Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
The entire purpose of life is to throw us curve balls and make us adjust on the fly. For Alicia Holt, those curve balls were more than just minor shifts. They were life altering changes. Alicia shares how she’s walked through loss, corporate America, and motherhood.
Julie Holton:
The climb to the top feels so good when you get there.
Audrea Fink:
Is it just us, or can it feel lonely sometimes even when you’re successful?
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
And who defines success anyway? What about life’s twists and turns?
Julie Holton:
We’ve learned a few things along the way, and we’re ditching the culture of competitiveness.
Audrea Fink:
Bringing together women from different backgrounds to share their stories.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Let’s do this together. Welcome to Think Tank of Three Podcast.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Hi, I’m Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris, along with Julie Holton and Audrea Fink. We are your Think Tank of Three.
Julie Holton:
We are so excited to introduce you to today’s guest. She is the epitome of woman powering through. She’s the marketing director for Frederick Wildman & Sons, Wine Importers. Having been promoted to that position from senior brand manager after she was first lured away from Mars, Incorporated.
Audrea Fink:
And while she is pushing her way through corporate America, she’s also a mom to a 10 year old son. Without question this is her priority position, but it changed dramatically when her husband passed away six years ago.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Alicia, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us here on Think Tank of Three podcast.
Alicia Holt:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Glad to have you, so excited to speak with you. Alicia’s a very good friend of mine. And so this is exciting always when we have someone that we are extra connected to on our show. So let’s get into it. A black woman in marketing and not just in marketing, the marketing director. This matters.
Audrea Fink:
Yes.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Especially today. Walk us through, Alicia. How did you make your way?
Alicia Holt:
Well, to be honest with you, it was kind of a stumble. It wasn’t something that I necessarily was on the path to do that. I, like so many young people, was trying to figure things out. I actually started back in research. I was in food science in undergrad. I also started to pursue that in grad school. And I just had this epiphany one day of, “I don’t really like this. This isn’t my wheelhouse.” While I enjoyed food, I enjoyed research on a certain level. I just felt like, “Long term, is this what I really want to do for a while?”
Decided not to do that. But I decided to go into the business side of food. And I literally one day, I was in Penn State, I at the food science building and the business school was right across the walkway. And I just left and I walked across one day and I sat in somebody’s office. I was like, “How do I get in here? How do I make this transition?” And I was able to do that. I ended up getting my business degree from Penn state and that’s kind of my step into business.
Julie Holton:
I love how you describe that. Literal change of walking across to another building like that. The vision that that puts in my head of how many women right now who are listening, who are in the process of making some of these major life changes and these decisions. And to be able to see how you literally took the steps to say, “How do I do this other thing instead?” How did that feel for you? I mean, here you are. And it’s hard to think back to, I think sometimes like to college. And maybe you recognized, maybe you didn’t, what a big shift that would be in your life. What did it feel like to make that change?
Alicia Holt:
It was a little scary, but I knew I had made the right decision. Sometimes you say you don’t know what you want to do until you do it. And then your mind is like, “Oh yeah, I feel good about it.” That’s what made me like, “Okay, this feels right. This is the right decision.” And my mother had said something to me before, which was when I was younger. I remember I got my first job at 15. And I remember her being kind of against it in this, and she said to me, “You have all your life to work.” And I was like, “What do you mean?”
It seems like an odd statement, but that was in the back of my mind when I was on this path. And I was like, “If I’m going to be doing this for a long part of my life, do I want to do this?” And it was like, “No, I don’t.” And that was always in the back of my mind. So when I was moving to different positions and I decided to make that decision. And I actually was able to get into business school, it was like, “Do you think you could do this for the rest of your life?” And in my mind, I was like, “Yeah, I really think I can.” And that’s what made me really feel like, “Okay, I’ve made the right decision.”
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
To have the mental capacity the mental awareness at that stage in your life. To ask that, let’s face it, very deep question. Is this something I can see myself doing for the rest of your life? Because you’re what at this point, early twenties?
