Episode #14: How to Slay Your Dragon with Katherine Wintsch of The Mom Complex
In this episode, we interview our very first guest, a powerhouse woman and new author, Katherine Wintsch. She is the founder and CEO of the Mom Complex, an agency that helps companies develop better products, services, and experiences for mothers. Her book Slay Like A Mother helps you identify your dragon of self-doubt and slay it so you can conquer motherhood and all the other facets of your life.
How to Slay Your Dragon with Katherine Wintsch of The Mom Complex Episode Recap
In this podcast episode, the hosts are joined by Katherine Wintsch, the CEO of the mom complex and author of the book “Slay Like a Mother.” The interview delves into the concept of being a “dragon slayer” as a mother, which involves understanding and overcoming self-doubt. They discuss the commonality of women’s biggest fears about motherhood being related to self-doubt, leading to the realization that the real “mommy wars” are internal battles with oneself.
Katherine’s book provides strategies and tools to help moms look at things from a different perspective and identify the origin of their self-doubt. The hosts recommend the book to all moms at any stage of motherhood to become more confident and slay their personal dragons.
During the conversation, Katherine shares her personal journey of self-discovery, which began during her time in the advertising industry while working on a project researching mothers worldwide for the Johnson and Johnson account. The research revealed that 75% of women’s self-doubt is born during or before adolescence. Understanding this led Katherine to start her consulting company, the mom complex, to help mothers improve their lives.
The hosts discuss the importance of honesty and removing the mask of perfectionism that many mothers wear, both at work and at home. They encourage open conversations and sharing of struggles to create a supportive environment for working moms. Katherine also emphasizes the need for self-discovery and knowing what truly brings joy and fulfillment in life.
In conclusion, the hosts express their admiration for Katherine’s work and the impact her book has had on their lives, encouraging others to read it and begin their journey of self-discovery and empowerment.
Show transcript:
Julia
This episode is a very special episode for us because our first guest, Katherine Wintsch, who is the CEO of the mom complex, and also the author of the book, Slay Like a Mother joined us. I mean, I told her I was fangirling, because I totally was, I mean, she’s just such an awesome leader, and an awesome voice for moms, especially. Not only for our personal development, but also in the working world. So the interview that you will hear today, on this episode is, we read the book, and peppered her with questions about how to be a dragon slayer. And so, like, what’s the top thing that you took away from our conversation, Kelly?
Kelly
There were so many things, but the major AHA moment for me and reading the book is really understanding what gave birth to your dragon in the first place. And a lot of what that is, is where’s that moment in life where you started to have doubt? And the research that she did around the world that talked about the commonality of what women’s biggest fears about motherhood were really had to do with self doubt. And that also gave birth, this idea that the mommy wars aren’t really mommy wars against different types of moms, stay at home moms versus working moms, women are at war with themselves, we have our own self doubt. And that to me was like a wow moment in this book to really understand where my own self doubt comes in, and how I where I might wear a mask to hide, you know, being this perfectionist mom and having three kids and a dog as you do. Meaning we both have three kids and a dog not that you wear a mask as well.
Julia
No, I do I do.
Kelly
She gives you strategies and tools to kind of look at things from a different point of view and to source where that dragon came from. And so I highly recommend the book for all moms, in any stage of your mom life to really kind of look internally and think about how you can become a more confident mom, and slay your own personal dragon.
Julia
Well said, and once you slay that personal dragon, it will make you a happier person in general, not only at home, but also at work as well. And to be an empowered, confident working mom means that you have to be whole. And I think that’s a really important concept, among many other things that we talk about. So for all of you that may be just learning about Katherine right now here on this podcast. I just wanted to do her introduction. As I said, she’s the CEO and founder of the mom complex, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, not too far from where we are in DC, and she’s also author of Slay Like the Mother. Katherine dedicates her life to making the lives of mothers easier, thank God we need someone like that. In her role as founder and CEO of the mom complex, she helps the largest companies in the world, such as Walmart, Johnson and Johnson and Airbnb, better understand and support their mom customers and employees. In her latest venture Katherine combines 10 years of groundbreaking research on motherhood with her own personal journey, she gets very personal, in her popular book Slay Like a Mother. Parade magazine recently named Slay Like a Mother one of the top 10 life changing self help books of the year. Katherine’s research has been featured by the Today Show, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Fast Company. Katherine is the recipient of the Working Mother of the Year Award by the Advertising Women of New York, the Outstanding Woman Award from the YWCA and most recently Woman of the Decade Award from the Women’s Economic Forum in India. So she is a powerhouse woman and someone to certainly look up to and so please enjoy our interview with Katherine.
