Episode Transcript

Julia Landauer 0:04 Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of if I'm honest with Julia Landauer. I'm really excited for today's guest. Because we are going to talk about finances, we're going to talk about reframing how we have discussions about finances, how we think about ourselves and our performance. And you're going to walk away with some really concrete things that you can apply to your own life. And I'm thrilled to welcome Ashley from ladies get paid. And Ashley is the co founder and CEO of ladies get paid, which has a thriving community of over 60,000 women. Ashley is an accomplished entrepreneur, community builder, marketer and brand builder who has dedicated her career to empowering women to level up personally, professionally, and financially, aka my kind of woman. So Ashley, thank you so much for joining me on if I'm honest, Ashley Louise 0:49 thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. Julia Landauer 0:51 So I was thinking back so I've been following ladies get paid on various social media channels for a little while. But I believe you and I got connected recently in last couple years in the web3 space, right, like both interested in NFT's. What a journey that's been right. Ashley Louise 1:06 Yes. Yeah, we were both I think I was like, Oh, there's another woman weird. Like, we have to be friends. Like, that's literally what like what happened. I don't know exactly what the I mean, it had to be Twitter, but I was like, let's go. Julia Landauer 1:18 And it is such a male dominated space. And obviously, it's kind of volatile. But overall, I feel like my experience in the space was pretty positive. And but it's it's new, right? We're all learning basically new industry. How's it been for you? Ashley Louise 1:32 This is like a total? Well, it explains a lot about me and kind of my philosophy also for like running this company is that I always have these really strong desires to like, I'm gonna say creep on men, but like, what are the men doing to like for their businesses or to make money and that's kind of what drew me to figuring out crypto. It started actually with GameStop. And then I went from GameStop to crypto to NFT's. I went actually like really deep hardcore. I was like flipping NF T's for probably eight months. I came out six figures revenue positive. So like, I'm good, Julia Landauer 2:12 Amazing? Ashley Louise 2:13 So like, that was fun. I actually was in a like, paid flippers group on Discord where I was pretending to be a dude for three months. And it was like no way. I'd like to use my initials. So everyone assumed I was a dude. And it was the one of the more fascinating things I've ever done in my life. Julia Landauer 2:30 Oh, I'm sure you know, so much of what I talk about in keynotes and stuff is like, you never know what it's like to walk through the world in someone else's shoes. And like, especially like I think as someone who's like in a underserved demographic, and like, oh my gosh, that must have been so interesting. What was it was Was there any like one big thing that you notice as a big difference in how people interacted with you? And I think you spent a lot more time online and in chat rooms than I do. So I'm not well versed. But was there anything major was the space kind of pretty topic focused? Ashley Louise 2:58 There were and this kind of comes with the crypto audience a little bit of like, very traditional views on gender. That were like, you know, women should blank. Yeah, you know, like that kind of stuff, which generalizations nothing new here, and also because they got to know me before I gender revealed if you have like a gender reveal party in discord. No, it was funny, where to I was commenting on how like, ridiculous one of the like NFT's that minted the art was really bad. And I said something like, the boobs are crooked. And one of the people responded like that you haven't even ever seen a boob. And I was like, well, this might be the time. I was like, I'm a lesbian. Julia Landauer 3:45 Not only gender reveal, just totally warping their, their very rigid notions. Ashley Louise 3:49 Yeah, I was like, I probably seen way more than you, you know, and that was like, deep COVID. Right, like not leaving your house for weeks. So I was just like, entertained and making money. So that was fine. I mean, to me, the most fascinating part of that was like how unemotional they are about money compared to women. I mean, it is just like a spreadsheet and numbers. And like, their risk tolerance is totally different. And I think that comes from generally men don't really like suffer consequences when they make mistakes, right and like that's what makes women a little more risk averse. But yeah, they were just like, yeah, just trading million dollars today. I was like, Julia Landauer 4:30 What do you think some of that also, is it does it go down also to kind of the net worth of people like or do you find in your experience with like, views on finance, especially as it breaks down by gender are even higher net worth women more likely to be risk averse when it comes to these kind of bigger Gambles or, or were these