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Work like you’re not a parent.
Parent like you don’t work.
What if that whole system is wrong?
This is Full Stack Moms, and we are Mallory Lee and Shannon Curran, two working moms navigating tech careers, parenting, and everything in between. We talk about why the traditional rules of work don’t fit modern parents and how women in tech are doing things differently. Through honest conversations and behind-the-scenes stories, this show explores careers, caregiving, ambition, and the messy reality of having it all, just not all at once.
Connect with Mallory: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorylee/
Connect with Shannon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-sweeny-curran/
Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius
www.shareyourgenius.com
(00:00) Mollie Bodensteiner:
I was home one day. My son was like, "Why are you here?" He was just so used to me not being home. And it was just like, oh. There's always in a marriage, I think there's rock and ambition. There's usually somebody who's a little more career focused and the one that is a little bit maybe say family focused. I've always been the ambition and my husband is the better rock and has the better career and things like that to support rock. But he wasn't ever getting a break or relief. It was a really hard decision and realization, but it was just like, guys, I got to be an impressive parent.
(00:35) Mallory Lee:
This is Full Stack Moms.
(00:37) Shannon Curran:
This is not a parenting podcast nor a business podcast, but a place where we talk, building careers in tech, raising kids at home, and making it work in public.
(00:47) Mallory Lee:
Let's introduce Molly. Tell us who you are, Molly. Tell us where you live, tell us about your family, and tell us your job.
(00:55) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Yeah, absolutely. Molly Bodensteiner. I live in Des Moines, Iowa. It's just a great place, great eye state. I have three kids. So I have a daughter, Collins, who is 11, a son Sullivan who's nine, and a five-year-old Griffin. And I have three dogs and a newly acquired cat. And I live in chaos. And my house is the communal neighborhood for all the other codependent children that joined. So fun times in the Midwest. And I lead revenue operations at ZoomInfo, and I've been living in the ops world my entire career.
(01:28) Mallory Lee:
Beautiful. And Molly and I met actually quite a while ago via the interwebs. Yeah.
(01:35) Mollie Bodensteiner:
It's so funny. We pulled the initial email 2016, 17-ish time period where somebody introduced us and the initial emails of just us sending pictures of our kids to each other and being like, being a mom is hard, kind of thing.
(01:50) Mallory Lee:
Oh my goodness.
(01:50) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Literally what it says.
(01:52) Mallory Lee:
Yeah. We should look that up and show it on Instagram or something because I found that too. And I was like, oh. I remember the email. I was like, we have a lot in common. We should stay in touch.
(02:04) Mollie Bodensteiner:
For sure.
(02:05) Mallory Lee:
Cool. Well, anyway, when it's your friend, just like with Shannon, I could talk all day about anything, but we do have kind of a topic and that I think we should go a little deeper on the idea of burnout because we kind of talk about it just on the surface level nearly I think almost every episode. We've had a couple of examples, but I think that we could just go deeper. And this is something Molly and I share this tendency to burn ourselves out. And we probably feed off of each other in a bad way sometimes in that area. But we do also try to defend one another from it. We're always thinking about it, keeping an eye on it. It's like, oh, you're working too much, stuff like that. But there are some stories that I think we could share. And Molly, I thought we could maybe start with talking about the role that you left recently because you truly needed to just prioritize your family.
(03:11) Mallory Lee:
And that was a super brave decision. I just kind of want to hear about it.
(03:15) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Absolutely. And I appreciate, again, the friendship that we were able to have during this time because there's personal burnout and then there's when you're burning out other people. And I think for me, just in that transition period, I had a job that I loved. I had a team that I loved. I had work that I found super fulfilling and really enjoyed the impact that I was making, the opportunity I had. But the extents of that was ultimately burning out my family. It wasn't necessarily I was. Because a lot of times burnout, it's like you're not getting fulfilled, you're not getting those boxes checked. But the demands of the work, which again, I loved and enjoyed, was putting such a strain on my farm and all my codependence with my husband. It was unfair to him, the burden that he was taking on while I was invested in the work and the travel and everything that was going on while I enjoyed it.
(04:14) Mollie Bodensteiner:
I was not to say neglecting, but just wasn't as present as a parent. And I still just remember my kids. And I think your kids are probably your most honest advocates to whether you want them to be or not. I was home one day and my son was like, why are you here? He was just so used to me not being home. And it was just like, oh. And there's always in a marriage, I think there's rock and ambition. There's usually somebody who is a little bit more of the person who's a little more career focused and the one that is a little bit more, maybe say family focused. And I've always been the ambition and my husband is phenomenal. He's just the better rock and has the better career and things like that to support rock. But he wasn't ever getting a break or relief or those types of things.
