Speaker 1: Six am.
Speaker 2: You're exhausted, but you are sitting in front of your
Speaker 2: computer for your first Zoom meeting of the day. It
Speaker 2: goes for an hour, and then you have another eleven
Speaker 2: of those scheduled back to back. You are literally on
Speaker 2: Zoom for twelve hours straight without a break, and that
Speaker 2: is pretty much the story of your working life for
Speaker 2: the next few weeks. This is what Adore Beauty's co
Speaker 2: founder Kate Morris went through last year during an investor
Speaker 2: road show. Not only did she have to keep her
Speaker 2: online beauty company running amid the chaos of COVID nineteen,
Speaker 2: she also floated a door on the Australian Stock Exchange
Speaker 2: for a six hundred million dollar price tag. So how
Speaker 2: did Kate stay sane during what was a crazy year?
Speaker 2: How does she juggle parenting two little people with the
Speaker 2: huge demands of her role, And what is the head
Speaker 2: of Australia's largest online beauty retailer do for her own
Speaker 2: beauty routine? And why was employing a stylist one of
Speaker 2: the best decisions that she ever made. My name is
Speaker 2: doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder
Speaker 2: of Behavioral Science consultancy Inventium and this is how I
Speaker 2: work a show about how to help you do your
Speaker 2: best work. So I am very excited about this interview
Speaker 2: with Kate because she is exceptionally awesome. And I can
Speaker 2: say that because I've known her for about five years
Speaker 2: and we're part of a business women's peer mentoring group,
Speaker 2: and the seven or eight of us meet up once
Speaker 2: a month to talk business, share business challenges, and help
Speaker 2: each other solve them. And from my experience of Kate,
Speaker 2: not only is she an incredibly savvy business woman, but
Speaker 2: she is also humble, hilarious and always gives me very
Speaker 2: good beauty advice. Now in our business women's group, imposter
Speaker 2: syndrome is something that rears its head amongst us all,
Speaker 2: and it's definitely something that Kate has experienced.
Speaker 1: I think for.
Speaker 3: Anyone who has a brain and any kind of humility,
Speaker 3: I think impost syndrome like it's not all bad, right,
Speaker 3: you would worry about the people who don't have any
Speaker 3: of that. I think leaning into that fear has been
Speaker 3: quite useful for me as a strategy. And I think
Speaker 3: also too, I learned another good strategy from a friend
Speaker 3: of ours mutually actually, sayan who decided that she was
Speaker 3: going to get over impost syndrome by asking all the
Speaker 3: questions that she needed to ask, And so instead of
Speaker 3: worrying about looking stupid by asking me a question, she'd think, well,
Speaker 3: do you want to look stupid or do you want
Speaker 3: to be stupid? So you may as well actually ask
Speaker 3: the question.
Speaker 4: Yes, I love that I had sigh on the show.
Speaker 2: I don't know a couple of years ago, now, I
Speaker 2: want to say, And then she talked about that.
Speaker 1: I love that idea of.
Speaker 2: Not wanting to appeal like the smartest person in the room,
Speaker 2: but wanting to leave the room being the smartest person.
Speaker 2: I think is how she put it. And I know
Speaker 2: for you that voice in your head that I'm sure
Speaker 2: a lot of listeners are familiar with when it comes
Speaker 2: to imposter syndrome, I believe you've given the voice a name.
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 3: Various names, because there's a few different themes that can
Speaker 3: come up right, and I find it's often useful to
Speaker 3: name them differently, which makes me sound which makes me
Speaker 3: sound a bit cuckoo. Bit no. I think we all
Speaker 3: have those voices of negative self talk, and I find
Speaker 3: it useful to sometimes go okay, right, well, is this
Speaker 3: a useful story? Is this a useful thing that I
Speaker 3: want to be telling myself? And if not, well, you know,
Speaker 3: thanks very much, Kevin. But I'm not really interested in
Speaker 3: your feedback today because you're not getting me where I
Speaker 3: want to go, and I'm not listening to you. And
Speaker 3: so I'm sure we've probably can all even pin it
Speaker 3: back to exactly whose voice it is, you know, was
Speaker 3: it your auntie or was it one of your teachers
Speaker 3: at school or something like that, So where all of
Speaker 3: these internal naysaying voices come from. Or you're not good enough,
Speaker 3: you can't do this, blah blah blah, And it's useful
Speaker 3: for me to just distinguish it as being just blah
Speaker 3: blah blah. And I don't want to hear that. Thanks.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: It's just words and they don't have to mean anything
Speaker 2: if you don't want them to. Now, with these names, though,
Speaker 2: are they named after real people that have been in
Speaker 2: your life that you've internalized those voices or are they
Speaker 2: more like these archetypal characters that you named.
Speaker 4: I'm kind of I'm looking for examples.
Speaker 2: Obviously, if they're real people, you can give fake names,
Speaker 2: but I want to know specifics here.
Speaker 3: One of them is a real person. I think there's
Speaker 3: some journalists that could have names. Usually I just make
Speaker 3: them up.
Speaker 1: I won't ask you to name journalists on the show. Now.
Speaker 1: I know that the last twelve months have been.
