722 Sarah Walton:

Launching a business is like a leap into the unknown. Even with the best laid plans, there is still so much beyond our control. Invariably we’re all building the plane as we fly it, and success comes down to how much we trust ourselves to learn at the speed of flight so we can land the plane. My guest today – the entrepreneur Sarah Walton – has mentored hundreds of women to start and grow businesses they love, and she says success is all about building trust in ourselves, in our intuition, in our ability to keep learning.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and join the Wings community over on Podopolo, where we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who honed her business skills working with startups and large corporations alike, whether building games for Facebook or managing multimillion dollar P&Ls at companies like Vimeo, OK Cupid and Thesaurus.com.  She also founded and sold her travel business Boutique Luxury Tours Through Italy. These days, Sarah Walton mentors female founders and has helped hundreds of women start and grow businesses they LOVE. She’s also the host of the Game On, Girlfriend Podcast, and she’s known for her weekly “Coffee with Coach” streaming video conversations on Monday mornings.

Sarah will be here in a moment, and first,

What holds women back from getting what they really want in business and in life?

Entrepreneur and business mentor Sarah Walton says women are brought up to distrust our own feelings and put our own needs last on a long, long list. We can often end up in what she calls a “high functioning co-dependence” where we are always second-guessing ourselves and measuring our success relative to how much we’re doing and what it all looks like on the outside. Sarah says true validation comes from within, and learning to trust our own intuition, needs and desires.

Sarah says the lack of self-trust can exhibit in many ways, including fears about money, asking for what we want, and much more, so today we talk about how to let go of all the programming and step into our unique abilities as transformative business leaders.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Sarah Walton and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo and follow Wings of Inspired Business there so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Sarah, welcome to Wings.

Sarah Walton:

Hey, thank you so much for having me Melinda. I’m happy to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, I am really excited to learn from you because you’ve had so much experience across startups, the funding world, across major corporations, seeing so much in those roles of fast growing companies or companies going through transition. And now you apply everything you’ve learned to help others hopefully, maximize their success as well as avoid mistakes that can be avoided. So what was the spark that made you want to kind of give back by being a coach?

Sarah Walton:

Oh, that’s such a good question. You know, it really was for me my entire life. I really realized that I had been putting my needs second as, every woman listening probably went yeah, and…? Right, that’s what we did like, yeah. Great, welcome to the human race sister, pull up a chair, right. And I totally get that, I’m happy to share stories about that. It really comes from being raised inside of deep poverty. But as I was working, I made it really higher up in the corporate world. I loved my job, I got to work with wonderful people. I had this gorgeous glass office. I got to scream and yell if, we didn’t spend almost six figures a week on Facebook ads. I mean, it was ridiculous, right? It was like this amazing world I got to live in.

And two things were happening. One is I noticed the further up I went the chain, fewer women were in the room and that did not make sense to me. I understood from my own perspective, how I was feeling. And I didn’t like it when my kids would call and say, “but mommy, I miss you”. That was really painful. And I know that had some part to play in why there were fewer women, but there was something else going on. And it was that for some reason, I think as women and I don’t believe in the whole lean in thing, I actually really did not like that book. There’s some great nuggets in it, but I don’t-

Melinda Wittstock:

I didn’t like that book either.

Sarah Walton:

It’s like, why are you yelling at someone for living inside a construct they were born in? It was kind of like it was designed this way, is very comfortable for everybody if it’s this way. And there were several times in those meetings, I would have to say something like, “I’m so sorry to be talking while you’re interrupting”. And they would be like, “what”? And I would say, “that is the third time you’ve interrupted me while I was talking. And I don’t know if you’re doing that because I’m a woman, that’s for you to figure out, but I’d like to be able to finish my sentence”. And they didn’t like that, right. And I was always friendly and they all loved me. I’m not going to paint it like they were horrible. These were wonderful, amazing human beings, but they didn’t like it.

Sarah Walton:

And I think there’s kind of twofold issue there. One is that, corporate world business was designed by men for men. So it works for them absofreakinlutely, there’s no question to that. And then the other is as women, I think a lot of the times we feel intimidated to step into those worlds, whether we want to admit that or not. And kind of the parallel here that I like to talk about is the way Tony Robbins talks about the finance world inside his book, The Game Of Money and the idea that there’s words that are used and ideas and concepts that aren’t explained, but thrown around like you’re an idiot if, you don’t know what they are and that’s by design. And I was so impressed that he would share that and say that because I felt like the business world had done the exact same thing, but specifically to women, not to everyone, but specifically to women.

