Women in the Arena
Women in the Arena is the celebration of everyday women living extraordinary lives in plain sight. We seek to inspire, encourage and challenge you to reach for the great heights you're made for.
Women in the Arena
Reinvention Isn't Optional: Lesley Jane Seymour on the FU 50s & Beyond
Lesley Jane Seymour's remarkable career spans leadership roles at major women's magazines like More, Marie Claire, and Redbook—but it's what she's doing now that might be her most impactful work yet. In this candid conversation, Lesley shares how she convinced Michelle Obama to make history as the first First Lady to guest edit an entire magazine, generating 8.5 billion media impressions worldwide.
What drives a successful magazine editor to become an entrepreneur focused on women in midlife? Lesley explains her passion for helping women navigate what she calls "the FU 50s"—that liberating period when we finally stop seeking universal approval and embrace authentic self-expression. "I don't have time for that anymore," she explains. "Time is running out...you can't make people like you. And that is the biggest liberation of all."
The employment landscape for women over 40 is challenging, with statistics showing flat employment numbers while men's opportunities continue to grow. Lesley founded Covey Club to address this gap, creating a supportive community where women can upskill, network, and reinvent themselves. She delivers hard truths about technology skills gaps that hold many midlife women back: "95% of issues have to do with not understanding technology." Yet she approaches these challenges with compassion, teaching in ways that respect how this demographic learns.
Perhaps most surprising is Lesley's insight that reinvention often happens more successfully among strangers than with longtime friends. "Reinventing yourself with strangers is easier because you can show up day one as who you want to be," she explains. At Covey Club, women arrive without judgment or history, free to become whoever they choose next.
Whether you're facing empty nest syndrome, career transitions, or simply seeking your next chapter, Lesley's wisdom offers both practical guidance and emotional reassurance. As she says, "Midlife is not for sissies...don't go it alone." Ready to discover what's possible in your next act?
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me again this week. This week, we are joined by a remarkable and accomplished woman. My guest this week is Leslie Jane Seymour, and she is the former editor-in-chief of Moore, marie Claire and Redbook magazines. Under her leadership of Moore magazine, it grew to 1.5 readers and she created history by having the first lady of the United States, michelle Obama, to guest edit the entire issue. This led to 8.5 billion media impressions worldwide. She's also the author of two books. She's the founder of Covey Club two books. She is the founder of Covey Club and she is the host of the podcast Reinvent Yourself another powerful voice for women in midlife who are rediscovering and reinventing themselves. It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you Leslie Jane Seymour. Leslie, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
Leslie :It's funny Moore the name Moore with the magazine, talk about a disaster for SEO and all that, and you couldn't even search for anything. You'd be like try to find your clips and it'd be like search for more. Everybody has more. You know, it's like French fries and more so. It's just you know. It was made in a different century, when there was no such thing as computers and digital.
Audra :Nobody even thought about that. No, why would anybody start thinking, oh, let's create a magazine called More. Oh, I know, I know. Why would anybody start thinking, oh, let's create a magazine called More. Before we dive into today's topic, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you why were you so thoughtful and think you know what? I have this idea I'm going to have the first lady edit the entire edition of this magazine. First of all, that is brilliant. Segnaval has now been copied over and over and over again. So good on you for being groundbreaking. But why did you have this brave idea? I mean, she's a brilliant woman, Right? No one had ever thought of that, and it now seems so obvious.
Leslie :Right.
Leslie :Well, this is what happens when you have to sell hundreds of thousands of magazines every month. And we had had her on. It was the fourth time on the magazine and I had to come up with a new angle. Like you can't just do. And everybody else was doing interviews with her, so like, why should someone pick up more? We've already had her. She was a bestseller, so how do you make a bestseller? A more interesting thing and luckily for me, she had a new PR person who I went down to Washington to see and we kind of we were like circling around each other like this, like I had this crazy idea. I had a list of crazy ideas.
Leslie :I'm always people who worked for me when I ran Marie Claire, we used to have crazy idea meetings, which was come and give me your most insane idea, don't worry about whether it's practical or we can afford it. I'll figure that out later. You know you want to write Marie Claire on the tail of an airplane. If that's going to, you know, create thing, let's worry about the logistics later. Anyway, so I go down there and we have, we're having lunch and I said I have these crazy ideas and she's like well, we're looking for some crazy ideas. I'm like, no, you don't think you're looking for this kind of crazy idea. I'm like I'm so afraid to say it Cause I know when I say it, when I say I mean to ask a first sitting first lady to edit a magazine.
Leslie :I mean, many, many celebrities had edited quote unquote, edited magazine ahead of time, but never a first lady. They'd been on the cover or they'd had a story done on them and there was no way she was going to do it. How was she going to have time? And I really wanted her to do it. It wasn't going to be that we did the whole thing and just stuck her name on the front, whole thing, and just stuck her name on the front. And, hilariously, it was literally one of those I'll show you mine if you show me yours, kind of things where she was like no, go, just hit me with it and I'm like you know, like, and so I throw it out there and she goes oh, that was kind of like on our list for something. I'm like really, anyway, when it happened and she said you know, I'm going to bring it back to her, let me see what you think I had to get back on the train to go back to New York and so I called my publisher that had a tremendously big mouth and I said you, on pain of death, you may not say anything, but I think I clinched the deal of the century and in the end it was, and it wasn't until we didn't do it because we thought it was making history, it wasn't until we were well into it and she actually did all the editing.