Speaker 2: Crazy for you for obvious reasons, but also because you thought,
Speaker 2: why not make the year even more challenging and let's
Speaker 2: take a door beauty public And having caught up with
Speaker 2: you through our women's peer mentoring group around once a month,
Speaker 2: I know that it was a full on year. And
Speaker 2: something you think about is rather than thinking about managing
Speaker 2: your time, you think about managing your energy. Can you
Speaker 2: tell me a bit about what that looks like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was something that so I find actually
Speaker 3: usually being busy kind of works for me to drive
Speaker 3: my energy. I find my energy will often kind of
Speaker 3: airb a bit. I there's nothing on that's exciting, or
Speaker 3: I have things on my to do list, but they're
Speaker 3: not things that I'm super excited about doing. Than that,
Speaker 3: I find that kind of an energy suck fun I'm
Speaker 3: less productive. Whereas during the IPO, I mean I remember
Speaker 3: looking at the schedule that the bankers had presented to
Speaker 3: us in terms of the timeline and when we were
Speaker 3: supposed to be doing all these things, and I just
Speaker 3: looked at it and just went, you know, a mental
Speaker 3: just insane. You know, I think there must be a
Speaker 3: mistake here because you have me on six back to
Speaker 3: back days of twelve hours of zoom calls every day.
Speaker 3: I think you've made a mistake. And they said, no, no,
Speaker 3: that's a road show. And I just looked at that
Speaker 3: and went okay. And so it wasn't really about managing
Speaker 3: my time during that, because my time was, you know,
Speaker 3: clearly very well managed. I mean we were on this,
Speaker 3: you know, every fifty minutes another call started, so my
Speaker 3: time was well and truly managed. But trying to manage
Speaker 3: my energy through all of that was really going to
Speaker 3: be the key thing so that I didn't sound like
Speaker 3: an absolute robot or just be in the fetal position
Speaker 3: under my desk by the end of it. And for me,
Speaker 3: the way I managed my energy was to keep going
Speaker 3: back to purpose what was I really trying to achieve here,
Speaker 3: And what I'd done was put a little sticky note
Speaker 3: on the bottom of my monitor that I was going
Speaker 3: to be staring at for twelve hours a day, and
Speaker 3: the sticky note said, making history, because what we were
Speaker 3: trying to achieve with this IPO was going to be
Speaker 3: the largest ever Australian IPO with a woman founder and
Speaker 3: woman CEO, and to me that was something worth it.
Speaker 3: And so I'd take that five minute break that I
Speaker 3: had between each call and have another espresso shot and
Speaker 3: eat too many jelly babies and then remind myself that
Speaker 3: we were trying to make history here and so that
Speaker 3: I could then start the next call of being asked
Speaker 3: all the same questions and delivering the same presentation and
Speaker 3: trying to do every every single one like it was
Speaker 3: the first time and like it was fresh.
Speaker 2: What gave you the idea to have that sticky note
Speaker 2: and have that you're kind of guiding light through this?
Speaker 3: That was the exec coach that we use at a
Speaker 3: door actually, so he had suggested that to me because
Speaker 3: I had a ranto him going, I don't know how
Speaker 3: I'm going to do this, and we're in lockdown and
Speaker 3: so there's certainly no safety valve or you being able
Speaker 3: to go out with some girlfriends and blow off steam afterwards,
Speaker 3: and I don't know how I'm going to do it.
Speaker 3: And he said, your purpose will give you energy you
Speaker 3: need to keep reminding yourself why are you doing this?
Speaker 3: And it was a useful reminder.
Speaker 2: What other things did the coach share with you? Strategies
Speaker 2: that you did end up applying and that you found
Speaker 2: really useful.
Speaker 3: A lot of it is about his particular style anyway,
Speaker 3: is looking at your own personal values and your personal
Speaker 3: skill set, and where those things interact is your zone
Speaker 3: of genius. And so I'm making sure you get to
Speaker 3: spend enough time doing those things that both excite you
Speaker 3: and that you're really good at, and that just general
Speaker 3: in life is a good place to be and a
Speaker 3: good thing to aim for the.
Speaker 4: Zone of genius. So how did you figure out?
Speaker 2: And I guess how can listeners figure out what their
Speaker 2: strengths are and what their key values are? Was there
Speaker 2: a process that you went through to make that clear?
Speaker 3: Yes, he did get me to do. Oh, there was
Speaker 3: a bunch of sort of questionnaires. Clifton Strengths was one
Speaker 3: of them, and then there was another one that I
Speaker 3: forget the name of. And then we also went through
Speaker 3: a process of working out my personal values in terms
Speaker 3: of what are the things that are important to me
Speaker 3: in the way that I want to live my life
Speaker 3: At the moment.
Speaker 1: How did that work.
Speaker 2: Was that the coach asking questions of you or was
Speaker 2: there some sort of assessment to get clearer on your values?
Speaker 2: Because I think it's one of those things where everyone
Speaker 2: knows that if you are clearer on your values and
Speaker 2: you live a life according to your values, you.
Speaker 4: Will be happier.
Speaker 2: But most people, I think, actually one hundred percent clearer
Speaker 2: on what their values actually are.
Speaker 3: I think it started with a process. It was a
Speaker 3: little while back, a whole list of words, like maybe
Speaker 3: sixty or one hundred different words, and for you to
Speaker 3: go through initially and circle the ones that immediately spoke
Speaker 3: to you was things that were meaningful or things that
Speaker 3: you wanted in your life, or things that you felt
Speaker 3: that you'd used in the past to make decisions that
Speaker 3: you were happy with. And so then you'd end up
Speaker 3: with a short least and then you'd go through and
Speaker 3: try and rank them in which terms of which ones
Speaker 3: you thought were the most important or and some of
Speaker 3: them would end up being grouped together. And then yeah,
Speaker 3: slowly go through and refining that until you get three
Speaker 3: or four or five that make the most sense to
Speaker 3: you and that you felt okay, Well, if you were
Speaker 3: getting these things out of life, then you would feel
Speaker 3: pretty good about that.
Speaker 2: So with your values, can you give me an example of, say,
Speaker 2: what one of those values emerged as being and then
Speaker 2: how that translated to essentially improving your workday or managing
Speaker 2: your energy better.