And I really didn’t like that. I was like, “wait, women are really good at business”. Like we’re really good, we have this incredible ability to multitask. We have this concept of understanding numbers really well while continuing to take into account the human toll. I mean, one of the things I would do in that job is I would constantly hire women who were pregnant and I’d be like, “you’re going to be fine, we’re going to get you through this. You’re going to come back and you’re going to kick some assets and we’re going to have a great time doing it”. And I loved being able to pay back that way. Except as we started this conversation, I was miserable. I loved the work, I loved the money. I loved being creative, I loved the idea that we could all come together and solve problems or produce products or get things out there.

But I never saw my kids and I was not okay with that. I just was not okay with that. And that’s what I mean by that whole world was designed by, and for men. And again, not in some malicious horrible way, but it didn’t work for me. And I’m not alone in that. We were seeing that even now that was 13 years ago, but we’re seeing this now with the great resignation and the brunt that women took the shock absorbers of society that we have become that, we take care of things when society needs us to, and often without pay. And I’m not okay with that.

And so, I am out to change that, and I do that through coaching, but I also do it through a lot of education. I talk a lot about psychology. I love studying that. I talk about our relationship to money and I love doing financial projections. I know all of those things are not mutually exclusive, they go together really well. And it is an absolute joy of my life to watch women have aha moments, turn around, pivot their businesses and create the flexibility that so many of us didn’t have, even though we’re brilliant at business, we didn’t have the outlet that we deserved or wanted.

Melinda Wittstock:

So I love everything you said, it resonates with me. And it’s interesting in the context of the great resignation and the pandemic, because the pandemic, yes, did put a lot of the burden on women. And at the same time, it was an opportunity to completely reset, rethink, look within, figure out what it is that we actually want. So a lot of women have become entrepreneurs in that time. Now, once you’re in it, I’m a serial entrepreneur. I think I’ve always been an entrepreneur, but say, if you’re kind of new to it and you weren’t, it wasn’t necessarily natural to you. And here you are with a business and you’re going to go out and do it. What are the main things that hold women back at that stage?

Sarah Walton:

Boy, that is such a great question. And it varies a little bit, but I will be honest. I believe at the heart of it is self-trust. And that sounds so crazy. Like, just like, but Sarah, isn’t it some big? It’s like, no, it really does come down to self-trust. And the other way to talk about self-trust is to use the word confidence. I truly believe that confidence is your belief in yourself to figure things out. And that’s hard to do if you do not trust yourself. And I think what we’re up against specifically as women. So here you are, you like, I’m going to create my life the way I want it. Like you said, you’ve started this business. And then you’re like, “oh crap, what do I do”? Something doesn’t go the way you expected it to, you made more money than you thought you would’ve.

Now you’re like, “wait, what do I do? What are the taxes what’s happening”? And you start to kind of get nervous about that piece of it though, that’s all figured out. You can figure out all of that. But then the next thing is, do I trust myself to do this? Can I really do this? And it’s that sort of experiential moment I think, that most people are not prepared for. But specifically women, because we have been taught not to trust ourselves and people can argue with me about that. But I can’t, I have yet to find a woman who didn’t have an experience as a child where somebody would say something when they were upset, like, “oh, don’t cry. Where’s that pretty smile”? And that sounds, I know, you’re like, “Sarah, I asked about business”.

I know this is what I mean by, I love my job, is there’s so many interconnected parts and as women, we can really get this. So what happens when you hear that as a child is the message is your emotions are making me uncomfortable, so please stop having them. And what happens, right? That’s the underlying message there, is you don’t do that. I don’t like it. And we start to learn how to make sure everyone else is okay.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, It’s sort of like the cocktail waitress who has to look good, balance all these drinks, deal with everybody else’s stuff and.

Sarah Walton:

And have no emotion while doing it, right? Like don’t interrupt.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. So we’re juggling everybody else’s stuff. And then there’s nothing left for us. And so much as society seems structurally organized that way. And, but we’ve also been educated that way. It’s so deeply embedded in our subconscious that even in breaking through, in so far as business is really a personal growth activity. It’s like a growth in consciousness how I’ve come to see it, right. Because, in breaking free of all that stuff, you got to figure out all those subconscious drivers and how to let all those go. And it’s easier said than done because they’re driving us all the time without us even knowing it.