Most are not really asking that question. They’re just kind of… You’re supposed to be just kind of figuring out what it is. “I want to do this. I want to go travel. I want to go find myself.” But you are asking that existential question, “Can I see myself doing this for the long haul?” And that’s a pretty intense introspection at that time in your life.
Alicia Holt:
I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be happy with what I was doing. Right? Let’s face it. All four of us could actually do a lot of things. Would you be happy doing those things, is an entirely different question. And I didn’t want to go and do a job, because I could technically do it. I get a paycheck. I live okay. I wanted to actually be excited and happy about what I was doing. And at that point, it was just me. Right. I didn’t have any kids. I just wanted to be happy with what I was doing. And a lot of times you don’t know until you get into it, but you oftentimes know what you don’t want to do.
And I knew what I didn’t want to do. So there was no need in me continuing down a path of something that I was sure I did not want to do. So when it comes to even something that’s a little bit new, but I have interest in it. It feels right versus something I just know, I don’t want to do. It felt like the right path, right? And it was an easy decision at that point.
Audrea Fink:
I love that we’re having this conversation. It feels very nostalgic in a way, to have it. Because when this podcast started, it started because Julie and I were looking at the roles we were in and thinking we didn’t have a clear path, right? Like we started working, we had jobs, but we didn’t necessarily know what the next thing was going to be. And I think it’s really important to normalize this idea of you’re not going to go on your first job out of college. Or even your first degree out of college is not necessarily going to set the path for your life. You really have to say, “Okay, do I like what I’m doing? Is this feeding my soul? Is this work meaningful for me? Or am I just clocking in, clocking out?” And there’s nothing wrong with just clocking in, clocking out, if that’s what you want for your life. But if you’re looking for a career, it can be really hard to just take the first job you get out of college and then hope that is the right one.
Julie Holton:
And how many people leave college, knowing that the degree they just earned is not in the field that they want to go into. But it takes so much courage at any step to be able to change course. We talk at length on this podcast about women navigating the corporate world and being confident within that space. So Alicia, I’d love to ask. What have you had to deal with, not just as a woman, but as a woman of color in corporate America?
Alicia Holt:
That’s a very loaded question on multiple levels. Because I think part of the things that women of color deal with in corporate culture, it’s just something that’s ingrained in the culture. And I think a lot of times, even the people that we work with don’t understand how so much of that bias is interwoven in, and just how the corporate culture is stacked up and works. For instance, I was on a meeting the other day with a sales team, some other clients that we were working with. And there were 66 people on the call.
Six were women, two were people of color. I don’t know what made me kind of scroll through, because it’s on a zoom call of course, but you can see everybody’s camera. And I’m just like, “Wow….” So I was the only woman of color on the call, and there was one other man of color on the call. But I also had to say to myself, “Yeah.” Was I surprised? No. It’s just the culture and the world that we live in and we operate in it. That’s just how it works. I think what I didn’t understand coming in, was how political corporate culture is. With research, I have been that type of person that felt like the work will speak for itself.
Nah, it’s not necessarily how it works. Right. You think that’s how it works, “If I do a good job and I do what they tell me to do. And my output is X, Y, Z, that’ll be enough to move up.” And it’s just not going to be. And I had to come to that realization really, really early on. And then I had to figure out, “Okay, so how do I succeed?” If I like what I’m doing, but I feel like either I’m not getting any kind of recognition, I’m not getting any kind of shine. I don’t see any upward mobility really happening. I’m recognizing that the people around don’t see me as a leader, how do I have to make that shift? And then I have to do some real soul searching to kind of figure that path out.