guys not really high net worth just kind of throwing around other money or I'm interested in that breakdown? Ashley Louise 4:56 No, I mean, even the ones who are like kind of broke still, they'd be like, Oh I've got like $500 in my bank account, about to trade 300. So like, it wasn't, no even like high net worth women. I mean, look, there's women who have insane risk tolerance and do trade huge amounts. And I just think there's not as many of them. Because I mean, I think it's also ego in a lot of ways, right? Like, it's really hard to beat the market, you know. So there is that kind of like time trade off, where actively trading, no matter how much amount that you're trading is a huge time investment. And for the most part, you're probably not going to beat the market. So it's almost just like, is all that work worth it for me to literally be sitting at my computer constantly? Right? So there's some of that in there. Julia Landauer 5:43 Yeah. Ashley Louise 5:43 Women are also a women hold more than two thirds of student loan debt. Women make less money. Women have for every dollar a man has in savings, women have less, and women are more likely to have to take care of an aging parent. Julia Landauer 5:59 Yeah, right. Ashley Louise 6:00 So like, all of those things. And women, of course, also are more likely to be a single parent of a child, right? So all of those very real things make for very good reasons to not be gambling your money on shit coins. Julia Landauer 6:16 Totally, no. And I get that I like that you brought in the kind of all the other elements that don't make it an equitable playing field. Like that's going to be standard for most people. So something that you said, and I'm deviating from my notes a little bit, but something that you said was that you were kind of creeping on the guys to see how they worked in the space. And that reminded me of I was with a group and listening to some finance advice. And this was a bunch of years ago, but someone made the suggestion that if you're trying to figure out what salaries are you know, reasonable for your role, Ashley Louise 6:46 ask a white man, Julia Landauer 6:47 ask a man Yeah, especially a white man. Yeah, yeah. And so I had never thought of that. And obviously, there are some transparency laws in play now. But I think that's still so relevant. And I think we have, Ashley Louise 6:59 we always say when you're negotiating your salary, you need to ask at least five real people what their salary is, and you have to make sure, at least one of them is a white man, because white men get paid the most out of anybody. You know, we have our Slack group, there's like 60,000 Women in there. And we've had over 3 million messages exchanged over the course of a couple years. But we have a salary negotiation channel where women are actually materially in there saying, I live here, I do this for a living, this is how much money I make. And I think it's so important a that we've created a space where women can just like talk really openly than they are, feel comfortable doing that in that space. But also be even if you're not specifically talking in there, just seeing people do it, it normalizes the behavior of talking about money. It's like you're lurking, and that's having a really big effect on you just seeing people openly talk about money. So the third thing that I always say is like, if we're all gathered here today, because we are underpaid, and then we are telling each other how much we are paid. We are literally just in a cycle of underpaying ourselves, right. Like, it doesn't matter what you and I make, what matters is what the white men make. So it's like, find the white dudes and ask them how much money they make. Whenever men are like, what's the number one thing I can do to like support women in the workplace? And I always say, tell them how much money you make. Because it's like, that's real and material. Right? I ended up at ladies get paid because I had a white man who was drunk at a happy hour Tell me how much money the other man who I replaced when he left how much money that guy made. It was twice as much money as me. Julia Landauer 8:37 Oh my god. Ashley Louise 8:38 2x. Right. literally changed my whole life. Yeah, because that's how I ended up here. Like doing ladies get paid, right? Because I didn't know what to do. And I didn't know where to go to figure out what to do. Julia Landauer 8:49 Right. Ashley Louise 8:49 And someone a couple days later, like sent me this link. They're like, Hey, there's this like event, it's called ladies get paid, was like, Oh, I definitely need that. And like, now here I am. Met Claire, the CEO now that's fine. Like, but it's like, that's the goal. The goal is to like get or make more than the white man salary. And that's not some like weird, genders separatist thing. That's just like literally data. That is like literally the data Julia Landauer 9:18 you want to look at, like what the kind of ceiling is right. Like when when looking out kind of what a good range is. You want to know what the top end is going to be? And just statistically white men make the most are the highest earners. Right? So