Empowering Women

Tony Martignetti
Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other— wait a minute, wait a minute, wait. Where's our— what happened to our— we didn't even rehearse yet.

Kate Martignetti
I was just thinking about how it was going to be cold. I was like, okay, we're going in cold.

Tony Martignetti
Gotta rehearse. Doing cold? Roger cold? You know how to say Olivieri?

Kate Martignetti
Olivieri? Yeah, because she's been on before, like a few weeks ago.

Tony Martignetti
A few weeks ago?

Kate Martignetti
Sarah Olivieri.

Tony Martignetti
Right. Okay. Okay. Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I'm your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdomadal podcast. I'm sitting next to Kate this week, and, and we are going in cold. We didn't even rehearse this week, and I'll have more to say about why I'm sitting next to her, uh, on Tony's Take Two. I'm glad you're with us. I'd bear the pain of eosinophilic esophagitis if you inflamed me with the idea that you missed this week's show. Here is our associate producer Kate, seated next to me, to give you the highlights. Kate?

Kate Martignetti
Hey, Uncle Tony. I'm happy that you're here. I'll be— ooh, I'll be happy to tell you the highlights. Empowering women. Jenny Mitchell's 2024 book, Embracing Ambition, unites the leadership stories of 12 exceptional women CEOs. The result is a mentorship resource for the current and next generation of women leaders. She shares the challenges, including perception barriers, glass cliff assignments, and collective vision. This originally aired August 26th, 2024, on Tony's Take Two.

Tony Martignetti
Fun book launch events.

Kate Martignetti
Here is Empowering Women.

Tony Martignetti
What a pleasure, a genuine pleasure to welcome Jenny Mitchell to Nonprofit Radio. She is the Chief Visionary Officer of Chavender, where she works closely with leaders to change the world one mission at a time. She's a speaker, executive coach, fundraising professional, and host of the Underdog Leadership Podcast. Her book is Embracing Ambition: Empowering Women to Step Out, Be Seen, and Lead. That important book brings her to Nonprofit Radio. You'll find Jenny on LinkedIn and her company at chavender.com. Jenny Mitchell, welcome to Nonprofit Radio.

Jenny Mitchell
Woohoo! I love the energy already. Thank you, Tony.

Tony Martignetti
Oh, my pleasure. I'm glad you're excited already. Thank you, and congratulations on a book that I believe came out in March.

Jenny Mitchell
That's correct. It feels like, uh, my third baby.

Tony Martignetti
Are you doing lots of gigs? Are you speaking? Are you selling books? What's up?

Jenny Mitchell
I'm doing it all. So launched in March, did some Canadian launches. We're working on launches in New Jersey for the fall. And I have another author that's in Pennsylvania. So we're on our way there. Not just Trump that's there, it's me too. And, you know, it's been an interesting journey seeing people experience the book, what the kind of feedback is, how the speaking engagements have kind of come out of that. Very briefly, my story is that I cut my teeth in fundraising just like you. Um, and as I got going, I realized that the passion I had was for the people. I'm sure you can relate to that. And specifically, the offer— opportunity I could provide was women's leadership. And so that's kind of where I've doubled down in the not-for-profit space, although I am exploring corporate as well.

Tony Martignetti
All right, expanding, ever challenging boundaries, one of the things we'll talk about. Expanding Boundaries. Um, thank you for mentioning New Jersey, my hometown. Um, and you're coming to us from Ottawa?

Jenny Mitchell
That's correct. Ottawa, Canada.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah.

Jenny Mitchell
All right. Yeah. So think about going to Toronto and then going kind of east 3 hours.

Tony Martignetti
So the book is a collection of 12 authors, yourself included, essays. I, I, I deserve essays on, you know, you're out to empower future and current female leaders. There are lots of CEOs. They're all CEOs eventually. Are they all— did they all make CEOs? Or—

Jenny Mitchell
They're all CEOs. And I might help you with like, sort of situating the why, because like, why another book? Right, Tony?

Tony Martignetti
Well, okay. I do want you to tell your story about the out-of-body experience that you had.

Jenny Mitchell
Oh, yes. I'm happy.

Tony Martignetti
That's to me what— that's what— but you please, it's your, it's your, it's your story.

Jenny Mitchell
Well, telling you what story to

Tony Martignetti
tell. No. No, the story. No, no, no.

Jenny Mitchell
I'm delighted to tell the story.

Tony Martignetti
Please tell your story.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah, I'm delighted to tell the story because, um, I guess the, the very brief of why this book, why another book, and who am I, to be honest, who am I to bring another book into the world about this? And so this ties into my story. Um, but when I realized that there were parts that we weren't bringing of ourselves to leadership, and of course my podcast is called Underdog Leadership, so obviously I care deeply about those number 2s becoming number 1s. And I saw that there was this theme that we couldn't really know people until we truly understood their leadership story journeys. And so with that lovely segue you gave me, I will give you the— set the stage for my story, which is called Being Right. And I had this experience driving down a street where I realized in a moment that I was having a panic attack. Oh, no. And it was very interesting because my logical brain kept saying things like, well, if you're going to have a panic attack, it's a bad idea to do it in a car, Toni. So you should pull over. And banks are always reputable. So you should definitely sit in the front lobby of a bank. Like, don't go to the grocery store. There might not be seats. All of this is running in my head. As you can imagine, it's a ticker tape as I'm trying to figure out how to not pass out in the car. And the experience of that moment in my body forms a thread in my story, which I'm not going to give away the ending, but it's a realization of something about leadership that I'm trying to do that doesn't fit. And I'm sure your listeners can relate to that.

Tony Martignetti
Tell the story now about the out-of-body experience you had listening to one of your 12 authors talk about her research.

Jenny Mitchell
Oh, at the beginning. Yes. So,

Tony Martignetti
yeah.

