Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
No one has it all figured out. And anyone who says they do? Well, they’re lying.
This is for the women who are trying. Trying to juggle all the things. Trying to make sense of what they actually want. Trying to keep their heads above water without losing themselves in the process.
Career. Money. Relationships. The pressure to do it all. The pressure to want it all. And the moments you secretly wonder, is it just me?
Here we speak openly, laugh through chaos, and ask questions instead of pretending to have all the answers.
Because we’re all a work in progress.
Shali Reed (00:00):
I think what happens to a lot of people is they go through enough trauma at a certain point or period in their life that forces them to really reflect on the decisions they're making and sometimes compels them to pivot.
Gayle Kalvert (00:16):
This is Work in Progress. I'm your host, Gayle Kalvert, and yes, I'm a work in progress. Hello and welcome to Work in Progress. Today we're talking to Shali Reed, COO of The Reeder, mom of two, creator, and former customer success leader in the tech industry. Shali's going to talk to us about why she left corporate to join forces with her husband, how she manages raising two toddlers with everything else in her life, and why she decided to bet on herself. We also talk about the fun stuff like her skincare routine. So stick around to the end of the episode. Shali, it is so amazing to have you here today. I'm super excited about the many topics that we're going to cover from going from corporate to entrepreneurship to teaming with your husband, having kids, and how you make all that work, or quite frankly, how that might be going. Maybe it's not working all the time, and we're going to talk about that too. But before we get into it, can you just introduce yourself quickly?
Shali Reed (01:16):
My name is Shali Rana Reed. I am Chief Operating Officer at The Reeder, which is a company my husband and I own. I am a mother of two beautiful, strong girls, but they're little, so four and two. We are in the thick of it from a parenthood perspective as well as in our business, and so ask me any questions you want there and I'm super excited to talk about motherhood, the workplace, how you work with your partner and everything that you're going to throw at me. So I feel like I am being interviewed by Oprah's best friend, Gayle, right now, so...
Gayle Kalvert (01:50):
I'm excited to learn from you. We have a ton in common and so it'll be interesting to see, right, I'm sure where we're handling things differently and I can learn a ton from you. You started, like I mentioned earlier, in corporate, you had a really successful career in the tech industry, so that of course begs the immediate question, why did you take the leap from something that presumably, right, feels really safe to a lot of people and there are probably people listening and watching that are maybe thinking the same. Can you share a little bit about why you made that leap in the first place?
Shali Reed (02:25):
Yeah, absolutely. So for context, I have been in the tech space for 15, 16 years. That whole time I was in the customer success field, so a revenue-focused CSM focusing on renewals as well as expansion targets. My last job, I was Director, so I was running a team of CSMs, and I think what happened, and I think what happens to a lot of people is they go through enough trauma at a certain point in period in their life that forces them to really reflect on the decisions they're making and sometimes compels them to pivot. So what I mean by that is I was at this director role in-house. Everything was going great, had a lovely team. My boss was fantastic, shout out to Jeff Mills, but the reality was it was my third pregnancy and we had a stillbirth at 32 weeks. It was a situation where the baby was completely healthy, but in a twist of fate, there was a knot in the umbilical cord and her name was Raya.
(03:31):
She didn't come earthside to join the team, even though she's still very much on the team. And so when that happened, I already had two other smaller children, so I think our kids were one and three at the time, our third teammate decided to tap out. And so that was a really pivotal moment for me, and you go through a range of emotions. So we, I think were initially done at two and then we got pregnant and then we were really excited for a third. We really wanted to grow the squad. And when that didn't happen, I think it really makes you reevaluate the things that you're holding near and dear. And for me, I just couldn't put in 40 hour work weeks for somebody else when the thing that I wanted to focus and invest on was right in front of me and I couldn't focus on my children in their best hours and my best hours because I was giving those best hours to my employer.
(04:32):
And so that really forced me to look internally and say, what do I want? Where do I want to spend my time and energy? What are the things that are most important to me? Because I can sit here and make somebody else's dream come true, but then my dreams always sit on the back burner, and I think I was tired of sitting on the back burner. Then we took a bet on ourselves and we said, okay, well if we're so good at our jobs, could we do this for ourselves? Turns out the answer was yes, we could do that for ourselves.