Speaker 3: So one of the values for me, and this is
Speaker 3: this is a fairly personal question, Amantha, but oh my friends,
Speaker 3: so let's go there. You know, one of them for
Speaker 3: me is spark. So for me, I really thrive and
Speaker 3: get a lot of energy from those moments where I
Speaker 3: feel like I'm having a conversation, for instance, with a
Speaker 3: mentee and where you identify places where my experience and
Speaker 3: skills can add value to that particular person. And so
Speaker 3: it's you know, those meetings that you have where you
Speaker 3: end up bouncing off of each other and you realize
Speaker 3: that one plus one equals seven because of the alignment
Speaker 3: of values or the alignment of goals. Like for me,
Speaker 3: I get a buzz out of that, and so I
Speaker 3: guess what that's equated to for me is making sure
Speaker 3: that there's enough of those moments in my week that
Speaker 3: I can kind of balance that up with the times where,
Speaker 3: for instance, I have to sit down and read really
Speaker 3: boring commercial contracts, which sometimes is part of my job,
Speaker 3: but I don't get a buzz out of that, And
Speaker 3: again it becomes about managing your energy and making sure
Speaker 3: that I get enough of those moments.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of a guest that I had on
Speaker 2: quite a while ago, Marcus Buckingham, who's global expert on
Speaker 2: employee engagement, and he talks about research that he did
Speaker 2: that suggested that you only need to be doing stuff
Speaker 2: that you love twenty percent of the time to actually
Speaker 2: be really engaged at work, which surprised me, and I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: what do you reckon it is for you on any
Speaker 2: given week, Like that percentage of tasks or meetings or
Speaker 2: activities that energize you versus things that are less energizing.
Speaker 3: It varies week to week, right, Like don't ask me
Speaker 3: on a week where I'm doing investor road shows. But
Speaker 3: although actually even mind you some of those, like when
Speaker 3: you're talking to people who really get what you're doing
Speaker 3: and can actually you know, give you new ideas, then
Speaker 3: spark happens there too, Right, So I think twenty percent
Speaker 3: is I think if you're getting twenty percent, then yeah,
Speaker 3: that's actually that's actually pretty fun.
Speaker 2: When I heard that, I thought twenty percent, that's quite low,
Speaker 2: But then in a lot of people's working lives, that's
Speaker 2: probably somewhat realistic. So one of the things that I
Speaker 2: know you did last year when COVID hit is that
Speaker 2: you started an e retailer's Slack group. Can you tell
Speaker 2: me about what prompted that group.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look at the very start of COVID, where every
Speaker 3: day we were getting new information and we didn't really
Speaker 3: know what was going to happen yet, and what was
Speaker 3: it going to mean, and was it going to affect us,
Speaker 3: and what was going to happen to the business, and
Speaker 3: just this huge environment of uncertainty, And we were at
Speaker 3: the stage in my business where we'd started We've thought, Okay,
Speaker 3: I think this is going to become something that we're
Speaker 3: going to need to deal with, and we need to
Speaker 3: perhaps build out some scenarios. And you're simultaneously scenario planning
Speaker 3: for being really busy or twice as busy as you
Speaker 3: thought you were going to be, or having to shut
Speaker 3: down your business. There was not a lot of information
Speaker 3: coming through about what we needed to be doing to
Speaker 3: keep our team safe. There was sort of a little
Speaker 3: bit of information about social distancing and hand sanitizer, but
Speaker 3: aside from that, very little. And I'd had a couple
Speaker 3: of conversations during the week from other online retailers who'd
Speaker 3: just been texting me, going, Hey, what are you guys
Speaker 3: doing about your warehouse or what are you doing with
Speaker 3: your teams there, or how are you thinking about getting
Speaker 3: things in from China and all of that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: and do you think we should maybe get a few
Speaker 3: of us on a call. And I was walking to
Speaker 3: work one day and thought, no, I think we need
Speaker 3: to get all of us on a call and try
Speaker 3: and work through this and see if we can share
Speaker 3: some knowledge. Because also to a lot of the people
Speaker 3: that I knew that were calling me were people who
Speaker 3: were pretty much sole proprietors and had maybe you know,
Speaker 3: eight or ten direct reports who were all looking to
Speaker 3: them for the answers, and everybody's very frightened and they
Speaker 3: were freaking out about what was going to maybe happen.
Speaker 3: And so yes, put together this slack community when I
Speaker 3: got to work and took me I don't know, half
Speaker 3: an hour to whip that up and sent an email
Speaker 3: out to all the people that I know you in
Speaker 3: the online retail community, which is actually fairly close knit,
Speaker 3: like kind of everybody knows everybody, even though you have
Speaker 3: certainly you have very big retailers. You know, you have
Speaker 3: Booketopia and Temple and Webster in the Iconic and all
Speaker 3: of those. But send an email around and just said, hey, look,
Speaker 3: if you want to, I've put this group together just
Speaker 3: so that we can all chat and share resources and
Speaker 3: if anybody has any information perhaps that others don't have,
Speaker 3: that we could share that. And we really times like this,
Speaker 3: I think we all just need to band together and yeah,
Speaker 3: put that together. And I'd say within a week we
Speaker 3: had about one hundred and fifty retailers on there, and
Speaker 3: I'm probably three hundred in another week or so, and
Speaker 3: it just became this really valuable resource in the very
Speaker 3: early and information light days. I mean this is pre
Speaker 3: job keeper or anything like that. And so people would
Speaker 3: genuinely frightened that they were going to have to stand
Speaker 3: their stuff down. And you had retailers who were very
Speaker 3: busy like a door was, and then you had others,
Speaker 3: for instance, in the one selling party addresses, who were
Speaker 3: suddenly very quiet and were very concerned about their staff
Speaker 3: and their ability for the business to survive and for
Speaker 3: people's jobs to be able to survive, and so they
Speaker 3: were doing things like swapping staff. So people would jump
Speaker 3: on and say, hey, look I've got five pick and
Speaker 3: packers here in Brisbane. If anyone needs an extra hand
Speaker 3: today to get the orders out, they're keen for extra work.