yeah, no, I think it was such a brilliant piece of advice. And I think it really also kind of forces the discussion of one like having the discussion with other people in normalizing finances, because obviously, that's still taboo. And I grew up in a home where my parents were very vocal about what they made, what they spent, how much how expensive racing was when they were funding it, like really trying to paint a clear picture of it. So for me, it's been kind of normal to be transparent about it, but I Know that it is a really tricky subject Have you found like kind of what some of the key conceptual roadblocks are for people in general talking about money? Obviously, you focus more on women. And I think this is a I personally believe that women's financial literacy and independence and understanding is such a key to overall success and well being and confidence and all this stuff. So super important. But yeah, are there kind of more conceptual things that are blocking these discussions, especially among women? Ashley Louise 10:29 Yeah, I mean, we're generally socialized to, like be outside of money, right? Like, oh, don't worry about it. Like, how many people will say that, like, you're a woman who has a brother? How did your parents treat you versus how do they treat your brother, and oftentimes, like, the dad will talk to the son about money, and they won't talk to the daughter about money. I was very fortunate, where I'm the eldest daughter, and my dad talked to me about money, he used to take me, every Saturday morning, he would pick me up for my ballet class, like four years old, and he would take me to the library with him. And he would like look up his stocks and read the Morningstar. And we would talk about money. And my parents, my mom worked at a bank, right, like, so I came from a money household. So I don't really have as much of that most women will say they don't talk about money or their salaries, because it makes them uncomfortable. And the response that we typically say to that is, how much money is your discomfort worth? Julia Landauer 11:27 That's such a good reframe Ashley Louise 11:29 is $20,000 worth it to not be uncomfortable for five minutes, that's for you to decide. But like, that's ultimately what it comes down to. And that's on me. If you make less money than the other person side, I think sometimes two women are uncomfortable that if they make more money about than the other person, then they're gonna feel bad. Number one, good job for you for getting your bag. Number two, you're doing that other person a favor, then because she's not getting paid enough, then you're helping her. I think it's like zoom out of the immediate experience of the conversation. And what's the impact of whether or not you have that conversation? On the one hand, how much money are you losing? On the other hand, how much money is the other person losing? Julia Landauer 12:13 That is so brilliant, I'm so happy to ask that question that you said that. Because also it you know, obviously also research a lot about women and, you know, we're naturally more likely to be givers and caretakers and want to be helping others and so that reframe of you are if you're making more money, you're helping the other person Ashley Louise 12:32 Gotta help ya girl out, man. Julia Landauer 12:34 Gotta help your girl out. Ashley Louise 12:35 That's closing the wage gap. Julia Landauer 12:37 Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's so great. Okay, so I want to backtrack a little bit because your background obviously right now your ladies get paid. But you started for about 10 years or so a little less than a decade at Vimeo and IAC. So a nice tech route. We love it. Can you share more about how you got there like schooling or what you liked as a teenager or kind of what led you in that direction? It's I think it's fun to see how people get to where they are. Ashley Louise 13:01 What I liked as a teenager has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. I was one of those just like hyper American high success achieving children, right? Like my entire life was about where I was getting into college. And like, you know, neither my mom didn't go to college. My dad like delivered UPS packages at night to like, put himself through a community college kind of thing, right? Like my parents both have really good jobs. And I grew up very, very privileged. I went to like an amazing public school. I lived in a nice house like so I had a very privileged upbringing, but my parents worked really hard for that. And me getting into college was like a family affair. Like it was like a whole family project thing. And that was what I mean, I did a lot of things I loved right, like I played soccer, I played golf. I like took dance classes, I volunteered, like I did a lot of things that I love, but all of that was like specifically achievement oriented towards college. And I thought I was gonna be a lawyer. Like that was a solid Legally Blonde, and that was it. Like, literally, Legally Blonde and monitor, right? I wanted to be like Elle Woods or Alex Cabot. Julia Landauer 14:08 And yes, like, that's it. Ashley