spa and she would get paid $17
[18:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So it's not by the time the tax man comes and takes the his cut out of her paycheck, she's going to lose money.
[18:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But what the crazy thing is corporations can write off child care for their employees.
[18:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So what I'd really love to see is corporations stepping up into providing child care for their employees so that we as women can basically go to work and not just, you know, we're already getting paid 70 cents on the dollar, but if you subtracted the child care cost from that, it's a lot less.
[19:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: for the women that have to pay for child care.
[19:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So either the corporations, you know, it wouldn't hurt them.
[19:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's a right off for them.
[19:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I've been looking at it even in within our own company as something that would be a huge benefit to us to be able to write a, you know, to be able to provide child care for children.
[19:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But the other thing that I'd love to see is possibly some sort of, you know, government tax,
[19:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: offset or something for women, it would be so nice if we could write off child care.
[19:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Like corporations do, because it's a very unfair burden, it's not like you can work and not provide child care for your children.
[19:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So it really, and this really is a women's issue primarily because women primarily are the caregivers.
[19:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I do think there's some serious policy and some societal things that we need to look at to make some real changes in this
[19:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[19:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I shared this story.
[19:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I don't know a while back, but I was listening to a diary of a CEO.
[20:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's one of my favorite podcasts.
[20:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And there was a man on there sharing how he was a part of an unexpected pregnancy.
[20:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And he was like, but I went off to do all this stuff.
[20:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I built this business and the question kind of lingered, well, like, who took care of your kid while you did all that?
[20:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: You didn't mention the kid in there.
[20:20] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I think that it's really wonderful that women often as a generalization, we want to stay with our kids.
[20:26] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We are typically more maternal and more nurturing, however, if we're not acknowledged, again, the systems that we're this whole book that you're speaking to.
[20:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: If that's not acknowledged, it's like, no, we are still doing work and even like with something like this podcast, the ability to manage the emails and the editing and there's a lot that goes into this that could be used in a different professional setting and it's like, we sell ourselves short when we don't use everything we've been doing to our advantage because men do that, men will be very creative with the resumes and it's like, we need to be better at that as well and it should be taken more seriously.
[21:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I hope that we see these changes for sure.
[21:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think that it's something that I'd love to see in my youngest daughter is now five.
[21:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And by the time she becomes a mom, I hope that we have had the time to make the policy changes for so that she can see it in her generation.
[21:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's really one of my primary goals to make sure that we're having this conversation that it's loud.
[21:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: that we get loud about this conversation as women, that this is work, it's important work.
[21:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It needs to be valued in society.
[21:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: This work is happening.
[21:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We are doing this work.
[21:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: This is the work that keeps this world going.
[21:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If women stop to doing what we do,
[21:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: it would be of a very interesting day for the world.
[21:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah.
[21:42] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I do think I've always had more of a traditional approach.
[21:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But I do think that what I've recognized now is, okay, well, we've set up our society where both people typically have to work and we have to adjust.
[21:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Unfortunately, we don't live in a society anymore.
[21:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We're only one person can work.
[22:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so it's like because we are here, we need to adjust culture with what we have already done.
[22:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: regardless of whether you wanted to be here or not, that's where we are, right?
[22:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Exactly.
[22:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So we need to seek either corporate accommodation for child care for children, or we need to see a tax credit for child care for the women.
[22:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Something needs to happen, ideally both.
[22:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: because that would be that would be really fair that way if you work for a corporation that had child care that'd be great otherwise if you have to pay for child care it'd be really nice if we could write it off.
[22:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think that's something that our government really needs to look at for women to make it fair and equal because right now it's really not equal at all.
[22:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's very skewed in the favor of the parent who isn't the default parent,
[22:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: sure.
[22:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And again, and if it doesn't, if those kind of things don't happen, it's like then we should be able to put on a resume.
[22:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I was a stay at home mom manager for this long, and it's not looked at as though I've been unemployed for however long.
[23:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: 100% so my, my, my, my, my, my friend of mine on her name is Neda Lina, and she wrote a couple of books about emotional intelligence.
[23:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And in those books, she talks about how men overvalue their experience and often over them sell themselves in job interviews.
[23:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: A woman usually
[23:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: way more than she thinks she knows and she undervalues it.
[23:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: A man, I think she said something he's like about 80% of what he says he can do is what he can do.