(05:14) Mollie Bodensteiner:
And you just are missing way too much. And it was a really hard decision and realization, but it was just like, guys, I got to be an oppressive parent. The times are too short and those things and just really hard. And I'm always the mic, man, what are my kids going to say about me in therapy? And trust me, I've probably given them plenty at this point. They're probably covered, but I don't want to keep adding to that. And with my youngest going to kindergarten this year, it's like, I want to be there to pick him up. I don't want the daycare people to ask me whose kid I'm getting. And I'm glad they ID me because it's safety. But they should know I'm his mom and they didn't. And it was kind of embarrassing to say. And I feel like a failure saying it, that I'll be vulnerable on it.
(06:03) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Did
(06:04) Mallory Lee:
That actually happen where they've asked you?
(06:06) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Yeah. Because don't you drop offs and pickups? Which I'm glad they did, but that's hard. I don't want that relationship. I want the school nurse to feel like she can call me and I'll show up if my kid is sick. And I just wasn't able to be as present as I think my kids deserved. There's a choice that I made and let it kind of compound longer than I would've liked it to, and had to make the hard decision to pull back on it. And it was the right decision.
(06:37) Mallory Lee:
I remember when you started traveling a lot, it was to open up offices. It was like, "Oh, I'm going to travel to open this office. I'm going to travel to open this office." So it seemed like it might have a down ramp, but then it just kind of never did.
(06:53) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Yeah. And then it's like when you work in an environment that has an in-office culture and you're not in office, and you want to be in office and tried the best that I could to do day tricks to different offices, which works. It's just travels a lot. And again, I think it just wasn't sustainable, I think is the right thing. And you've got to make the call of can you pull back? Those decision points is like, can you pull back and feel good about what you're doing and still be successful and hold yourself to the bar? Or do you need to pull out and go do something different? And for me, it was like, I think I needed to go reset and do something different. And I mean, Mallory, you know me better than probably most people at this time. You know I work incredibly hard in my care and am higher achiever.
(07:38) Mollie Bodensteiner:
It's just finding the right environment that lets you be successful at that, which did mean narrowing my scope a bit. I
(07:45) Shannon Curran:
Think I've found when I've been in these situations, we had Melissa on a few weeks ago and she talks about my burnout at the end of my time working for her. And there was an opportunity for me to pull back. I just couldn't do it. Once I had seen the taste of what I could have and I was known for being an achiever in that culture at a certain scope, it felt like failure to me to pull back in that same culture. I needed to reset somewhere else where I had my own boundaries. I came in with them. No one knew me as anything other than this new thing I was introducing. I don't know, Molly, if you had that same experience, but you're also still at a big job. It's not like you pulled back and you are working 10 hours a week. You're still running rev ops at a massive company that you have to travel to.
(08:32) Shannon Curran:
It's not like you've just deleted all of it, but percentage-wise it's pulled back a little bit, right?
(08:38) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Yeah, I think, and I did try to pull back. I did give that effort and I was unsuccessful at it. So I think that was like I gave the attempts, couldn't do it, didn't work out. And the other thing is what the business needed is potentially probably what I couldn't continue to give. And that's fair on both parties to recognize that and do this. And then with the move and with the change, I'm doing different work too. So some of it was finding the right type of work and the right type of work environment that just gives me the ability to be successful in the way that I want to be successful and work on the things that I want to be able to work on. So like, well, my scope has changed or maybe narrowed. I think my impact is still really high, but the way that work gets done and how work gets done and where that leverage is and then also the culture and environment that I am in just is set up differently.
(09:31) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Companies don't owe you anything. Jobs don't owe you anything. None of that. But I still remember the first meeting I had with the CEO of ZoomInfo, I watched him on a notepad write my kids' names down. Whether he'll remember that or not, I was like, that's really cool. You asked me about my family, you asked me about my kids. I think that stuff goes just a really long, long way into some of the culture. I want my teams to bring their whole selves to work. If you can't, that's a problem. And I just think being in an environment where more people have kids and stuff like that too is a little more, it's sad grace. And it's just like, hey, my kid has a chorus concert this afternoon. I'm going to be offline for two hours. It doesn't mean I'm not getting my work done, but yeah.
(10:14) Mallory Lee:
It's empathy. It's like, yeah, I have pickup too. We all have pickup. It's great for everybody who's able to take the 20 minutes or 30 minutes to go do that during the day.