Jenny Mitchell
Yes, at the beginning. So I'm sitting in the audience of a very large international fundraising conference, and I'm listening to this woman talk about her research, Dr. Megan Raybine, about women's leadership experiences, which she was an expert in. She just finished her dissertation. She was sharing us those 5 pillars, and the outer body experience was, oh, I recognize that one. Oh, I know that one too. Oh, that one's familiar to me. In other words, it was like she was talking to me, and I almost had the experience of like, do I look like a sheep? Like, I'm turning my head behind me thinking, oh my God, is everybody else experiencing this the same way? And it really helps me understand that my, my experience was not my own. It wasn't just mine. It was other people's. And so I made a beeline to her because I'm that person and said, we need to connect. And that was the beginning of a wonderful collaboration that we had together.

Tony Martignetti
When I was reading, I was thinking of the Roberta Flack song Killing Me Softly. Right. Rebecca was was strumming her your life with her words. She wasn't killing you softly with her song.

Jenny Mitchell
Are we gonna sing? Are we

Tony Martignetti
gonna sing? No, no, I'm not gonna sing. No, I know better. I know my boundaries. I know my boundaries. Anyway, I was thinking of Killing Me Softly by Roberta Flack. Okay. So you got the women together.

Jenny Mitchell
I did.

Tony Martignetti
Over a weekend was the sort of the genesis of each woman's essay. What was that weekend like? Do you have a lot of wine? I was wondering, was there a lot of wine flowing?

Jenny Mitchell
Oh, there was so much wine.

Tony Martignetti
There was? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Okay. And it was like— Where did you do it? Did you do it at your home or where?

Jenny Mitchell
No, we went to— so first off, we picked a really fancy hotel. It was important to me that they got the nice hotel 'cause in not-for-profit, you never get the nice hotel, right? You always get the bargain basement.

Tony Martignetti
I have trouble with that. I believe we all deserve the best. I mean, we don't— that doesn't mean we have to fly first class, but it doesn't mean we have to fly in the coach either. We could, we could do, you know, comfort plus is okay. So I, yes, I agree that that's common, but I abhor it.

Jenny Mitchell
All right. Well, that's fantastic because I know—

Tony Martignetti
You picked a nice resort.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah, we picked a nice place, a nice hotel in Toronto because it was central and we had folks coming in from all across North America. And I'll just set the stage for your listeners. I, of the 12, I knew 4, I think 3 were coaching clients. There were 4 that I did not know very well and 2 that I knew hardly at all because the network that I wanted to create was wide and I wanted that diversity. So you can imagine all of us showing up on the 12th floor to the bar because I invited everyone to the bar for 7:00 PM. And these 12 women come in that don't know each other. And I'm thinking to myself, well, this is either going to go great or this is going to go awful. And within 20 minutes, it was really funny because immediately we took over the bar and the volume in the room went up to here. And you could see the connections and the conversations starting and the shared experiences. I mean, when you've lived as a CEO, when you've dealt with the tough stuff, there's a lot of common ground that you can hop into. And I'd like to think I had a part in that too. I wanted a certain profile of leader. I believe that we have to be ambitious and compassionate and kind. So, that kind of creates a space where you get high achievers, but high achievers that are willing to share, willing to connect, willing to offer their stories as value-add to colleagues.

Tony Martignetti
Share vulnerabilities.

Jenny Mitchell
That's it.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, yeah. Well, yes, you absolutely— I mean, you should take some credit. You decided who the 12 ought to be and you had set expectations for all of them. Leading up to, you know, because all your conversations leading up to that, that wonderful weekend. All right. So that was— that sounds like great fun. So then did you meet in— I'm just— I'm interested in the, you know, 12 women CEOs sharing, and some don't know anybody.

Jenny Mitchell
They don't know each other.

Tony Martignetti
A lot of them don't know it. You hardly know 2 of them. You know, how does it sort of come together? So you had drinks on Friday. That's casual. But already the stories are starting to flow because you've set up What we're here for. You've, you've set the expectations for the weekend. All right, so then what is like Saturday morning? Do you get together for— is there a required breakfast or what, what happens?

Jenny Mitchell
So let me give you the flow. And, and yeah, I'm really— yeah, we'd had one Zoom meeting before. That's all we'd had was basically an introduction before the weekend. So the stage was set Saturday morning that we were going to workshop together. So what was really funny was, of course, they're all Type A's, right? So I kept saying, ladies, I'm in charge. I'm in charge, you know, because they want to qualify. They want to understand expectations. That was really funny. And I actually had a wonderful colleague named Michelle Fishering, who was our facilitator/editor for the book, and she spent a full chunk of time in the morning talking about storytelling. And remember, some of us in the group are fundraisers, not all of us, but we all know comms. But these are personal stories, completely different. So We actually talked about the components of storytelling. We talked about what an arc of a personal essay or, like you said, article or whatever would look like.

Tony Martignetti
Essay. Yeah, no, essay.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah, an essay, you know, and we kind of framed that out. But here's where the magic started to happen. And I share this because I think this is a great tool that people could use in different ways in their offices. We broke into groups of 3. One person told their story. One person asked questions and one person listened, Tony. So the listener at the end of the story being shared, because we're trying to workshop which story we would include, right? And, you know, they're Type A. They're like, I have this one, I have this one, I have this one, I have this one, I have this one. And we're trying to connect them to the most meaningful story tied to leadership because that was really what I wanted to get to. And a story that wasn't just, here's my broken heart, like here's what I learned from this. That's what I'm not so interested in, the story of what you, what you experienced, but I'm really interested in what you overcame and how you managed it, because that I think is a teachable moment, right? So what happened was when these women would hear their words reflected back to them by the listener, there were light bulb moments. It was like coaching, like they, oh, I never thought of it that way. And what they thought the story was about was actually not what the story was about. And that was really cool, Tony. Really cool.