[23:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But a woman's like way over that mark of 100% of everything she says she could do, she could probably do that and way more.
[23:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We are always kind of downplaying our talents and skills.
[23:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and we need to own it girls, come on let's own it we are so powerful and we're so our brains are like amazing really the way that we can manage I mean we literally the species relies on us to keep it alive you know if you do a bad job as a mom
[23:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: is somebody can die.
[23:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So we have, it's a very important job.
[24:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's a life and death job.
[24:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's why I was so when I was writing my book, it's like, you know, when you have a life and death job versus a job, jobs, a corporate, it just takes the weight out of the actual job, like corporate world.
[24:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's like no one's going to die if I make a mistake on this one choice.
[24:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: not today.
[24:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But at home, yeah, you know, you're carrying a lot more real weight with child rearing.
[24:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so I think that you're bringing some perspective into the corporate world.
[24:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's no one's going to die.
[24:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's going to be fine girls.
[24:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You have the skills.
[24:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I really think that our generation of women need to upskill into AI a bit and leverage into AI just
[24:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: which NAWAI and they're going to be helping our age women learn how to up-skill in AI.
[24:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's what they're going to do when it comes.
[24:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If we were already seeing women who are CEOs, we're getting fired because they don't have AI skills.
[25:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we already have a wage gap as women.
[25:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So we will see a continued wage gap if we don't upscale ourselves in how to use AI.
[25:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So that's another big policy that we need to push forward to is the adaptation, the adopting of new technologies.
[25:23] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[25:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And again, I do think technical skills like, we can learn of that.
[25:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm just trying to think of, yeah, I mean, or any individual can be in the workplace for five to 10 years longer than we do.
[25:34] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But it's like, can we really not catch up?
[25:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We haven't just been sitting on our bombs all day.
[25:39] \[SPEAKER_00\]: You said the social and emotional intelligence, like a lot of that is what maintains the relationships that we need in a business like setting.
[25:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So yeah, I just think we need to think outside of the box.
[25:51] \[SPEAKER_00\]: take creative liberties when cultivating the resume is and I think that we should actually take that leap and do that ourselves as well.
[25:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I think so.
[25:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think you're 100% right.
[26:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think that women need to value the work that they're doing in that household.
[26:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think we need to look at each other and value each other's work in the household.
[26:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oh, so I think we need to say, you know what?
[26:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: This is a job.
[26:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Being a mom is a job.
[26:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Just because it's a job doesn't mean we don't love our families and our children.
[26:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But this is real work.
[26:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: you know, and if someone else is doing it, they're getting paid to do it.
[26:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They're not doing it for free.
[26:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: This is a job.
[26:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If someone else would get paid to do it, it's a job.
[26:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that's the reframe.
[26:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, quickly.
[26:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I don't know if you want to talk.
[26:32] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I know in your book you really talk about, I might put this back in somewhere, but you speak to success being a garden, not a ladder.
[26:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Do you want to elaborate on that anymore for the listeners?
[26:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[26:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So my next book gets even further into this.
[26:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The book I'm writing right now.
[26:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So what I realized as I've spent my life climbing a ladder, corporate ladder, I kind of my parents were kind of raised me to be a CEO.
[26:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Since I was a little
[26:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I was like, you're going to grow up.
[26:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You're going to be a CEO, a Clim Clim Clim Clim Clim Clim Clim.
[26:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And doing my podcast, the manager of podcast, I've met a lot of women too, who Clim Clim Clim Clim Clim Clim Clim, get to the top.
[27:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And they're so burnt out that they are sick, and they have to completely reinvent themselves.
[27:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Like full autoimmune diseases, all these things.
[27:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So what I think,
[27:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: for women.
[27:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't think it's a ladder that we climb.
[27:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think it's a garden that we cultivate.
[27:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think that we basically, it's so cute.
[27:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I wrote a poem from my new book, but it's basically we have seeds of hope.
[27:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We water with them with love into the different garden patches.
[27:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I really think that its presence, purpose, people, and practice are like the four things, the four principles of our gardens that we tend as women.
[27:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we have different seasons in our lives as women.
[27:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So there are different seasons and you're going to work on different parts of your garden during different seasons of your life.
[27:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Like, you know, when you're young, before you have children, you're really in that spring, everything's new, learning, everything is fresh and, you know, you've just sprouted.
[27:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then you move into the summer of your life, you know?