(10:24) Mollie Bodensteiner:
And the flexibility and not feeling, I mean, because geez, I think if you describe motherhood almost in one word, I don't know what words you'd use, but mine would probably be guilt. And you're kind of just like - Molly. Is that bad to say joy? Yes. Joy. It's joy. But you feel almost guilty because you can't do everything you want to be able to do. And with three kids, it's trying to prioritize at any point in time of this. And it's trying to just get over the, damn, we're doing the best that we can do, but we also can't do it all.
(11:04) Shannon Curran:
It's also teaching them the lesson that they'll never be able to either though. I think there's this really beautiful thing of watching your parents be human beings in a way that's honest. And I think I felt this way. I did my first travel away from my youngest this week, and I felt just like the second I got on the plane, I could not wait for this trip. I've been looking forward to it for months. I was like, I cannot wait because it's been extremely hard to wean her. And I was like, I think I need to fly to the West Coast to do that.
(11:33) Mollie Bodensteiner:
I just need to get away.
(11:34) Shannon Curran:
I know. And I always feel really empowered when I'm traveling for work. I feel very like myself again, parts of myself that I'm, I don't know.
(11:44) Mallory Lee:
You're very good at getting through security quickly.
(11:47) Shannon Curran:
Yeah, I am.
(11:47) Mallory Lee:
Those are skills. Those are like -
(11:49) Shannon Curran:
Skills. Yeah.
(11:51) Mollie Bodensteiner:
It's nice to be alone.That to me is just left alone.
(11:56) Shannon Curran:
Yeah. And I also feel really confident in the work that I do. It's a part of me that I feel really good about just myself, not me as a mother, me as a whatever. It's a thing that I feel really good about. But the second I got on the plane, all I wanted to do was look at pictures of my kids. And I'm sitting there and I asked my husband, I was like, "Hey, can you send me a picture of the kids? Can you send me..." And he sent me one. I just start sobbing. I'm like, "Jesus, what am I doing?" I don't think it's bad. I just think it's like your identity now just lives in multiple places and it's like they're not all ever going to be together because there's not space for it. So it's just constantly feeling at odds with whatever identity you're in and just trying to stay as present as you can.
(12:39) Shannon Curran:
That's what I try to tell myself. It's like, just stay present. You'll see them in two days. But Sebastian's going to know a new word by the time I get back. It's like, it's okay. It's just hard.
(12:47) Mollie Bodensteiner:
I know. And I started traveling right after. I mean, I traveled before I had Collins, geez, 11 years ago and consistently have traveled over that time other than the little brief stints during COVID where I didn't travel as much. And one of the things we said as more of an operating model for the family is we didn't do FaceTimes when somebody was traveling or on the road because it just would make too much of noise and distraction to the parent kind of thing who was there and did the same thing when my husband would go on trips and those things. And then as the travel increased and the kids got older, then I really felt absent. Because it's different if it's once a month or a quick thing. But if you're gone every week, it's like you're just really not present. And that was so hard.
(13:32) Mollie Bodensteiner:
And I laughed, Shannon, because when I get on an airplane, I'd go and look at pictures too. I just go back. And I don't know if it's just because you don't have wifi for that little bit during taxi takeout area. And so I was like, I always don't look at. And Mallory gets probably some of them texted to her. I'm like, "Look at you my kid was. Look how fat Griffin is."
(13:51) Mallory Lee:
I tell myself that I'm going to clean up my photos and delete things, but then I end up just looking at the kid pictures. I'm like, "Oh, I can't delete that one. Look how cute they are."
(14:03) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Yeah. I need three copies of this too.
(14:05) Mallory Lee:
We do the same thing, Molly. If people are gone, we do not FaceTime because it just made all the kids so upset and it made everything worse. So we have that same little policy. Interesting. It's
(14:19) Shannon Curran:
Funny, I actually FaceTimed them three times every day.
(14:22) Mallory Lee:
How did it go? Did anyone - The kids
(14:24) Shannon Curran:
Couldn't wait to call me. That's good. They were like, "Mommy, are you on an airplane?" They're also young, right? So I think they don't really understand yet. And so, "Mommy, are you on an airplane? Is it loud?" That was what Sebastika was saying. And then Willow was just going. And you could just see one pigtail literally out of the side of her face just
(14:43) Mallory Lee:
Bobbing around.