Tony Martignetti
And a good number of them share that in, in their essays that, you know, as I'm writing this chapter for Jenny's book, I'm thinking about how I grew and reflecting and I'm seeing this, my own story in a different perspective, you know, not in so many words, but—

Jenny Mitchell
Almost in those exact words. It's actually that, like one gal starts with, I'm the little engine that could. I don't think of myself as a leader. I I just show up every day and do my work. And then as she describes her journey and where she came from, this is Heather Bach in the book, and at the end she says, you know, as I write this, I realize that I have a great accomplishment and that my values and what I stand for are reflected in my leadership journey, and I can now own that label that I am a leader. And I thought those were beautiful moments and a lot of empathy too. Like, Wow, I'm so sorry that happened to you. Like, we have some pretty heavy topics, right? Like racial discrimination, a lot of tough— the school of tough knocks. But the book is actually quite lighthearted, I would say, Tony. I don't know how you feel about it, but it's got everything.

Tony Martignetti
No, I agree. It's uplifting. It is. I mean, it's empowering.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
And yeah, there are hard moments. We'll get to them. Let's tick off for everybody, just so we have a general framework, the 5 pillars.

Jenny Mitchell
Let's do it.

Tony Martignetti
Pillars around which the essays are organized. Please just tip them off, just tick them off, and then we'll run through them.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah, we'll run through them. So I'm just reading from my book so I get them in the right order. So the first one is perception barriers, aka imposter syndrome. The second is embodied roles, when you take on the role too much, I would say. Embracing challenge. I think that one's self-explanatory, as well as glass cliff assignments. This one's getting a lot of play in the media. It's interesting that folks have picked up on that one. We can, we can talk. That's the idea that you get hired into a situation that's almost impossible and you're falling off the glass cliff. And finally, visionary. All of the women and the research says that these women can see something that's possible where others can't. And so their ability to bring people along is one of their defining elements of leadership. So those are the 5.

Tony Martignetti
Including seeing things in themselves.

Jenny Mitchell
That's

Tony Martignetti
right. That's right. All right. And that's where you're in the visionary. You put your story in the visionary pillar. All right. Some perception barriers. This is the first one. Interesting that you started with a tough one. This is a woman of color who's introduced to the board as I want to introduce our new fabulous BIPOC CEO. And her world, like the room starts to close in on her. And it only gets worse. It doesn't get better. She's hoping it'll get better. But this is— this is— say, please pronounce her name for me.

Jenny Mitchell
Onome Ako.

Tony Martignetti
Onome. All right. Why don't you— why don't you share a little? We won't have time to do every 12 stories.

Jenny Mitchell
This one matters.

Tony Martignetti
But you opened with a— you opened with a You opened with probably the most egregious example of racism and sexism in the book.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah. And she's so gracious about it. And so to set the stage, what her experience was of that was that all of her other credentials didn't matter. She was defined into a box of being BIPOC, and that's all that she counted for. I learned a lot from her story. I'm actually still getting goosebumps as we talk about it. She talks about—

Tony Martignetti
I tell you, my synesthesia kicked in. I got some tears reading a couple of these stories. I got some chills too. Same reaction.

Jenny Mitchell
I think the other thing for us to understand, especially myself as a white person, is when women of color go up to be CEOs and they even go up for the job. First of all, there's tons more risk for them. But what I didn't realize was they become this symbol of their entire community. So she talks, she's from Nigeria. So she talks about all the Nigerian finance scams that kind of chase her. So she triple, quadruple checks all the finances for her organization. Never thought of that. Never crossed my mind that she would think that way. So the ability in these stories to see the perspective from other people, really powerful. She talks very strongly about her community and about the collective decisions they make together. And one of the most— so using that example of the 3 people listening, when she told her story, the thing that everybody kept saying over and over was, I can't get my head out of that room in the bathroom, the cubicle in the bathroom. She opens with this story about the cubicle being her friend and how it had seen her highs and her lows. And that was the place she'd retreated to when, you know, somebody had— she'd found out that one of her colleagues colleagues made more money than she did, even though they, you know, they did the same job, when she got turned down for promotions, also her happy stuff too.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah.

Jenny Mitchell
And the visual of that cubicle just stuck with us. And we built the whole story around it.

Tony Martignetti
Why did you make the choice to start with a difficult story?

Jenny Mitchell
That's a great question. So one of the things we said to the women, because they're Type A, they're like, okay, which pillar do you want me to write to? And I was like, no, I want you to write your story. Our job as editors is to figure out how we thread this together. And so they knew the research, we had prepped them with the research, and they're all really excited about it. But the goal was not to write to the pillar because it kind of pigeonholes you a bit, and then you have to, you know, you kind of flip from first person to like academia speak, you know. And it was challenging for many of these women who represent organizations, Tony, to represent themselves, to speak. It wasn't hard for them to speak from the heart, but the majority of the issues were around how much do I tell? Will I be hurting anybody by telling this? Right? So where's the line on that? And so why did I start with a compelling story like that? I wanted people to notice the book. I know people don't read full books. My story is at the very end. So I thought, you know, people would If they were so inclined, they would make it there. And I wanted people to pay attention to what we had to say. And the perception barriers is real. One of the things the research said that I just wanna highlight is it's not just external perception barriers. So people not seeing you as a leader, that gets discussed a lot, but the internal perception barrier. Am I good enough to lead? Do I have the skills? You know, we talk about Competence builds confidence. Well, what if you don't have a lot of competence? What if you just don't have a lot of time being a CEO? How do you build that, address the perception barrier from internal? So I thought it was— I still think it's a kick-ass story.

Tony Martignetti
There is a lot of introspection in the book. You talked about imposter syndrome. We'll get to— I think it's Delphine who makes the— is a very good example of what— her essay is a very good example of what you just described about how you see yourself, your own Perception as well as the perception of others, and and just women you know women are not raised to be to be leaders. And I think that even in 2024, I I think it's less true than it was 40 years ago, but it's still true overall. Women are just not raised in those girls are not raised in those with that kind of thinking, with that kind of role. So the so the self doubt is. I think remains pervasive, which we need to— you know, you're making a step at, you're taking a— you're chipping away at this perception barrier.