Louise 14:10 Right. So like, I was getting into college. I was going to law school. That was my thing. I majored in industrial and labor relations, which is basically like work right. Right. The it was originally formed, like when unions started happening and like the 1940s and 50s. But it really evolved into like, the concept of work and how do we work and both the labor and the kind of management the economic side of work, then it got time for me to study for the LSAT and I was just like, no, like, I literally just didn't want to and I this is also like it was 2009 Right? So like, the economy crashed. I mean, I was I remember being in an interview in New York City, one day at like a bank or something. And I remember like sitting in the waiting room and watching either Lehman or Bear Stearns fall on the TV While I was sitting waiting to go into an interview, and I was like, this ain't feel great. And I'm very happy. I did not go to law school. Yeah, well, I make a lot more money right now. Yes. Would I be miserable? Yes. Like most of my friends did. I feel perfectly fine when I was kind of want to pay for that. You know, like, yeah. And then there was this glut of lawyers who a lot of people like, have a law degree and they don't use it. So I did work for a union for like a little bit. And I was an organizer for like, a year after I left college, I have a little activist and me. And then I just kind of transitioned into working at startups. And I loved working in tech, I had an amazing time I learned so much like, the stuff that I learned over my jobs is stuff that I use here every day, I did bizdev. Like I was a still like adjacent to lawyering, right, where I'm like, I'm doing deals, like I love to do deals. That's kind of what I ultimately realized about myself is I love like, negotiating. Shocking, I'm here, right? I took all that. And that, I think is why we were able to be so successful, so quickly related to get paid, because I just like I knew how to deal with people and like do business quote, unquote, you know, when I was at Vimeo, I kind of just like topped out. And we got to a point where I just like wasn't a skills match for what I like to do. And what I was looking for compared to where the company was at, at the time, right? Like this was when it was kind of transitioning from being a more filmmaker focus to a more like SAS marketing platform that it is now. And you know, my job was to do partnerships with other platforms, right. And a lot of that was like, Let's build a connection between x product and our product, because the people who use our thing, also use their things. So let's build a thing when you're in a phase where you're at a company that has a lot of tech debt, and there's like pivoting and all this stuff. Like the last thing that will ever get prioritized is like, hey, I want to do this partnership or like build a thing. It just like, I don't blame anyone saying no to me was the right decision most of the time, right? Like there was just if you're ruthlessly prioritizing, I was towards the bottom of the list, and like I got it made me have immense practice and convincing people I'm right. Like, that was like because that's that's what work is right? At the end of the day, like you are convincing someone that the thing that you want to do is the right thing. I got a lot of practice in that and like I learned, but it just kind of got to the point where for me to do bigger deals and work on things that were more interesting and more challenging. The resources just weren't there. So I was kind of like, I need to do something else. This was like 2016, when like, the world was exploding, and people were like, Oh, wow, we should talk about gender. And I was like everyone showed up now. That's nice, you know. And that's when I met Claire who had started, ladies get paid. And she was just kind of doing events here and there. And after I went to my first one, I just like I went up to her at the end. And I was just like, What are you doing with it? She's like, I'm alone, please, God help me. So Claire, and I met now we're married. Julia Landauer 18:10 I love that, hey, we all we all have our stories, Ashley Louise 18:13 you know, it's I at the time, I was like, I need to find a girlfriend and a new job. And I was going to like pockets of places where I felt like I would meet like minded people. And again, I was just very efficient about it. Julia Landauer 18:26 We were talking about efficiency before we started recording. And I think it's I think obviously time is valuable, but especially when women bear the burden of so many things that were responsible for at home work, like learning to be efficient and say no, or just like incredible skill. So I applaud all of that. Ashley Louise 18:47 Thank you. Julia Landauer 18:48 Oh yea yea yea. And so with building a lot of what you described with your partnership development is really similar to what I've done with my attempts at sponsorship sales and all of that, and, you know, again, articulating where the value is, where the alignments are, by I feel that in getting rejected from sponsorship, a lot, that kind of resilience that