Leslie :I mean, it was all her ideas, all her articles, all her contacts. We facilitated the whole thing. We spent a lot of time up down in Washington and her PR team was fabulous and we oh no, I lost my train of thought and we oh, now I lost my train of thought. Where was I going? It's one of those days, sorry, but it was an amazing, amazing product and an amazing event. Oh, it was that we didn't go into it with the idea of it being history. It was later on, full into it, that my PR person came up and he said you know, has anybody ever done this before? And I'm like I don't know. So he goes and he looks it up Like no one had ever done it. The first ladies had been on covers, but they'd never, ever, guest edited a magazine, so it was a huge get and that's why the publicity was so enormous. Didn't stop them from closing the magazine no, but it was historic and amazing and, like you know, sometimes you don't know where you're headed until you get there.
Audra :But isn't that remarkable though? I mean, it's now been copied, yeah, in various different formats and different situations, but you were the first, yeah.
Leslie :No, and not intentionally. It was just. I was just looking for a new, crazy thing to to do something different. I'm always interested in something different and my husband gets bored with that when I'm like can we go to another restaurant? I don't want to go to the same one, let's go somewhere different. It's like, but we have the ones we like. I'm like no, but I want to go different. It's just part of my personality always looking for something new and different.
Audra :It's just part of my personality, always looking for something new and different. Well, my friends will often hear me say crazy ideas are my favorite.
Leslie :Oh, really, yeah, Well, we did one. I'll tell you we did. We got so crazy. Do you remember when Tina Tina Brown put what's her name? Pregnant Oof? And I'm forgetting her name, demi Moore, mm-hmm Pover, naked, painted, yes. So we decided to take that one step further at Mary Claire. At Mary Claire, we were doing basically, um, you know, real, real life media and events we called them stunts way before reality TV took off and so we took that idea and we spun it into. You know, new Yorkers are so blasé that we hired a model, we painted her. She was naked except something around the nipples and around the crotch, but she was completely naked otherwise, and we took her through the day in New York, we put her on the subway, we did all this stuff, the most hilarious photos, and, of course, new Yorkers nobody came up. We have pictures of guys on the subway in the morning going down to Wall Street, and you can see they're pretending to read their newspaper, but they're actually looking at this woman, but no one says anything.
Audra :No one says like, are you doing any clothes on? And we thought we might get arrested. No one arrested us. I mean so anyway, I was there for a conference and I was in the cab. We were driving through Times Square and there was women in there in Times Square, naked, naked, painted, painted, painted. But they were naked to get their pictures taken. They were wearing those showgirl hats, oh okay, but yeah, it's a normal thing. Now I thought, just a trendsetter, what can I say? Like I said, you were breaking records and making history in all different kinds of ways. You didn't even realize, maybe not so good.
Leslie :Maybe I should take another direction. Yeah, so that's funny. Well, I live in New Orleans now, where literally anything goes, so it's the right place for me. There is a naked bike ride. That is literally what it says, and it is a show and festivities of every frightening body you've ever seen out there in your life, but no one cares. They're proud to show it. You've ever seen out there in your life, but no one cares. They're proud to show it. And why you would want to sit on a bike with that. I have no idea, but it's hilarious Anyway. So I found my peeps right.
Audra :Yeah, and that's just sounds frightening. Yeah, I'm just trying to imagine that I, I no, I just can't. No, I'm in pain sitting. I'm thinking imagine it, this sounds painful. Yeah right, wouldn't you think?
Leslie :Yeah, the hilarious part about it and you can't post it on Facebook because they'll make you take it down. But so the hilarious part about it is they have a police escort and I always imagine the guy who's like okay, joe, you're up for the naked bike ride this year.
Audra :And Joe's like oh, okay, do I get overtime? Exactly, and as I said in your intro, you have this. These are just a couple examples of the remarkable career that you've had. This is just a few. Oh yeah, we've had a crazy time.
Audra :You've had a crazy time, have questioned you, right, but you have chosen to take your time, your talents and your efforts and dedicate them to the demographic that that I speak to, which is women in their 40s and 50s, women just like me, that are me, that that are women that are in midlife, that are either rediscovering themselves or discovering themselves for the first time. They're reinventing themselves. They are, they're in transition. That's right. They are like they could be like me, that are empty nesters and now, suddenly, the world is their oyster and they have all these choices and they don't know where to start. The world is their oyster and they have all these choices and they don't know where to start. There's all kinds of things. Like I said, you could have chosen to do anything, but you chose this group, and I'm curious as to why. Because we are a complex group. We are a fascinating group, but we aren't an easy group, that's okay, that's all right.
Leslie :I mean, it's very hilarious. When I first took over Moore Magazine, which was focused on this group, and you learn, different magazines respond in different ways. I did a teen magazine which was called YM, then I did Redbook, which was Young M, and then Mary Claire and then more, and each one has its own response, attitudes and, hilariously, you know, like a teen magazine, you put somebody they like on the cover and you're like flooded the day it comes out, you're like, oh my God, I love Leo. You know, like all these positive things. Anyway, red Book, same way, Mary Claire, same way you get all this feedback. Even those days it was email and then, of course, it became online blah, blah, blah.