Julia
Thank you, Katherine Wintsch for joining us on the Two Marketing Moms podcast. I’m totally fangirling out because, it’s so awesome just to see you on screen and have the opportunity to talk to you. Both Kelly and I have been following Katherine, the Mom Complex and obviously dived into her book, which is so exciting. And it just opened up so many windows of our imaginations. And we have so many things to talk to you about today, Katherine.
Katherine
Yeah, well, I’m excited. There’s nothing I love talking about more, so thanks for having me.
Julia
Kelly Callahan
So Kelly, take it away with our barrage of questions.
Wonderful, as I said earlier when we were talking privately, I love the book, I have different sections of it, that I have put little monkey attachments on it. And there’s so many things in here that I want to chat about, but before we get into the book, I love your personal story. And I love how you start with the personal story of working at an ad agency in Richmond, and how you pitch the Johnson and Johnson account and didn’t actually win the account, but in essence, you found your calling and you found your passion. Can you talk a little bit about what that experience was like, and kind of what your AHA moment was? And then how you kind of became brave enough to start the Mom Complex?
Katherine
Yes, absolutely. So I had been in the marketing and advertising industry for over a decade and loved it, loved working in advertising. I loved the highs and lows that you all are familiar with kind of the roller coaster ride of advertising. And at one point in my career the agency I worked for we were pitching the global Johnson and Johnson baby account. And so therefore, part of my job as a strategic planner was to research mothers in 17 countries, and what we wanted to do was uncover what mothers had in common. So all you know, even as busy mothers ourselves at the agency, we’re kind of worn out by the quote unquote, mommy wars and breastfeeding versus bottle feeding, working versus staying home. It was all kind of exhausting. So we thought for Johnson and Johnson, let’s figure out the tie that binds, the one emotion that we all share in common. And unfortunately, or fortunately, what the research revealed is that the number one emotion that all moms had in common in the 17 countries was self doubt. And it was really startling to me. It was startling to me on a couple of levels, and it was a game changing moment for me. It was startling because I thought other mothers had everything under control. I thought I was a trash fire and every other mother was perfect. So to see, behind the curtain, that all of these mothers regardless of race, regardless of geography, regardless of income, that they were steaming with self doubt was very comforting to me. It saddened me, but it was very comforting to me. I immediately thought, wait a second, if I’m filled with doubt, and they are, everyone’s filled with doubt, why are we not talking about the damn doubt? And why are we pretending that we’re perfect, and that we don’t need help. That research really gave me the courage to start talking about this. So eventually, I talked about it so much that I turned it into a consulting company, I left my advertising career, I started Mom Complex, and I’m on a mission to help improve the lives of mothers and it’s deeply, deeply fulfilling.
Kelly
I love that I remember when I was early in my mom life, there was another mom that said to me, “You know those moms who are barely hanging on”, and she was making fun of those moms, and I kept thinking, well, I think I’m one of those moms, she’s talking about me.
Katherine
Yeah.
Kelly
That self doubt is always there, and I think it’s nice to, I guess hear it acknowledged and hear that other that all moms really struggle and I don’t think that we share that at enough. I think we show the pretty pictures of the final photograph that you get at Christmas, not all the crying that it took to get that picture.