[28:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And you are now basically looking for your partner,
[28:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: developing your career, all of these things, you know, spring and summer, both career oriented.
[28:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then I feel like I finally am moving into the fall of my life where I'm done, I'm done making babies, my life is moving into a different direction.
[28:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I do feel like the leaves, like I'm making choices about what's important in my life now.
[28:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, friends, family, how I spend my time,
[28:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: cultivating, starting to begin to cultivate my legacy.
[28:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then, you know, you move into the winter of your life.
[28:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And in the winter of your life, it's like, you, all of the things you've worked for in the other seasons of your life are now either going to pay off or you're going to be feel lacking in those things.
[28:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's like, did you store up, did you get create enough savings for your retirement?
[28:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, did you invest in your family and your children so that they're still around you in this winter season of your life?
[28:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: How's your health?
[28:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Did you work on your health enough during the other seasons of your life?
[29:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: All of these things, the winter is the cumulative season of your life, but in every season you're going to work on different parts of your garden.
[29:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I really think that women, you know, because we are nurturers, we're 10, we tend things, we nurture things.
[29:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We don't need to climb climb climb.
[29:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We climb climb you get to this top of your all by yourself, it's lonely, it's no fun, you're usually burnt out, it's not cute.
[29:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, yes, for shutting some light on that because I know that that was a big part of what you speak to so I wanted to make sure we shared it with the listeners But as your app up here, why don't you less the listeners know where they can connect with you online and grab a copy of your book if they want to do so Awesome.
[29:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You can find my book on Amazon the manage her and am Amy Rickabus a. I am E E R I C K AB U S We are also have the manager dot com and you can find me on social at the manager everywhere
[29:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Anywhere you want to connect in I also have a podcast the manage her on all the platforms including YouTube Apple everywhere Spotify all the things perfect.
[30:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, I'll be sure to include all that in the show notes and then as we wrap up here Quickly I ask my guests just to rapidfire questions here at the very end and the first one is what's been a beneficial resource in your life That you want to share with the listeners and doesn't have to be about what we talked about today.
[30:19] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I know it's a broad interpretation
[30:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oh, I'm beneficial for me, it's been AI.
[30:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Like AI is actually my adopting AI two years ago, allowed me to write my two books, get my podcast going, kind of in lead into the other purpose and legacy, leg of my life that I may not have had time for, had I not had AI's help?
[30:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, you are not the first person to have said that is the resource and you're not gonna be the last question for you, what is something you can't stop talking about?
[30:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Well, besides AI, what else?
[30:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oh, peptides.
[30:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm kind of a peptide dork.
[30:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I really am.
[30:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I am.
[30:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I start consuming them.
[31:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I am a hard core biohacker.
[31:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I really do think peptides are like the coolest thing ever.
[31:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we'll be doing a show on peptides, actually this afternoon.
[31:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm interviewing a future guest.
[31:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: will be doing a show on peptides with me because it's like everybody asks me about them now.
[31:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There's so many cool things you can do all the things with it.
[31:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: From a immune modulation to skin, to weight loss, to longevity, there's a lot of things there.
[31:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's very
[31:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: interesting.
[31:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm also a little into biohacking.
[31:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm trying to just keep it simple at this point, but yeah, a little thing here and there is definitely helpful.
[31:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I'll have to check that out.
[31:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, absolutely check it out.
[31:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There'll be a fun.
[31:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think that's going to be a really fun one.
[31:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's something people have been asking for perimenopause and menopause and which were there and then peptides.
[31:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Those are been the two I haven't done shows on them yet and they're my next to do is because it's the two things that we talk about like nonstop outside of this.
[31:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well Amy, thanks so much for joining me today.
[31:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Like I said, I just wanted to really encourage listeners that when you are home, you are still doing the work.
[32:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It may be invisible to some, but we need to make that invisible visible.
[32:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So thank you for helping with the encouragement today and for joining me.
[32:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, absolutely thanks for having me Diane.
[32:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: What did you think of the episode?
[32:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I hope you enjoyed the conversation.
[32:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: To learn more about today's guest, including links, resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at minimalismomspodcast.com where you can find the entire podcast archive as well as my book, minimalismoms, living and parenting with simplicity, or other ways to connect or work with me online.
[32:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.
[32:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And leave a rating or review of your favorite episode.
[32:48] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Lastly, sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends and social media is very helpful and will encourage others on their journey to think more and do with us.

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