Jenny Mitchell
And we all have it. I mean, I think that's the other thing was at the end of the day, we live in a society, so we're never going to get away from it, Tony. But what we can do is prepare ourselves better. So I think that's where you see the hope in the book is I'm not here to say, woe is me, poor me, these wonderful— these horrible stories, this is what happened to me. I don't care so much about that, actually. I care more about how you handled it. I care more about what you did about it. And the book is about, and here's how we can prepare the next generation better. Because once you know these stories, once you know this is going to be part of your experience, different sections of it or whatever, then you cannot be so thrown off your course when it happens, right? Mm-hmm. That's the thing. And you're not alone. And I think it's important for us as people who've arrived there to say, this is what happened, because it really changes the way you see someone. Because leaders still have this shiny veneer around them. I don't know if you— this drives me nuts, but you know that shiny veneer that they've got all the solutions, all the answers, they can't possibly show themselves as vulnerable or human or, you know, miss a pickup with kids.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, well, that's the outdated— that's the Jack Welch theory of leadership.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah, yeah, he's been—

Tony Martignetti
yeah, I don't debunk, but he's He's, he's an anachronism now.

Jenny Mitchell
But we're in a transition and we don't have a lot of models of that ambition and compassion, right? I mean, look, let's look at the, uh, the female models we have. We have Angela Merkel, you know, relatively masculine. Hillary Clinton is maybe one. Kamala Harris, not so much. But like, those, those were how they, they— what they had to do to survive was become more of a masculine energy. And so we're in uncharted waters. We have our New Zealand Prime Minister, you know, who who really came to the office with a different experience. And I think modeling that and showing that it's viable. It's not better or worse. It's just different and it's viable. But we've got a whole chunk of years behind us of society that's been expecting something. That's that unconscious bias. And I want to be part of blowing that sucker up.

Tony Martignetti
You are. You are. We're going to move to the next pillar. But for listeners who may have ever been identified as an interim, as stuck in interim. Your own— again, the outside perception, your internal perception, your own, your own self-worth and value. Uh, there's an excellent, uh, essay, uh, by, uh, by Megan about interim. It's called Interim. So, um,

Jenny Mitchell
that's a must-read, actually. That's a must-read too, because there's so many nuggets there. Things like asking for pay at the new interim level, like asking for clarification on how long, like, how do you define your self-worth? And how long? I mean, you can very easily be taken advantage of as an interim. I just want to say, if you like

Tony Martignetti
to— What was the last thing you said?

Jenny Mitchell
If you let them.

Tony Martignetti
If you let— yeah, yeah. All right. Our next pillar is, you call embodied roles.

Jenny Mitchell
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
What does this one mean to you?

Jenny Mitchell
The easiest way to describe it is the, uh, okay, fine, the corporate lawyer, gonna use your example, um, who gets breast cancer and who decides she wants to move into not-for-profit, into cancer, and becomes the CEO of the blah blah blah Cancer Society and can no longer separate her personal and her professional work lives. And the risk of burnout is so great because they over-identify with the constituent group they support.

Tony Martignetti
Do you want to— let's talk about the story of the Navy JAG, Janet.

Jenny Mitchell
Oh, yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Because that one struck me as a former lawyer. She got much further in her career in law than I did. Illuminary, 2-star admiral she rose to. I think that was the way she wrote Did, did she write the story or did you change in editing? Did you change the flow? I loved how she opened with the courtroom, the courtroom movement. I thought that was— and I was thinking of— she mentions, she mentions Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men. And I was thinking of that before, before her reference. I don't know. I always go to media. Like I was saying earlier, I was thinking of Roberta Flack's song. So, yeah, just why don't you share this? Yeah. Share the story. Share Janet's story.

Jenny Mitchell
Jen's story is that she goes— she's very funny, by the way. I'm sure you giggled when you read it. She talks about deciding to go to law school and the service calling that she had in her family. Her parents had been involved in service and community and military backgrounds. She decides to become a lawyer and ends up as a JAG lawyer. I don't know if that's the same term in the States, but Navy lawyer.

Tony Martignetti
Judge Advocate General.

Jenny Mitchell
Exactly.

Tony Martignetti
JAG Corps.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah. So, and Navy. So imagine being, I don't know, under 30 on a boat, first of all, working to support the sailors, depending on how they're, you know, things go along. And the theme of her story was that the system is you. You can believe in the— and this seems so timely— you can believe in the system and you can put your faith and trust in the system, but there will come a moment where you yourself are the system and the expectation and how you show up and do the the right thing at that moment really matters, and you must never forget that. And so her story goes through this disillusionment. There's a couple of different instances where one is she's wrongly accused of having sex with one of her clients, and it is a completely false accusation, but you must go through the process because that's what the system is. And you get to hear this sort of inner dialogue that she has about, well, how could I— how could I have slept with him? I don't even know him. Like, and she goes through this whole thing, and it turns out that, you know, she was the attractive young lawyer on the ship and there were some loose lips. So that was on her front and eventually the charges are dropped. But it happens again when she's representing someone where she feels that due process isn't happening. And in that case, it's a very interesting story where someone's brought up— they want to be dishonourably dismissed from the military. And the impact is, Tony, they don't get benefits. Right. So it's serious, really serious. And it goes through the process of how this judge wants to move this thing through. It's December 23rd. He's not willing to wait for time. She hasn't even met the client, and they want to just push the thing through. And she judges them about against the system. You know, are are they acting in the true spirit of the system? Is this fair? I mean, the other part of her story as a lawyer is justice and and equity and. fair process and treating people the way in the eye of the law. These are all very strong, strong principles of hers. And I won't tell you the ending on that one because it's absolutely fabulous. But your question about writing, her writing is very dense, very different than the other ladies, and it was really important to me that I not change it. But what I did do was ask or challenge her arc of the story because there's a lot of different components in this story and it could, it could be— I was worried it could be confusing to the reader. So one of the things I would do with Janet's story is I would do a bit of editing and I'd hand it to someone that knew nothing about her and I'd say, can you follow it? Right? Because there was a brilliant thread, but I mean, it's— we had so many ideas, it was almost more of a paring down and to make sure at the end there was a strong message. And sidebar, she is the president of the Girl Guides in Greater Pennsylvania, which I think is just such a perfect role for her.