(14:44) Shannon Curran:
Yeah. Yeah, it was really funny because I wasn't sure how that was going to go, but I was like, I really wanted to see them. So I was like, "Let's see if we can try." And Sebastian was excited to tell me about what they were doing that day and what they were going to do later. And it's funny when he finally, I flew in late. My flight was delayed. So I got in way after they went to bed. But when they woke up, I was there and Sebastian pops up. He goes, "Mommy, you're off the airplane." And I was like, "I am off the air." I think he though I was on an airplane for three days. He just though I was sitting on an airplane. He goes, "Is daddy on an airplane today?" And I was like, "No, he's at regular work. He's not anywhere." He's like, "Oh, if you're gone, now you're on an airplane." But I think because my kids are younger, I'm sure it'll get more complicated as they get older.
(15:22) Shannon Curran:
They didn't really care.
(15:24) Mallory Lee:
Yeah. The guilt stuff, I mean, obviously it's very prevalent, but it also changes over time too. The things that you end up feeling guilty about or what's interesting now is my kids are old enough that they try to make me feel guilty about certain things, which is just awesome. So I think back to jobs where I've been burnt out. And in those jobs, I would always sacrifice my own wellbeing to get work done. So it would be like, oh, I can't work out today because I have too many meetings. Oh, I can't take a break for dinner because I have a deadline. Oh, I can't do this because of work. There was even a time where I was working out during my lunch break every day. I would pause my workout to answer Slack and then go back to working out. Just the silliest. It was just crazy.
(16:24) Mallory Lee:
And
(16:25) Mollie Bodensteiner:
We do that to ourselves too, right? It's like if I don't answer the Slack, the second it comes in, it's more of a reminder to myself. It's like the world keeps spinning. The person doesn't expect me to answer it immediately. So why do I expect that I have to answer it immediately?
(16:41) Shannon Curran:
I say this to myself every single day. I hold myself to the most insane standard that I don't hold anyone else to. And seemingly no one else holds themselves to either. Right.
(16:54) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Sis, fast.
(16:56) Mallory Lee:
There's always one and it sucks.
(16:59) Shannon Curran:
I know. Well, I guess all the rest of us do. So if we all worked together, it would be probably extremely productive and we'd all burn out and die. But you have to be like, "Hey, I could act more like that guy and still have a job seemingly."
(17:11) Mollie Bodensteiner:
And probably get promoted too,
(17:13) Shannon Curran:
Probably.
(17:13) Mallory Lee:
Don't
(17:13) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Even get
(17:13) Shannon Curran:
Me started.
(17:15) Mallory Lee:
But the best way that I have found to do that, unfortunately, is to hit the eject button, go somewhere else, and you're basically reinventing who you are. Like, "Hey guys, I'm now a person who works out every morning before work. So that's just who I am. Thanks. Bye." And they don't know any different. And so I think that it ends up really helping if you can keep yourself held to that, which luckily I have in my past two companies now. But now Cohen, every morning when I get up to go work out, he wants to guilt me for that. He's like, "Oh, you're going to Shred again?" And I'm like, "Yeah."
(17:53) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Cohen, mom's trying to be healthy. She wants to be here a long time. That's why she's going to work out.
(17:58) Mallory Lee:
I know. He bugs me because he tries to guilt me on these things. And I'm like, "Don't you think that it's good that mommy is going to be healthy and get strong and all these things?" And he's like, "No, I think you should be here."
(18:13) Shannon Curran:
As the baby of the family.
(18:14) Mollie Bodensteiner:
It's 6:00 AM, dude. Go back to bed. Go get yourself some Cheerios. I'll be back in 45 minutes.
(18:22) Mallory Lee:
I know. I know.
(18:24) Shannon Curran:
That's where the guilt is. There's definitely a little bit of some of it, it's acceptable resilience that you're creating in your children, which is that nothing is temporary and they will be okay for 45 minutes without you. But then there's the guilt of feeling like you're missing a lot of things. The line I feel like moves depending on how sensitive I'm feeling, if I can handle it or not.
(18:44) Mallory Lee:
It does move.
(18:45) Mollie Bodensteiner:
The best advice I got when I was talking to people about what my next move should be, and I've always found people whose successful women whose kids have graduated and they've got through that season of life tend to give just really good advice. And one woman that I spoke to was at the beginning of every school year, I sent my kids down and as they got older and it was like, "What are the things that are the most important to you that I make sure that I'm at? Let's identify, is it the chorus concert? Is it the field trip to the zoo? What are those things that we know are going to happen this school year? Because there's always kind of the stuff. What do you want to make sure I don't miss? And let's get that on the calendar, really clearly named, identified upfront too.