Leslie :Hilariously, when I took over more in 2008, I did my first cover and the things that came back were they were like you've changed the font on page five. I don't like that font. Or it was like crabby. It was like you know, I can't believe you did blah, blah and I was like what Am I going to fail? Like, am I failing? Like it was a two-week thing of failing. And then you got the nice notes later. All the nice notes later came later and it's kind of a crabby time of life. I used to say to my, to my circulation guy, I would say you know we need to do, can we put like we need? So that's why they're so cranky and they're cranky, they're just cranky. And here's a good venting point right, which is you can look at your magazine and of course they're very accomplished so they can see. You know, this font didn't work so well on that page and I was. You know they're all experts. It's not like you're 20 years old and you've never seen Leo DiCaprio before. So it was just a funny crowd and that's OK. What I love about it is everybody's really honest and very direct, and you can be very honest and direct as well and I love that, no holds barred. And the reason why I did it, audra, is because you know, when more closed, I wasn't done and I love, you know, all the other magazines I did. I had to be a teenager, but I was really in my 30s. I had to be. The only one read book was a good match. I was a young mom at the time. But Marie Claire, yes, I wasn't a French fashionista but I was a big fashion person. But then, with more. I got to be the customer and what a it's much more fun. You look, we say you know, you don't have to have cancer to write about it, but it sure helps, right? So if you are the customer, it definitely makes it a lot easier to identify.
Leslie :And when they closed Moore Magazine, I wasn't done. And one of the points of Moore was the rebirth, the idea that you could have a second life. And I found myself saying I could go run another magazine I'd already run for. And what was the point? It was just going to end up in the same situation, because the business was bad and digital was eating its life and the people running the business side of publications in print were just I don't know if they just weren't that bright or they didn't get it or they didn't see it happening. We were on the content side, so we didn't necessarily have control over the business side, but really Facebook and Google ate their lunch and they didn't stop them. So it was very clear like I either was going to go do something else completely or I was going to try to figure out how to keep doing what I love to do, which is connecting with women like you and helping women. See, I mean, I think this is the greatest time of life. Frankly, I am so happy that we are in the FU 50s plus.
Leslie :I'm now in my 60s, but it was such a joy to get to the point where, you know, when I started in my 20s and I was at Vogue, every time I walked into the copywriting room, you know, the girls didn't look up at me. That one gave me a side, this one, you know, and it was like this constant like why does so-and-so hate me? So-and-so didn't look at that. It was just all this outside, like I couldn't control it. I couldn't make people like me, no matter what I did. It was all this just angst and worry.
Leslie :And then you do cross over. That's the beauty of midlife is, you do cross over where you're like I don't give a shit anymore. You know what Time is running out, I don't have time for that. You either like me or you don't like me. You're not going to like me because you just don't like my face. So fine, I'll go find the people that do like me. I can't control what you think. I can't make you like me, no matter how nice I am. And that is the biggest liberation of all. Just think of all the energy, the wasted energy that we all spent in our toys.
Audra :It has been that revelation for me personally has been the best weight I've ever lost in my life. That's right. Oh, I love that.
Leslie :That's a good that's actually a great quote. I'm going to steal that.
Audra :Steal that because it was such a relief. It took a long time to figure that out and it was. It was fought for and won very difficultly.
Leslie :And especially if you're a people pleaser, you know absolutely.
Audra :And, and you know I'm not I'm not that far behind you as far as you said. You're in your 60s. I'm I'm 53. And so I was raised in a generation where you had to. You had to be nice.
Leslie :Oh God, that's still. I'm still trying to throw off the good girl. I was the prominent good girl my whole entire life, yeah.
Audra :You have to be nice, you have to be the good girl, you have to, you have to play the game and and you have to be the overachiever and you have to do things right. You always have to be the good daughter. Good, do things right, do this, this, this and this and this. And then you're surprised why don't like you? Correct? And then it suddenly dawns on you there's nothing wrong with you, it's wrong with them.
Leslie :It's wrong with them.
Audra :Right, or it's just because people are different.
Leslie :Right.
Audra :Exactly, but it was such a long, hard road of unprogramming. Yeah, exactly, raised them different so that they didn't have to undo this programming. But women of my demographic they're also undoing this programming as well, and we've reached this glorious age of I don't have to care anymore.
Leslie :Nice isn't it, it is.
Audra :But with that, like I said, there's these overwhelming choices, because the choices are endless, right, right, right, and it's a smorgasbord of now what do I do? And that's where you come in of. Yes, this is how I help you sort out now what you do.
Leslie :Yes, and that is exactly why I started Covey Club. So there were lots of angry readers for more magazine when magazine closed. So they came to me and asked me to do something else for them on social media and 627 of them took a 54 question survey to the end and I built Covey Club off of that. Originally, covey Club was going to be a digital magazine. Ha ha ha. No one will pay for a digital magazine, but I had to learn that myself, and then I leaned into the club part of it.
Leslie :I didn't really know what that meant, but I decided I was going to figure that out. And that's what's so much fun about doing your own thing, is it's a blank slate. What does that mean? And I decided, well, what would I like in a club? And so it's seven years later and we have been changing the club as we go along.
Leslie :We just did this enormous update. We added 10 new services that were just rolling out now that I'm really excited about to help women at midlife who are they can be at a stage of I have no idea what I want to do next, but I want to do something else. I need to make money. I have 15 more years to work, or I'm reaching my retirement age and I am not going to go sit on a beach or play tennis all day. I need something else where I'm contributing. Or it could be somebody going through empty nest, or somebody going through a health crisis or being downsized or losing their job, trying to get back in and can't get back in, like the friends you were talking about. We all reach that crisis. I reached that when they closed the magazine and I was all alone. I had no one to ask. I had no one to talk to.