it built was really valuable in in teaching me to, to have full belief and not get that external validation and being able to develop that on my own. And I think that with that value and understanding skills and where, where I can provide benefit and help. Like I think that that also helps in my own negotiations and whether it comes to now I have an agent for speaking but like when I was building my own speaking career and negotiating fees, and, you know, if I eventually get into a place where I need to negotiate a salary, I feel confident in knowing my value. Do you have a piece of advice for people who are working on trying to get that understanding of their value beyond just like not being nervous about it, ya know? Ashley Louise 19:55 I mean, the number one thing I think to do is start a brag book, this is a thing that we talked about where. So like, take a little bit of a step back. So if you're at a job, and this is something I'm very passionate about talking about, you should be angling for a promotion, every day that you are at work, like a promotion does not happen in the one meeting where you ask your boss for it, you should be doing everything in your power to make it very easy for whoever the decision makers are on if you're asking for promotion. Or if you're asking for a raise, or if you're trying to like, launch a project, whoever those stakeholders are, you should spend every day doing things that will make it as easy as possible for them to say yes to you. And this is where something like a brag book comes in. Let's say that you work on like client facing work, right, and you get a positive response over email. And they're like, this was so great, thank you so much like outstanding work. Number one, you put that in your brag folder. Number two, you hit forward on that email, and you send it to your boss bold, I like that you're like, managing up right, like your boss, in addition to managing you also has to do their own job. So you need to make it as easy as possible for them. So if you are doing this year round, and this is the thing that men do all the time, women are like socialized Not to brag or to show off. So it feels really like weird and showy. Same thing in meetings, right? Like men will be like, Look at what I did, where women are just kind of like, No, I mean, I did my job do we need like, I don't need a pat on the head for that, thank you. But men do that all the time. If you are kind of just like building that over time, over and over again, in your mind, then there's like a body of work there. You know what I mean? Versus like, oh, shoot, I have to negotiate my salary. And I'm going to do it one week from today. Right? So then you're kind of just going from zero to 100. Right there. But if you're working on that, over the course of time, you have your brag book, and your brag book is for you. And it's for your boss, it's for your boss. So when you go to set that meeting, and you're like, I need more money, you're in a job interview, you're like, I'm the best person for this, or whatever it is that you're advocating for yourself. You have your book, right? Like, you can read that before you go in, and you're like, here's my receipts. But it's also for you, on the days where you feel like shit. And that happens all the time. You can just go look at them. Right? Like, and it's not just someone wrote a nice email about me. It's also like, yeah, like, got that thing done really quickly. And I did really like I crushed on that deck. Or like I had a good call today. And I really liked that. Just write it down, stick it in there. You know what I mean? And then when you have your down days, just read it, go look, I did because then it's like you're, you're in your mind, advocating for yourself to yourself also, right? Like you are spending your time a convincing yourself and being you make it really easy to convince your boss because they're already like, yeah, the worst thing that you can do is like ask for a promotion on like, the actual day that they like, decide whether or not you're getting a promotion, you know, like, it should, they should already know. And that's like a huge thing. Julia Landauer 23:15 That's so smart. Ashley Louise 23:16 A lot of women don't do because it's like, I'm not supposed to not supposed to talk about myself and be like, Oh, look at me, we're supposed to like, be quiet. But like that, to me is like make a place where you put all your feel good stuff, and always tell your boss about it. I mean, this is like a hard thing about like, remote work. So it's funny, like the last time I like worked at a full time job. It was in person, I was about to say, you know, did you have a good call, when you're walking back to your desk? If you pass your boss's office? Stick your head in there. It's a Slack message now, right? But like, anytime that you do something good, you tell people about it. Because then, you know, a lot of these decisions are made by like committee, it's not just your boss, it's who are the stakeholders here? You know, is it your boss, and then head of the marketing team and then an HR person, you got to get all those people, right. But