Episode 13 / Jess Ekstom
The Episode Every High Achiever Needs To Hear: Jess Ekstrom on Overcoming Obstacles in Business
This episode is for you if you’ve ever wondered:
How societal definitions of success can be traced back to childhood experiences and how to redefine them to align with personal values.
The impact of 'false summits' on personal growth and how they can either deflate or empower our ambitions.
How catastrophic events - “the monsters that save us” as Lindsey calls them - can lead to important life lessons and career growth.
The importance of leaving breadcrumbs of yourself when entering into a significant identity shift, like motherhood.
Strategies for addressing the underrepresentation of women in public speaking and how we can all contribute to a more diverse and inclusive speaking landscape.
About JESS EKSTROM
Jess Ekstrom is the founder of Headbands of Hope and Mic Drop Workshop, investor in women, 2x best selling author, Forbes Top Rated Speaker and new mom. Her first brush with success was selling all of her toys on eBay when she was twelve. Since then, Jess and her companies have been featured on Today and Good Morning America and in Seventeen, Vanity Fair, Forbes, and People. More importantly, they've helped millions of women and girls around the world. She’s the bestselling author of Chasing the Bright Side and Create Your Bright Ideas. Her hobbies include writing, hiking, board games with her husband, playing peekaboo with her baby, and searching for the best breakfast burrito in America.
“Anxious ambition comes from when we feel like we're not doing enough. And a lot of times that's fueled by comparison...but inspired ambition comes when we feel like we're making something better.”
JESS EKSTROM
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Lindsey Epperly [00:00:02]:
Hey, Jess, we are super excited to have you on the show today.
Jess Ekstrom [00:00:05]:
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Lindsey Epperly [00:00:08]:
Yeah, we always like to dive right in, kind of what we were just talking about. You got your start. You've been such a multifaceted woman. You've gotten your start and an incredible, incredible organization that you started. I really want to talk about the defining moment that you had. You know, we call the show who made you the boss? So there's always this moment, especially for the more entrepreneurial set, where you kind of look yourself in the mirror and say, all right, it's me. I am going to make myself the boss, whether it's my own life, my personal, my professional details. What did that look like for you? Do you remember your exact moment?
Jess Ekstrom [00:00:42]:
I remember when I was a kid and my dad had a job, and one day he came home from work and said that he had a business idea that he wanted to start, and he wanted to leave his job and told our family. And I was in middle school at the time, and so I really didn't understand the magnitude of and starting a business. And so I was like, okay, cool. What's for dinner? Just don't really care. And then we went on our family camping trip a few weeks later, and I remember I had my headphones, and I was going to listen to the backstreet boys because I was being a rebellious teen. I was like, I don't want to listen to nature. And my headphone cords kept getting tangled in a knot. And I said to my dad, I was like, headphone cords should just roll up like a slinky so they don't ever have to get tangled again.
Jess Ekstrom [00:01:38]:
And then I was like, I'm just going to invent that. Like you're inventing your business. And I remember in that moment, he sat me down and he was like, look, that's already been invented, but I really want you to keep thinking that way. Like, keep looking for opportunity in problems. And so maybe you could say there was, like, a moment when we made our first sale or a moment when I decided to go for it. But if I'm being honest with myself, I think the moment was that camping trip when I realized being the boss and whether that means you're self employed or working for someone else is ultimately just about creating what you wish existed. And that can be in so many different facets. And so I think by the time I was in college and I was interning at make a wish and got the idea for my first company, headbands of hope.
Jess Ekstrom [00:02:36]:
I was already in that muscle memory of looking for pain to bring possibility, I think because I had started that muscle memory, which is why I wrote my children's book, create your bright ideas. I was like, that needs to start as early as possible because I had that gift early on.
Lindsey Epperly [00:02:56]:
Gosh, what a gift. That your dad saw that in you and was able to foster it. And it actually makes me very emotional because that was a very similar experience that I had. My dad was an entrepreneur, so I got to see it modeled, and to be able. And we'll talk about parenting. As I know you're a recent new mom, I would love to talk about that in a bit, but to be able to see that potential in someone else and call it out and raise them up in that way, I mean, what a gift.
Jess Ekstrom [00:03:22]:
Thank you for sharing such a gift. And I think so many kids don't have a front row seat to entrepreneurship or maybe even see the representation of people that look like themselves doing the things that they want to do. And so I think it's important to expose kids to it, talk about it, that there are so many other winning scenarios for them in life that they don't even know exist yet.