Leslie :Things were just starting to change at that point where this is in 2016, where a lot of people were saying I want to do something different and new, and the pandemic really helped with that. But I was stuck there way ahead and I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I knew nothing about that, except that I'd written about entrepreneurs. I didn't know what that meant. So I took the Cubby Club stuff. I said I'm going to do what I know. I know how to create content, I know how to talk to women. But it took me three weeks to figure out which email server to use, because back then I didn't have any friends who were my age. I had 20 year olds but they were like oh, go, look at a video on YouTube. And I'm like I can't follow a video on YouTube. What do you mean Like? So I had to do my own research. Three weeks later, I figure out what I should use.
Leslie :The whole point of Covey Club is I've done all the work, you don't have to do that. So now you come into Covey Club. If you join, you go into our Covey Connects, a private Facebook group. You're like hey, I'm thinking of. You know, I want to sell nail polish online or whatever. You know what mail server should I use? Two seconds later, you're done. Next, what's you know? It's like I'm going to save you so much headache, so much emotional pain, so many wasted hours of research.
Leslie :And the wonderful thing is because it's women in their 50s, 60s, 70s and some a little bit earlier, in their late 30s and 40s. We're all experts. We're not 20-year-olds. It's not a group of 20-year-olds. It is a group of people who know and you can say you know, I need to find somebody who can build me a website. Who do you know? Bam, bam, bam, bam. I mean, it's that kind of tapping into sharing expertise and because so much of that is going on. It's been seven years of this where I hear, oh, so-and-so hired so-and-so to do this, or so-and-so helped me to do that, or I hired this person as a coach and she taught me to. So I was like, okay, here are the new things that we want to roll out. We just rolled out the Covey Club marketplace where, for a small fee you just one fee that you pay for the year we we position you inside the website in the marketplace. You get run through the banner. We run you through all of Covey Club three times, all through our newsletters, through our social media, through all kinds of stuff. There's all kinds of benefits so that you can get to the people who want to hire you, who want to know your skills and want to help you as well. And this is all going on anyway. But now we really want to bring it to the forefront.
Leslie :When I, when I, rather than going to Upwork, I hired my marketing person from within the club, it was somebody who joined the club, who I learned about and got to know. Other people were using her and I was like, oh, why would I go to Upwork? Let me go use this person. So it's all that kind of sisterhood. You know it's the, it's the's the old girls network sharing and connecting. And you know I connect people, even people if they've left Coffee Club. I just did this. Somebody who left and a new one came in and they were in the same educational space and I was like, look, I'm going to introduce you guys, you need to know each other. No-transcript. During pandemic we did sourdough baking. You remember that was a big deal.
Leslie :Everything from leadership skills to building your personal brand, time saving, how to get on a board, how to manage your LinkedIn better, how to get a job with LinkedIn, whatever it is. In midlife. We have doctors who talk about menopause, whatever it is you're looking for, you can start learning today about whatever it is you want to know. And kind of my group that's gravitated to Covey Club is a lifelong learner group. We kind of crack open the world through learning. It's a big learning group and it just happens to be kind of what sets this group apart.
Audra :So you've built this and forgive the term a sorority, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah this, and forgive the term a sorority. Yeah, but it's a sorority of nice girls rather than mean girls. Oh, yeah, mean girls don't like us. Yeah, but of women that are helping each other. They are. It sounds like you meet each other wherever each other is at. Yes, and that's the beauty. Yes, exactly so, speaking of meeting each other wherever each other is at, yes, and that's the beauty.
Leslie :Yes, exactly.
Audra :So, speaking of meeting each other where they're at, I had mentioned to you before we went online that I know lots of women right now accomplished women, amazing women that are currently out of work, that are in this demographic that and have been out of work for an extended period of time, and I know that one of your passions is to help women in this demographic, teach them on how to have a side hustle this demographic, teach them on how to have a side hustle, so when things like this happen, they have another stream of income. And I know that there's a lot of people out there that are like I wouldn't know the first thing on how to set up a side hustle. I don't know that. I am an entrepreneur.
Audra :I don't know why that's even necessary, and as I was preparing for our interview, I thought, well, you know what, let me put some numbers behind this as to why I think that this might be important. That might be some sobering numbers to put behind this on why a side hustle might be an idea. While you put the what behind it, I'll put the why behind it as far as some numbers are concerned. Right, I looked up the, the employment numbers for the last 90 days and the employment numbers for the last 90 days are pretty high. For women and these are women over 20 that are educated they are flat. They have been flat for the last 90 days. For men that are educated over 20, they are trending down. That should be sobering Also, I decided. I'm like hmm well, let me go look and see what our wage gap is doing.
Leslie :Oh God, don't go near the wage gap. You're going to want to kill yourself.
Audra :Yes, so I looked it up anyway because I was like I want to. I want to ground us in some numbers and some facts. I want to see what we're doing. Yeah, I went and looked up the the the last time that the Forbes did their research and the last time that they published it was back in March. And we are still sitting at 84 cents to the dollar.
Leslie :Oh I thought I was going to say 82. That's good, 84. Yeah, yay.
Audra :Two cents, two cents, but we're still sitting at 84 cents.
Leslie :I know, and it ain't going to get better man, with what's going on in the political world.
Audra :No, so and it's not going to get any better with for the with employment numbers. If it hasn't budged for women in 90 days, well, we have to make it budge.
Leslie :We have my point. So here's here's a couple of things that I'll tell you. One of the things my, my biggest frustration with Covey is people not joining early enough to work on this issue. What am I going to do next? How can I protect myself? Which is really two years before any kind of a you know cataclysm happens. Often people wait to the last minute. They know things are bad, they know things. You know their sector's doing poorly, their company's doing poorly, but you know, the brain tends to want to protect you and it's like, well, just pretend like it's not happening, let's just see how tomorrow goes. And then tomorrow's another year and you still haven't done anything.