Tony Martignetti
Girl Scouts in the US. Girl Scouts.

Jenny Mitchell
Girl Scouts. Yes.

Tony Martignetti
Yep. In central, central Pennsylvania. Yeah. Yeah. 2-star admiral, she rose to a remarkable career in the law.

Jenny Mitchell
And it's funny that you highlighted that one as a lawyer too, right? So you could— I can imagine you could see, see that story even more vividly. Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Well, it's a big stretch. I was a lowly 2-year— I only lasted in law for 2 years. So maybe that hearing, if I had been a JAG officer, I wasn't, but if I had, I could see doing that hearing. But that's about it. I didn't get too far.

Jenny Mitchell
That's a long

Tony Martignetti
story. That's a book in itself.

Jenny Mitchell
And this is another reason why the book, I think, is so fabulous, if I may, is there's so many different perspectives. There's 12. So some of them you're going to resonate with more. And I think that's really why I wanted this sort of prism experience of leadership. There's no one-size-fits-all, right? But there's always takeaways and you're going gonna connect on a visceral level with different personalities and different profiles. And that's what I love about the book.

Speaker D
It's time for Tony's Take 2.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you, Kate. Thank you for sharing the mic with me. Yes, I'm visiting Kate's family in New Jersey because I'm between 2 weeks of really fun book launch events. Last week, I was New York City and Lincoln, Nebraska. Thank you, Perlman and Perlman Law Firm in New York City, and thank you, Firespring in Lincoln, both for hosting me last week. And then next week, there are 2 Philadelphia events, one at Villanova University and one in Center City Philadelphia. And these in-person events They're just so empowering, like, so uplifting to be in person with audiences. You can see their eyes, you can see people's faces. I know I talked about this a few weeks ago also on Tony's Take Two about how inferior the virtual spaces are, whether it's Zoom or Teams or Riverside, RiverSpring, whatever, whatever it is. They just don't— they don't even come anywhere near being in person with people. So, I mean, we're having— audiences are, and I know I am too, having just fun. I'm talking about my book. People are buying the book. I'm signing it. I'm getting to chat with people about their planned giving or about other stuff while I'm signing. Just lots of— lots of good times. So 2 last week. 2 more to come this week when we're recording. And I'm looking forward to it, to doing 2 more. And Kate will be with me at Villanova University later this week, which will be last week when you are listening. So thank you for everybody who came out to the 4 book launch events. Love it, love it. And if you want to host a book launch event, it doesn't really matter where you are in the country. I'm pretty mobile and flexible. Let me know. Be happy to come out. Let's talk about it. That's Tony's Take 2. Fun book launch events. I'm turning the mic over now to Kate.

Kate Martignetti
I'm so excited. I've never done, like, a book launch event because obviously I've never written a book, but I'm excited to support you at Villanova.

Tony Martignetti
Villanova. Absolutely. This coming Wednesday, we'll be there. You're going to help me sell books. While I'm signing. Thank you. Yeah, it'll be fun.

Kate Martignetti
With your fine point Sharpie?

Tony Martignetti
Has to be a fine point. Fine point. Robert brought the medium point. That was a mistake. But still love Robert. Very grateful to him still.

Kate Martignetti
We've got beaucoup but loads more time. Here's the rest of Empowering Women with Jenny Mitchell.

Tony Martignetti
You know, that makes me think of another film that I have not seen yet, but it's on my— it's on my immediate list. It's called Nashville. And I just from the trailer and what a friend who recommended it told me is, it's a mashup of 20-some different stories taking place in Nashville, Tennessee. And so, you know, some you're gonna resonate with, and some of the characters, you know, are not going to hit home so hard. But all right, makes me think of—

Jenny Mitchell
Love that.

Tony Martignetti
Makes me think of this fabulous book, Embracing Ambition. All right. And I'm gonna see Nashville soon. Okay, embracing challenge, our third pillar. Yeah, you know, these are— I mean, the women are all go-getters. You all are go-getters, all became CEOs. But this one, you know, you picked out somewhere like Sherry is new in the role.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Tell Sherry's essay is called Ambition. Why don't you share Sherri's story?

Jenny Mitchell
I love this. So, Sherri, of course, holds a dear spot in my heart because she's one of my co-coaches in Challenger. She does my West Coast coaching stuff. And the thing about Sherri's story is, you know, the other word it could have been was underestimated. She was underestimated. She wanted to— she had a recreation therapy background and she wanted to work in the healthcare system in a leadership role. And she brought herself with her big girl pants up to the CEO's office who was a woman and said, what do I have to do? I mean, isn't this textbook? What do I have to do to have your job one day? I'm here for, you know, she was in her 30s. What do I need to do? And the woman slammed the door on her vision and her dream by saying, it's never gonna happen. You're not a nurse. And the story is about A, how she picks herself up from that, B, how she perseveres, which is theme on this embracing ambition, right? Embracing challenge. Like, just because I know nothing about it doesn't mean I shouldn't do it. Um, I, I hear that a lot with clients around finances, right? They come in through a programming background and then they have to do budgets and planning. Just because you don't know how to do it doesn't mean you suck at it. It just means you don't know anything about it.