Gayle Kalvert (05:05):
Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. That is unbelievably traumatic, and I'm sure there are many, I mean, I know personally who have experienced similar trauma and pivoting is something that makes so much sense and that could be done in a lot of different ways. I love how you're making yourself and your family a priority. Something that we touched on when we were speaking prior was you made this decision to do that with your spouse. There are a lot of ways where people can choose themselves and make these changes, and for you to do that and run a business with your spouse, how does that work for you and Devin?
Shali Reed (05:46):
Yeah, so this also deserves a little bit of context. I will say that Devin and my relationship started because I was his first boss out of college. So I had hired him because I saw his potential and I just thought, Hey, if somebody opened the door for this guy, where would he go? And naturally at that time I wasn't thinking how far would Devin go? I was just thinking that this human is intrinsically motivated and they just need an opportunity. Let me be the one to give that opportunity because somebody gave me that opportunity and so I was paying it forward. And so I always knew that he was going to be able to apply himself and he was self-motivated because he had the right kind of chip on his shoulder to help him get to where he was going to go. So that's how our relationship started.
(06:35):
And then through the years, we reconnected after a couple of years and then we got married, and so we actually started The Reeder back in 2016. So we had been building this while also building our W-2s while also building life, getting married, having kids, all of that stuff. And what we realized was we just tapped out at a certain point due to lack of availability, we have this business, we're tapped out in the low six figure range because neither one of us have the time, energy to be able to put in as much as we want. After our W-2s, I was working full time, he was working full time, and then we were parents of young kids full time. Again, it's like, okay, this is part of the decision-making process when you're thinking about who am I betting on? Why am I betting on them and what is that return going to get me?
(07:30):
We weren't satisfied with our answers, and so then we needed to reexamine, reevaluate. And working together has been great for us because I feel like we can compartmentalize things. So when we are spending 30 minutes to talk about the business, we're only talking about the business when maybe we need to do a walk and talk to ideate for creative ideas. We're only ideating for creative ideas when we need to schedule who is doing pickup and drop off for events and school and whatnot. We're only talking about those things. And I think both of us, Devin probably better so than me, he does a really good job of saying, actually, this is the thing we're talking about right now. This is the thing that we need to focus on. This other thing that you want to talk about, let's schedule some more time for that. And so it's just being able to do that.
(08:18):
And I will say a lot of our meetings happen when we're driving both of our kids around trying to get them to nap, and that just works for us. You have to take the emotion out of some of these things. So it's really easy to get caught up because of X, Y, and Z thing that happened before or something that you're thinking about that's going to happen in the future. But I think being present, being intentional with your use of time has just really worked well for us because time is the most limited factor and we want to make sure that the majority of Devin's time is going to our clients, it's going to our sponsors, it's making sure that we are giving back to the community that is pouring into us.
Gayle Kalvert (08:59):
As you were talking, it made me think about, of course there's how do you make it work, but I don't think it's actually necessarily a fit for everyone.
Shali Reed (09:07):
Absolutely.
Gayle Kalvert (09:08):
To work with their spouse. Yeah. Is there anything that you can give to people as tips? You mentioned that Devin is self-motivated, which is so key to being a successful entrepreneur. That seems like an obvious one to me. If you're in this situation running a business together, you both really need that drive. But are there other skills that you think either you should make sure either you have or you learn to do this kind of co marriage family work?
Shali Reed (09:37):
I would say consistency beats everything. So one of our biggest challenges I would say sometimes is communication. And I'm talking about me not being able to communicate at the level that Devin wants sometimes because I'm in the numbers and in the spreadsheets and in the contracts, sometimes I can get bogged down in the details and he reminds me like, Hey, level up the conversation so that I'm just getting the pieces that I need that are most important to me. And so that I think is something that we are constantly learning from each other is what are the little ways that we can pivot our communication style, our working style, how can we iterate on this process together, sometimes independently and then presenting to ensure that we are moving forward. And I think what sometimes couples feel is that when they feel that friction, they tend to shy away from it and they say, oh, this can't work because there's a little bit of friction.