it's, it's, you should be building that confidence through small, right? It's like James clear, 1% every day like you get better. And then in the African aggregate, you have a big impact. So it's like, if you just take small actions over and over again, to demonstrate your abilities, you actually believe in your abilities. Julia Landauer 24:27 And you're helping yourself be your own coach. Like that's something that I talk about what it's like it's doing what sometimes an external voice would have done for you in validating you and I think learning to do that yourself is so important. So I do want to go back to the forwarding to your boss, because if I'm honest, when you said that I had a certain feeling Ashley Louise 24:45 Did you start sweating a little bit? Julia Landauer 24:46 I had a weird feeling in my gut again, I'm a confident person. I know my value. But when you said that, I was like, No way. So if anyone else happened to feel like that, Ashley Louise 24:55 why did you feel like that? I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you now why did you feel like that? Julia Landauer 24:59 I think cuz I have something about with writing, like, I'm fine like in a conversation talking about myself and and objectively stating what I've done and what was good feedback and you know all that. But there's something about putting it in writing, I think because writing I know that I miss read people's text, I misunderstand the tone. And I have no corporate experience. So that's also part of it is that that whole dynamic is not something I'm familiar with. But I was curious as to like, do you frame it a certain way? Are you just like, hey, wants to let you know, I got this feedback, or is it a blind forward that you know, you just let them open it? Or is it kind of like, Hey, Ashley Louise 25:34 you still didn't answer why you felt uncomfortable? Julia Landauer 25:37 Oh, no, because I think the Ashley Louise 25:39 because you think they're gonna misinterpret why you did it. Julia Landauer 25:42 Little misinterpret. But yeah, I also think of it as bragging, like, the trope that women fall into don't want to be seen as bragging. All right, I fell into the stereotype. Strong, empowered woman, Ashley Louise 25:53 whenever someone says something like that, to me, where there's just like, Man that like made me feel away. I'm like, we are stopping here. And we are getting into that. That's same as women not wanting to talk to other women about money, right, you're talking about this is what I like to call getting in the way of your own bag. It's discomfort that is stops you from doing something that is objectively and clearly good for your career. Julia Landauer 26:14 And I think it's also because, again, like if a lot of women feel this way, and you know, I haven't heard well, let me backtrack. So not a lot of my friends are in corporate those who are women and and so yeah, I haven't heard that before. So I think that's also why I was like, this is such a Ashley Louise 26:30 let's let's put it in the context of like, your speaking career. Yeah, someone after you talk, give a talk, send you an Instagram DM. And they're like, this was so amazing. Like, I You made such a huge impact. Or like even the person who booked you is like, Julie, this was amazing. You should send that to your agent. Julia Landauer 26:49 Oh, well see, for that I do for speaking not only do I send it to my agent, I have testimonials on my on Instagram, I have testimonials on my website. Ashley Louise 26:56 So why is that different? When it comes to your boss? Who is the person who pays you? Julia Landauer 27:01 It's not different? You're so right. You're so right. All right, guys, I'm gonna have to reassess what I did Ashley Louise 27:07 with the with the forwarding. There's a handful of different ways that you can do it. I think the easiest one is like, Hey, just wanted to like send this over to like, let you know everything's going great with X client. Because like you're, again, you can think about this as like making it easier for them. And not you bragging, reframe that as it's part of their job to know what you're doing every day. Right, like a question I asked myself at the end of every week. And I think managers should also do this as like, what did I get done this week? Right? Like you're helping them understand what you are doing? And how things are going, right? Because think about if their boss was like what's going on with your team? And if they can pull that out of their back pocket where they're like, well, Ashley just got this great feedback from client. Why this week? So like that deals going? Great. Julia Landauer 27:57 Yeah, so easy. And, and I like what you emphasize a few times that you want to make out of your bosses or who you're like, we want to make their life easier and make it easier for them to Ashley Louise 28:07 that's on our like list of like the best things that you can do. If you want to get a promotion, it's like number one, do your job. Well. Number two, make your boss's life easier, and or make them look good. Yeah, like we're all selfish. Like, let's like at the end of the day, right? Like, we