Leslie :I go around the country talking about why you need to have a reinvention plan in your back pocket, and that's the reason. And I get a lot of people who say to me when they go oh well, I've worked at this bank for 22 years and they love me. And I was like, yes, but guess what happened to Silicon Valley Bank? They went home Friday and it closed on Monday. Yep, nothing to do with you. Yeah, they loved you.
Leslie :It's not about you, it's about what's happening out there in the world. You need to protect yourself. You need to have ideas. You need to know that you have something else in your back pocket, a plan, an idea, you know a side hustle that you could move toward if something happened and guess what? And some money socked away could move toward if something happened, and guess what? And some money socked away. I say you need to have at least a year socked away of whatever that would be that would keep you afloat while you look for a job.
Leslie :I mean, this is an incredibly great job market, but it still takes a while for older women to find a job. We do have things like ageism, and then you combine it with sexism and we have both of those things. They're very real. You know, why are all these women getting knocked out of corporate jobs? They don't seem to it's. Is it happening with men as well? But I'm hearing this constantly and that they're becoming you know they're reluctant entrepreneurs. Look, being an entrepreneur is not for everybody. It's hard, it requires different skill sets, it requires different everything I mean, which is. You know, I like that kind of thing. It stretches me.
Leslie :So when we went out and did the research, what we found out is men and women both get knocked out in their 50s, the men get back in. That's the difference Men pull each other back in. That's the difference Men pull each other back in. And if you're older as a man it's a little more accepted than it is for a woman. And of course, you know, there are the women, this whole go gray thing out there, which is great, you know, if you've got a secure job. I mean, I've had friends who said, yeah, I went, you know, went gray, lost my job and had to dye my hair again. So nobody knew how old I was when I went. You know, went gray, lost my job and had to dye my hair again. So nobody knew how old I was when I went back in. And then I got back in. It's reality. It's not nice, it's sad. Is it retrograde? Yes, it is, but these are realities. We have to deal with the reality.
Leslie :So one thing you can do is cultivate. You know always have other interests and you could even have other interests where you've taken courses or you've done something you can even do. You know they have these vacations where you can go be an intern somewhere for a vacation. I always like to have two or three. I'm just a curious person anyway. So I'm always looking for something new. That's just my brain, I guess, being in the fashion industry for so long. Maybe it's just always wanting to find the new thing, what the trend is. But you should have other things that you're interested in, and guess what? It'll make you a more interesting person as well, for your spouse or for your kids.
Leslie :No-transcript, oh crap, I think it's coming down today. That's you know. Yes, we can help you, but it sure would have been nice if you'd been in working on your idea ahead of time, working on your. You know, yes, we can help you, but it sure would have been nice if you'd been in working on your idea ahead of time, working on your you know, like, what else do you want to do? Maybe you want to teach, maybe you want to, what are the things that interest you? And so you cultivate?
Leslie :And what I say is you put aside that money. You have that money set aside for you. If nothing happens, you retire with a gold watch and you get your you know your RV to drive around. Go buy something with it. Go, you know. Go buy some great item for yourself. Go buy yourself a fancy car, but have it so that you're not stuck and it has nothing to do with you.
Leslie :It has to do with the pace of life that we are experiencing today. Of life that we are experiencing today, my husband's father worked in one place and got his gold watch and that was it. Okay, I've had, I think I've had. I keep counting as it's, it's either seven or 12, that's seven. Seven different jobs throughout my lifetime. Our kids are going to have like seven jobs before they're 30. It's just the speed of what's happening and what's changing.
Leslie :And I have two adult children, one who's in the tech industry, and when he was trying to find a job he was like moaning, groaning. He's like, oh, I don't know what's the problem. He said I don't know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I was like it ain't for the rest of your life. Think two, two years, be like a nanny, like if you could get two years out of a nanny, that was like incredible success. Right, most left six months a year or whatever it was this incredible turnover thing. Look at it in two year things, your things are rapid and we don't know what's going to happen or where things are going to come from. I really also and I'm going to be this is not. People are not going to like to hear this thing that I'm going to say you have to upskill yourself. If you are 40 plus, there are an awful lot of people who are fitting into the stereotype. They do not know enough skills, they have not upskilled themselves and as you get into the 50 range, it's really bad and I see it all the time.
Leslie :With Covey Club, it's one of our biggest issues. I got a new VA and I said to her one point. She'd been with me for a while and I said so how much do you think the issues with Covey Club and keeping people in and blah, blah, blah has to do with not understanding technology, and our technology is really basic. It's like Facebook, zoom, blah, blah, blah. It's like pretty basic stuff. And I thought she was going to say, ah, like 40% 30%. She said 95%. Yeah, like 40% 30%. She said 95%. Oh, my gosh, yeah, people don't want to admit that they don't know how to do the basic stuff, and you might. It's scary. Look, I understand.
Leslie :There's a pit that goes into your stomach. I'm older than you, so it's not natural to me to have to go in and and download a new app and figure it out. I get that pit in my stomach Sometimes it makes me want to throw up, but I barrel through it because I know I need to know that, I need to understand that, I need to know what my kids are doing. I need to understand what other people are doing and what they have. If you don't do that, you will not get hired. You will not. I mean and I've seen it even through the club I had somebody who was doing some great editing for me but came from an old magazine background terrific person.