(10:36):
Actually, no, it's just like the workplace. When you have a coworker that's really hard to deal with or maybe one that's not as open to receiving ideas, what does your boss tell you to do? Continue to work with that individual until you figure out a style that works for both of you. And it's the same for a husband and wife, couple or a couple that is together that is also doing business. Whatever that version looks like for you, you have to keep chipping at it. You have to keep progressing, failing forward, working on it in order to become successful. And so that's definitely something that we are constantly working on is how can I make sure I'm giving him the right amount of information in the most concise way possible and I am leaving off with to-do or action items that are necessary if there are some, and it's always going to be a work in progress. Everything needs iteration, your sales process needs iteration, your internal documentation needs iteration, your employee satisfaction, serving needs iteration. So you have to keep working on those things.
Gayle Kalvert (11:46):
You have so much emotional maturity, and I think that in itself is a huge key to success across the board. Nevermind being an entrepreneur or anywhere, I'm thinking as you're talking about team members in the workplace. And I think that that emotional maturity to know that all of us are work in progress and iterating, all of these words are such important. I think aspects to remember in our marriage, in our workplace, how to move forward like that. It's awesome. But yeah, there's no debate that having toddlers is just a ton of work no matter how you slice it. So how do you make that work? Come on, you're a mom, you're running a business and being an entrepreneur does just involve a ton more brain time. There is no one telling you Sometimes I really miss the annual review. It was very clear what I needed to achieve. We were going to overachieve it, no problem. And now it's on us as entrepreneurs to decide what the goals are and where you're going and the vision and how do you do that and also be a present mom.
Shali Reed (12:56):
I'm doing it by the way that works for us, and I hope that that raises some stellar human beings, but we will only tell what time. So how do I do it all? Well, I am exhausted. I am overworked, overwhelmed, overstimulated over touched all of the overs. I feel them all the time, but I think that again, I'm being intentional with how I want to set up my day and time. And so to me, I can focus on the business Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM because my kids are in preschool and I have this time where I can sit down and really think and get creative and do podcasts and engage with the audience on LinkedIn. And so that I would say is a little bit of me time where I'm not just teaching young kids how to wipe their butts or make a snack or bake or whatever project that we're doing.
(13:57):
I get to have real conversations with adults like yourself and then also feel like I am contributing back to society. And so I am still very much going on this transformation journey of who I am, what am I doing, what am I building, all of that stuff, even though it's under the guise of The Reeder, but I'm not a LinkedIn personality yet. Whereas I would say Devin is 1000% a LinkedIn personality. And so I'm just giving myself grace in this space. I don't know how I do it all, but I want to make sure that when I'm with my kids, I'm present and I'm there, and even if it's just coloring or watching lizards scurry around our backyard, we're doing that. And then when I'm at work, I want to make sure that I'm giving work undivided attention, but I'm not working full-time. And then after the kids go to sleep, I can go back to working a couple hours.
(14:56):
But again, it's still going to be part-time because again, that was the intentional decision that Devin and I made to say, we think it's really important for parents to be present with their children actively between zero and eight. This is just a number that I threw out there. And so we're working with that. So why did I do that? Because I love observing my kids and they are in this phase where they have an insatiable hunger for knowledge. And so how are they going to get better? They're going to get better if we invest that time and energy in them. And because that is our number one priority, that's where we need to spend the best hours of our day nurturing and growing those children. And so Devin does work. I work part-time and that fuels the business. And it's enough for what we have going on right now where we don't need to do a lot.
(15:51):
Now as the business continues to grow, it presents different opportunities of potentially traveling, being on site with clients and some of those things. And then in those cases, we do really look at the schedules and say, does it make sense for me to go to this thing? If it doesn't make sense for me to be there, then I don't need to be there. But if it does make sense for me to be there and there is a positive business outcome we can drive to, I'm going to do that. And so we made the move when we went full-time on our business, we also moved from Dublin Bay area to San Diego, and we did that intentionally because I have a lot more family in San Diego, and so we could have a lot more of our community lean in to helping us raise our kids so that we could focus on the business a little bit more. I compartmentalize my time and then I just do the best that I can really.