Tony Martignetti
Well, you do, you do suck at it now, but we're all trainable. If your mind is open, you're trainable.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
And by the way, perseverance, I think, pervades all 5 pillars. I mean, all these women you know, they kept at it. They kept— I mean, we'll talk about that, the visionary pillar, but keeping at it despite the internal and external perceptions and real challenges, real boundaries, real challenges. The perseverance pervades the book.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah, for sure. For sure. And so when Sherry was declined that way, she found another way to get there. She offered to take on extra files, At one point in time, she got offered a secondment into the foundation, and that became a huge career for her in fund development. And sidebar for our not-for-profit people, she had 10 centers, 10 separate— well, it'd be a bit like your CUNY job you were talking about earlier, right? 10 different centers with 10 different needs in long-term care. And it was a team of 3 of them that used to manage all of those fundraising portfolios, raising millions of dollars. So it was quite a play. And she persevered, and that's how she got her seat at the senior leadership suite table was through that side door that never would have opened up if she had gone the other route. So to me, there's a lot of— and being underestimated is such a typical experience for women. I wish it wasn't, but don't believe what they're saying about you. That's really a message. If you want to do it and you want to try it, put your hand up and try it and don't be afraid to fall down. It's part of learning is failure. And embrace it.

Tony Martignetti
Don't believe what other people say about you. You were just referring to my previous fundraising work at CUNY. You and I were talking about that before we started recording, that I did planned giving fundraising for CUNY, which had 20 different colleges. That's the connection. Yeah, there's another one I want to talk about embracing. Heather, the other story. So Sherry's story is ambition. Heather's is identity. And she's one of them who calls out that writing the essay helped her own self-identity. Tell us about Heather.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah, I love that. And I love— Well,

Tony Martignetti
the other thing that comes out in hers is perseverance. She— grit, grit, determination. She— we're calling it perseverance. So just Just to tie that up into what we were talking about a minute ago.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah. And I think it's called Identity. I mean, we had so much fun with these titles, right? You can imagine us playing with these titles and organizing them all. And I sort of decided they needed to be one-word titles. And I wanted them to have really clear expressions of things. So, with Heather, she grew up from a retail background. She's actually from a farmer from a small town and grew up in a retail background, but didn't like the way that people were treated in it and could see another kind of leadership. And this story really is about her learning how to believe in herself and learning how to own her values and her principles. And once she did that, Bob's your uncle. Like, she was able to— like, it's a bit like owning it is part of this process. I actually am a leader. I find that a lot with number 2s and number 1s. Like, there's this sort of moment where you walk around with a Post-it note on your head that says, I am a leader. I am a leader. You have to almost start believing it and, and, uh, you know, letting it be in your bones. Um, and Heather's very understated, I would say, but the realization in the essay, I think, for her was maybe it's okay to own my experiences, and, and how about I find my own way of speaking of my accomplishments? And I find that incredibly liberating and inspiring for so many women who are who are maybe pigeonholed or stuck.

Tony Martignetti
That also dovetails with finding your own brand of leadership, which we'll come to. But, you know, not fitting a mold, a perceived mold.

Jenny Mitchell
You know, a phrase I've been hearing lately is for women's leadership is change the chair. I really like that. It's this idea that you don't try and sit in the chair, but how about we change the chair? Like, if you've— I have a CEO friend who negotiated into her contract, she's a single mom, every time she's away, there's a fee that's paid to her for childcare. I was like, oh, talk about equity, right? Yeah, rather than equality. Like, everybody needs different things. And, and so changing the chair is, is something I, I really like that metaphor. It's stuck in my head lately.

Tony Martignetti
The glass cliff. It's our, our 4th pillar, the common glass cliff assignments. And particularly, I You know, I did not know that phrase. And particularly interesting that women of color are often put into these types of no-win CEO situations. Talk about the glass cliff.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah, we know the glass ceiling, right? Where we hit a bumping spot where we can't get past that title or past that job description. The glass cliff is the literal experience that you're stepping off a cliff. which is sliding off the side of the mountain and you are—

Tony Martignetti
Well, it's not— it's just figurative. It's just figurative.

Jenny Mitchell
Sorry. Okay, we'll use proper language.

Tony Martignetti
It's okay.

Jenny Mitchell
All right. Yeah, but I, I sometimes physically it feels, it feels like it, right? Like, what did I get myself into? Um, so let's back it up and explain, um, how that happens. Why does that happen? Because often there are so many red flags with the organization that nobody in their right mind would touch it except somebody who was hungry for a leadership or title that would normally not be given happened to them. So that explains your, your Black person I think of immediately, or any of your BIPOC communities. And so they're predisposed to take on those roles. The other thing that happens with, you know, the emergence of equity, diversity, and inclusion is boards think they want a profile of a certain kind of person or how they look. And then when that person gets in there and actually starts making the change to make it friendly and warm and inviting and inclusive, the boards go, oh no, no, no, no, no, we didn't actually want that. And that's kind of my interpretation of what happens to Mojdeh Cox in, in the book is, you know, she was brought in to great fanfare for an organization that felt it was very progressive. And when she got it, she was walked out 14 months later. And the thing that always sticks to me about that story is she still to this day has no idea why.

Tony Martignetti
Her husband gave her a depression hammock that she now uses in a very different way, 180 degrees from depression. But why don't you just share that part of— how do you say your name? Mojdeh?

Jenny Mitchell
Mojdeh, yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Mojdeh. Tell that part of Mojdeh's story.