Leslie :I had to hire a new editor for the blog and she was. She came at me and said you know, I can't believe you didn't even consider me. And I said to her I said I had to go with someone who was digital first. This person couldn't even upload her blog into WordPress herself. I had to have the assistant do it. And to think that that's okay if you're looking for a job, that why are you thinking that's okay? And I know that fits the stereotype. It makes my heart break to even say because I am like that is not true. When you look at the studies. The studies overall show that we are not behind in tech and we not willing to learn or are moderately accomplished and not skilling themselves up to be super accomplished. And then they wonder why they're not getting a job.
Leslie :The other thing that people are talking about a lot when they're not. There's a couple of things going on with not getting jobs. There's actually it's a whole thing that we have to write about, because I'm seeing it in young people, I'm seeing it in old people right now. Part of it is this whole electronic system of how you submit your resume, how you appear on social media. We tackle an awful lot of that at Covey Club, because if your outward facing stuff is not up to snuff, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who you were. You're not going to get past those initial gate holders.
Leslie :The other thing that people don't realize is a big thing that is now talked about that was not really talked about in my day, which was culture Right, and you have to make it very clear that you're open to a diverse culture, that you're open to whatever the culture is in in this new company that you're going to. And my day was suck it up, buttercup. This is the way it is. Shut your mouth and just do your work. I don't want to hear anything from you that is not. That is not the workplace of today, and you need to make it very clear in the right terminology. You need to do your research on the company that you're applying to and you must actually let them know that you're going to be part of that culture.
Leslie :Who was getting down to the second was between him and another person, him and another person, him and another person. The other person kept getting it. Two things there that one has to do today and I did this in my old day too, and it makes a big difference. You get down into the, you know. Third, you know you think you're like in the three or four running thing. Show them you can do the work and it's going to be on you. You do it for free. You say, hey, I was just thinking you know your toothpaste, you know category. So inspired me that I thought I would send you this little video I made for how you might go out on social media blah, blah, blah. You're not going to end with the letter. Thank you so much. I'm so. It was so nice to meet you, audra, I'm so glad we talked about blah, blah, blah. You have to go that extra mile, you have to do something digital, you have to get ahead, but all this stuff.
Leslie :There are an awful lot of people, audra, who are not doing this and they're not upskilling. We spend a lot of time at Cby Club because we know how to teach. I was an adjunct professor at NYU and I just love teaching and we do an awful lot of teaching, but in a way that women our age understand. Like my son always says oh, just go look it up on the YouTube video. And I'm like and you go to the YouTube video for whatever little thing it is and it's like now here, look at the button here, push the button here.
Leslie :Now, when you push that button, go to the next one and I'm leaning in there, I'm going where's the button is? We know how to upskill you and how to teach you the way you need to learn, but I'm telling you the God's awful truth is that a lot of women are not up and they don't know what they're doing Very basic stuff. Know what they're doing Very basic stuff. I guess maybe we call it. I call it the sort of technological bubble. A lot of women, especially if you go into your late 50s and 60s they had assistants to do all this stuff and be super good at it, so they never had a really good at it no good when you're looking for a job, no, and?
Audra :and I use google and youtube all the time because there's so much that I don't know how to do, and I know exactly what you're talking about. Youtube, I can't see it. I'll go find another video that I can see better. Right, but it's. But it's difficult because, because I and they're going so fast, they're going so fast, they're going really fast, things are much smaller on the screen than they used to be. I can't help it.
Audra :It's not, it's not like I'm doing it on purpose, just, you know, age has, age has a sense of humor, right. But I absolutely understand what you're saying and I'm constantly trying new technology. For this very reason. I love Gen AI. I think it's a remarkable tool. I also think that you have to take it with a grain of salt and realize that it's not always right. Yes, but I am constantly trying to upskill myself for this very reason, also, because I get bored. Yes, me too. I'm constantly trying to push myself and learn something new, and even when it's learning things that I don't necessarily use for work, because I want to stretch my brain in a different way.
Leslie :Right, right. And all this technology does it scratches a different part of your brain Right, right, right. Different emotions than any other kind of work. When you get frustrated with it, you know it's a. There's some other emotion that it brings up. It's a uncomfortability down deep.
Audra :you know it's a frustration of why can't I make this machine do what I want it to do?
Leslie :Right, Can't reason with no, you can't reason.
Audra :Yeah, no, it's very frustrating. Very frustrating is, and even actually before I came on to do this interview, I was trying, I was Googling, trying to figure out how to make my systems talk to each other and I it's a very simple thing that I wanted to do. Right, I would not figure it out and I was like forget it, I will let this go for right now, because I'm so frustrated with this right now. When you're frustrated, you have to leave it. Yeah, I was like I will figure this out later. I know there's a way to make this work, but I can't figure it right now and it's making me angry, and so I will figure it out later. It is an anger. It is an anger that you're like this should work. Why?
Leslie :isn't this working? Yes, and it's a lot of. I find myself cursing and yelling, almost crying. But you have to do it. And a lot of people don't want to do it because it makes them feel so incompetent. And you know we're very competent in other areas and it's humbling to be so stupid. It's just, you know, it's just a stupid machine and you have to figure your way around it. And I've gotten more comfortable. I don't.
Leslie :In the beginning and I know a lot of people feel this way who didn't grow up with digital in their hand there is a fear that you're going to push a button and blow things up. I have done that. I've shut down my site a couple of times and had to recover it. So it's not that that can't happen, it's just that you have to know that if that does happen, you can get it back. And it's also here's the other weird, weird, weird, uncomfortable, not normal thing about the world, the digital world we live in. Imagine that you have a living room and you have all your furniture and you know where everything is when you change something. So say, you have a website, you have an app, you have something you're used to working with, you know how to do it, or Google comes in and changes something on you, like this day that you have five meetings, that you have no time to learn this thing, that they have just changed and forced on you and you now have to take three hours to figure it out. The weirdest thing about it it's like going into your living room that you've known for so long but you have to notice someone took the vase away Because it's not what they add. It's not like someone put a big flashing light over in the corner and you're like huh, they've messed my thing up, I can fix it.