Lindsey Epperly [00:03:48]:
Yeah, well, and I mean you speaking of children in particular, your first company was made specifically to give kids purpose and hope. Can you tell us a little bit more about starting headbands of hope?
Jess Ekstrom [00:04:00]:
Yeah. So my first company, I started when I was in college, I was interning for make wish and seeing a lot of kids that would lose their hair to chemotherapy and be offered a wig or they'd be given a hat. And a lot of them, I've found, just weren't really concerned with hiding their experience. They just wanted something that they could feel good about themselves after starting to lose their hair to chemotherapy. And I remember seeing a lot of kids coming in wearing headbands, and I just thought, like, what an amazing gesture of confidence and just these fun, floral, sparkly headbands. And so I started a company called Headbands of Hope. For every headband sold, we donate one to a child with an illness. And I call it the dumbest, smartest moment of my life.
Jess Ekstrom [00:04:44]:
Because when you're at that stage early on, you just don't even know what the limits are. You don't even know that nine out of ten businesses fail. You don't even know how steep the hill is. And I think that that makes going for it that much easier. And then, of course, you're rudely awakened at some points. So started headbands of hope. Then and now, we've donated over 2 million headbands and helped a lot of kids.
Lindsey Epperly [00:05:15]:
I love that it's so often when you start something that early on in life, too, when you're in that college students. Yes. Right. Where you just say yes to everything. Like, yes, I will make a mix of cookie dough and brownie dinner. Midnight. Why not? Of course I'll say yes to this career path. It's interesting.
Lindsey Epperly [00:05:30]:
You talk about the moment that you have the root awakening, and we on this show call these the monsters that save us, because these are oftentimes the things that we're just never expecting out of left field. They're scary. We knew that something would happen one day. We always had a fear that something would destroy the business or hurt the home life or whatever it looked like. But ultimately, oftentimes, it's those really catastrophic events that lead you to who you are supposed to be, who this business is supposed to become, who you're supposed to reach. And I would love to hear, just like you have a ton of examples, as I have learned from your book and your whole life story, but can you tell us just one of those monsters that saved you?
Jess Ekstrom [00:06:08]:
Well, there's one I talk about in the book and in my speeches, that I share a lot about losing a loan from my dad to start my business to a fraudulent manufacturer, which was definitely one of the first ones, but one that I would say is maybe a little bit more recent. That I've been thinking a lot about recently is when I was starting another business, I signed a really bad deal. And it was something at the time where I just felt like I couldn't really advocate for myself. Any partner that was working with me was doing me a favor. I didn't feel worthy enough. And so I just was like, signing a deal to get it done. And then as the company started to become successful, I realized kind of what I had done and what I had given away and ended up spending more than what my house costs to buy this person out. And I lost sleep over it.
Jess Ekstrom [00:07:21]:
I couldn't eat. I was just sick over how stupid I could have been signing this deal. And then I realized that there was so many other. The more that my career has progressed with startups, and I love investing in other women's companies, and I love getting my hands dirty, that I've had many more deals since then, and a lot of them bigger, whether it's selling shares in my own companies or whatever it might be. And I have close to what feels like an MBA in this because of that monster that saved me. And so I feel like the pain and the cost is also just the price tag for the lesson. And I would have made that same mistake in a much bigger way later on. And so if you look at the timeline of my experience, making it at a certain point, as much as it absolutely stung at the time, saved me millions of dollars from making it later on.
Jess Ekstrom [00:08:31]:
And so I think about that a lot. When I'm kicking myself for signing something stupid or not advocating or pricing myself too low, I'm like, well, now I have the gift of all of that knowledge of experience, and I'm definitely not going to let that happen again. And now I've kind of made it part of my personal mission to not just dodge those bullets for myself, but make an education platform so women can also dodge those bullets.
Lindsey Epperly [00:08:59]:
That is beautiful. I know I've been paying attention to a lot of the beautiful episodes that you've been coming out with on your amplify podcast lately, and you do these great. So for our listeners, you've got to go listen, you do these great little shorts, right? They're like four to eight minute motivational Mondays. Go ahead and set aside double the time because you'll pause every 30 seconds to take a note. But something I caught that you brought up the other day was this really wonderful insight of listening to the chorus and this idea that life is teaching you kind of a similar lesson in a bit of a theme. And at one point in your life, the chorus was optimism. And it feels very much like there has been an intentional shift in your mission almost, and what you're putting into the world that it's more kind of focused on, would you say, imposter syndrome? Like, what is the current chorus of your life?