Katherine
Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, knowing that other women were struggling helped me struggle out loud and I think that’s a really brave thing to do and I was really suffering in silence and I was, pretending that everything was okay and never asking for help. Despite significant external success, as someone looked at my life from the outside, I had an extraordinary career, I had lots of trophies on my bookshelf, I had a supportive husband, two beautiful children. But I was very empty on the inside, I was very hollow, and I never felt good enough. So that research again, sparked something in me and really inspired me to get help. It sparked my own two year self help journey, where I spent a lot of time in therapy, I’m a huge fan of therapy, I think everyone should have a therapist. So I went through a lot of therapy, learned about myself, read lots of self help books, watched lots of Oprah episodes, drank lots of red wine, crying on my couch. And I finally learned to love myself from the inside out and stop hating on myself. The greatest joy of my life is that I no longer rely on external approval for my self esteem, it comes from the inside now, instead of from the outside.
Kelly
Does some of that come from age, though, and wisdom?
Katherine
Without a doubt, and I see that in my research with women and mothers all the time, I think the older we get, the less we care about what other people think about us. And you know, I love having women and mothers in my workshop that are in their 50s and 60s, and they’re like, I don’t give a shit, I mean, they just don’t care. And from time to time, I do interview older mothers, because I think they have a great perspective that younger mothers, including myself when I was a younger mother, lack, and so I interviewed a mother, she is 85, her name is Nancy, and I asked her, Nancy, what would you tell younger mothers that are struggling and trying to do it all and they’re exhausted and they don’t know where to turn. And her advice was “Just put your head down, do the best you can and don’t care about what anybody else thinks.” And when Nancy said that, I realized, oh,my gosh, if any of us are lucky enough to live to 85 years old, we will say what Nancy said, right? Everybody who’s 85 says that, and so let’s not wait so long to get there. Can we get there at 45? Can we get there at 35? Can we help our daughters get there at 15? And so part of my work and my journey, and what I tell mothers is I’m not trying to take you to a place that you’re not already going, you are going to end up where Nancy is, and I just want to help you get there faster.
Julia
Yeah, I was definitely a hot mess first time mom and probably a second time mom too. And then by the third baby, I was like, I don’t give a crap anymore. I’m just gonna put it all out there. I was at a happy hour type thing with my neighbors out on the driveway recently, and I don’t even know what I was saying. I was giving the real real about like dinners and working like crazy abd the kids are at home. I probably said something like, sometimes dinners are a mix of Cheetos and grapes and someone said, wow, you’re so honest. And it goes back to what you were saying, like, I became less of a prisoner of my own self when I decided to be outwardly honest. And it helped me find a community of other supportive people that are willing to talk about things. Kelly and I also find so much support from each other through this podcast talking about some of the topics we do. We purposely talked our failures. Kelly was like, we gotta, as you would say, like, slay that dragon, let’s put it out there. So anyways, your book is called Slay Like a Mother and I just love it. As a woman in the creative world, I’m dying to know, the evolution of the dragon concept. Like, were you asleep at night and it just came to you or, how did it happen?
Katherine
I love this question. And I will be very honest that I didn’t come up with it. My literary agent did and so here’s what happened. So to sell a nonfiction book to a major publisher, you actually sell it on a proposal, you don’t actually don’t write the book before you sell it. And so I had a proposal for a self help book for mothers, that was rejected for four years by 23 publishers and I had an original agent, and it just wouldn’t sell and publishers didn’t want it. So then I eventually got a new literary agent, his name is Daniel, and he said, Katherine, you should have a book, I think you have some interesting concepts in this proposal, but I can’t sell this proposal. It’s not sharp enough, it’s not crisp enough, and it needs an edge to it. He said, you’re not selling this book to moms themselves, you’re selling it to a hard nosed New York editor that has seen 100 proposals for mom books. And so I was like, okay, and so we spent a lot of time talking about the different concepts, he loved the idea in the proposal about the difference between struggling and suffering, so he kind of glommed on to a couple of different concepts in the book. His original metaphor was bomb makers, that like, as mothers were just setting ourselves up for failure, and I was like, that’s interesting, but we kind of both stood on it and it didn’t really click. And then one day, he texted me, and he said, I think the book should be called Dragon Slayers. And his subtitle at the time before it’s sold was “How to tame the self sabotaging beast that lurks inside today’s mothers.” When I saw the text I burst into tears, and it was so powerful. The reason that it held a lot of power for me, I’m also a creative person, so I knew that it would have, a level of hook and creativity and narrative throughout the book that I didn’t have before. But most importantly, it would make my journey and the journey of other women heroic. So a lot of times when I would give speeches about my own story, from broken to whole, it was a little weepy, like, oh, I was broken, and then I watched Oprah and I went to therapy, and I learned to love myself, it was a little soft. And when he came up with the dragon theme, I thought women will be proud to have this book, they will be proud to love themselves. And it just changed everything. And I’m head over heels in love with it.