Audrea Fink:
It’s the fallacy of meritocracy. The assumption that if I just work really, really hard, people are going to see how awesome I am. And sadly in business, that’s just not the case. The squeaky wheel, if you will, is the one that gets tended to. Because it’s the person who was saying, “Look at all of these amazing things I’m doing,” is the person who then gets recognized. We just had a guest on who was a VIP at a very large company. And she said, the only way that she moved up was to essentially act like a man and toot her own horn, talk about what she has been doing and why it’s been successful. In-house politics, no matter who you are is complicated, especially when you are a woman or a woman of color. So talk to us bit about the client perspective. How did you see some of those issues playing out as a woman and a woman of color in leadership, with your clients?
Alicia Holt:
I think a lot of it… I happen to be on the marketing end. So the benefit that I have is typically people are trying to please me, right, because they want my business. But things have been overt and then things have been not so, a little bit more subtle. I will see things like people feeling like they can speak to me differently and be super comfortable, because I’m the cool black girl. And of course she’ll understand. And I can talk about these things, because she’s going to be cool with it. I’ve been in positions where I’ve been standing by a coworker that was not black and somebody’s coming over to talk to us at a trade show or something. And they spend all their time directing their energy to my coworker, because they assume she is the one that’s making the decisions.
And then it all comes down to my coworker having to say, “Well actually she, Alicia, is the person you should be talking to.” And you see their face kind of go, “Uh-oh.” And I’m like, “Yeah, you’re right. Uh-oh,” because now I look at you differently in terms of how things can be done. And then I think this happens with people of color, and in no other group, and I don’t really know why. Is that people take an experience that they’ve had in the workplace with one person of color or one woman, and they apply that to every minority that follows. Right?
Audrea Fink:
Yes!
Alicia Holt:
And the idea that… Yeah, I’m not saying that every woman in the workplace you’re going to have a great experience with. Or just performs, or it’s outstanding, or every person of color is that. But for some reason you can have so many people that are fired that are white males, and they don’t think anything of hiring 10 more right behind this person. But God forbid, there’s a mistake with the woman or a person of color. It’s like, “That’s the warning bell. We got to be careful about those people.” Right. And I feel like that’s where it comes down to, you don’t really have the wiggle room to mess up, because you’re really messing up for everybody that comes in behind you. They will never let you forget it.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Corporate America is so frustrating to me. The fact that you guys are a part of corporate America. I just feel like how have you not lost it on people? Because if you are constantly keeping yourself in check, because you know that you have to make sure that your persona is on point at all times. Even in the world of saying, “Well, then act like a man, and toot your own horn,” at the same time you have to do that carefully too. Because then they’re looking at, “Well, why is she acting like… She’s aggressive.” Right? You’re not savvy. For a man you’re savvy, “For a woman, you’re pretty aggressive.” Or, some other random adjective to describe how you are presenting yourself as a business person, even though you’re presenting yourself the exact same way the male counterpart is. But because it’s coming from you, it’s different. That is a lot of hats to maintain. How are you not tired? I’m asking all three of you, because I don’t understand how you…
Alicia Holt:
We’re exhausted
Julie Holton:
Reischea, do you remember just a couple days ago when I was like a crying hot mess. And I was like, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” And you’re like, “I know what’s wrong with you. You’re dealing with too much at once.” That’s how we handle it.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
You bring it home.
Julie Holton:
Really. You bring it home. It builds up over time, and I’ll speak for myself. So day after day, after day, you focus on doing the right thing. You focus on representing who you are in your own true, authentic self in business. And there are some days that are better than others. And some days that fight creeps up on you. That’s how I experience it. But at the same time, I will tell you that I am so empowered, feel so empowered even just by being surrounded right now in this podcast, by the three of you. Because when you are standing together, locking arms with other women who are fighting that fight along with you, it gives you a feeling that, “You know what? We can live another day. We can get through this and we can get through it stronger and better than ever before.”
Alicia Holt:
I agree with that. I have also found out that me tooting my horn isn’t enough. Advocacy in the workplace is huge, right? So you need to have somebody above you, not your work bestie, not your work husband that sits beside you in the cubicle. You need to have somebody above you that is sitting in those decision making rooms, that will vouch for you.
Audrea Fink:
Absolutely.