Jess Ekstrom [00:09:48]:
Yeah. And I love that you brought this up because I think for anyone listening, it's such a good gut check and pause of like, what's the theme? What keeps bubbling up in this season of life for you? A lot of people come to me like, well, what should I speak on? What should I write about? I'm like, if you were to look at your past year or five years of your life as if it's a film strip and you were going to create a trailer, what would the message be? What would be the words on the screen that says, coming soon about this? So for a while early in my career, optimism was definitely that theme because I think I wasn't getting to where I was getting because of skill or experience. I was getting to where I was getting, because I always believed that things could be done differently or done better. So optimism was like more of a strategy and less of a mood. And so chasing the bright side. And those keynotes were about teaching people that. And then now I would say, now that I am more out of headbands of hope and focus more on mic drop workshop, helping women speak, and doing my own speaking, I see that our inner dialogue and our impostor syndrome and how we train our mind to define success and how we think about it is more of where I'm at in my life, and so more of where I feel like I'm teaching specifically around this idea of the balance between ambition and sanity.
Lindsey Epperly [00:11:26]:
Yes.
Jess Ekstrom [00:11:27]:
And that's what I've just been exploring a lot over the past year, is like having this deep desire to be a creative and ambitious person. But if you are, then you're always wanting more, which is a lot of times at the expense of your sanity. And so is there a way that you can find harmony in both being a creative and ambitious person while also not running yourself into the ground?
Lindsey Epperly [00:11:56]:
Yeah, let's camp out there for a second, because I have been hyper fixated on exactly that. The question of, can ambition exist without anxiety. Right. So I believe on the other side of anxiety that it can, because for so long, I thought the two were just so intrinsically linked, like, you had to. In order for my ambition to keep up at this pace, it needed to be fueled by something, and that something was, like, low level. Right. And I think for me, motherhood and then also a total catastrophe within the business, just leveling the business really helped relinquish that control and start realizing, okay, actually, now that the worst has happened, a monster that saved me, now that the worst has happened, I actually still have my ambition, but I'm not nearly as fearful. What has gotten you to this point where you're very fixated on this as well?
Jess Ekstrom [00:12:46]:
Yeah, that's so fascinating hearing that. And I want to hear all of it, because motherhood was definitely one of those pillars for me, where your success is redefined. Like the things that I would have killed for five years ago, I would probably turn them down today, because it's just a difference of what I find valuable. And now my most valuable currency is time. Five years ago, my most valuable currency was dollars. And so it's like figuring out what those levers are for you. But I would say I was always believing that what was right around the corner was going to be the next best thing for me. And I like to call this a false summit.
Jess Ekstrom [00:13:41]:
So when I did, I did, like outward bound when I was a kid. And your parents drop you off in the woods for two weeks. And one of the hikes that we did as a group, you could see the top of the mountain. You're hiking, you're like, oh, my gosh, we're almost there. We're going to have granola at the top. And then when you get there, you realize that that mountain was actually blocking the actual peak, which was another one behind you. And they purposefully put us up this hike to show us what a false summit is. And now I realize my entire career has been sprinkled with false summits.
Jess Ekstrom [00:14:19]:
It's like you become a speaker, and you're like, if only I could just get a paid gig. And you get a paid gig and you're like, well, now I need a book. And you get a book, and it's like, well, now it needs to be on the New York Times bestseller list. And then now, you know an agent. And so every single level of success is almost like a platform of showing you something new that you haven't done yet. And that can be an extremely deflating feeling, or it can be a really powerful feeling, knowing that there is so much that can happen in my life that I can't even almost have fixed goals because it would be limiting. And so I think that there's. I like to call it like, the difference between anxious ambition and inspired ambition.
Jess Ekstrom [00:15:12]:
Anxious ambition comes from when we feel like we're not doing enough. And a lot of times that's fueled by comparison. We feel it when we scroll on social media. We feel it when we hear someone, how much money they make, and it's more than us or whatever it might be. And we're like, I need to do something because I'm clearly behind. But inspired ambition comes when we feel like we're making something better. And it's kind of when that momentum happens. Maybe it's when you started this podcast, maybe it's something that you can easily carve out time to do, because it's something that just kind of flows within your personal alignment.