Sarah Walton:

Absolutely. And I’m really grateful because this phenomenon specifically in women has finally been given a name and it’s called high functioning co-dependence. And it’s just brilliant. And anytime I say that term, like if I’m speaking and I say that term, I always see people on the front will go, oh my God, that’s me. Like, I haven’t even defined it yet, but it’s like, we can recognize it just in the term. It’s like, wait, I think I have that. But the idea is that because we are so high functioning, we can produce at such a high level. That part’s awesome, except that we get rewarded for that. We get accolades for that, and we start to think our ability to produce is actually what we’re worth.

And that’s where the co-dependence piece comes in, where we start to say, oh, did I do it well enough? Is that enough? And as women, we really got to support each other in slowing this down. Because, as women will say things about each other like, “oh, she’s so selfless. She literally has no self, she’s so amazing. Oh, look at her, killing it. Her house looks great, her hair looks great. Her body looks great, her kids are great”. Like stop, is she okay? Is she all right? Is she doing something that makes her happy? Is she functioning in such a way that she is growing and in a way that supports her as well as the people in her life that she cares about? And so I’m so grateful that we have this term now, because when you go to start a business and you’re in it, the first thing that’s going to smack you upside the head is, do I trust myself to do this?

And you’re going to look around to the outward accolades and say, oh, maybe I don’t have enough followers. Maybe I don’t have a big enough newsletter list. Maybe I haven’t made enough revenue yet. Maybe I need to start running ads. And you are going to start to question that based on how good it looks on the outside. And that to me is the ultimate impersonal development that being an entrepreneur offers, is you shed that co-dependence piece and you turn that trust and seeking for validation inward and you release the need for outward validation. And boy, does that take something?

Melinda Wittstock:

Mm. It really does. So one of the things you talked about too, is money, right? Money mindset issues. And I want to break that down a lot, because that holds so many women back in business. I don’t know, like not discussing it or being afraid of your numbers, right? Like not even looking at the numbers. How often do you see that when you’re coaching?

Sarah Walton:

All the time. I’m like, no, I think every single, I even had a client this morning. I love her so much, she’s one of my favorite people on the planet and I was like, “how was Q2″? She’s like, ” all right”. I’m like, come on, I was like, “we’ve got a couple weeks left in the course, you don’t know your number”. She’s like, “I sort of know”. I was like, “failure”, I was like, “text your book keeper right now, let’s get those over”. But it’s like one of those funny things, it’s just this interesting phenomenon for us. And I do work hard with people to flip that and turn it into something that’s funny and a lot more lighthearted. But money has been moralized, which is just fascinating. If we think about it, money is the exchange.

Sarah Walton:

We all talk about that. We know that, but it is simply an exchange of energy in my opinion. And not energy like, I’m an energy healer. I don’t mean like that, but literal energy. You guys know what it’s like when you get like a huge invoice gets paid, do you not have more energy? Do you not feel that come into the business? And you’re like, oh my gosh, it just feels amazing because it’s a massive influx of energy. And it allows you to think more clearly, it allows you to make better decisions. And the thing about money that I think so many people miss is that it’s a magnifying glass. And I’ll talk more about this in a second, but you know, if you’re a jack wagon and you make a lot of money, you just get to be a bigger jerk.

Let’s just be straight about that. But if you are amazing, if you were a really good person, again, self-trust, you got to keep coming back to self-trust. If you are an exquisite human being who is going to do wonderful things for the people in your life that you love, if you’re going to do invest in other companies that are extraordinary, if you’re going to invest in your retirement, so you can have all the experiences you want all throughout your entire life, that’s amazing. And money makes that bigger, there’s nothing bad about that at all. It’s simply a magnifying glass. But what so many of us don’t understand is that there are rules about money that we are living inside of. And those rules tend to come from our families and they tend to be unspoken. So I call these the unspoken family rules, and unspoken family rules tend to be something like money causes fights.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Sarah Walton:

No one should make more money than dad. You’re going to hurt him if, you make more money than him. That neighbor who’s rich is an ass. That’s what starts to happen, and nobody tells you don’t make money. Nobody says that to you because, deep down everybody wants it, which is what creates this guilt feeling about it. Like we’re somehow dirty or there’s something wrong with us because we want more of it. And everybody wants more of it. Nobody doesn’t want more money. They’re furious they don’t have it. So they make up rules about why only bad people have it. So they can feel a little bit better about-

Melinda Wittstock:

Feel better about themselves.