Speaker 3: And so it was really great to be able to
Speaker 3: just share resources and I think help everybody feel like
Speaker 3: at least there wasn't some sort of secret font of
Speaker 3: information that they were missing out on least, everyone regardless
Speaker 3: of the size of their business, felt supported and like
Speaker 3: they had access to as much information as there was.
Speaker 4: There are a couple of things that I really love
Speaker 4: about that.
Speaker 2: Firstly, you make it sound so easy to set up
Speaker 2: this community of three hundred people, and just hearing you
Speaker 2: talk through it, well, you set up a Slack channel
Speaker 2: and you invite people via email, and then presumably you
Speaker 2: moderate the chat a little bit so it feels doable.
Speaker 2: But what I also like is that it's competitors helping
Speaker 2: each other, which I feel like it is quite a
Speaker 2: novel concept to a lot of businesses. I remember I
Speaker 2: first became aware of this idea of oh goodness, like
Speaker 2: you can help your competitors. When I went on this
Speaker 2: tour of Silicon Valley maybe four or five years ago,
Speaker 2: and what I was finding is that a lot of
Speaker 2: the leaders of the different tech companies would actually have meetups,
Speaker 2: like the heads of engineering would all meet up together,
Speaker 2: and that all be competitors, but that still share different
Speaker 2: strategies and challenges that they were facing and so forth.
Speaker 2: So I really love that, Like, how does that dynamic
Speaker 2: play out when you've essentially got three hundred businesses online
Speaker 2: and a lot of them are competing for the same
Speaker 2: consumer dollar.
Speaker 3: I think it's really a thing that found its place
Speaker 3: in a time of crisis, right where you need to
Speaker 3: rights above the fact that everyone's competing for a consumer
Speaker 3: dollar and just come back to higher purpose in the
Speaker 3: sense that we're all business people and we're all actually
Speaker 3: all just people, and everybody needs a bit of support here.
Speaker 3: And also there's a lot of jobs at stake, and
Speaker 3: we are kind of all in this together, and if
Speaker 3: we all band together at this point, then maybe we
Speaker 3: all stay afloat. And I think that's a pretty Australian
Speaker 3: thing to do, is banned together in a time of crisis,
Speaker 3: And we saw that happen during the bushfires and things
Speaker 3: as well. So it's not like there are competitive issues
Speaker 3: that you don't have to consider. I mean, we actually
Speaker 3: had a lawyer who found out about the group and said, hey,
Speaker 3: it's great that you're doing this, but you probably also
Speaker 3: need to be really careful that these sorts of conversations
Speaker 3: are not happening between competitors, because then if you're hosting those,
Speaker 3: then that would be bad. And I went, right, okay,
Speaker 3: well that's something I didn't think of, but yes, okay, okay,
Speaker 3: So we just had to make sure that we've dated
Speaker 3: the group rules and say, hey, don't anybody be talking
Speaker 3: about what your Google AdWords bids are.
Speaker 4: Of course a lawyer, lawyers, lawyers on the parade.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but look, I think by and large it was
Speaker 3: really a very very supportive and can community oriented atmosphere,
Speaker 3: particularly the time where information was security, right at least
Speaker 3: if you knew what was happening, you could do something
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: How about internally, what sorts of things did you do
Speaker 2: practically to keep your team at a door motivated because
Speaker 2: a lot of them, you know, outside of the warehouse stuff,
Speaker 2: were working remotely and.
Speaker 3: Look, it was really tough I mean it, certainly it's
Speaker 3: tough for me. For everybody, this is really hard, and
Speaker 3: particularly for those of us who thrive on those moments
Speaker 3: of connection as humans generally do. Then it was even harder.
Speaker 3: I mean in the early days, the crisis management phase,
Speaker 3: a lot of it was just around communication and regular
Speaker 3: communication and passing on information as soon as we had it,
Speaker 3: and also to being very clear about what sources of
Speaker 3: information we were going to rely upon and what we weren't.
Speaker 3: There was all kinds of rumors and sorts of things
Speaker 3: in the early days, and so we set out very
Speaker 3: clearly early on that we were going to be listening
Speaker 3: to Work Safe and the Victorian Department of Health, and
Speaker 3: those were the directives that we were going to be following.
Speaker 3: And whatever the herald sign might have said that day,
Speaker 3: that was not one of our information sources. And so
Speaker 3: that was just to be really clear about what the
Speaker 3: definitions of actionable actionable information were as people were freaking
Speaker 3: out right and then also too so my co founder
Speaker 3: James and I would just make regular video updates that
Speaker 3: we would share with the team via Slacks or we
Speaker 3: use Slack for our internal comms. It at a Dora
Speaker 3: as well, and so anytime we had new information that
Speaker 3: we needed to act upon or that change the way
Speaker 3: that we were doing things, that we would go out
Speaker 3: and communicate that to the team in a video. And
Speaker 3: the feedback that we had from the team was that
Speaker 3: they really liked not just getting the information but also
Speaker 3: hearing it from us as if we were there, and
Speaker 3: that I think at least that gave them a bit
Speaker 3: more of a sense of security that the grown ups
Speaker 3: were in charge, even though it did not feel that way.
Speaker 3: We didn't always have the answers, but at least we
Speaker 3: could come out and say, okay, right, well, this is
Speaker 3: the new information today. I know you've all asked about
Speaker 3: X y Z. We still don't know. But the regular
Speaker 3: comms was really helpful in terms of keeping people motivated ongoing.
Speaker 3: We tried all kinds of things. Something we tried, you know,
Speaker 3: our head of recruitment took it upon herself actually to
Speaker 3: just post a fun little conversation starter in Slack every day.