Jess Ekstrom [00:15:48]:
And I think figuring out why you work and what that stems from, is it from a place of feeling behind, or is it from a place of making something better is like a really good kicker in ambition and sanity.
Lindsey Epperly [00:16:07]:
Yeah, I wonder, too. Okay, thank you for sharing all of that, especially what outward bound even is, because I was not often dropped in the woods. No, you did. It was helpful. Not an outdoorsy girl here. I just thought of the way that I would just positively fall apart if I reached one summit and realized that there was another one to go. I mean, holy cow. But I am curious if now that we can liken these moments of quote unquote, success to the fault summits that we all might experience, are these fault summits there because this is what society is telling us that we need, or where do these come from?
Jess Ekstrom [00:16:44]:
That's such a good question. And it's funny, I'm working on a book around this right now, and I was thinking about this yesterday. It's like, where are we gathering data of what success means to us? And anyone who's listening, let's do it right now. When you were a kid, what did you watch your parents do? Were their goals to own their house? Were they wanting promotions? What made them happy at work? Was it praise? Was it recognition? And so when we're kids, we almost start to form this data around. This is good when I can have stability or when I can have this or whatever, what that means. And then as we get older, I feel like our definition of success has that as its foundation, like, what has been learned as a kid, and then also mixed with comparison of what we're seeing from other people. And that's what can get really sticky, because someone's idea of success can be on a plane at 05:00 p.m. Going on a world tour, whereas someone else can be like, my success is being home at 05:00 p.m.
Jess Ekstrom [00:18:03]:
And making dinner and watching Netflix with my husband. Like, if I can do that, then I'm successful. And so to be able to ask yourself, where am I gathering the data of what I think success means? And then choosing whether or not it still is true for you, because I realize now nothing against my parents or, like, nothing against what. And it's also generationally looking at what it was. But there are things that I was chasing or that I wanted that I realized wasn't my own definition of success. I was just doing it because that's what I either saw as a kid or saw from other people. And so asking yourself, where am I collecting this from? And is it true?
Lindsey Epperly [00:18:50]:
Thank you for the therapy, because that is really wonderfully needed in my own heart as well. I've never actually thought to analyze that. I do know there have been those moments where when you reach that goal, you realize, oh, that was kind of a fleeting sensation, right? But I have never actually thought to analyze, where did that idea even come from? I always kind of thought maybe it's just society's pressure. But you're right. It probably even started in a household or what you're watching on tv and seeing. That's probably why fame is such a vapid success for so many people, right? We think that that is something worth chasing. Most people that achieve it don't really feel like it's all it's cracked up.
Jess Ekstrom [00:19:21]:
To be totally or even like school. Like in picking up or college or even going to college. It's like the idea. I remember at my high school, you would post your acceptance letters to college on your locker so everyone could see where you got accepted. And I was not a really good test taker in college, so the acceptance letters were not rolling in. And I just remember looking at my bare locker and thinking, I am not successful. I've clearly failed when my path was about to be much different than any other student in surrounding lockers. And so I think it's like we're even programmed at such a young age to say, okay, you're in first grade, now you go to second grade, now you go to third grade.
Jess Ekstrom [00:20:15]:
And it's always what's around the corner and what's next. And rarely do we ask ourselves what we want to define success as. Even when it comes to picking a career and picking a lifestyle. I feel like that was totally overlooked in school. It's like, oh, you want to be a doctor? Great, well, are you also okay being on call? My husband was a football coach and then didn't love the hours, but he loved the coach. And so it's like figuring out what's important to you in your life. Design. And those are big questions, but it's just really important to be asking them.
Jess Ekstrom [00:21:01]:
And I think it also goes to auditing your beliefs around success and joy. And I know one of the sticky points with my husband that I think is so funny is if we have nothing to do on a Saturday, he could turn on a movie at 01:00 p.m. And I'm like, that's illegal.
Lindsey Epperly [00:21:27]:
Unheard of.
Jess Ekstrom [00:21:28]:
Yeah, this cannot happen. This is like, the police are going to come, we're going to get arrested. We cannot possibly watch. He's like, why not? I just want to watch a movie. And it's like, figuring out his definition of rest and relaxation is like, it's just a part of life. It's not, like, earned whenever I do something big. Whereas mine is like, I need to accomplish everything before I can watch a movie. And so figuring out what are my beliefs around joy and gratification and rest.