Julia
I love it so much, and you’re right, it did when I was reading your book, I felt like, wow, if I could conquer some of these things, I would absolutely be my own hero.
Katherine
It was a game changer.
Kelly
Yeah, I mean, that was one of the major aha moments for me in the book, when you talk about the exercise that really helps you understand how you give birth to the dragon in the first place. Can you talk a little bit about that exercise that you do with women? That’s probably the one that hit me the most like, where does this all come from?
Katherine
So according to my research, 75% of the time, a woman’s self doubt is born during or before adolescence. So 75% of the time, our dragon of self doubt comes to bear when we are a teenager or younger. So what I want women and mothers to know is that it’s not often birth, when you become a mother, it’s very often that many of us have been struggling with self doubt for years, if not decades, and then becoming a mother just gives you 150 new reasons every day to think that you suck. So it just exacerbates the problem if you haven’t already taken care of it. So when I have workshops with women and mothers, I really ask them to think back to a time or a situation and I asked them who stole your joy? Who said something to you, did something to you? What situation occurred, that there became a line in the sand and life became a little bit harder after that moment or that experience because you started doubting yourself more. Life is hard enough when we’re dealing with the external chaos, but when we are also dealing with the internal chaos, that’s what I mean about making life harder. So in my research, I have found that dragons can be born from horrific situations of abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, whatever, many terrible situations, but it also can be born from very minor situations, women who tell me, I was the youngest person in my grade school and I always felt dumb because I was younger than everyone else, or my boyfriend broke up with me in high school, or somebody called me fat. Sometimes for some women, they can be embarrassed to talk about this and admit this, because it seems so minor, but it’s not minor, if that is what gave birth to your dragon, and so I don’t spend a ton of time on it in the book, because I don’t want people to spend too much time in their past. But I think it’s important to identify where it came from, so that it can have less power over you in the future.
Kelly
That makes a lot of sense.
Julia
I need to write that down, because I have two daughters and I need to reflect on who stole my joy and get back to that moment and make sure that I’m looking out for my girls.
Katherine
Yeah, it can make you mildly paranoid as a mother and as a parent, I have a 13 year old daughter, and I’m constantly like, is this the day her dragon is gonna be born? The final chapter Slay Like a Mother is called raising dragon slayers and what’s important, if you have a daughter or son is to be able to have them and teach them to articulate their pain. Because what I know to be true from personal experience and research is that dragons of self doubt thrive in silence, and darkness and avoidance, that’s where they are their strongest. I grew up in a very loving household, but it was a household that honored and celebrated perfectionism at a very high level. So I wasn’t taught to talk about bad things, or how to deal with difficult situations, so we have to help our children give voice to their pain, and then it can’t control their life.
Kelly
I love that. There’s another part of the book where you talk about when you’re on vacation, and you met a marine biologist, and the marine biologist said, “I believe that what you know you love and what you love you protect.” And you had several points on your own path to freedom, where you talked about what self doubt boils down to, can you talk a little bit about that?