Speaker 3: What's your favorite Tom Cruise movie or what is the
Speaker 3: album that you loved when you're in year twelve, or
Speaker 3: just fun little chit chat every day, which I think
Speaker 3: that was one of the things that we really missed
Speaker 3: about being in the office. I mean, you can transactionally
Speaker 3: complete all of your tasks, but it's not the same
Speaker 3: as actually just having incidental chitchat, so tried to put
Speaker 3: that in there. We did a few sort of virtual
Speaker 3: events and virtual trivia nights and Zoom drinks on a Friday,
Speaker 3: and I think in Melbourne we all just got a
Speaker 3: bit exhausted of that. Even by the end of Lockdown
Speaker 3: number two. I don't think anyone wanted to see another
Speaker 3: social Zoom call, but even sometimes for people who were
Speaker 3: within the five k radius to meet up and do
Speaker 3: socially distanced walks just with another staff member who lived
Speaker 3: near you. But it was challenging. It was a difficult time.
Speaker 3: I mean, we certainly managed to be productive, but I
Speaker 3: think everyone really did use all the energy they had
Speaker 3: to get to the end of it. So we actually
Speaker 3: had to start incentivizing people to take a couple of
Speaker 3: days off because nobody was taking holidays because you can
Speaker 3: go anywhere. But of course people were getting really burnt out,
Speaker 3: and so we did up these kind of little virtual
Speaker 3: holiday packs and you could choose your itinery or you
Speaker 3: could pretend to go to Tokyo and they would get
Speaker 3: like a sushi making kit to make sushi at home,
Speaker 3: or or face mask kit, or you know, just try
Speaker 3: and get people to take a day off.
Speaker 4: Hey, there, it's nearly time for a little ad break.
Speaker 1: But can I ask a favor of you?
Speaker 2: If you're enjoying how I work, I would be so
Speaker 2: grateful if you could hit pause on this episode and
Speaker 2: pop into Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this
Speaker 2: from and leave a review. You can do this by
Speaker 2: scrolling to the bottom of the show notes and clicking
Speaker 2: on the stars or writing a comment. And aside from
Speaker 2: the warm, fuzzy feelings that this will give both you
Speaker 2: and me, it actually helps other people find out about
Speaker 2: how I work. So thank you in advance. Okay, Kate,
Speaker 2: We'll be back after this short break. Now.
Speaker 1: Whenever I see you.
Speaker 2: Kate, and I think I first met you during the
Speaker 2: Telstrap Business Women's Awards. I remember you were sitting on
Speaker 2: a panel. I think you had won the Innovation Award.
Speaker 3: The year prior.
Speaker 2: Yes when ye, yeah, yes, yes, And then I think
Speaker 2: it was twenty and sixteen that I must have been
Speaker 2: fine and I remember meeting you then And whenever I
Speaker 2: see you, which pre COVID was more frequently than now.
Speaker 2: You always look so stylish, like so just gorgeous, well
Speaker 2: put together, and so it really surprised me when I
Speaker 2: learned that you actually employed a stylist a few years ago.
Speaker 2: Here I was thinking, it just comes naturally, So can
Speaker 2: you tell me why did you make that decision?
Speaker 3: There are realities, I think for women CEOs of women
Speaker 3: business leaders, in the sense that people look more at
Speaker 3: our clothes than they do it all the men who
Speaker 3: are just wearing boring suits and wear the same suits
Speaker 3: all the time. And I was very aware of that,
Speaker 3: but then also felt like I didn't really know what
Speaker 3: I was doing on that front, and so every single
Speaker 3: time I had to go to some kind of business event,
Speaker 3: I would just basically in the week building up before it,
Speaker 3: just have this massive wardrobe crisis and never feel like
Speaker 3: I had the right thing to wear. And I guess
Speaker 3: I would end up going to the event feeling not
Speaker 3: like the best version of myself or not how I
Speaker 3: wanted to look all the image that I wanted to
Speaker 3: be projecting, and I thought, you know, I'm just like,
Speaker 3: it's just really exhausting having to think about it all
Speaker 3: the time, Can I not delegate this is there must
Speaker 3: be someone who knows how to do this, and there was,
Speaker 3: and so yes, I enlisted a stylist who came to
Speaker 3: my house and went through my entire wardrobe and made
Speaker 3: me throw out all the things that were dorky and
Speaker 3: made a list of what I needed, and she took
Speaker 3: me shopping for three or four hours, which is probably
Speaker 3: it's more exhausting than it sounds, actually, and just basically
Speaker 3: helped me to put together a wardrobe wear everything matched
Speaker 3: with everything else. And there was formulas that I could
Speaker 3: use that understand, okay, well if you're wearing this kind
Speaker 3: of pant, you need this kind of shoe, and that
Speaker 3: I had all of that stuff ready to go and
Speaker 3: it was, oh gosh, it was one of the best
Speaker 3: things I ever did, actually, because now I had the
Speaker 3: right things to where to whatever the occasion might be.
Speaker 3: And I think also too, she acknowledged that it wasn't
Speaker 3: just about oh, well, if you're going to a business
Speaker 3: event that says business attire, like what was business attire
Speaker 3: for me? Because if I was just wearing like a
Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton kind of pants, would I feel like myself?
Speaker 3: And in the end we decided not, and so I
Speaker 3: actually end up wearing jeans to most things. But also
Speaker 3: I feel confident doing it, so I think, yes, having
Speaker 3: And it's similar to the way I feel about beauty right.
Speaker 3: It's like the whole point of it is not to
Speaker 3: look a certain way, but to feel a certain way.
Speaker 3: And for me, the stylist was just a path to
Speaker 3: making sure that I could feel like the most confident
Speaker 3: version of myself whenever I went to these things.