Jess Ekstrom [00:22:10]:
And do I still think those are true? Because sometimes they're not.
Lindsey Epperly [00:22:17]:
There's so much to unpack there, mainly because I completely relate to you in that scenario. And never, and have I ever given myself permission to watch a movie in the middle of the day. By the time we achiever types give ourselves permission to watch a movie, we fall asleep in it.
Jess Ekstrom [00:22:32]:
Right? Yeah. It's pointless to find a show that we like together because I'm out.
Lindsey Epperly [00:22:37]:
Yeah, that's so funny. Well, we could totally go down that rabbit hole for a few minutes, but I won't take us there. I'm really curious when we're talking about these false pinnacles, because I feel like our stories parallel a lot into some of the things that you're sharing and some of what I've heard you talk about on your podcast. You recently brought up how you went from the idea of a spotlight to a lighthouse. Right? You went from this idea of having a spotlight on you to now being a lighthouse for others. And of course, you're saying that in the context of mic drop workshop, but I think you're saying it in a larger context. And I reached a similar point within my company where it felt like we actually purposely rebranded because I wanted to go from me to we. So this idea of let's take the spotlight off in order to create a platform so that others can be lifted up.
Lindsey Epperly [00:23:24]:
And I just wonder if this has to do with some of those fault summits. Right? Like, we get to a point where it's solely us. We are the bottleneck of our business and of our lives. We have a tight control over everything. And actually, that will not get you any further than it already has. And being able to kind of amass power and responsibility and then redistribute it for the benefit of others has been a really important learning lesson that I've had lately, and I would just love to dive into that spotlight and lighthouse concept that you talk about.
Jess Ekstrom [00:23:55]:
Yeah, well, originally, this concept was built as a part of the mic drop workshop curriculum. And this way that we can kind of shift when, if we get nervous to speak or we're having that impostor syndrome before we have to give a presentation or do something. It's this shift that we say where instead of going up there with a spotlight, where you're like, I have to be perfect. Everyone has to like me. I have to look good. I have to do good. Shift the light from yourself to the audience, say, what do they need? How can I make this simpler for them, and what do I want them to walk away with after this? And so it changes the mindset of going up as a speaker, where it's less about you and how you're perceived because you can give the same talk and one person will think you're brilliant and the other person is like, that was trash, and you just can't control it. So instead, focus on what impact and the service that you can have on the audience.
Jess Ekstrom [00:24:52]:
And in turn, that's going to make you so much of a better speaker, and it's going to help your nerves. But then after creating that spotlight versus lighthouse speaker for mic drop workshop, I realized that that was definitely the career shift that I had, where in 16, 2017, it was just going ham on how many stages can I get on? How many people can I talk to? How many books can I write? What is my reach and my potential? And you realize when your reach is limited to one person, yourself, it's extremely limiting. And it's also extremely exhausting when your success is only measured on your own time in the day and your own abilities. And then when I started mic drop workshop, where I was like, it's not about how many stages I can get on, how many stages can I help women get on. Then it was like a much more scalable version of success for me and much more legacy driven instead of ego driven. And so I now determine my success not based on my own arm's length, but how far can I help other women reach in their career? And it is so much more fulfilling, fun and scalable at the end of the day.
Lindsey Epperly [00:26:16]:
Yeah. In doing so, you are solving a gigantic problem. I think you threw out the statistic the other day that 30% of paid speakers are only 30%.
Jess Ekstrom [00:26:27]:
Yeah. Less than 30% of paid speakers are women. Yeah.
Lindsey Epperly [00:26:30]:
Wild.
Jess Ekstrom [00:26:31]:
It's crazy. Yeah. There's so much like, I mean, there was just a conference the other day that got canceled this huge tech conference because they actually were using fake AI personas on their speaking roster of women because they didn't have any women speakers.
Lindsey Epperly [00:26:52]:
Get out.
Jess Ekstrom [00:26:53]:
It's just like, oh my God, what is happening? And so, I mean, it's definitely something we could get into, but it's like an issue of obviously, selection, who's in power, who's selecting speakers that needs to change, but also applying, like, women need to apply more. There's of course, that stat around, like, men will apply when they meet 20% of the qualifications. Women only apply when they meet like 90% to 100%. And so I think a lot of women experience imposter syndrome, especially when it comes to public speaking, because you think you have to be the spotlight, you think you have to have all the answers, be this bulletproof expert, have millions of followers when that's not the case, and that's not what the speaking landscape is looking for right now. They're looking for women who have stories and who can teach story led lessons. So I experienced this in my life. This is what I learned, and here's what you can take away from it. And we all have that within us.