Katherine
Yeah, I loved that moment. And I love that premise of what you know you love and what you love you protect. I think as women, we have skipped the first step. We don’t know ourselves. We know what our children love, we know what our partners love, we know what our boss loves, but we don’t know what we love. We don’t know what makes us happy. What you know, upsets us and drains us. So I’ll share an exercise that I read in this another self help book called Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck. And it was an exercise that was so simple, she said, take out a piece of paper, draw a line down the center, and on the left hand side, make a list of all the activities in your life, not just professionally, but all the activities in your life that drain you and deplete you and upset you, etc. It could be I hate emailing, I hate driving in the car, whatever it is, and then on the right all the activities or scenarios in your life that just light you on fire and excite you and thrill you. I do this exercise with women all over the world, and they’ve never done it and they’re staring at the page going “I don’t really know what makes me happy. I don’t really know what drains me and depletes me” and so that was a life changing exercise for me. And again, so was therapy. So the more that I learned about myself, for example, one of the reasons that I got out of advertising was because of that piece of paper, because a lot of the things that were on the left that were negative for me, not for everybody else, but for me, were long hours, late nights, a lot of pressure being on retainer, so therefore the ability to say no, was dramatically decreased. What was on the right was like small projects and big impact. And so we have to do that exercise so that we can change our lives and fill it with more things on the right. And for anybody that’s listening that thinks this is selfish, and that you know, filling your life with more things that fill you up, I will tell you, my husband will tell you, my kids will tell you, my team will tell you that I am a better wife, sister, daughter, friend, employee, boss, etc. because I took this time to learn about myself. So it’s not selfish, and the more you have inside, the more you can give away. So I invite anybody to just start with that exercise.
Kelly
I did complete the exercise, and it definitely took some time. And I’m going on vacation with our family for spring break. I’m going to start doing some of those things on that list. So I’m excited to focus on that, so that’s important. My third aha moment that I had from the book was the line that blew me away about the mommy wars that said mothers are not at war with other mother mothers. They’re at war with themselves. And this is so true. How did that become an aha moment for you?
Katherine
That insight came to me during that original J&J research. And so one of the activities that we had the these mothers do all around the world, was we asked them to write a letter to their pre-mom self. It was the night before he gave birth to your first child, write a letter to yourself was the prompt. So we’re getting these letters from all over the world, from Italy, Korea, Belgium, I mean, it was beautiful. I sat on my floor reading them and I cried, and cried, and cried, because every single letter basically said, “Don’t beat yourself up so badly,” “Give yourself a break, it’s going to be okay.” “Don’t yell at yourself so much,” which then said that these women who were 5,10 years into motherhood had basically been at war with themselves I could tell from what they said. And again, it was freeing, as I said earlier, but it was also upsetting that the media has gotten this so wrong, that they pit us against one another so that we hate each other, heaven forbid somebody breastfeeds versus bottle beads, Tiger moms and attachment moms, it’s disgusting. When the real war if people bothered to ask if they bothered to go deeper and ask the hard questions, we would see that we are at war with ourselves. I tell you what as soon as you end that war, and I’m living proof, you don’t care what other mothers do, I could care less how other women feed their children, it is meaningless to me. But when you don’t feel good enough on the inside, you have to attack other people or think less of them on the outside as a way to salvage your own self esteem. So I love that premise, and I gave a TEDx talk about that premise in and of itself. I really wish, not my talk, but that the concept would get more attention because that’s where the work is.
Kelly
And that’s where your self doubt concept came from, obviously, from the research.
Katherine
Right.
Julia
So another thing that you found from your research was that, and I quote, “every last mom confessed to putting up a facade and acting as if she had everything under control.” So on our podcast, we do talk a lot about moms in the workplace. So I was wondering, is that a theme that you still see in your research today? And how can we use the findings from that to support moms at work?