Speaker 2: And I'm imagining it must have had an impact on
Speaker 2: just the time that it took to get ready and
Speaker 2: just minimizing decisions.
Speaker 1: Is that fair to say?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? I felt like I delegated the angst was great,
Speaker 3: someone else had already thought about this, and I'd had
Speaker 3: a third party umpire check that my outfits were acceptable,
Speaker 3: so it was all good.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about your skin care and beauty
Speaker 2: routine and what you're currently doing, because I think about
Speaker 2: how you were describing the road show where you're doing
Speaker 2: twelve hours of zoom meetings like exhausted, but you need
Speaker 2: to be looking fresh and feeling confident. Can you take
Speaker 2: me through what does that morning routine look like for you,
Speaker 2: particularly when you have not had a big night's sleep
Speaker 2: and maybe not feeling your freshest.
Speaker 3: Well. Look, I don't know if your podcast is actually
Speaker 3: long enough for all of you, Romanta, but look, I
Speaker 3: think as a general rule, for me, skincare is self care,
Speaker 3: and so I guess I don't see it as like
Speaker 3: an annoying thing that I have to do at the
Speaker 3: end of the day. I see it as a way
Speaker 3: of preparing and that's my metime and I find it relaxing.
Speaker 3: So I enjoy doing it in the morning as a
Speaker 3: part of preparing myself mentally for my day. And I
Speaker 3: also enjoy taking my makeup off at night, like I
Speaker 3: don't be leap my makeup on ever, and I don't
Speaker 3: use those face wipes because they're just rubbish. So cleansing
Speaker 3: properly is really really important. I'm a big fan of serums,
Speaker 3: and usually I would layer probably two or three in
Speaker 3: the morning. So the skinceutical Sea for Ulix, this serum
Speaker 3: is one of my favorites. It is not cheap, but
Speaker 3: it is really really good. So I apologize to anyone
Speaker 3: who goes and buys it after hearing this podcast, because
Speaker 3: you now have a really expensive habit. I'm very sorry. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a bit addictive. So yes, I usually layer some
Speaker 3: kind of active serum lots of hydration, so you basically
Speaker 3: can't have too much hydration. So hyaluronic acid serum is
Speaker 3: really important. And I wear sunscreen every single day, and
Speaker 3: the one that I like at the moment is Ultraviolet
Speaker 3: Supreme Screen because it's been all in one, so I
Speaker 3: would just pop that on over the top of my serums.
Speaker 3: Is very hydrating, so I don't need to use another
Speaker 3: moisturizer as well. But even if I'm sitting zoom all day,
Speaker 3: I'm still sitting near a window. And as Australians, the
Speaker 3: biggest anti aging thing that we can do for askin
Speaker 3: is to protect it from the sun, so that's super
Speaker 3: duper important. But then getting ready for zoom calls. Honestly,
Speaker 3: it's like there's nothing concealer can't fix. Concealer and blush
Speaker 3: are your two very best friends in terms of looking
Speaker 3: like you are awake.
Speaker 2: I love that suncream that you use. I think you
Speaker 2: put me onto it and I use that every day.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so good, so good cleanser. What brand of
Speaker 2: cleanser are you currently using?
Speaker 3: I usually have a few cleanses on the go at
Speaker 3: any one time. Actually, I like the Asap gentle cleansing gel.
Speaker 3: I like the Dermalist lactic acid cleanser, which is a
Speaker 3: bit more of an exfoliating ones. We don't necessarily use
Speaker 3: that every day. And the Sadashi lavender cleanser, which is
Speaker 3: just like a beautiful creamy It's actually got like a
Speaker 3: like a mineral clay base to it and it smells
Speaker 3: like a day bar. So I use that when I'm
Speaker 3: sort of giving myself a facial or something on a
Speaker 3: Sunday because it just smells amazing. It smells like the
Speaker 3: day spar at qualia actually, which is heaven. And particularly
Speaker 3: during lockdown in Melbourne, that's where I wanted to pretend
Speaker 3: that I was.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned a hyaluronic acid serum. Any go to
Speaker 2: brands with that one?
Speaker 3: I would usually use either the Skin Suticles hyaluronic acid intensifier,
Speaker 3: or there's a PCA skin one. It's a bit spendy,
Speaker 3: but it really like makes your skin just look super
Speaker 3: plump and bouncy.
Speaker 2: And now you mentioned concealer and blush. Where should we
Speaker 2: be putting conceala and what's your go to Conceala.
Speaker 3: There's a couple that I like, and that's sort of
Speaker 3: various levels of intensity depending on how little sleep I
Speaker 3: actually have had or how much help I need. There's
Speaker 3: a Clarence one. It's like one of those little wind
Speaker 3: up clickie pens. That's my basic every day. And then
Speaker 3: there's also the Makeup Forever Ultra HD Conceeala, which literally
Speaker 3: that's like the nuclear option that covers everything, but it
Speaker 3: doesn't crease, and so for me, I get shocking dark
Speaker 3: undry circles, and so I make sure I put it
Speaker 3: got my temples on either side of my nose, like
Speaker 3: there's that's a lot of people miss that bit. They
Speaker 3: put it just under their eyes but not in the
Speaker 3: dark part to the sides of your nose. But that
Speaker 3: one's great because it doesn't crease and super amazing coverage
Speaker 3: and lots of shades.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 2: I will be linking to all these in the show notes.
Speaker 2: By the way, and you mentioned blush and you go
Speaker 2: to blushes.
Speaker 3: Yes, I really like. There's also Makeup Forever. I like
Speaker 3: a cream blush. I think it looks more natural than
Speaker 3: a powder blush. So the Makeup Forever makes a cream
Speaker 3: blush it comes in like a little refillable compact thingy,
Speaker 3: so you buy the compact and the little refills separately.