Jenny Mitchell
So, and it's important to hear that she's a new Canadian and has worked in the federal government, has a very storied career and lots and lots of experience. And so when she was unceremoniously fired very publicly, her husband— she went into a Great Depression, as you can imagine. And by the way, they have 4 kids, so it's not like she could just curl up on a couch. And her husband brought home this Depression hammock where they put it in her back room or her back 30. She has a big long property. And so at the back there was this hammock and she could look either way. She could look out to the meadows. Or because she could look the other way 180 degrees and look at the house. And whenever she— it was just the most beautiful moment in this story where her husband explains how she can use this as sort of, I know you need your space, I'm going to create this space for you. And so whenever that feeling comes over you, you have somewhere to go. Can you imagine a house, summertime, kids like running around? Yeah. Like, I can only imagine like just keeping it together and, and And, you know, she was a primary breadwinner at the time. These are things, you know, we traditionally don't think of women as primary breadwinners. A lot of pieces to it. And now she uses the hammock, like you said. She's changed. What's really changed since this experience is she's not willing to compromise her quality of life for a job. She's not willing to compromise her family life. She's not going to give her left kidney anymore. She's willing to be part of the conversation and is very active in the not-for-profit world here in Ottawa. But she is— or sorry, she's in London, Ontario. But she is very, very committed to the work but has completely different boundaries. So

Tony Martignetti
what I took away from that depression hammock story is that she had a spouse— in different people's lives, could be anybody, could be a spouse, partner, dear friend, mentor— but who knew what she needed. knew, just knew how she processes, knew that she needed space away from a family of 6 to process this egregious public firing. She was walked out by 6 board members flanking her, following her to the office, gathering. They're all huddled around as she's hovering around, as she's putting her family photos in the box. You can just imagine the tension. I mean, I don't even know how you remember it, you know, it's— and then they escort her out to the boundaries of the property. You know, she can't remember what she said to her husband, just, you know, come pick me up.

Jenny Mitchell
The outrage, Tony.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, the humiliation, the inhumanity. So, so I took away that, you know, she had somebody who knew what she needed, gave her that space and the physical The hammock, the physical hammock between the 2 pine trees. So having a support network or person who, who know that knows you well enough to know what you need when, when you are needy. Critical, I think critical.

Jenny Mitchell
I love that. I love that takeaway.

Tony Martignetti
Those are the Glass Cliff assignments. Let's talk about visionaries.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
The 5th pillar, visionary. Yeah, you got to keep, you know, you got to stay true to your dream. What the dream? Be the change you want to see in the world, right? By Maya Angelou, I think. Or no, there's countless, you know, the, the, the kind of gimmes on Twitter, X, you know, but, but you do, you do have to stay true to your vision, even when it's not happening as big as you wanted it to. That was Heather's essay called Collective Vision. Share Heather's essay.

Jenny Mitchell
So this one is about, I'd say it really speaks to ambition. She had a vision of what she wanted. She was working for a national food scarcity organization. And I think also she would, you know, we've all been through that thing where we're super excited by something and we can see it and we can feel it. And when you have that prospecting meeting that just goes like golden and you're so—

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, it's all, it's all happening in her head in the meeting. She's in the meeting with this, I imagine it's a, a Canadian food store supermarket chain throughout the country, hundreds of stores throughout the country. And it's all on, uh, not unravel, it's all unfolding because she and the guy Mark from the, from the supermarket store, uh, supermarket company are just aligning It's all emerging in this, it sounded like a 2 or 3 hour meeting.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah. She comes home kind of 10 feet off the ground, walks into the office and starts explaining it to folks and she's so jazzed and they don't receive it very well. They start punching holes in it, they start asking questions, they start challenging how they could do it in that timeline. The programming people are starting to freak out. like it's kind of like your worst nightmare and you've got this dichotomy between the two. And she talks very pointedly in the story about how, um, she had to learn how to bring people along on the journey. And for some of us that are raging enthusiasts, myself included, you know, packaging myself so that people can see where I'm going and kind of leaving breadcrumbs and showing people it's possible You know, those visionaries take big, huge visions and break them into pieces and bring them along. And to her credit, she talks about, you know, I remember the line and it says, now, I don't want you to read the story and think this is not about holding true to your vision. I want you to hold that vision like a candle, like a flashlight, but be mindful, I think, is the message of how you piece it out and let people come with you. Because it's so easy to get Eeyore, right? Nobody sees my vision. Nobody wants to do what I want.

Tony Martignetti
Wah, wah, wah.

Jenny Mitchell
So you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off, maybe you have your pity party. Like, that's okay, I totally get it. And then you get up and you figure out how you're gonna make it happen. And that's what she did in that story. And she, she's a very successful corporate sponsorship company, and she has a super duper strong vision for that, Tony.

Tony Martignetti
I have to say, I was reading, I was thinking, as I was reading, I was thinking, all right, I just quit. I have a vision. If you don't see it, I'm bringing millions of dollars to this. This is the biggest corporate sponsorship of our history. You asked me to make change here. If you're not on board, I quit. Yeah. That's why I'd be a terrible employee, even CEO. I'd be a terrible CEO. I would never rise to CEO. But, um,

Jenny Mitchell
hey, Tony, the world needs all kinds.

Tony Martignetti
There are others who are much brighter, much more empathic, much better listeners. She's— that's another thing comes out in hers is listening. Listening to your peers.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Uh, even those who are working for you.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
You know, you may not consider them your lateral peers, but listening, listening is key. I, I, I would listen up to the point where somebody says no. And I, I can't stay— I just, I don't take no well. I don't react well to no.

Jenny Mitchell
And I think too, I mean, you're from New York, let's just talk about that, right?

Tony Martignetti
Right, right, right.

Jenny Mitchell
But on the flip side, I find with fundraising, you know, we get tired of explaining ourselves, right? I don't know about you, but— and I know your work, but I mean, how many times do I have to repeat the best practices? I'm— I have a client right now who want— who I'm trying to get to do 2 appeal letters a year. Like, do I have to, you know, blue in the face trying explain why 2 appeals is better than 1 appeal a year and how much time that takes. So that the ability to listen in that moment, my invitation is rather than go defensive, what I think Heather did well was to listen with empathy and try to understand the objection like we do with major gaps. What's the objection that I can then address? And I also find some of my language is pilot projects. Let's test it. I use words that make people feel more comfortable. So we don't have to have 2 appeals for the rest of our lives, because they can't imagine that, but they can imagine trying it, right? So that visionary piece, and I really feel for the frustration. We are almost always, as fundraisers, the lone voice, which is why we need community, and why we need radio shows, and why we need to, you know, read each other's stories and get jazzed. Like, I'm just I'm just so pumped right now, right? We're getting to unpack this stuff and, and talk about it, normalize it.