Sarah Walton:

Yeah. And it’s really heartbreaking, right? It’s really like, but when we see it through that paradigm, you can start to break it. It makes really fast sense to most people go, “oh my God, no, that makes so much sense”. And then they call their parents and express love to them, which is awesome, right? They’re like, “oh my God, I love you guys so much”. Because, all of a sudden you have compassion. You’re like, that’s why they did that, that’s why they were fighting. And it’s why couples fight too, because they feel really bad that they want the things that they want. And there’s not enough. The women feel bad for wanting it, this is an old paradigm. But our psyche hasn’t quite caught up guys. So you can yell at me, but our psyches are way behind.

Sarah Walton:

So in women, the psychological drive is I shouldn’t want anything. I should just be happy the way that I am. Again, high functioning co-dependence. I should not have much, right. And for the men still again, outdated, but still where our psyches are, is that if I do not produce, right, if I am not adequate, I am a failure.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Sarah Walton:

And that is brutally painful. So now we have two people who are in exquisite pain, trying to be loving and they don’t know how. So it comes out as a fight. And when you watch that as a kid, you can feel all of that. You may not have language for it yet, but it hurts. And then somehow that gets collapsed with money. And so you walk around thinking, “oh my God, I must be some sort of monster that I would want to bring that on myself, right after it hurt my parents like that”. And so it starts us really, but if we can be honest about this without judgment and go, of course, that’s how you felt. Like how could you feel any other way? You were a child watching something you didn’t understand that makes, of course. And we want to be really kind to ourselves in that position.

And I will say that’s one thing in my coaching that I am the most proud of is my clients will consistently say I’m never embarrassed. And that to me is the biggest win I could have as a coach because no work that we do, you guys, please hear me on this, no work that we do lifts us up out of our humanity. It’s not like I’m a great coach so, I can’t get cancer. It’s not like, no Uh-huh (affirmative). It’s not like, oh I could never be hurt or, oh, I might not have a hard money month like you guys, come on, we are all human and we are all in this together. And the most productive, effective, loving thing we can do is tell the truth about our human condition because we’re all in it together.

And people will often say to me, “Sarah, how do you know what I’m thinking? It’s like, you’re in my head”. And I’m like, “because we’re none of us are that original man. We all have the same thoughts, we all have the same fears. We’re all in this together”. And the more that we can be honest about that and compassionate with each other and then learn the skills we need to learn. Holy crap, everybody can take off. There is no one who can’t take off if you have the strength and the courage to be humble and honest.

Melinda Wittstock:

So true. So when women are stuck in this guilt about wanting it, and then they see another woman who seems to have it, I’m getting to this, what stops women from really showing up and helping each other? And the way that men, we talk about the old boys network or deals that get done on the golf course or all that kind networking relationship building. And women on the other hand, even though we’re so good at relationship, we tend to put our heads down and focus on building our businesses kind of alone, but we’re not necessarily giving forward or lifting as we climb with other women. And I’ve always thought about this, is this a scarcity thing? Is it that we’re so trapped in the scarcity, we think if she has it, then I won’t have it? Or there’s some sort of guilt or some sort of old subconscious belief there that keeps us from really a 100% stepping up for each other.

Sarah Walton:

That’s such a great question. And I’m so glad you asked it and I think it’s kind of twofold. So the first thing I’ll say is hurt people, hurt people.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Sarah Walton:

It’s very difficult to be excited for somebody else when you’re in pain for that exact same reason. It’s really, it’s just hard. Like that’s just human nature. Like, if you just had a really bad breakup and your friend calls you and says, “they’re engaged”, of course you’re happy for them, but you want to throw up at the same time, it’s really challenging for people and that’s just human nature. So we want to again, be kind to ourselves about that and understand if we find ourselves in that moment, to take a deep breath and to do what we can to be there for other people and genuinely get excited.

And then the second piece is the high function co-dependence. We don’t know how that woman’s actually doing, we’re assuming she’s killing it because she’s further down the path. We’re assuming she’s completely fine. We’re assuming she’s happy. We’re assuming she’s totally fulfilled and we don’t know that. And we’re giving her accolades even begrudgingly without actually finding out how she’s doing as a human. So I think it’s kind of those two things combined. And then your last point there about scarcity, a 100%. Is this fear? And here’s the thing that I think is so important and you know, Glennon Doyle actually talked about this in the book, oh shoot. Is it Uncaged or Caged or Tamed? I can’t remember again. I know, right? Isn’t that terrible?

Melinda Wittstock:

I think I know what you mean though.