Leslie :The weirdest thing about digital is a lot of changes that are made or that you make, or mistakes that happen, take things away, and that is a very bizarre concept in our very tactile world. I mean, you know, in a magazine, if somebody took a page out, I would notice, because I'd be up on the wall and be like what happened to page 19? It's not on the wall anymore. Where did it go? Or when they printed it, it'd be like what the fuck happened here? Where did it go? It's tangible, you can get it. It may take you months. Sometimes it's my, you know it's a.
Leslie :These bugs that are in digital stuff. You don't discover it till some client, you know, or your customer goes. I tried to do blah, blah, blah and you're like, oh crap, you know, it's just, it's a weird. It's a weird part of your brain that has to get comfortable with that. That's the world we live in. It's a, it's strange. I don't know how any brain can get better at that, like how I don't know. I don't know how you get better at it, but it's a strange. It's just a strange thing and that's how things work today and you have to find things, that stuff. It's like someone came in and stole stuff out of your jewelry box but you didn't remember for six months so you lost that ring. You know that feeling of like, oh man, someone took that.
Audra :But that's what digital is, and I don't think it's us getting comfortable with it at all. I think it's us resigning ourselves to have to be OK, yeah, the discomfort and just leaning into it.
Leslie :Yeah, you just have to do it, discomfort and just leaning into it. Yeah, you just have to do it and you know it's going to happen. It's going to happen and somebody's going to tell you something's not working for them and you're going to feel awful and it's going to mess them up and then you're going to have to apologize and you just have to say gee, I'm sorry, didn't see that. Really apologize.
Audra :Because if we want to keep growing and expanding and learning and keep being dynamic human beings and growing our careers and wanting to continue to elevate ourselves and each other, we just have to keep pushing into the uncomfortable. Yes, and you know, and that's why I like your club. I think your club is cool that you lean into the uncomfortable together. Yes, exactly, and you make it sound like it's safe to feel dumb together.
Leslie :You have to If you're not willing to feel dumb together, and that's one of the things that we say about Covey Club it is a non-judgment zone If you can't let go of all your expertise. There are a lot of stories we've written on the blog and one of my favorites is called have a Beginner's Mindset. You have to have a beginner's mindset if you're going to reinvent yourself. There's just no possibility. You know there are segues which you don't have to start all over, but in general, you do have to have a beginner's mindset in order to succeed at a, at a reach. You just have to admit that you just went from a position of knowing everything to knowing nothing and feeling comfortable with that and I kind of like it. I'm, you know that's something for me. That's okay. You just have to be okay screwing stuff up and apologizing when you do.
Leslie :You know it's like I didn't know how my when I first went out and somebody came to me and they wanted me to do because we're in Covey Club, we can do a B2B kind of thing, like if you have a product that you're testing and you want to reach women like us. That's hard to do on Facebook, like you know, to get the right people. But if you know it's targeted at these women, we can do research for you, right? And this woman had this great scalp tonic and so she said you know, give me a proposal. And I didn't know what to charge. I asked a couple of friends. They said charge what you think it's worth.
Leslie :Well, I gave a ridiculous number and she said no. And I felt mortified. But I didn't know what to offer. You know, I didn't know I really did. It was so amorphous I couldn't even benchmark. And you know, every time I think about it I'm like, oh, you're an idiot, you should have. But whatever, what could you do? You know, I had no benchmarks. I had no previous anything. I had nobody to ask Is this a good number? Bad number? Is that way off. So you know, but you learn. You learn by making mistakes.
Audra :Isn't that the best part, though? I mean, it's better than not trying at all.
Leslie :Yes, no, no, you have to try. The other part that I really love about the world we're in the part I do love, is unlike print. You make a mistake in print and you are screwed. Period Right, you're a screw, period Right, you're a show and you know, I remember somebody catching typos in the headlines at Harper's Bazaar after it was printed when I worked there. So the good news is you can change everything in digital Mess up spelling of someone's name. I don't recommend this, but you know we can fix it. There's a wonderful you can even fix. What I really love is my blog. You know I come out of writing and digital and content and you can fix your titles. You, you know you pitch out a title there and it goes flat dead and no one reads it. You can go in and fix your title and do some SEO work and pop it up and see, put it back out there and people will see it. You know it's a. I like that part about it. I like the fact that it's not locked in. We're not locked in, but it's all there for you and there's tons and tons and tons for anybody in any area.
Leslie :Empty nest that you were talking about, that you're going through which I used to think was like, oh please, like somebody's going to be like empty nest, like I was such a big career person, like I had two kids going off, like wham, wham, wham. Why is everybody crying? I got so depressed I cried my eyes out for two months. It was a long process of getting over that. Me too, sure, a hell lot of me Horrible. You think like, yeah, I've got all these things. I'm like so connected, I'm busy, I'm like doing what I love. Me too Completely popped me by surprise. It's hard, super hard. It's way harder than you think. It revives deep emotions, you know, and if you have any kind of childhood issues with abandonment or any kind of things that you know were never were resolved, even if they were resolved, they come back up and it's rough, it's really rough.