Alicia Holt:
That makes all of the difference in the world, because everybody’s going to say that they’re great, right? I can toot my horn and I can say all the other things, but even having a man that vouches for you honestly, as sad as it is to say, because that’s a level of respect that you’ve gained. You got to have somebody that vouches for you. That’s like you find yourself in a position where you have a boss that doesn’t really care about the people under them and where they go on their track record. I’ve had people tell me, “Look, your job is to make me look good.” I knew in that moment, this person didn’t care an iota about my career path. Or me moving up, or me doing anything. And that was like, “Okay, where can I go, because this person is supposed to my advocate?”
And if they’re not an advocate and when those decisions are being made, they’re not going to raise their hand and say, “Hey, Alicia’s good at so and so, or Alicia has done whatever,” when I’m not there to be able to toot my own horn, so that means something. So I would say to anybody, “Find you an advocate.” I don’t care if you have to create your own cross-functional teams. And so you have people above you so that you can do things. You need to find people that will vouch for you and not just yourself, because that means a lot. And that gains a lot of respect from a company perspective.
Audrea Fink:
When I was at the law firm I was at, my first year I worked really, really hard. And I had a leader that I worked with who told me in his compensation meeting, that he told everyone he couldn’t have done what he did without me. This compensation meeting had nothing to do with me, but he was such an advocate of me that he really promoted me. And it made me think, “Okay, he’s talking to people who make compensation decisions. I’m going to make sure that when I’m having conversations about other people who I think are awesome, I’m going to plug them when I can.” It’s important to not only get yourself an advocate, but to be an advocate because then other people also want to recommend you.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Alicia, while being a full time corporate boss is what you do, your number one job is being a mom. But you’re now a mom on your own after the death of your husband, very difficult topic. I know. Can you discuss what happened there?
Alicia Holt:
I had a partner, we were together for seven years. He passed away in 2015. Our son had just turned four about a month before. And he was 29 years old, and he died. After, we found out that he had a genetic heart condition, that we didn’t know about. And so I found myself, which is a position I never thought I would be in, a truly single parent overnight. Right. And I say, single, meaning the other person’s just not around. He’s not up the street. He’s gone. And I have a little boy. I grew up with sisters and I’m just sitting there by myself thinking, “Oh my God, what am I going to do? Especially because, he was such a hands-on dad. He was really, really, really hands-on.
Alicia Holt:
When our son was sick, he stayed home. He was the one that stayed home and took care of him and did those things. He was the person that took him to his first time to see Santa. He took him to the beach the first time. I remember, I think it was like 11 o’clock at night, we just had our son and he was only a few months old. And he was, he wanted to go to the store and he grabbed our son. And I was like, “Where you going?” He was like, “Well, we’re going to the store.” I was like, “Well, he’s three months. He’s not your wingman.”
I was like, “Put him down.” That’s how much… He took him everywhere. Right. They just had this really, really, really tight bond. And I just found myself being like… I was just overly distraught. My father had passed away and I felt like nothing could be worse than that. And then this happened and I just didn’t know what to do. And I just found myself in a very precarious situation of being a single parent, having a full-time job. Not having a second person to help. Not having a second person that did a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to her son, around. Thinking about financial stability long term. Because all these things were happening overnight and you don’t have time to think, because guess what? Tomorrow the sun rises and you got to keep going, and you just got to figure things out. And I was really lost for several months, just trying to figure things out.
Julie Holton:
Alicia, your son was so young when he lost his dad. And what a blessing that they had been so close before his dad passed. How did you help your son deal with his grief and his loss while you were experiencing your own?
Alicia Holt:
Initially I don’t know that I did the best job of that, because I couldn’t really find a North Star in terms of how to deal with it. The first thing you do is try to figure out, “Well, what do the books say? And do I have somebody I can talk to?” Jamal was 29, we were young. I didn’t know anyone who had lost a partner that young and was left with a child. My mother was a widow, I had older people that were widows. I didn’t have anybody that I felt like I could talk to that would truly understand what I was feeling. I tried to do some grief groups with Dorian, for younger kids who had lost parents. And obviously the mothers were there, really for people who had lost a partner.