Gayle Kalvert (16:38):
You mentioned three things that I think are really important. Number one, you were intentional when you started with how much time you were going to work
(16:46):
And not work, and you're not creeping into that and changing that. You're not getting pulled into working more than part-time, for instance, and then you're really seeming to keep that boundary. You mentioned having family around, so not everybody has family that could support them, but having a community, some kind of support system, so important I think. And the third thing you said that I adhere to strictly is not working when I'm with my family and not being with my family when I'm working. So not answering texts or work slacks or whatever it is when I'm with my kids and just being there fully for them. That's a really important thing to model for our children who are growing up in a world where phones and devices are just part of their world. To show that you can cut from your phone, you can disconnect no matter what you're doing, whatever your work situation looks like, how do you balance work and family?
(17:48):
So I certainly appreciate that. And of course you're talking about your kids. That brings us right into motherhood. And one of the areas where you and I also sort of had similar experiences, I completely ignored my own identity, if I'm honest. When I had my first child, I was just so excited. It was going to be amazing. I was going to be a successful corporate person and I was going to have a baby and everything was going to be great. Well, that didn't work out. So I found myself well into her first year around eight months old where I had a complete basically depressive breakdown. For me, that was what had to happen for me to realize unfortunately like, whoa, something's up and I need to figure out what. But in that process thankfully worked out well. I had to find my own identity again. I think this happens to a lot of moms thrown into having kids and we can read all about it, but it's really hard to know how it's going to be until you experience it. What did that look like for you?
Shali Reed (18:55):
It's a really broad topic, and so you can niche down in one area, but it's not doing justice to kind of all of the other areas. And so what I would say is that none of the books prepare you for any of the hormonal imbalances that you are going to experience while also being heavily responsible for a child that needs all of the support from you. And so the only way women learn that is through experience. And the only way that we can build the programs and the systems that are needed for support is by cracking that seal wide open and talking about those things. So in my experience, I think therapy is so important for everybody. I've been going to therapy since I was 27, so I'm going on year 14 of therapy. So that's one thing. If you pick up weights to exercise your arm muscles, you better pick up a therapist to exercise your brain muscle.
(19:56):
That's just as simple as it is. That being said, after I started having kids, I lost myself so completely that I wasn't even going to therapy. I was just in the day in day out of either being pregnant, being sick from being pregnant, running after a child, running after another child, trying to heal my body. And then, oh, by the way, all of this was happening during the pandemic. So my first baby came and then my second baby came post vaccine. But we did everything during COVID because we didn't have anything else to do. And so for me, I was four years into this lost feeling before I recognized I was lost. And the way that I recognized it was because my therapist said it to me, my first therapy session or maybe my second, she looked at me and she said, what's your identity after mother?
(20:48):
And I just looked at her with a blank look on my face, and I was like, what are you talking about? And she's like, okay, well motherhood is just another checkbox in the sheet of all of the things you're going to accomplish in life. What are you after mother? And I was like, I don't know, because I just thought I died with the title of mother. I thought this was the last stop and I didn't realize that I could accomplish more in life because I thought that was the pinnacle. And she said, no, it's like a wonderful milestone. And then now you have to continue your life's purpose. And I was like, well, what's my life's purpose? And she's like, well, you need to figure that out. And so that's the work I'm doing is trying to figure out what is my life's purpose? And if we're linking that back to LinkedIn, I think I'm at this point where I want to empower other people to reclaim their voice.
(21:43):
I'm not going to go down politics, but I think we have an administration that's doing a lot of work to suppress a lot of different voices that actually need to be amplified more. And I want to give those groups courage to be bold. I want them to feel empowered to say their thoughts, to walk the walk, to talk the talk, to do the things that they are holding back from, because that's what's really going to help you unlock your potential. I'm not doing it for me. I'm going to keep doing whatever I'm doing and I'm going to keep going wherever my path and my journey is going to take me. But what about you? What are the things that you are standing up for? And if you need somebody to just give you a little bit of encouragement, a bump, I want to do that.