Tony Martignetti
Let's make the, uh, the final essay that we talk about— let's make it the Jenny Mitchell essay, uh, because this is another key takeaway about, you know— well, yours is called— I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna tell your story— yours is called No Right Way. What's it— what's that all about?

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah, I had this perception that there was some Right way of doing leadership, and when I arrived there, I would know. Type A, can you say much? And I I really felt very frustrated with the the leadership books because they would just kind of spew best practices, and they would you know give you frameworks and da da da da da da. And I'm a big reader. I love to read. I love different ideas. I'm an idea generator. But the experience I had was being a chair of a board on a very challenging board at a very challenging time. I give myself. grace on those, that there were a lot of transitions. Sidebar, one of the things that happened was we were an institution that had been around since 1881. We had restructured in 1939 under a new share structure. And because of governance, basically nothing had changed until 6 months before I took over. So I'd been on the board during this governance transition. And so I kept saying we were a 100-year-old bird. into this new organization. And so, the story talks about me, I'm going to say, trying to lead, trying to lead the way I thought leadership was supposed to be done.

Tony Martignetti
And a lot of that came from books. You are a big reader. You were reading, it comes out a couple of times in your essay, how many leadership books you were reading?

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah, because I must be able to find a solution. I'm a smart girl. I should be able to figure this out, right? But the problem is you're always wearing somebody else's coat. when you do that and you're not showing up as your authentic self. And one of the things I talk about is how I overprepared for everything. I mean, I over, over, overprepared. I had agendas, I had sub-agendas, I had where I wanted to get to, where I didn't want to get to. Of course, being a relationship-based person because of my background, it was very important to me. I think I did a great job on team. That's something I think is a real strength of mine with that group. And so they were able to come with me on things. But internally, I was super stressed to the point where I was, I was having panic attacks. And that's what I talk about in the story.

Tony Martignetti
Have the 12 women gotten together again since that, since that first meeting?

Jenny Mitchell
So in Toronto, we got as close as we could. We had 9 of the 12 in Toronto for the launch. We're in conversations about an audiobook. I think that would be super cool because we have all those different voices and different lilts. I'm learning that there are more and more people listening to audiobooks, which really bodes well. We have a tentative for the new year in 2025 to come together for a conference and do the recordings. Maybe there'll be a spa day, just saying.

Tony Martignetti
More wine? Yeah, absolutely. I think that would be fabulous if you could get all 12 together.

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah, they were called on our group chat, we call ourselves the Magnificent 12, which I really love. Um, unexpected, that sense of camaraderie that has stayed from this project. It is not— it is stronger today than it was. I'd say every single one of the women is, is there for them whenever anything happens. Um, and there's been some, some bumps in the road. And I'd like to think that this model of book— I'm putting it out to the universe right now— you know, the topic could change, but the framework could stay. You know, you could do a book on women's— women in politics. I think you could do a book on, you know, conservationists. Like, I think there's a way— and not like using example of conservationists, not their work as researchers and, you know, what they study, but how they feel about the environment and why the environment matters to them. So I think it's a really cool model. I'm not seeing anybody else doing it. And I think it really gives a wonderful reader experience.

Tony Martignetti
Let's talk about your takeaways, like your top 3 or 4 things. You know, you were talking— if you were talking to an audience of emerging leaders, even current leaders, the book is, I think, relatable to both, whether you're in your 20s, 30s, or in your 50s, 60s, as an emerging or current CEO or somewhere in the C-suite. What are your top takeaways?

Jenny Mitchell
Love it. Number 1, nobody's going to advocate for your career the way you can advocate for your own career. So, don't put your career in somebody else's hands. Number 2, it's okay to take up space, to ask questions, to challenge the status quo. And it will probably be expected of you. And number 3, the only person that has to believe in you is actually you. When you make that choice for yourself to decide that you're gonna show up as a leader, all these subtle shifts happen in your behavior, the way you are, and people notice. And people change and people receive you differently.

Tony Martignetti
That's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny. Jenny Mitchell, Chief Visionary Officer at Chavender. Tell us the story of Chavender. Why? What's a— what's a— I never caught one. What's a Chavender?

Jenny Mitchell
Yeah. So a Chavender is actually a fish. It's a sort of a colloquial name for a fish. kind of like a chub, a very generic fish, but it lives on the East Coast, uh, between like Boston and Nova Scotia in those— we call those the Georges Banks. And this fish is incredibly adaptable, so it can live in fresh water, it can live in salt water, it can live when the water gets all murky, it can live at the convergence of the brininess that you have when you have fresh water and salt water together. And I thought What a fantastic analogy for the work of leadership and not-for-profits. We adapt.

Tony Martignetti
Adaptability.

Jenny Mitchell
We survive and we get better and we evolve.

Tony Martignetti
Her book is Embracing Ambition: Empowering Women to Step Out, Be Seen, and Lead. You'll find her on LinkedIn, Jenny Mitchell, and her company is at jenny@chavender.com. Jenny, thanks so much. Real genuine pleasure. Thank you.

Jenny Mitchell
My pleasure. And just for your listeners, the book is available on Amazon. So, um, I really appreciate this conversation. It's been, it's been really fun, Tony. Oh,

Tony Martignetti
I'm glad. Thank you.

Kate Martignetti
Next week, Building and Leading High-Performance Teams with Sarah Olivieri. If you missed any part of this week's show,

Tony Martignetti
I beseech you, find it at tonyMartignetti.com.

Kate Martignetti
Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I'm your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. The show's social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with Join us next week for Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.

Kate Martignetti
Yay! Going in cold. Going with the flow.