And I think that helped, because Dorian didn’t have anybody. Even at his school, right? Because when his friends were talking about, “Oh my dad’s not here or my mom’s not here.” They meant divorce. They didn’t mean they had passed away. What I also didn’t realize is that because I was immediately struck, I assumed that my son would be immediately struck. And unfortunately, because he was so young, you have the conversation, “Daddy’s gone. He’s not going to be coming back.” At four years old, they’re not able to comprehend forever. Right?
Julie Holton:
Right.
Alicia Holt:
So even though I was having these conversations with my son and he would still ask, “But, where is daddy?” Or, “I haven’t seen daddy. Where’s daddy?” So I had to have the conversation over and over and over again, which doesn’t make it easier, but you got to have it. Right?
Your a mom, you got to power through it. And so I honestly felt like my son’s grieving was so delayed. Because until he was about five, daddy hadn’t been around for a year. And he really started to understand what death meant, what forever meant, is when he started to grieve. So it was really, really delayed to where I was, you would think a year later things were getting better. It was actually the opposite, because he had a level of understanding that he just didn’t have when he was four. So, being around those other kids, I think helped a lot. I think it helps me to personally be grateful, because I was around women who had four kids and their husband had passed away. One woman’s husband had committed suicide. And there were so many other instances and women who had to really watch their husbands suffer through long cancer battles.
And I was like, “As tough as it is for me, I couldn’t be these women.” You know what I mean? It was just put in perspective, the hurt that people are going through. And while you feel like yours is insurmountable, but you see how these… And they were so gracious and they were so sweet. And they were so willing to talk to me about things and offer up things. And it was just like, “If they can do it, I definitely can do it.” Right? So. I didn’t stay in the group for an extended amount of time, but even the time that we were there, it gave me so much more oomph and strength to be like, “Okay girl. You got to get it together, because life has to move forward.” And you got to be there for your son and you have to have a child that you hope doesn’t fear death, right?
Because you have to have a conversation with your child, that you hope to not have to have at four. “Mommy’s going to die one day too, and grandma’s going to die one day. And you’re going to die one day.” It is all. Everyone who lives and so you’re trying to build that, but I got to a point where it shifts your relationship with your child. I am so abundantly open and honest with my son, because I don’t ever want him to be caught by surprise about things that happen in life. And even bad things, bad things happen.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Yeah.
Alicia Holt:
They just happen. And so I feel like the conversation was shifted much earlier in his life, because of what obviously happened to us. But we are open. My son can ask me anything. I don’t care if it’s about sex. I don’t care if it’s about death. I don’t care if it’s about alcohol, right? Ask me anything and I will give you the honest answer.
Obviously it’s something that he can understand. But it made it so that I really understood how important it is to have an open dialogue with my son, because I don’t ever want him to be going through something or thinking something, and not be able to come to me. Because he now doesn’t have that male figure to go to, right? The things that you would think that he would talk to his father about, because they were so close. I knew from that moment on things changed, but I think for the better.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
You’ve touched on it already a little bit. I was going to ask you, we had been talking and you were saying you didn’t realize how much you had given to your career prior to the death of Dorian’s dad. So what did you mean by that? Because I think you’ve kind of expressed it pretty good when you just said, “He was scooping him up to take him to the grocery store at 11 o’clock at night.” And I’m like, “Hold your roll”
Alicia Holt:
I think it was very unconscious on my part, but because I had a partner that was so all in on being a dad, I did not realize how much of the quality time and kind of building of relationships that I kind of had left to him. I was leaving the house at 7:00 AM. I wasn’t getting home till 7:00 PM. My son was going to bed at eight. And even when I would get home, I’m drained. I’ve been at work all day. I don’t feel like I can handle it. So I would take 30 minutes to decompress. And then what did I have with my son, 30 minutes? I even left maternity leave early to go back to work, because I was like, “I’ve been out too long.”