(19:35) Mollie Bodensteiner:
And so just trying to really make sure the kids feel like they're driving your engagement a little bit too. That field trip, you got to go on that one, mom. On it. It's on my calendar. It's marked. I know I talk about glass and rubber balls a lot.That's a glass ball. I can't drop. Just really easy advice, but good advice.
(19:57) Mallory Lee:
Yeah. Yeah,
(19:58) Shannon Curran:
I love that.
(19:58) Mallory Lee:
Especially when they get old enough to truly care, to give you that opinion and say, "This is where I really want you to show up." The field trips are the hardest ones. Well, sometimes they don't give you enough notice and sometimes they're most boring thing you could go to.
(20:16) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Sometimes you're going canoeing in 95 degree weather in a swamp. I mean, please don't ask me to do that, Collins. That sounds like a great thing for dad to do.
(20:28) Shannon Curran:
Yeah, I think dad would love that field trip. I think he would love it. I
(20:31) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Think he did love that field trip twice. So perhaps to dad.
(20:35) Shannon Curran:
But it's a really good point because I often feel lately like daycare at the end of every unit, so it's every six weeks we get invited to do something in the classroom and I feel like I'm like, I can't miss it if they don't. I'm like, literally they have no idea. And sometimes it's actually worse if I come because then I leave again and they're like, "My mom's now left me twice today." You know what I mean? It's actually worse. This is where the guilt is some parts of the guilt are definitely self-imposed and some are real where it's like he actually does not know the difference if I'm there or not. But now that Sebastian's a little older, I am going to go to the next one because I think he'll be excited to show me things at school. But my 13-month-old does not know that I'm going to go in and her unit on clothing that they're ending right now because they've been drawing shoes for the last six weeks.
(21:17) Shannon Curran:
She does not. And by drawing, I mean she's been coloring on herself and getting home covered in green marker. It's definitely some of, I love the concept of letting your kids drive because a lot of the guilt that you might have, they might not even notice or care. It might be you just wanting to be places. Yeah, exactly. It's like, "Mom, I never expected you to come to this thing. I actually prefer you're not there," which I'm sure is probably true. I
(21:41) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Think daycares come to these things and they purposely time it at two o'clock-ish on. Well, ours do it at the afternoon. And I'm like, "You're doing this so I take the kid home early. You're purposely doing this so that it's like I'll have donuts with dad in March." It's like life. It's like you guys just want a half day.
(22:06) Shannon Curran:
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, ours are always at the hardest time to make 11 in the middle of the day. So I will have just dropped them off and then I come home and I work for an hour and then I come back and go back. So yeah, it's a -
(22:19) Mollie Bodensteiner:
We did that this week with practice kindergarten and it's from that nine to noon. It's like, okay, cool. I have to get the two other kids where they need to go. So that has to happen. Then I come home and I've got to get my practice kindergartener ready and entertained for 45 minutes before I take him up there. And then by the time I get back, it's like, oh, noon. Okay, well daycare won't feed him lunch now because lunch is at 11. And so I now have to get him fed and into daycare.
(22:53) Mallory Lee:
Oh my goodness. That's terrible. Does
(22:56) Shannon Curran:
He still take a nap?
(22:57) Mollie Bodensteiner:
I mean, they rest at daycare, but my choice is I either take him home and then I've got him home all afternoon. And he's not one who's going to just sit on screens. He's going to want to be entertained and play, which means I'm not going to get anything done. Or I take him to school and then turn around and pick him up three hours later.
(23:15) Mallory Lee:
How far away do you live from your elementary school?
(23:18) Mollie Bodensteiner:
A mile. I mean, so we're not far at all, which is nice.
(23:22) Shannon Curran:
I just found out that the street we live on, our side of the street goes to a different elementary school than the other side of the street. So we live in a town that there's eight elementary schools, nine, a lot. And it goes into five middle schools that goes into one
(23:36) Mollie Bodensteiner:
High school. Five middle school? One high school?
(23:39) Shannon Curran:
Wow.
(23:40) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Is your high school a college campus?
(23:42) Shannon Curran:
No. So there's a vo-technical high school, there's a regular public high school, and then there's a Catholic school that's pretty close. So I feel like the kids end up kind of splitting up. So you have a bunch of options as to what you want to do. And some kids also tuition into, or school choice into other towns. But my town's actually extremely big, which is shocking. Land-wise, geographical area-wise, it's very big. And so we moved to a part of town called Bradford, and I just assumed you'd go to Bradford Elementary. Why would you go anywhere else? And someone told me, they're like, "Oh, well, the odd numbers go to Bradford Elementary. The even numbers go to hunking or something." And I was like, "Oh, okay." But of course it might change by the time my kids are in school. You know what I mean? The districts redistrict all the time.