Leslie :And so we have a whole channel, you know whole area, a whole. You know whole segment on empty nest, a whole segment on back to school, like when you're sending your kid off to college. That's another big moment. We have all kinds of discussions about well-being and health and menopause and hormones, and so it's whatever is of interest to you in whatever direction you're coming at, this sense of change and trying to figure out where you're headed. We have different ways of getting you there and I kind of look at it as a poo-poo platter that we load up with all this food and you know you're going to have five different things than I'm going to have, and that's okay, but we're all getting to the same place. We're all getting to whatever that thing is that we want to do and who we want to be Like.
Audra :I said, you meet your, your, your members, your sisters, wherever they're at, and you take their hand and and guide them along the way, yep.
Leslie :And guide them along the way. Yep, and it's really. I mean, it's very, very rewarding, and it's wonderful to see when people have coached each other or they have, you know, done designs for each other, or they have gotten each other to get you know, go and get their health coaching certificate, or they've encouraged each other on in ways that maybe a close friend might not do. This was really a big learning oddrope, which was, you know, I didn't a lot of. Well, you know, when you're doing a being an entrepreneur, you don't you don't know all the things that are going to happen. Sometimes you just roll with it and see what happens. Like one of the times it occurred to me like you know, well, putting all these people together to learn from each other, they're all strangers. Is that weird? So, over time, though, what we discovered is actually reinventing yourself with strangers is easier. It's easier because you can show up day one as Audra with blue hair and everybody will be like, oh, it's Audra with the blue hair. But if you're with your friend group and you're thinking, you're saying, like you know, I think I'm going to turn my hair blue, why would you do that? That would be like can you imagine your children? How would you you know they're going to?
Leslie :There's all these reasons why change is not acceptable in a group you already have. And part of that can be if you're with a lot of people who are stuck as well. It can be kind of gripe group for people who are stuck and it keeps you in there and kind of keeps, you know, keeps petting you for all your grievances, right, keeps petting you for all your grievances, right. But if you decide to get up and leave and you do start moving in a different direction and creating change, not only is there a lot of pushback from within the group because like, well, what does that say about us? Like wait a minute, why you know. Like who is she? Like she thinks she's going to go create change. You can't create change, things don't change. And if there is that kind of thinking, then you, you know that's not good for anybody, right. So the wonderful thing about working with people you don't know you literally show up as who you want to be and you're accepted. That's the completely amazing thing about it.
Audra :There's no judgment because there's no preconceived idea of who you are. Correct, correct. Where can the audience get to know more information about the Covey Club? Know more about you because you do lots of philanthropic activities throughout the world, and so much more about what you've done. So where can they reach more information about you?
Leslie :So best place is to come find us at cubbyclubcom, check out all the channels we have and come join us. Hit the page that says membership. You'll understand all about that. We have different levels of membership that you can try, and we even have a free trial. If you want to try it for a month, for a yearly subscription, you can come in and you don't like it, bail out. Write it in your calendar so that you don't get caught, you know, doing it for a month when you don't want to.
Leslie :And we're on all social media under Cubbyby club. Cubby's a small group of birds. That's why it's called cubby and it's on. We're everywhere. We're on linkedin, we're on social media. What do you want to call it? Instagram, facebook, we're everywhere. So just come join us. Come on, get onto the newsletter at cubbyclubcom. You will understand who we are and see if we're for you, and we would love to help you get to the next level of wherever you'recom. You will understand who we are and see if we're for you, and we would love to help you get to the next level of wherever you're headed, and you will be shocked at what it's like to have a bunch of great, smart, accomplished women. Have your back.
Leslie :And I did a Covey Live in New York and I got the most amazing note back from a woman who said she'd never been in a room and this seems so antithetical to me because I grew up with women She'd never been in a room of such amazing, incredible women who were so kind to each other and she had written women off in her life before that and she was changing her opinion of it. How heartbreaking, heartbreaking, right, yeah, but yeah, but, yeah, so, but so all I can tell you is I attract a certain group of women. I grew up with the mean girls. I'm not interested. I have like mean girl repellent. It's a lot of good girls like me who really want to help each other and it's amazing what you can do together.
Audra :Well, I'm going to give you an opportunity because this is my favorite part of the show, where I basically get to shut up and I give you an opportunity to have an, a intimate moment directly with the audience, because I want you to have an opportunity to leave an intimate thought with the audience, to give them something to ponder over the next day or so, just something for them to think about. So the mic is yours.
Leslie :Oh, thank you. That's so sweet. Well, midlife is not for sissies and the world is about to get a lot harder for women than it has been. It's not your imagination, it's real. It's tough out there. Don't do it alone. Don't go it alone, don't be afraid to reach out. There are fabulous women who want to have your back Not everybody out there, but there are, and we can do it for each other. And I can tell you from a fact it's better to do it together than to do it alone. And we try to make Covey Club very affordable so that women of all levels can come in and we're here to help you. We're going to have your back and we want to see where you're headed and we can help you get there.
Audra :Leslie, thank you.
Leslie :Thank you, Audra.
Audra :Leslie, thank you, thank you, audra, thank you for being here with me and being so generous with your time and with your information and just being so encouraging to all of us and spending so much of your energy in investing in those of us that have hit this midlife, which is both exciting, exhilarating, frustrating all of the adjectives that we all feel every single day, because it is really an exciting time, but it's so much all at the same time that we really do need a little bit of help. So I am so appreciative and, speak from all of my audience and all of my friends, thank you very much for your work and your effort and thank you so much for being here. Thank you, and I want to thank all of you for listening and we'll see you again next time.