Not prioritizing, like this is the only time you really have with your child to kind of build that bond. I was like, “Oh, two months. I need to go back. Work is going to mount and somebody else is going to do this.” And at the end of the day, they were just fine. Right. It was me feeling like I needed to get back, or how would it look if I was out for too long? Those first moments that I wasn’t a part of, because I decided, “Well, I don’t want to…” Not going to work or I have some work to do. I regret a lot of those moments. Because me being now much more seasoned, have been in the workplace for a while, I feel like there’s no reason. We don’t cure cancer.
I know sometimes our jobs make us want to think that, that we’re doing something that will save the world. We don’t. I sell wine, right. And before that I sold food. I’m not doing anything that’s going to save anybodies life, and at the end of the day if I don’t do it, somebody else will. But I just felt like I had to. And I prioritized a lot of work things, even when my work didn’t always ask me to, I can’t even put it on the job all of the time. It was me feeling like I had that responsibility to do that and to show up. Where I missed out on moments and time in creating bonds and memorable moments, when I really wish I had not done that.
Julie Holton:
Alicia, you obviously had this really big shift happen to you where you were forced to suddenly to reprioritize, right? Like what you’re talking about. And focusing on yourself and your grief and your son after this death. I’m sure there are a lot of women listening who are hearing what you’re saying and it’s resonating in some way about this balance of work and the rest of life. Or work and children, or work and partnership, whatever that might be, whatever that balance is. And I want to point out that you are still this badass woman who is the marketing director at this amazing wine importer.
So I’d love to hear your thoughts on what does that balance look like? Because I know you had this shift happen to you, and you had to respond on some levels, right? But you still had a lot of choices to make about what you would prioritize moving forward and you still have this amazing career. But yet I can hear it in you, that you are also this incredible mom who has navigated this journey in a way that puts your son first and your relationship with your son first.
So how are you balancing both?
Alicia Holt:
I think a lot of it honestly was a mental shift. It was about what I thought I had to do to succeed, versus what was actually required of me to succeed. Right. So, I had to come to this realization about work and work life balance. And really prioritizing that from my perspective and holding myself accountable to that, as well as the people that I worked for. I had to set up healthy boundaries with my work life balance. Right. Stop answering things after a certain time of the day. Stop over promising to over deliver, to get it in sooner, be realistic about expectations. I couldn’t degrade my output, right? That still had to happen. But I started having to reshape how I worked and how I communicated with the people that I was working with.
Reischea talks about the tribe. It’s a real thing. Right. Getting a great sitter to help you. For a while my son couldn’t do anything after school because, “Okay, I got to go work. I can’t get you there. I can’t give you so and so.” Making sure that he wasn’t deprived of things because of my work. Right. So there’s still a balance of course, he can’t do everything, but making sure that my son’s needs are covered first and that is not just financial. It’s emotional, it’s social, making sure that I was like, “We’re going to have a vacation every year.” We hadn’t done that yet. It was just making sure that we’re having that time to create moments together and that I’m prioritizing him over everything else.
I love my job. I love what I do. I love the people that I work with, but they’re replaceable, right? There is always another job. There’s always another opportunity. The time that you have with your family, as I well know, you always think you have time to do it differently later. You don’t always have the time. I had that realization happen to me, and so I was like, “I’m not going to waste any more time not building those moments and prioritizing my son.”
Audrea Fink:
I love that. I think… Well, I don’t think, I know. There is an unspoken expectation that you are supposed to parent like you don’t have a job and work like you aren’t a parent. And to hear you find that balance and to really put the work in its place. Work is important. It pays the bills, it puts food on… right? It’s how you take care of your family. And it is just a job. I love seeing how that your sense of self is so strong and so clear, and that sturdiness and that commitment to it’s just job has really served you and your family. How would you tell others to find this? How would you help other women find this in themselves or build this for themselves? How did you get that sense of self?