Sarah Walton:

Yeah. It’s such a great book you guys, please Google it because I messed it up, I’m so sorry. Because, it’s just exquisite. But she said something really interesting, which is, “if we, as women are so busy competing against each other” and I think the diet industry does this as well. “If we are so busy paying attention to BS that doesn’t matter, we’re not progressing ourselves”.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, it’s so true. Like you think all the endless comparisonitis on scrolling Instagram and how early that starts now for girls.

Sarah Walton:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And just even the mental illness that has come as a result of that used to be fashion magazines. But now it’s like put a massive multiplier on that. And so we’re trained from such early years to be comparing ourselves to other women on and around things that don’t matter.

Sarah Walton:

Yes, that’s the whole thing. It’s absolutely around things that don’t matter. Anyways, if you feel that way, listen, first of all, like I said, massive compassion for yourself. It’s okay to feel like, gosh, why her and not me. And by the way, that is a brilliant question to ask because here’s the truth. Going back to scarcity if, someone’s further down the line than you, you have to understand something. No one is born with some magical fairy who’s on their shoulder, ta-da everything’s perfect, right? That’s not how this goes. They weren’t given some skill set that some mean angel didn’t give to you. There’s two things, they are either doing something that you are not doing or they know something that you don’t know. And the beautiful thing is that both of those things are absolutely within your control to course correct.

Melinda Wittstock:

A 100% and also call up someone who’s accomplishing something you want to and ask for their advice. I find people who are the very best at what they’re doing are often the most generous.

Sarah Walton:

Yep. That’s right.

Melinda Wittstock:

They want to give back. They are flattered that you want to know. And people love to see other people do well from that position of success. And so, no one’s going to begrudge that. I always think if you want to learn how to do something, figure out who’s doing it the best, who’s done it before, either hire that person or ask to be mentored by that person or just ask for advice.

Sarah Walton:

That’s right. And I think what you just said was so important is the person further down the path than you will almost never, ever criticize you unless, they’re insecure about something themselves. They usually won’t, they get so excited to share. The only people who would be judging you are up south you, are the people who are behind you on the path. And so there’s something really interesting to note because really successful people love to share. They’re really generous. They get so excited to talk about what it is that they’re doing, that maybe you’re not doing. They’ll be like, “oh, everything changed when I started doing this. Or the best thing you can do is hire this person to support you. Or actually we started investing”, “you what”? “Yeah, no, we did it with this”.

That kind of information is so important. And so when you have that moment where you’re suddenly going, why her not me? That is the question to ask, what is she doing that you’re not doing? And what does she know that you don’t know? So powerful because it really does come back to that level of simplicity. And then I would say, the secret sauce on top of that is, do you trust yourself to start doing those things or to start learning those things? And that’s why the self-trust is such an important piece of your success.

Melinda Wittstock:

Now, Sarah, you’ve had a lot of experience with startups, doing the venture capital pitch, either getting the money, not getting the money. And there’s a 2% number that hasn’t moved in two decades of the women who are running usually technology businesses or technology based, scalable businesses that could become billion dollar unicorns. So they qualify, but only 2% are getting the money. So what’s behind that, is there something that women could be doing better? Is there an area where we let ourselves down or is it a structural problem? Both? I mean, what have you experienced and what are some of your takeaways?

Sarah Walton:

Such a great question and to be totally straight with you, it’s both. So one of the things I learned, a lot of the times I would be the person putting together the presentations to go pitch for funding. So I would have to make sure I understood where to find our numbers, how to figure that out. What the heck does that even mean? But the most important question anyone can ask when pitching, and this sounds like, well, duh, when you say it, but what does the investor care about? And chances are, they don’t care about your colors. They don’t give a rats behind what fonts you’re using. They don’t care about what you’ve been able to produce in the past. Do you know what they care about?

Melinda Wittstock:

What’s the return?

Sarah Walton:

There you think, wouldn’t you think that’d be what they care about most?

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly.

Sarah Walton:

I will tell you in being in those rooms, what they end up caring about most. I have watched it over and over and sometimes you guys, you can see this on Shark Tank, which I think is so cool for everybody listening. Just think back and be like, oh maybe yes, they care about the numbers, right? So numbers have to be real and the projections that we would put together, there would be you guys, it’s no more than fourth grade math. So please don’t let anybody scare you, when you hear financial projections, it’s just garbage. It’s fourth grade math, okay. And you figure out if we made this much this month and we increased by this percentage in a year, we should be here. That’s it, fourth grade math.