Jess Ekstrom [00:27:57]:
And so that's what I feel like is my job is to help women discover that.
Lindsey Epperly [00:28:01]:
That is beautiful. I'm curious, with our listeners being both women and men, it sounds like women can. One actionable step they can take is to actually start putting themselves out there more. But for those male listeners who are really supportive of women and supportive of their partners and the individuals they want to raise up, what can they be doing to help change this referrals?
Jess Ekstrom [00:28:22]:
Referring is such a big part of the speaking business that oftentimes goes overlooked, which is why we have in mic drop workshop, there's a community component where we refer other women to speaking spots. Because the great part about speaking is you get booked at a conference this year in April. They're not going to book you again next April because they need someone else. So it's no skin off your back to say, hey, do you want me to refer you some speaking names? And they always say yes. So whether you're a female or a male listener, referring people to speaking opportunities that are underrepresented is a great way to do that. And then also we have some templates that you can use when you do see lineups that are uneven or all white or like we call them, mantles, all male panels, which happens all the time.
Lindsey Epperly [00:29:22]:
God, that's a circle.
Jess Ekstrom [00:29:24]:
How can you politely, gently call up an event to show more diversity in their know? That's something else that could be done as well.
Lindsey Epperly [00:29:34]:
That is really impactful. Thank you. So that everyone listening can be more aware of this. We recently had a conversation with Samara Bay, who you may know, but Kristen also represents her. That completely blew my mind about the biases we have around just simply the sound of voices. Right? The sound of female voices and whether those resonate as powerful or authoritative because of what we traditionally hold as the sound of power that we equate it to. So these are things we can be doing. Thank you for sharing that.
Jess Ekstrom [00:30:03]:
Yeah, I think that there's a lot to unpack there. But one of the beliefs that I have is there's a lot of talk around leadership at work and this idea that you almost have to masculate yourself and your tendencies in order to be a more effective leader. And I think instead, we just need to change what we think of as an impactful leader. We don't have to be loud. We don't have to be deep. We don't have to take up all the oxygen in the room. In fact, there's so many things that women have and characteristics that women have that women tend more to have that stats and studies show make extremely effective leadership. And so what I don't love seeing is, like, leadership training and communication training that feels like you have to change yourself to a more male version in order to stand out in a room or in order to be taken seriously.
Jess Ekstrom [00:31:07]:
Instead, we need to change the other side of how we're defining effective leadership.
Lindsey Epperly [00:31:13]:
Yeah, that's so powerful. Thank you. Changing gears a little bit, because I think about how important this is for future generations, and we are currently raising the future generation. I know you just had your daughter. Did she turn one recently?
Jess Ekstrom [00:31:27]:
She just turned one. Yeah. Which I'm like, how the heck? Slowest and fastest year of my life.
Lindsey Epperly [00:31:32]:
I totally relate. She will be four in June, a four year old and a one year old as of next month. I get it.
Jess Ekstrom [00:31:41]:
Yeah.
Lindsey Epperly [00:31:41]:
But I'm curious, and we're in the thick. It's amazing. We made this call, right?
Jess Ekstrom [00:31:45]:
Yeah.
Lindsey Epperly [00:31:46]:
At the same time, you were wonderful in how you shared very openly about how motherhood kind of, at first, what it does is make you question everything about your career and what you have done so far and accomplished and are my best years behind me. And, oh, my gosh, is anything ever going to mean anything anymore? Right? There's this whole shift in how, to me, it helped me redefine success in great ways, but it also made me challenge what is my ambition. And the second time around that I did it, I was very intentional about kind of. I called it laying breadcrumbs. I wanted to lay breadcrumbs of myself on the other side of maternity so that after I had my second child.
Jess Ekstrom [00:32:24]:
Yes.
Lindsey Epperly [00:32:25]:
Because. Right. You lose so much of who you are and your identity. I just loved what you did to challenge that, though. You took improv comedy classes, right?