Katherine
I absolutely still see this phenomenon to this day, and you know, I want to keep making a dent in it, but there’s a lot of work, you know, to be done. And what I see is women wearing a mask. In the book, I talk about the difference between putting on makeup, like making yourself look a little bit better versus wearing a mask and hiding, and a lot of this occurs in the workplace, especially now we’re living through a global pandemic. We have kids, running around trying to climb on our laps while we’re on a conference call, but yet, here we are, like, oh, it’s okay, everything’s fine. And I always say people who don’t ask for help don’t get help. And so it’s really important to recognize that if you need help, to ask for it. And for anybody listening, if you’re curious if you’re wearing a mask, I have a really quick litmus test for that, so you know that you’re wearing a mask. If you answer questions twice, once in your head, and once out loud, so for example, Julia, you mentioned earlier about dinner time. If somebody came to you and said how is dinner time in your house, and in your mind, you said, oh my God, we eat Cheetos, mixed with cereal, and you know, it’s whatever, but out loud, you say, oh, I love nothing more than feeding my beautiful children broccoli three meals a day. That is a lie. And so that’s the test if you answer questions twice, and you have to get to the point that you don’t do that. That how you truly feel is what you say out loud. The remarkable thing about wearing a mask is whether it’s at work or at home, is that other people might not know that you’re wearing a mask. That’s the point, right, but you know, that you’re wearing a mask. And every time you lie, and say everything’s fine when it’s not, you are saying to your soul, that what someone else thinks of you is more important than the truth. It’s more important than your truth. And so, if we want to support women in the workforce, we have to have these honest conversations. Becky, are you wearing a mask, anything, you’re posturing, anything going on in your life at home that you want to talk about that’s affecting you? We have to ask the hard questions to get behind that mask.
Kelly
So what advice would you give to working moms?
Katherine
Stop assuming that other people aren’t struggling.
Julia
Yes.
Katherine
I think that’s the first problem is that we think we’re horrible and everybody else is perfect. But everyone is struggling, especially now, nd if you can just start from that place, like, I bet Alison is struggling a bit, Susie is struggling. One thing that you can do, if you are struggling is prompt that conversation with another mother, say to one of your girlfriends, to one of your colleagues to a mentor, what are you struggling with right now? And when you hear what they’re struggling with, then you’re gonna say oh my gosh, listen to what I’m struggling with. And it seems like such a minor thing, but you have to get these truths from outside of the inside of you. If they’re secretive, they’re gonna rot your soul, but if you can say it out loud, it releases the power that those struggles have over you.
Julia
I think that’s so great. Okay, last question for you is, and this is something that Kelly and I talked about on a podcast is, how does being a mom make you better in business,
Katherine
I do not take shit from other people. The reason I don’t is because I leave my children five days a week to go to work. So it’s my expectation that the clients that I work with are respectful, they are kind, they pay us on time. I no longer put up with, really late hours, or this jerking around of like, we had this big campaign and then my boss didn’t like it, so I sold you guys down the river and now we have to start over. I just refuse to play that role anymore, which is why consulting is so wonderful for me and again, my piece of paper of what drains me and what fills my cup. So I think that’s really important because I don’t leave my children at home, to be treated poorly, or to be jerked around. So that’s a big thing. So sometimes that means not working with the client anymore, turning business down, I would rather be happy and whole then drained and depleted and stepped on because everyone that works for the Mom Complex is smart and driven and dedicated, and we believe that we should be treated that way.
Julia
Well, I’ve been feeling drained and depleted the past couple of months as the pandemic has worn on and on and on. So I too am going on spring break, so I am going to work on that to get to a better place. So thank you for that personal advice. So with that, thank you so much for joining us, Katherine, and we’ll promote your book, Slay Like a Mother wherever we can, to all the moms, to all of our listeners, to all of our colleagues, because it’s so, so great. Also, we’ll add your Instagram in the show notes, you had like a quote that you posted just a few days ago and I was like ahhh, yes I needed that tonight. So thank you for joining us.
Kelly
We really appreciate it, it’s a lot to work for us, soyou gave us a big to-do list.
Katherine
Yeah, and that’s one more quick thing is don’t expect it to change overnight. Give yourself some grace, this is a long journey, you have a lot to learn and that’s perfectly okay. So just keep slaying.
Kelly
Thanks, Katherine.