Sarah Walton:

Okay. So don’t let anybody pretend like that’s a bigger deal than it is, it’s not. So once we do those financial projections, they would look at those for about two seconds and then they would grill the heck out of the founder. And the questions were things like, how many people have you fired? How many people have you hired? Why did you do that? What worked? How do people feel about the environment inside the company? What’s going on with morale? How committed is the staff? They were looking at the humanity inside the business. But the number one question was, do I trust this CEO to do what they say they’re going to do?

Melinda Wittstock:

A 100%.

Sarah Walton:

The rest of it, you can throw out the window, right? You can walk it. I watched people do this, walk in there with two pennies and walk out with the money, because they had the confidence and faith and trust in themselves that they could figure it out. And so if you walk in front of an investor and you have the best numbers in the world, but you don’t trust yourself, you’re not going to get that money. I don’t know how they have it. I don’t know what their spy senses are, but they know, that is their job. It is 100% their job because their success, Melinda, like you said, their return on investment depends a 100% on their ability to figure out who they can trust and who they can’t. And so that is fine tuned in them.

Melinda Wittstock:

I remember years ago, I was at this entrepreneurial group where they had some investors come and mentor us, because we were all raising money for our startups at the time. And the investors turned the table on us and we had to be the investors evaluating these kind of fake pitches, right. And one of the investors made us literally write a check for a million dollars and describe how we were feeling, writing a check to a company where we just heard a half an hour pitch. And actually it was really illuminating because it’s like, oh, I’m writing a check. I could just be losing this money. I could just be losing my money. I could just be burning this million dollars right now or $10 million or whatever.

So you were going to look a lot closer and you’re right. Like, do you trust this person to actually execute on this? Or when the proverbial hits the fan? Because it always does with all startups, there’s all kinds of things beyond your control. How are you going to react? Like what are you going to do? What’s your right? How resilient are you going to be? How quick on your feet are you going to be? How committed is your team to pivot and course correct all of those things?

Sarah Walton:

Yep. That’s exactly right. And I do think, I mean, one of the reasons I focus on self-trust so much is because it’s the heart of all of that, right? How are you going to react? Well, I’m going to check in with me because I trust me, I’m going to sit down. I’m going to be like, all right, what is the best thing I can do? Who do I need to talk to right now? Who’s going to give me the best advice? Who’s probably been through something like this before and trusting yourself to keep your head during that moment, that’s everything.

Sarah Walton:

Does that make sense?

Melinda Wittstock:

Of course, it does. Because it’s so easy to get blown off course, unless you know your North Star and you know yourself and you know where you’re going. And of course, I like the sailing metaphor because you can never sail anywhere in a straight line because the wind is changing. The currents are changing all of that. So you got to zigzag, but you can still get to the destination, it’s just.

Sarah Walton:

That’s great.

Melinda Wittstock:

Like a weird zigzaggy pattern to get there, but you get where you’re going.

Sarah Walton:

Yeah. And really, and like I said, just really being like, listen, I’m going to get through this. I get through everything. This might suck, it might be really hard for several months. I’m going to get through it, it’s me. This is what I do. That kind of fight for yourself. I do think, unfortunately it’s not something women are taught and I think this is such a shame. And in fact we’re taught the opposite. There have been so many studies. I’m going to say this one, I love my studies, but this goes back quite far as if, you go and you look at a kindergarten class, the boys and girls raise their hand at the same rate.

And by second and third grade, only 10% of girls are raising their hands. And that’s because boys are 10 times more likely to be called on than girls. So they stop raising their hands. Boys are rewarded for calling out, hence the constant interrupting in meetings and girls are punished for calling out. And this is a phenomenon that has not changed. The original study was done in the 1990s. They redid it in 2010 and there wasn’t a change.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh my goodness.

Sarah Walton:

Yeah. And so we’re taught it, like literally taught, be quiet. And so then to go in and say, “Hey, I want to pitch for this money”. You are going to walk into that room with a different set of training and conditioning than most men and listen, I’m not saying turn into a man, please, don’t hear that. You guys like, God bless our senators who are women. But we notice after a while they start to kind of like turn into men and it’s like, you don’t have to do that in order to succeed in business. And in fact I would encourage you not to turn into a guy in order to be great at business. Stay you, whatever that is for you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. First of all’s it’s an authentic. And so-

Sarah Walton:

That’s right.