Jess Ekstrom [00:32:34]:
Yeah, I did. It was like something that I had my daughter, and I was just like, the whole pregnancy, I was like, this is blissful. I cannot wait. I can't wait to meet her. And it was like, just like when you open an oven and the heat just hits you in the face and you're like, whoa. It was that times a million. Like, my eyebrows were burned off. And I definitely experienced postpartum depression, which this is something I wanted.
Jess Ekstrom [00:33:08]:
Why am I so sad? And I just realized the intense identity shift that happens, the emotional shift that happens, and you're trying to run back to yourself, but yourself pre this is gone. And I think there's a bit of a grief, like, grieving period that happens with that. And I think one of the things that no one also can prepare you for as like a working, I mean, I think all women, all moms are working moms, but if you have a career where you can't possibly prepare for where you're going to land. I've had some friends that are like, have the baby. I need to get back to work because I'm a better mom when I go to work. And then I have some friends that are like, I don't know if I can go back to work after this. And so you just have no idea where you're going to land and where you're going to need support. But it's 100% factual that you will need support whether you need more support at work or more support at home.
Jess Ekstrom [00:34:21]:
And I realize now I am such a privileged white person, and I have parents who live close by, we're not worried about putting food on the table, and we have health insurance. And this is still the hardest thing I've ever done. And it's just like the lack of support for women and families in this season is just jarring to me, which could be a whole other podcast. But I think one of the things that did help me, like you said, with breadcrumbs, I love that. And I think that's fantastic. Was doing something that challenged me again and made me remind myself that I am still me after this. So that was taking stand up classes, doing like going to open mic nights, and finding ways to laugh again, finding ways to even just make humor of the situation. And then I also think the longer sometimes we don't do something, the more we question whether or not we can still do it.
Jess Ekstrom [00:35:36]:
And so for me, for this next kid that I'm having, which, spoiler alert, I was going to say, yeah, congratulations.
Lindsey Epperly [00:35:47]:
Thank you.
Jess Ekstrom [00:35:50]:
Is very. I took quite a bit of time off of speaking, and then I was like, I don't even know if I can form a sentence. Why would anyone pay me to do this? And then now this is my personal choice, but I'm taking less time away from the stage because I know that it brings me back to that part of me. And so I think finding whatever that is for you, I think the breadcrumbs is so perfect. But line it up of how do you remind yourself that you still have that within you? And I think if anything, if I look back at the past year, I'm now so much of a better entrepreneur and better at my job than I was before. One, because I realized that time is so fleeting and if I have ten minutes, I'm not going to use it scrolling on instagram. I'm going to use it to do something that's productive. Because I know I have a daughter waiting for me.
Jess Ekstrom [00:36:53]:
Two is delegation, realizing that asking for help and keeping those tasks over there is great. And then three is just the looseness that I carry. Work with now is like, because pre my daughter, everything was, this has to work. This is the most important thing. And now I'm like, if she's happy, if she's breathing and stuff hits a fan at work, that sucks. But I'm not like suffocating it anymore, which has been very helpful.
Lindsey Epperly [00:37:32]:
Wow. Preach. I completely relate to all of that because you become the bottleneck until you are forced, your hand is forced away from that. And thank you for being so open and honest about postpartum. Honestly, that is exactly what happened to me. And that's why I was so intentional the second time around. Because when you have lost yourself in that way, it's scary. You'll do everything you can to avoid it again.
Lindsey Epperly [00:37:53]:
It is. It's really scary. So good for you, finding a way out.
Jess Ekstrom [00:37:58]:
Thank you for sharing that as well. I think we should be talking about it more.
Lindsey Epperly [00:38:01]:
Yeah, we should. We absolutely should. And the repercussions of not being able to address it in a timely manner. I mean, for me it was months and months. I didn't have community during that time. It was a pandemic, all the things. But it just reinforces to your point. You're reminded of the privilege that you still have because there are so many others who don't have access to even what we had at the time.
Lindsey Epperly [00:38:23]:
And it was that hard.
Jess Ekstrom [00:38:24]:
It was that hard.
Lindsey Epperly [00:38:26]:
That's what we're not talking about enough. You're expected to just become a mom and become a mom. And what does that mean for your.
Jess Ekstrom [00:38:34]:
Whole person, your whole life? Yeah. One more thing I'll say on this because I find it interesting, and I was literally just reading this last week. Have you read the book sapien before?
Lindsey Epperly [00:38:47]:
No.