(24:22) Shannon Curran:
So I'm like, at this point, I don't really know. I'll just be here with my low interest rate that I bought in the pandemic. So I don't know. And
(24:30) Mollie Bodensteiner:
There'll be a million rules around the bus won't pick you up because you live too close to the school, but you got to cross away busy roads. I'm like, "Oh, you have to swim to throw my kids into oncoming traffic. Great." And then they'll be like, "Well, you live on a cul-de-sac, so the bus can't come through the cul-de-sac." It's a ruckus.
(24:51) Mallory Lee:
It is a ruckus. Well, okay, we can't keep talking about school because it's summer right now, and I can't think about it anymore. Here's my question for you guys. In the times where you have truly felt like, okay, I am burned out, I need to change something. How did you know? Because I think that probably the way that people recognize it can be a little different depending on who you are. But then the thing I'm curious about is the Sunday scaries. Is that part of burnout or is that normal? What do you think about that? Because I have questions on that.
(25:25) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Yeah, I don't have Sunday scaries anymore. I think what I had to realize is, and I always say this to my team, is you own your boundaries. My job is to respect them, but the second you don't respect your own boundaries, you allow others to not respect them as well. And so for me, it was making sure I was really clear about what my non-negotiables and what my boundaries are and finding the things that work for me. I know I cannot get offline without having my slots at zero. And it doesn't mean that they're all answered and everything is responded to perfectly. It means they're at least acknowledged and prioritized and I know where I need to go from there or at least closed out. And so that is something I still have to do every day to just know that I feel good signing off for the day.
(26:18) Mollie Bodensteiner:
But on the flip side of that is I learned that from 8:00 to 10:00 is my time every morning. When I can use those two hours every morning, I am happier. I am more accomplished. I'm just more feel set up for the day versus jumping into back-to-back meetings immediately. I had to take back that time and just be really clear. Doesn't mean sometimes I don't have a meeting here and there during those windows, but I'm not just opening my schedule up without a conversation around it. I still will work on weekends. Prior life, it would be 12 plus hour days every Saturday and Sunday. It might be an hour here, an hour there, but it's where I usually am going to do my build time.That's where I want to do more development work or actually building cool shit that's fun. Or it's when I need to really think and be very thoughtful.
(27:11) Mollie Bodensteiner:
I don't have that anxiety feeling going into a Monday morning. And sometimes they do, trust me, depending on the week, but it's not the consistent. Or I don't have the feeling like I'm working till midnight off Friday night just so I can enjoy a Saturday either.
(27:26) Shannon Curran:
I was trying to think about this because I think all of my burnout has come in a slow burn of consistent promises I break to myself. And it's the constant exception of these were my boundaries, but I'll make an exception. This was my thing, but I'll make an exception, but I'll make an exception. And then I look up and I have a life that I did not sign up for. And I've done this to myself. I say all the time that I went out on my own to be on my own terms. If you asked me six months ago, I screwed that up bad. I got to a point where my schedule was a nightmare. I had all these blocks being like, go to the gym, and I just blocked over them. I literally would just block over every single one. And I realized I had to hire an EA, a human being, not Claude Code, chief of staff, bot.
(28:17) Shannon Curran:
Because I ignore the bot. I had to hire a person that was going to hold me accountable to the things that I said that I needed to do for myself.
(28:25) Mollie Bodensteiner:
I miss having an EA. That truly was that human person, which is sad. It's
(28:30) Shannon Curran:
The best money I've ever spent. Being best money. I think of all the things I spend money on. It is like, number one, I just love her. But also it's funny, I've started teaching dance again on Tuesday nights. So I was in the middle of teaching and I see a slack come in from her and I see her go, "We need to reevaluate your perfect week because girl, this ain't it." She literally, she's like, "What have you done? You're not supposed to touch your calendar anymore. You're not allowed to do it because you break promises to yourself." And I think the same thing happened with me earlier in my career, but it's just harder because the business will take as much as you give them.
(29:03) Mollie Bodensteiner:
And they should.