are the most important person to ourselves. So like, if it makes you feel better, like look, you should not feel weird about being at your job, where you are paid to do work by telling people how good you are at the work that you do. That shouldn't be a weird thing to do. However, I understand we live in a society with things. So if you do feel weird about that, just reframe that as I'm doing this for my boss to make their life easier, Julia Landauer 28:50 that reframe is so crucial. And I think you can I mean, so much of what you've said this, this has been so fantastic. I love that, that reframe of doing it for other people. And I think I really believe and I'm recognizing that now in different parts of my life. I may live up to this and may not in others. But I really think that you know, doing things for yourself is also important. And as you said like when if you are nervous Ashley Louise 29:15 men don't ever need that reframe. Julia Landauer 29:18 Yeah, Ashley Louise 29:18 of like, I feel okay doing this, because I'm doing it for someone else. They don't need that reframe. Because their needs are socialized very differently than us. I'm just focused on getting people to do the action. We can work on the framing later. Yeah, but like it is important to call out that like for the most part like women, when they make more money at a higher rate reinvest that money back into their communities than men are like, that's a very good example there. You shouldn't and this is also the like, women over index on starting nonprofits. Why do we feel like it's only okay for us to do something if it's good for someone else? And why do we feel like we can't do something that's good for ourselves? Julia Landauer 29:53 Totally. And I think asking that question is super important, especially especially when you're getting started like what I find like if you're established and you have a ton of disposable income like you do you like whatever, but I think especially in those 20s 30s 40s, when you're figuring stuff out when you're maybe starting families when you're just trying to have some in the bank or in, in the stock market, whatever it might be like, but I think it goes back to, and I feel like I've heard this analogy a lot recently, but like on an airplane, you got to put your mask on first before you help others with their mask. And so I think that totally relates to financial situations as well. And especially, you know, we have to plan if we're having kids or want to have kids like planning for all of that planning for expenses. So life is expensive Ashley Louise 30:34 in the year 2023, it sure is Julia Landauer 30:37 only getting worse, right? Speaker 1 30:38 Hopefully. Ashley Louise 30:39 Hopefully.Well, I mean, most of it came down my grocery bills are still a little gross. Julia Landauer 30:43 But no, it's important. Like we need money. And I think especially for sense of independence and not being dependent on others. And, you know, and that can extend to our own social and physical well being. And we know that many, especially women get stuck in unhealthy relationships because of finances being a big part of it. So just all super important stuff, you have dropped so many gems, I don't even have to ask my like three tips, because you've just given so much and I'll give, I'll give a summary Ashley Louise 31:11 Don't get in the way of your own bag, right? Like, that's, that's my thing. It's like, if there's something that you objectively know that if you do it, your life will improve, and you're not doing it, sometimes you can be nice about it and just be like you can do it. Sometimes me personally, I'm like, stop being a little bitch about it and put your big girl pants on, whichever works for you. Julia Landauer 31:32 Whatever language you need for your pep talk. Ashley Louise 31:33 Whatever it is, we're all different. But like, Just do it. Do not. There's enough stuff in the world that's gonna like throw an obstacle in your way. Get in your way. make things hard. Do not contribute to that. Anything that's within your control to get out of your own way. Get out of your own way. Julia Landauer 31:52 The mantra that I have for that is there'll be plenty of other people who will tell you no, so don't be the one to tell yourself no. Ashley Louise 31:57 Yes. Get out of your own way. Get the bag. Julia Landauer 32:01 Yep. 100% Oh my goodness, Ashley, we're gonna end on some rapid fire. But we could keep talking for so long. We might have you back for a second episode, if you're willing. Ashley Louise 32:10 Happy to thank you. Julia Landauer 32:11 Okay, so rapid fire if you're honest. What are the best and worst products or services that you've purchased? Ashley Louise 32:19 I'm going to focus on work here. Canva is like Canva and chatGPT, I run 90% of our business using those tools. And I know women have a lot of weird feelings about chat. GPT the thing I say to that is like, you get a free personal assistant whose feelings you don't have to worry about, oh, my goodness, like, you can just get in there and be like, help me ask all the questions, do it. And like Canva I don't need Adobe, I don't