Melinda Wittstock:

If we were talking about trust, if you go into a pitch and everyone knows you’re a woman. So if, you try be a man-

Sarah Walton:

Be all manly, yes. That’s right. No, but I mean, that’s so great, Melinda. No one’s ever said that said authentic before. And I’m like, “oh my God, she’s totally right”, it absolutely is. And you have everything you need. It really just comes down to whether or not you believe you’ve got it. And that’s up to us, that is the inner work. That’s why I’m saying that is the golden snitch. If you want to take an Harry Potter of business, that’s what has you win the game every single times is, if you trust yourself and it’s just take some time to work through that. And that is my favorite part of being a coach because that’s where we get to work. That’s where we get to dive in and start to heal where you’ve been like, “Ooh, I don’t trust myself”.

Melinda Wittstock:

So do most people come to you for business tactics, strategies, all that, but end up with mindset? I mean.

Sarah Walton:

Yep. Let me just say that straight.

Melinda Wittstock:

Because nobody ever sells, come to me for mine. Well, some people do, but it’s like a business coach is I think at the end of the day, the really good ones do have that understand the kind of conscious journey that you really need to be on to succeed at this. Especially at high stakes entrepreneurship, because all your stuff is going to come up, like all the subconscious stuff and you’ll get to certain levels or gateways or whatever precipices, however they appear to you and if you can’t heal that particular thing at that point, you can’t get to the next level. So you’ve got by definition, I think you need to be willing to be on a conscious journey.

Sarah Walton:

Yeah. I mean, I don’t think someone says I want to be an entrepreneur so I can personally develop myself.

Melinda Wittstock:

No, it happens. You can always succeed if you’re willing to.

Sarah Walton:

If you do that. That’s right, but I do think, I have to tell you though, I think on a subconscious level we know, you are not. So you’re not going to be like this passive, “oh, I guess, I don’t…” That’s just not, I don’t think being an entrepreneur is really going to attract you. It is clearly a developmental process. It is not for the faint of heart. It’s not armchair activity, right? Despite what all the entrepreneur on mindset.

Melinda Wittstock:

And there are so many lessons, as you go on this journey, but it is a journey. It’s not really a destination. It’s like you’ve got to be able to find joy in the actual journey.

What I find challenging though is, especially when you’re doing a lot of hiring and you’re scaling a company quickly and in our case say, we’ve gone from just me, 18 months ago to 25 people now. We should be at about 80 people by the end of the year, so it’s pretty fast growth. There are a lot of people who say that they really understand startups, say in a team or understand what it really means for that to be in that early stage and they do not. Very hard to understand it until you’re in it. How do you advise people about the team building? Because one of the things that women I’ve noticed can be too slow to do is hire.

Sarah Walton:

Correct.

Melinda Wittstock:

And can be looking at hiring like an expense rather than an investment. And so in other words, we end up hiring people to do things instead of to return results.

Sarah Walton:

Mm.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so really attracting that right team, being willing to ask them to be accountable to results and being willing to receive all those muscles can sometimes be weak in us. Because we don’t know how to ask for what we want in many cases and don’t know how to receive. So in that whole team building context, what’s your best advice there? And what have you seen from some of your clients? What do they struggle with in that context?

Sarah Walton:

You know, what’s really interesting? The consistent struggle I see personally with my clients is a feeling that the people on the team don’t get it. And I’m always like, okay, but that’s on you. I love you to bit, but that’s on you. That’s about communication and that’s about making sure they feel like they’re part of a team. And there’s so many reasons, obviously high functioning co-dependence being, suspect number one, in here is that we’ve been taught to do everything ourselves. You got to be great and so that does make it harder for us to receive. So when you’re looking at team building, I think one of the things that you want to really look for is who would you turn to in one of those moments, is this someone that you can turn to? Not only to be responsible for results.

And I love that you brought that in because not everybody does, like you said, so many people are looking for, I just want to get this off my plate. And that’s important too, by the way, it’s important to have CEO time. It’s important to get out of the weeds and make sure you’re thinking about the next round of revenue or the next products you’re going to be releasing so that you can see where the company’s growing. That’s really important, and that there’s so many people not giving themselves that CEO time. And that is incredibly lucrative.

Melinda Wittstock:

Vital.

Sarah Walton:

Oh my God. And so many people don’t do it. So there is that piece of it. Some stuff you do need to just get off your plate. That’s actually accurate, right? There are some things you should probably not be doing. It is not great for the business. So what I tell people to look at and sort of picture when you’re looking at team building is one, could I turn to this person at a hard moment? Will this be someone who’s aligned with the vision? So key, you need to know what the vision is, right? Because you need to be able to communicate that. And when somebody says to me, I feel like the team doesn’t get it. And I’m like, do you get it? Because if you get it, you’re going to communicate it. You’re a master communicator.