Speaker 3: And there's two shades that I like. One of them
Speaker 3: sort of a like a a brighter poppy coral, and
Speaker 3: then there's another one that's kind of more like a
Speaker 3: bricky shade. But they're both great, very easy to put on.
Speaker 3: I just put them with my fingers.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 2: And in terms of face masks, I know that you
Speaker 2: are a face mask fan.
Speaker 1: What are your go tos for that?
Speaker 3: I quite like a sleep mask because it's easy to
Speaker 3: put on at night and then you don't have to
Speaker 3: remember to take it off. You can just whack it
Speaker 3: on and sleep with it on. So the Aspect Probiotic
Speaker 3: mask is only one of my favorite sleep masks that's
Speaker 3: really really fab. I also like the Cedarshi brightening marine
Speaker 3: mineral mask again also smells like a day spar. I've
Speaker 3: been through jars of that stuff because it's just it's
Speaker 3: a good all round. It's a bit deep cleansing and
Speaker 3: it's a bit moisturizing and brightening and just generally when
Speaker 3: you've just got that sort of my face just needs
Speaker 3: to look better. I use that one, and then if
Speaker 3: I'm being really splurgy, then the SK two sheet masks
Speaker 3: are quite delightful, but it's spendy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know you've put me onto the Sadashi face
Speaker 2: mask because I often will ask you annoying questions because
Speaker 2: I know you've got nothing better to do than replied to, hey, Okay,
Speaker 2: what mask should.
Speaker 1: I be using? So I do get onto that way?
Speaker 1: Thank you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know it's what you want to be
Speaker 2: doing with your day. I want to talk about managing
Speaker 2: work and life because you've got too little people at
Speaker 2: home as well as a husband who is a co founder.
Speaker 2: How do you manage your non work life and just
Speaker 2: all the logistics that one needs to think about when
Speaker 2: when they're a parent but also looking after an absolutely
Speaker 2: huge business.
Speaker 3: Look, I think it's actually, in some ways been a
Speaker 3: bit helpful that that we work together, because at least
Speaker 3: we get to kind of make up the rules for
Speaker 3: how we want things to work. So that's been handy.
Speaker 3: And I know it's not always so easy for people
Speaker 3: who were in different paid employment with their partner, and
Speaker 3: some employers are happier to be flexible than others. But
Speaker 3: we've been lucky to be able to make up the rules.
Speaker 3: So I mean, for instance, when I came back from
Speaker 3: maternity leave, and I had very little maternity leave I
Speaker 3: think six weeks with the first and three weeks with
Speaker 3: the second, which you know, there's my choice only because
Speaker 3: I was climbing the walls and I'm just not the
Speaker 3: sort of person that can handle being at home with
Speaker 3: a baby all day long. That's just that's not for me.
Speaker 3: And so pretty much ever since then, we've always just
Speaker 3: done things fifty to fifty. And so the thing that
Speaker 3: really throws a family routine off is if the kids
Speaker 3: get sick, and particularly now, you can't send them to
Speaker 3: jog here with a running nose in the way that
Speaker 3: I'm sure all parents have done in the past, not anymore.
Speaker 3: So with that, we'll just basically each look at our
Speaker 3: day and try and go, okay, right, well, I can
Speaker 3: have her in the morning, if you can have her
Speaker 3: in the afternoon, and we just split it up that way.
Speaker 3: We do. We have a lot of things outsourced in
Speaker 3: our house. I'm very open about the fact that we
Speaker 3: have a lot of help. I'm not superwoman by any
Speaker 3: stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 1: So what do you outsource?
Speaker 2: Because I think this is great to know because from
Speaker 2: an external point of view, it's so easy for female
Speaker 2: leaders like yourself to look like superhuman.
Speaker 4: But where are you getting help?
Speaker 3: No? No, we're not no. And I think that's really
Speaker 3: important because I think a lot of women sort of
Speaker 3: judge themselves and go, well, I don't know how she's
Speaker 3: doing it because I can't do it, and you can't
Speaker 3: possibly do it, or you can't I mean just the
Speaker 3: laundry alone. It's one of the most horrific realizations of
Speaker 3: parenthood for me is to say, how much laundry there is?
Speaker 3: So look, so we haven't nanny three days a week,
Speaker 3: which you know is an extraordinarily is an extraordinary privilege,
Speaker 3: but that's one of the key reasons that our house
Speaker 3: is functioning. So she will, you know, do laundry and
Speaker 3: school pickups and bits of grocery shopping and things during
Speaker 3: the week when we've run out of milk and I
Speaker 3: haven't had time to go and get any and she's
Speaker 3: just absolutely amazing. She's like a superhero. So that's great.
Speaker 3: And she willn't even do doing things like taking the
Speaker 3: youngest to swimming lessons and that sort of stuff, because
Speaker 3: I think it's you know, you want to do all
Speaker 3: these things for your kids, but then also you can
Speaker 3: turn your weekends into these sort of terrible nightmares and
Speaker 3: running around from one task to the next. So we're
Speaker 3: lucky on that front, cleaning, gardening, what else. James does
Speaker 3: all the cooking, So that's lucky for me. Yeah, for
Speaker 3: any working parent, and particularly for mums that don't have
Speaker 3: a lot of support from their partners, I think it's
Speaker 3: just it is extraordinarily difficult. And I think when we
Speaker 3: start asking why is there still a pay gap and
Speaker 3: why aren't women's careers progressing? I mean, oftentimes that's a
Speaker 3: big part of why is that just carrying the entire
Speaker 3: load of parenting and then also trying to successfully execute
Speaker 3: a career that's not possible. There's not enough hours in
Speaker 3: the day for that.
Speaker 2: What's your decision making process on what to outsource and
Speaker 2: what to do yourself?