need any of that Julia Landauer 32:46 same. What is a bucket list item you have for this year? Ashley Louise 32:50 Oh my god. Um, I am working on my quote unquote, personal brand. I know everyone hates the phrase like personal brand. But this was another one of those things where I was like, why don't I want to do like, I get to this point where I was just like, I know that I will make more money and my career will be better. And I will have more power in my own life. If I have a personal brand. And like, Claire has usually been the front office person. I'm the back office person. But I was like, I need to do this. So for me, I want to get to 20,000 LinkedIn followers by the end of the year. So if you're listening to this, go on LinkedIn and type in Ashley Louise, and then hit follow. And I promise I'm gonna write about a bunch of cool stuff that you love. Julia Landauer 33:34 I'm glad that you said I was just about to ask you. Where can they find you on LinkedIn? What is an area of your life where you splurge financially? Ashley Louise 33:42 Food Julia Landauer 33:42 Yeah, same with me. Food, groceries, restaurants, all that wine. Ashley Louise 33:46 I love going out to dinner. I've like been done a good job at like, reducing frequency. So that when we do go, I'm just like, order the like, just order it. Yeah. You I mean, just like we went out. We went out to dinner for Claire's birthday. And like, ordered 70% of the menu. Julia Landauer 34:05 That sounds like heaven. Last rapidfire if you're honest, what's something that you're grateful for right now? Ashley Louise 34:12 I am grateful that everything's going great on the baby from you know, it's like, making a baby when you are not a hetero person is like horrible. Anyone who's going through fertility treatments will tell you it's like, insane. It's horrible. You're it's like clinical, and intense. And like for us it costs a lot of money, right? Like it's minimum 10 grand a baby, right? And it's like, it's a lot and it's hard. But everyone is very healthy right now. And it only took three tries. So like we were grateful for that we didn't have to move on to IVF we're very grateful for that because that's like a whole other thing. And, you know, people need to talk about fertility more I know it like feels like we're talking about it more now. But like, I had no idea. I knew it was gonna be hard. It is so hard. You know, like it's schedules and shots and like all this stuff and you're just like, Oh my God, but we're, we're good right now. And I'm very, very like fortunate and happy for that. And we have a lot of family around. And like that is something I'm very grateful for. Julia Landauer 35:21 Amazing. Well, Ashley, thank you for so many nuggets of wisdom for your transparency and vulnerability in your storytelling. I am a big advocate for that. So thank you. Thank you for keeping me honest in why I didn't want to forward Ashley Louise 35:34 Listen, we all got to be honest here honest, Julia Landauer 35:36 obviously people can find you at Ashley Louise on LinkedIn. Where else do you want to have people tune in Ashley Louise 35:43 my handles are @ashleyllouise on everything and then follow ladies get paid. Ladiesgetpaid.com subscribe to our newsletter, we if you liked all the things I've said we send emails from me multiple times a week. So you can just get me directly injected into your inbox every day. Julia Landauer 36:02 I love that I've read through a lot of the blogs and like just concrete, efficient advice that is so helpful. Ashley, thank you so much. I so appreciate you coming on if I'm honest with Julia Landauer. And I can't wait for our next discussion. Ashley Louise 36:15 Thank you for having me. Julia Landauer 36:16 All right. So for some quick key takeaways that I wrote down because Ashley Louise came with a lot of wisdom. The first thing is, when you're about to negotiate your salary, ask the highest earners what they make, and that's usually white men historically. The second thing is to normalize talking about finances, especially women, with our female friends and men with your female friends so that we can help everyone level up. The third thing is to make a brag book, and to have that with all of your accomplishments for your own personal confidence, but then also so that you can give concrete examples of your success to your boss and your employers. The fourth thing is to invest in automation where you can and to outsource so that we can be more efficient in what we're doing, especially since women take on so much of the load at home and at work. And my last key takeaway is to check out ladies get paid and to regularly get some of these tips to help you out with your financial future. And that is our show. Thank you so much to Ashley for joining us. Obviously this was a really fun discussion. If you liked this episode, I hope you'll share it with someone who could benefit from hearing some of these bits of wisdom and I hope that you'll review the podcast, subscribe to the podcast and as always, thank you for letting me be honest with you. Thank you, Ashley for keeping me honest, and I look forward to seeing you next week.