(22:31):
And so I'm going to say the things that nobody else is going to say because for the first time, I don't have to worry about my boss firing me. I'm not worried about is this going to affect my paycheck? And I understand that a lot of people are not in that same seat, but could you be in a version of that where you are building your brand, your audience, you're building something in public on whatever social media platform you choose that can help you build a life that you never even imagined you could have? I don't believe in a scarcity mindset. I believe in an abundant mindset, and I think that there is more enough for everybody. And if I can give you the tools through my own journey to get there, I'm going to do that because I don't want to gatekeep.
Gayle Kalvert (23:11):
I feel the same way. There is more than enough for everyone. If there is one thing that I think continues to plague us women, and I don't think it's women's fault, I don't think that this is a negative criticism. It is because we have always experienced the reality of having to fight for the opportunity that we have, that we feel there is a lot out there where women think need to really understand that there is more than enough opportunity for all of us, and if we help all of us rise up, we all do better. So being there to help each other, evolve, grow, be successful, is really going to help everyone.
Shali Reed (23:56):
Absolutely. Take some of that money away from those billionaires and put it in your own pocket. It's straight up.
Gayle Kalvert (24:02):
Cheers. Yes. So I would love to ask you, I have a couple of quick fun questions, girl things, right? If I can spring at you. Okay, so this is a good question because I cannot stop looking at your radiant face. You are glowing, so you need to tell me and everyone, what's your one skincare product that you can't live without? But I guess if you have more than one, you can do that. It's okay.
Shali Reed (24:27):
I'm going to say go down the rabbit hole of Korean beauty on TikTok and just live there. Buy the Korean beauty products. They're phenomenal and they're oftentimes made with natural ingredients. And my goal is only to achieve glass skin, which I have not done yet, but get those Korean beauty products. They're just game changers.
Gayle Kalvert (24:50):
I think you're pretty close there. I think you're doing great.
Shali Reed (24:52):
I mean, your skin looks great too. Let's share your secret.
Gayle Kalvert (24:55):
I agree. We got to share the knowledge. Let's go. No, I'll take everything I can get. I'm heading towards 50, so I'll take it off.
Shali Reed (25:02):
You look phenomenal. Yeah.
Gayle Kalvert (25:03):
Okay. What's your guilty pleasure? Mine is candy. I may hide candy from my children in my nightstand. Now they're going to know. I'll have to find a new hiding spot. But what's your guilty pleasure?
Shali Reed (25:16):
My guilty pleasure, honestly, I love food so much, but I just love really good food. And so I can't say I have any specific one. It just depends on the mood that I'm in. But I love a really good bite of food. It is just, it soothes my soul, it fills my belly. I just love food. So that would be my guilty pleasure. Hands down a hundred percent.
Gayle Kalvert (25:43):
Alright, awesome. I need to get restaurant recommendations from you.
Shali Reed (25:47):
Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it.
Gayle Kalvert (25:49):
Okay. The nineties are everywhere right now. Everyone's watching the nineties shows, they're listening to nineties hit lists. Again, I feel really excited about this. I was in high school in the nineties, but do you have a favorite nineties song?
Shali Reed (26:03):
My favorite song from the nineties is Regulate by Warren G. That is my jammy jam. I am super tone deaf, so I cannot sing to save my life, but I will karaoke that song 100% of the time.
Gayle Kalvert (26:18):
Oh my gosh, Shali, I was in college. I can picture the parties where I was dancing and singing to Regulate embarrassingly all of us. I love that. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Where can everyone find you?
Shali Reed (26:32):
I got to say the pleasure was all mine, but I am on LinkedIn, so Shali Rana Reed, you type in Shali Reed, I think in the URL, but I'm Shali Reed across all the platforms. So I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok. I will say Instagram and TikTok doesn't have as much professional polish as LinkedIn does, so I definitely have different things that I talk about on the different sites. But yeah, find me.
Gayle Kalvert (26:57):
That's awesome. I love it. Thank you so much. I hope that was helpful. If you know someone that you go to for this topic, send them my way. After all, we're just figuring this out together. See you next time.