Jess Ekstrom [00:38:50]:
It's pretty intense. It's a brief history of humankind, and it's like how we got to be where we are. And one of the things that I thought was really interesting in it was pre industrial revolution. Everything was community based. Like, we lived with our families. We took care of our parents, our parents helped took care of our kids, we took care of our grandparents. Everything was community driven. And then all of a sudden, it wasn't anymore.
Jess Ekstrom [00:39:19]:
And so we wonder, why today? Why is this so hard? And it's because when they said, it takes a village, you literally had a village, and you don't have that anymore. And so for anyone who felt like I did, where I'm like, why is this? People have been doing this for centuries. Why can't I feel like I do this? It's because there used to be help. And so if you can find a way to make your own village, whether that's with other moms or other people experiencing the same thing, that's what it's supposed to be. And so if it feels impossible to you, it's honestly because it is.
Lindsey Epperly [00:39:57]:
Yeah. This society has shifted so much that it's not in support of those women's becoming mother. That's incredible. I will have to read that book. That sounds really interesting.
Jess Ekstrom [00:40:06]:
Yeah, it's really interesting. Tread lightly, because you start to question everything. You're like, what is money? It's a construct.
Lindsey Epperly [00:40:12]:
Maybe I'll give myself a few months.
Jess Ekstrom [00:40:14]:
Yeah, for sure.
Lindsey Epperly [00:40:15]:
I love it. You have been such a wealth of knowledge and inspiration today, and I have been so thrilled just to learn more about you in preparation for this interview and to listen to amplify. But also, I have now gone through mic drop workshop myself and can say, good. It was so phenomenal and so helpful as someone who's even, like, skirting around the idea of speaking publicly. I mean, you just have baked so much knowledge, everything from how to shift your mindset so that you can overcome nerves, to literally how to negotiate your contract. So I just want to give a big shout out for that. That if anyone is even thinking about becoming a speaker of anything and you define it while you are specifically talking to keynoters, you define public speaking as anytime we show up meetings, talking with our family, anything that we can become better at in communicating, especially as women.
Jess Ekstrom [00:41:04]:
Exactly. Yeah. Oh, good. I'm so glad that you're enjoying the course.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:07]:
Yeah.
Jess Ekstrom [00:41:07]:
Anyone who's interested can go to mikedropworkshop.com, and we have a free training, so you can start there.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:13]:
That is the perfect place to start. Anything else people should know about in supporting your cause and supporting all things extram? What are you doing next? What do we need to do to keep in touch and thank you.
Jess Ekstrom [00:41:23]:
I think something that's been fun, that people have seemed to really love. Every Monday, I send out a hype text with, like, a quote for your week. And so if you're interested in getting on that, you can send the word hype to 704-228-9495 and that's actually me on the other end. So I read the text and I can respond. And so let me know what you thought about this. Let me know if you have any questions, and I can respond to you there.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:51]:
I love that so much. We will put that number in the show notes, too, for everyone. I always like to sign off with the question, which actually is inspired by my four year old. So you'll probably start getting this dinner time conversations like this with Ellie. I can't wait. My husband and I, in the middle of things falling apart, used to ask, know what is one thing that made you smile today? Because you can always find a moment of gratitude. And Mila, my now almost four year old, for the past couple of years, has changed this every night at dinner to what is your happy? So what is one thing that has made you smile today that is your happy? Jess.
Jess Ekstrom [00:42:22]:
Oh, my gosh. I love this. So many things. But I would say walking into my daughter's room when she wakes up is like, if I could bottle that feeling and sell it, I would be a gazillionaire, because it is just, like, the purest joy that you see on her face, and it just is the mood setter for my day. I'm like, yeah, she's got it all figured out. I can learn from her.
Lindsey Epperly [00:42:52]:
I love that those moments are so incredible and so fleeting, too. So it is. It's like you can just internalize that.
Jess Ekstrom [00:43:00]:
She'S just holding on to her crib, waiting for the door to open, and.
Lindsey Epperly [00:43:03]:
I'm just like, oh, I love it. Gotta love a happy baby. Yeah, exactly.
Jess Ekstrom [00:43:08]:
And then she'll scream. But it's know.
Lindsey Epperly [00:43:10]:
But you got the happiness in the moment. Thank you for this awesome conversation. I know our listeners have gotten a lot out of it, so thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Jess Ekstrom [00:43:17]:
Thanks, Lindsay. I appreciate it.