So, something’s off here. And most of the time it’s that the CEO’s vision isn’t clear. So that’s, a big piece. You’ve got to be clear on your mission so you can bring other people in on it. That’s the biggest missing piece I see for so many people. And it’s quite simple to course correct that. And then the next thing you want to ask is what does the business need? Not what do you need? Not what does the employee need, right? Not does what the world want for you. What does the business need you to do next? Who does the business need? And a lot of times when I can get people to go, oh, the business isn’t me. Oh my God, business is its own entity and it needs things.

Oh my God, all of a sudden, because we’re so compassionate as women. Right? And we’re always seeing what other people need. If you can flip your head around that, you’ll hire the right people because you’re not worried about you anymore. You’re not worried about them, quote, unquote, getting it. The mission’s now clear and you’re going to do what the business needs you to do in order to be successful for the business, not for you, for the business. Once you can make that separation of church and state, sort of all of a sudden the decisions get much clearer and much easier to make.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh gosh, a 100%. So you are also a podcast host, I want to mention Game On Girlfriend. How long have you been hosting that?

Sarah Walton:

Two years. We launched in January of 2020, so that was fun. But I absolutely love, this is one of my absolute favorite things. And in the first podcast episode, I talk about why I called it Game On Girlfriend. And it comes from a West Wing episode. For those of you who are West Wing fans, it was right before-

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh God, if only our politics was like that.

Sarah Walton:

Oh wouldn’t it be just lovely if people were actually like that, it’d be so great. If we had people of integrity like that running, I know it’d be wonderful. So that moment comes from he and his wife have such a playful relationship. And he’s about to go on for his, like to campaign for his second term. I believe it’s the debates, right? He’s about to go on stage for the debates and he’s super nervous and he’s not focusing. And in order to focus, he needs a crisis. This is like one of his BS, like character flaws. He needs crisis, right.

So he’s about to go on the stage and she cuts his tie. And so the whole team freaks out and they’re like, “what did you just, oh my God”… So now there’s a crisis. And she slaps him on the butt as he walks on stage and she goes, “Game On Boyfriend”. And I was like, “yes, that is what I want”. It’s like, we have all these women up to these incredible things. And we all have different ways, we want to head out onto the stage of life and I’m here to go, Game On Girlfriend, let’s go. So that’s why we called it that, but I just, I really love being a podcast host. I’m sure you do too Melinda, it’s so much-

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, well it’s amazing. I find that, got 725 episodes or so in.

Sarah Walton:

I couldn’t believe that number, wow.

Melinda Wittstock:

When I launched this originally, it was 2017 and I did like a daily for two years, I launched it because it was the podcast I wish I’d had as the only woman in the room, tech entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur, kind of pioneer feeling like I was really alone and just, I’ve always had this thing of like, women really are the future of business. We need to support each other. How can I foster this ecosystem? You know, where women show up and help each other meaningfully or buy from each other or actually, gosh, can you imagine really actually invest in each other’s companies?

Sarah Walton:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Promote each other’s products, all this kind of thing. And this was the vision of it. And it’s like I have a personal mastermind. I always learn something, my guests usually learn something the audience does. There’s so many benefits that come from it. Which is why I’m in the podcasting business with Podopolo. Because I really wanted to elevate the listening experience and give podcasters a chance to actually make money from their podcasts, which is what the socially interactive Podopolo does, So I love talking to other podcasters of course.

Sarah Walton:

So exciting, wow. Well, congratulations. Oh my gosh. And I did not realize it was daily for the first two years, whole week can only. Wow.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. But you know, it’s kind of increasingly hard to balance with the demands of Podopolo, because that’s just closing a funding round and speeding now, to scale. So, it’s a lot to juggle, but it’s necessary for my sanity as much as anything else, you know what I mean? It’s great talking to other women, where often, our heads are down in our business and we’re not doing enough of that. So I want to make sure Sarah, people know how to find you to work with you. And of course, listen to your podcast.

Sarah Walton:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you can head on over to sarahwalton.com and I spell Sarah with an H and we’ve also just launched a YouTube channel, which I love so much, I’m dying. But there’s a weekly episode I put out called Sarah Uncut, where I literally flip my phone around and start talking and we never know what’s going to happen. So that’s super fun, you could find me over on YouTube. And then, it’s The Game On Girlfriend Podcast and we’re on all of the major podcasting channels.

Melinda Wittstock:

Including Podopolo, that’s amazing.

Sarah Walton:

You bet.

Melinda Wittstock:

Thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Sarah Walton:

Oh, thanks so much for having me. It was wonderful.