(29:04) Shannon Curran:
And they should. I've managed high achievers before, and it's like a part of that job is managing them not burning out when they're at a certain point in their career, I actually think, because I want to create some boundaries for you if you don't know how to do that for yourself yet. I am actually okay with doing that. And I just lost that layer and was directly reporting into the executive suite. And so I was just like, "Burn, burn, burn. I can do it all and I can do it to the better than anybody else." And I just had this ridiculous need to show my value. It got me really far in my career. It was good for me, but I crashed and burned. The thing is, once you get to burnout, it's impossible to come back from. And like I was just saying, in that environment, it was so hard.
(29:46) Shannon Curran:
My perception of everything was kind of skewed. I couldn't get myself out of this place. And so you learn every time though. You learn every single time about what you want to do differently the next time. Or luckily I was able to. I set my own expectations with my clients like I don't bill by hour for a reason. I don't think that's not a good economic model for anybody, but it does mean I have to decide how much I'm going to give or not give. It's this dance of am I providing enough value? Am I doing enough for you? What are you needing? It's this dance that's really hard and it's a constant thing I need to consistently check in on. But I don't have Sunday scaries anymore either because I don't even know what Sunday is. All my days are kind of like, I work every day, but not every day.
(30:24) Mollie Bodensteiner:
The thing that you said though that really hits is why are we so willing to break promises to ourselves? But we feel so guilty breaking promises to Joe Schmo, AE, who wants you to create a new pick list value immediately. And it's like, why am I okay jumping for him, but I'm not okay with I need to go take a 45-minute walk and just not have my phone and go listen to an audiobook to be in a good head space to come back and deliver. When did he become more important than me? And I don't have a good answer for that one to be fully honest with you. And again, Joe, not that you're not important, but at some point though, that's kind of how it shakes up though. When we are doing those things, like you mentioned, I'm looking at Slack while I'm running my workout class.
(31:14) Mollie Bodensteiner:
I'm pausing what I'm trying to do to do this. I'm at this chorus concert trying to type emails. When did we make the decision that's more important? Because we're making that decision. I don't know how to break it, but you got to just shift the mindset. I probably need to have my phone get thrown in awake or something like that.
(31:33) Mallory Lee:
For me in the past, I told myself, oh, I needed to get this deal done. Because sometimes in rev ops, you're the deal desk, you're helping with the paperwork and you're getting things done and you're pushing things through and it's the end of the quarter and everything's crazy. End of quarter, I used to lock myself in my office for three days and not even really come out. I think that's the time that I would most often physically neglect my own body because I was like, this deal isn't going to get done if I'm not helping. And that's silly and wrong. And I don't know, I don't think it was ever correct, but that's what I would tell myself is that I was so needed. And I think when you're a high achiever and then even a mom, there's this feeling of feeling needed that does feel good.
(32:21) Mallory Lee:
And if it happens to be a time where you're away from your family, maybe their needs are not right at your feet, but then the business's needs are at your feet. And it's like, okay, now I'm feeding this. And you get swept up in it. And then before you know it, you're laying on your office therapy couch and passing out.
(32:48) Mollie Bodensteiner:
And I think for me as a leader, the mindset I needed to get to is I used to look at leadership and high achievement of needing to be involved in everything. And now I've tried to really change the perspective of, and I talk to my team about this all the time, is leverage. I think the best way that I can be a leader is I have the right leverage and I've built the right team and I'm supporting the right team that you don't have to be involved in everything. And I shouldn't be involved in everything. I'm involved in the right things. And they know how to pull me in to what those right things are when it's the call and where they need support, escalation, thought partner, those things. I think that was something that I really struggled with in the peak of where I was burned out is I didn't have leverage and I didn't have a leverage layer and I didn't have probably that secondary high performing management director layer under me that I had confidence in and consistency with.
(33:51) Mollie Bodensteiner:
And I think that has been a huge change. And it takes time to get there and develop that without that, you can be scread so thin because you're going to be that person who has to be the hero all the time. And being able to actually be the coach is what leadership looks like. And it also is what allows you to grow your career too. Otherwise you start to, and I think high performing women get in this rut where they don't get promoted and they don't get these things because it's like she's Ms. dependable and she's missed always going to be there and she's going to be the one who does all the things. And her plate is still full. She's so full. She's so busy right now. She can't take any more and we can't take anything. We don't know how to help her get things off her plate because she won't give anything up because she loves it.
(34:39) Mollie Bodensteiner:
And it's this like, and we do it to ourselves is the thing that's so fricking annoying about it. You just hurt yourself when you do that and you hurt your team and you hurt others. And I think things that I've really focused on is leverage and accountability. I think the kindest thing you can do for anybody in your life is hold them accountable. That might mean that they fail, but they're accountable.