Alicia Holt:
I’m going to be honest. I think it starts with the actual job. And from my perspective, your job is a relationship, right? And it’s a transactional relationship. And you need to make sure that they’re not getting more from you than you’re getting from it. And so when you are living and working in a space… I tell people all the time and maybe it’s over confidence, maybe people feel like it’s too much, but when I interview with somebody, they’re not just interviewing me. I’m asking questions, I’m interviewing them. Are they the right people to serve the type of life that I live? And I came to the conclusion, I prefer to work in smaller companies. And it’s really about, kind of a little bit more about culture.
And I know you’re like, “Oh, you came from Mars? It’s the third…” I did, but I worked on a smaller business within Mars. So we still kind of operated like a small company. And I figured out where I perform best, but it also gives me the leeway and the flexibility to be the type of parent that I need to be. So, I set it up in my mind that I’m never afraid to walk away from a situation that doesn’t serve my life in the way that I want to live it. That’s how I feel. That’s probably how I will feel for forever. I’m not ever afraid to walk away, because this transactional relationship needs to be balanced and it needs to work for both of us. The day that you’re getting more out of me than I’m getting out of you, then I shouldn’t be there.
Audrea Fink:
I think it’s so common, for people in general, I don’t think this is just for women. To feel like they need to be grateful for their job. To feel like they owe their work a certain amount. I know I personally struggled with this in the past. My husband struggles with this now, because your work in a lot of ways is your livelihood. Because your career is in a lot of ways, your identity. There’s this attachment to it. Like it’s a meaningful two way relationship. But so frequently we forget the two-way part and we settle for a really crappy relationship, because we’re giving all of ourselves to this piece that is so important to us. But at the end of the day, it’s a company that may or may not put that investment back. And if you are not being invested in, you should not be investing back.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Well said. Well said. But also there is something about women balancing it a little bit more.
Audrea Fink:
Sure, sure.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
There is something with the fact that we have to… We’re like… What did Alicia say, “I went back to work early off mat leave.”
Audrea Fink:
Yes.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
“Because I was like, ‘I don’t want to be away for too long.'” And it’s things like that, that men in general, they didn’t have to worry about it because they weren’t having the babies to begin with. We’re fighting to get an equal paternity leave situation. But for the women that was always-
Audrea Fink:
Not to mention equal pay.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Equal pay. Right. But for women, there’s always that tipping point. That bounce why, “I got to do what I got to do. I can’t be away for long. I just had a baby, but you know what? I got a week. Let’s go.”
Julie Holton:
Almost like we’re still supposed to be grateful that we’re allowed to work. We’re allowed to be leaders. That’s a whole other podcast. But-
… I mean, let’s be honest here. Yeah. We’re allowed to be in the workplace. You feel like we’re still earning it.
Audrea Fink:
You earned it when you got the job. Now the job has to earn you.
Alicia Holt:
I think there’s some level of like respect, right? That women are always trying to earn in the workplace. And you feel like until you have that respect, nothing that you do will ever be seen as good as it should be, or better than coworkers. I’ve worked for people that couldn’t even open an Excel file, let alone… And it’s like, “But you’re three levels above me?” Like how does this happen?
And that’s when I realized too, which also helped me balance. It’s not so much about the hard skills moving up, as much as it is about the soft skills, right?
Audrea Fink:
Absolutely.
Alicia Holt:
But a person is looking for somebody to be a leader. How often have we been with somebody, and you’re like, “Oh my God. All he does is delegate. He just delegates the work down.” And I was like, “Yeah. Yeah, he does. And he’s gotten promoted. And he moved up.” Because they see him as somebody who can manage, who can lead.
Audrea Fink:
Yes.
Alicia Holt:
Can produce results. Whether he’s doing the results or whether he can motivate a team to produce the results. So it’s not just about how well you can do that spreadsheet. How pretty your presentations look, how many hours you’re on the computer. It’s about, can you get to the point where you can lead an organization?