Speaker 3: I think for me, it's about trying to value my
Speaker 3: time as a resource to both my business and to
Speaker 3: my family and going okay, is it the way that
Speaker 3: I want to spend my time. Is this a valuable
Speaker 3: use of my time for me? For me to be
Speaker 3: clean the house or whatever, it is is that or
Speaker 3: given the amount of time that I have for my family,
Speaker 3: would I rather spend that time engaging with the kids
Speaker 3: or getting some exercise done or that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And I get it, it's not a choice everybody has
Speaker 3: the option to make. But for me, it's how do
Speaker 3: I want to be spending my time? What are the
Speaker 3: tasks that I can add value to, such as playing
Speaker 3: with the kids, and what are the tasks that it
Speaker 3: doesn't add any value to that task for me to
Speaker 3: be doing it. So, for instance, like I used to
Speaker 3: have this whole thing about like I really wanted to
Speaker 3: bake all the kid's birthday cakes myself, and I had
Speaker 3: this whole idea that I was only being a proper
Speaker 3: mom if I baked all the birthday cakes myself. And
Speaker 3: it just got to a point one year where I
Speaker 3: was just like there was just too much on and
Speaker 3: I said to my daughter, I said, look, I'm really sorry,
Speaker 3: I just I'm not going to get time to make
Speaker 3: your cake this year. But if you like, here's a
Speaker 3: website where we can ad some off and you can
Speaker 3: pick which one you want. And she's like sweet, okay,
Speaker 3: and picked one that was like a unicorn that I
Speaker 3: could never have made and I said, I said, I said, honey,
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. Is it okay that I didn't make
Speaker 3: your cake for you? And she just looked at me,
Speaker 3: like with this kind of dull look on my face,
Speaker 3: and she's like, I don't care.
Speaker 1: So I get a unicorn cake.
Speaker 3: I get a unicorn cake. You would never have made
Speaker 3: me a unicorn cake. And I thought, no, that's true.
Speaker 3: Better mothers might have perhaps, But.
Speaker 4: I look, I think it's so useful for listeners to
Speaker 4: think about.
Speaker 2: I think I personally believe that there's always ways to
Speaker 2: think about spending your time more wisely and using money
Speaker 2: so that you can do that. And an example that
Speaker 2: I've given maybe a couple of times on the podcast
Speaker 2: is pre covid. I found that every weekend, my daughter
Speaker 2: and I would have a ritual where we'd go to
Speaker 2: the markets, we'd get all our fruit and vegs for
Speaker 2: the week, and then I would proceed to spend like
Speaker 2: a good two hours doing food prep where I'd be
Speaker 2: stuck behind the kitchen bench doing the mind and I'm
Speaker 2: being task of cutting things. And so I thought, maybe
Speaker 2: that's something I could outsource. So I ended up finding
Speaker 2: someone on air tasker and paid her fifty dollars to
Speaker 2: basically do all the food prep for the whole week,
Speaker 2: and fifty dollars like that's a dinner out or maybe
Speaker 2: an Uber eats in, And that just brought me so
Speaker 2: much more joy and brought me two hours of quality
Speaker 2: time with my daughter Frankie that I wouldn't have otherwise got.
Speaker 2: So I feel that there are like levels of outsourcing,
Speaker 2: but I feel like even a little bit of outsourcing
Speaker 2: is possible.
Speaker 4: For almost everybody listening.
Speaker 1: I would imagine, and.
Speaker 3: I think equally you might have people who would go, actually,
Speaker 3: I really enjoy that food prep time because I'm going
Speaker 3: to stand up my daughter and I are going to
Speaker 3: do it together and we're going to have this little
Speaker 3: cooking session and I'd rather just have my Uber eats
Speaker 3: during the week because that's something I really want to
Speaker 3: do it. It's just like, Okay, well, everybody's different in
Speaker 3: terms of where that exchange of time and money comes in,
Speaker 3: and you've just got to decide, like for me and
Speaker 3: for my family, what's the decision that works?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And my final question for you, Kate, is for
Speaker 2: people that want to connect with you and adore in
Speaker 2: some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: What is the best way.
Speaker 3: To do that? Sure, you can find me on Instagram,
Speaker 3: So I'm Kate Adore Beauty on Instagram, or I'm Morris
Speaker 3: Underscore Kate on Twitter. Or you can come and find
Speaker 3: me on.
Speaker 2: LinkedIn Fantastic or go to Adore Beauty dot a Door
Speaker 2: Beauty on all of the channels.
Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent.
Speaker 2: I linked to all that in the show notes, Kate,
Speaker 2: it has been so fun chatting with you and learning
Speaker 2: all about how you work. I've learned so many new
Speaker 2: things about you despite having known you for quite a while,
Speaker 2: So thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1: It's been awesome.
Speaker 3: Oh my pleasure.
Speaker 4: Hello there.
Speaker 2: That is it for today's show next Thursday, on How
Speaker 2: I Work. I am looking at imposter syndrome and I've
Speaker 2: gathered a few clips from interviews I've done over the
Speaker 2: last few years about people talking about their experience with
Speaker 2: imposter syndrome and how they manage it and even how
Speaker 2: they use it to their advantage. So if you have
Speaker 2: been known to suffer from imposter syndrome, you might want
Speaker 2: to hit subscribe or follow with wherever you're listening to
Speaker 2: this podcast so that you will be alerted when that
Speaker 2: new episode drops. How I Work is produced by Inventium
Speaker 2: with production support from Dead Set Studios. The producer for
Speaker 2: this episode was the amazing Jenna Coda, and thank you
Speaker 2: to my dad Martin Nimba who did the audio mix
Speaker 2: and makes everything sound better than it would have otherwise.
Speaker 2: That is it for today and I will see you
Speaker 2: next time.