(35:03) Shannon Curran:
I had a client say to me this week, I visited them in person. I don't often talk to my clients that I have other clients. I don't really mention them. I guess that's not obvious. It's just a
(35:11) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Personal preference. And now you did and now they all know and you have a secret family.
(35:16) Shannon Curran:
Well, it's funny. One of them literally said, "You're seeing other boys."
(35:19) Mallory Lee:
You're seeing other people.
(35:20) Shannon Curran:
You're seeing other boys. I'm like, "Yeah, a lot of boys. I see a lot of them. That's unfortunate." I did say to them, we were at dinner with the executive team and they asked, they're coming up on a certain milestone I usually graduate clients at, but they've approached me about wanting to stay on longer. And I'm like, "Okay, no problem. It's fine. I'm not going to fire you. We're good. We're in good position. It's fine." And the head of go-to-market was like, "I don't know how you do it, but I've never even thought about the fact that you're a fractional. You're always there." And I was like, "Well, the challenge for me," this reminded me, Molly, when you were talking about leverage, is that my job is to be present for the most critical moments where I can provide the most value. And so what I think about is how can I create.
(36:05) Shannon Curran:
I've done this for the last two and a half years, so I do it with the same size company over and over and over. So I have my interlocks that I know are really critical and important. I know when they need my acumen versus something else. And then I know how to build the structure and the team to be able to execute on the work, and I know how to oversee it. It falls apart sometimes when something goes wrong, which is fine, because of course that does happen. It's okay. Because I know that this is not a machine. These are human beings, and I love that about this. That's why I like working. I like the people part of work. Shocking. I know. But I think that it's really critical for me to say I don't need to be sitting on Slack all day for eight hours to be useful.
(36:43) Shannon Curran:
It's like I know when I'm useful to you and when I'm not. I am really reachable, too reachable, which is another issue I deal with, but it's just my personality and I like it. And so I'm glad it feels valuable to them as it feels valuable to me.
(36:56) Mollie Bodensteiner:
But they also probably know when to bring you in too in the right way. So I think that's to the point that you said is you're always around, but maybe you're really not. You're just around really when it matters the most and that's when it counts, right?
(37:11) Mallory Lee:
All right. Super lightning round, save of the week.
(37:13) Shannon Curran:
Yes. So I actually am going to say FaceTime. So I know that has been a topic here for us that everyone has just really different relationships with when they're traveling, but it was amazing to get to hear Sebastian. He finally can talk to me through the phone and tell me things that happened. It was a huge save for me on my trip to feel like a little bit of the dopamine of seeing my kids and feeling connected to them and them getting to see me work, which I think is really good because I work in the house. So I think that was good for them.
(37:39) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Mine is Jenny. So Jenny, one of the things that, again, good advice somebody gave me is invest in the stuff you don't want to do. Just pay for somebody to do it. And just having somebody come and pick up my house. Just the amount of joy I get on Wednesdays is still carried over to Friday. My house is still not clean anymore, but for a moment, it was there.
(38:04) Mallory Lee:
My day this week is going to be Ms. Taylor. So she's our second nanny. And usually these past few summers we've had just Ms. Lauren all day, every day. Well, this summer she's expecting. So she wanted to work three days a week, so we added another nanny on Mondays and Fridays. So Taylor is one of Lauren's friends. And I did not go through any sort of formal interview process with her because I kind of already knew her and I was like, "Sure, bring her on. You guys coordinate amongst yourselves. As long as I don't have to arrange which one of you is here, two nanny system works great." And it actually has worked great. So we're halfway through the summer and Ms. Taylor has been a very good addition. And so yeah, shout out to her this week, I think. Well, we finally did it, Molly.
(38:49) Mallory Lee:
Thanks for coming.
(38:50) Mollie Bodensteiner:
We did it. Love you. We did it. All right.
(38:52) Shannon Curran:
Thanks for gracing us with your presence, Molly. It's been an honor. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Full Stack Moms.
(38:59) Mallory Lee:
We'll be back with more episodes that help you see you're not crazy and you're not alone. If we might be your people, please make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
(39:09) Mollie Bodensteiner:
The first time we met, we shared a hotel room in New Orleans together. The best part about it is Mallory gets out of the shower in a towel and walks behind me while I'm doing an interview with a candidate.
(39:21) Mallory Lee:
I don't think that I
(39:23) Mollie Bodensteiner:
Realized - You were ducked, but you didn't duck far enough.