Can you get to the point where people will follow you and you have results? And so once I stopped worrying about how great this data sheet was, or how pretty my presentation was. And I started focusing in on being a much more well-rounded employee, right? And speaking up more meetings, bringing my ideas more to the forefront. Trying to get direct reports and saying, “Okay, this person did this because of me,” or, “I trained this person to do so and so.” When people do well under you, that speaks well to you as a person that’s leading them.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Man, Alicia, we could be going on. There were so many more podcasts that came out of Alicia’s mouth. You’re such an amazing individual, and there is so much more that we could talk to you about. But we need to close this one up. Before we go, we are collecting. We always collect advice from the wonderful women who come onto our podcast to share with the communities, with regards to moving forward with their careers or with their lives, or with whatever it is that they’re working towards. So we have three rapid fire questions for you. So quick answer, shortest point to the point. Are you ready?
Alicia Holt:
Yep. I’m ready to go.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
All right. Number one. Is there a lesson that you recently learned that you wish you had learned earlier in your career?
Alicia Holt:
I just spoke to it before, but it’s really about the interviewing of the company. I think you’re so happy to get somewhere. And you’re so happy when somebody calls you back and you’re so busy trying to impress them. Did they impress you? How do they fit into your life? What’s the work life balance that you’ll get out of that? All of that is important, and your matriculation there, how happy you will be there and how successful you will be at a company. Everybody’s not the right fit. So you have to treat everybody and interview the people that are interviewing you.
Julie Holton:
You’ve given us a lot of great insight from all of the lessons that you’ve learned. If you had to boil it down to just one thing about your career, what lesson would you offer to another woman?
Alicia Holt:
Move with confidence. I think it’s not really set up for you to believe in yourself or for you to believe that your work is good enough, or that you’re good enough. But you have to move with confidence and find your advocate. If you’re working and you’ve been there for three years and nobody’s speaking up and you haven’t gotten a promotion, I don’t care how good your work is. You need to go, because you don’t see any positive movement. That means that they see you as a worker bee, they don’t see you as the future leadership of the company and exit sooner rather than later.
Audrea Fink:
In today’s professional setting. Do you think there’s one skill that women really need to have in order to keep themselves moving forward?
Alicia Holt:
I would say the skill will be communication. The hardest thing to do in the world is to communicate. People take words, they think they may in different things. You thought you said something, you said something else. Learn how to communicate, because managing up is how you will move forward in corporate America. It’s not just about them managing you, it’s managing up. What do they expect? What do they need? How do the people above you move up? And you need to be able to manage that relationship, because if that relationship above you is not managed, you will find yourself stagnant and unhappy.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I have heard that term before and thank you for saying it now and reiterating it. Manage up. The majority of the women, honestly, who have come onto this podcast have kind of sat in that same realm of advice. But it is worth hearing it over and over and over and over again until it gets through peoples skulls. Alicia, thank you so much. Can you share with us the best way for someone in our audience to connect with you, to talk with you, perhaps they have a professional question for you?
Alicia Holt:
The best way is to be just to contact me via LinkedIn. My name is Alicia, A-L-I-C-I-A. Last name Holt, H-O-L-T. Feel free to message me there. I’m always looking to network and obviously talk to more people. If you need any advice or just want to talk, I’m always an open book.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Alicia Holt. My friend, my love. Thank you so much for joining us on this podcast. It has been an absolute pleasure having you with us.
Alicia Holt:
Thank you all so much for having me. I was surprised you wanted to talk to me. I’ve never seen myself or my experience as something out of the box, but I really appreciate it. And it’s been a great conversation.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
It has been. Absolutely. And that will do it for this episode of Think Tank of Three.
Audrea Fink:
If you have topics you’d like us to cover, or guests you’d like to hear from, send us a message at thinktankofthree@gmail.com. Subscribe to The Think Tank of Three, wherever you listen to podcasts and connect with us online. We blog weekly at thinktankofthree.com.
Julie Holton:
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Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
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