“You went into court and you didn’t want to be different. You wanted everyone to see you as a lawyer and the standard for a lawyer was a man.” – Annie Rogaski
Annie Rogaski spent the first part of her career showing up as someone else. It was the mid 90s and the pressure was on Annie and other women lawyers to show up to court in masculine power suits suits and play by the rules and expectations set by men.
Annie had a lot of success by conforming to this system. But she cracked a whole NEW level of success by taking matters into her own hands and showing up as her authentic self.
In today’s episode of Fierce Feminine Leadership, highly successful lawyer and entrepreneur, Annie Rogaski, talks about her no holds barred approach to ditching the alter-ego AND the life-changing (and career-transforming) power of being your true authentic self.
Listen in and you’ll also learn strategies for creating women-focused events that lead to real professional growth and tips on how to make joy your baseline for success. I was inspired by Annie’s initiative and readiness to get things done, and I think you will be too.
Insights from Annie Rogaski
“If you are someone else at work, it’s like this rubber band. The further you are from your natural state, the more stress you put on that rubber band and it can either stress to the point of not bouncing back, or stress to the point of breaking.”
“At a conference or at an event I want to learn something, I want to expand my network, I want to find some way to grow on my path — otherwise it’s not worth my time.”
“If you’re spending a lot of energy trying to mask who you are or be somebody that you think you’re supposed to be, you’re necessarily using energy that you could be using for something more constructive.”
TRANSCRIPT
Eleanor Beaton: You are listening to Fierce Feminine Leadership. Episode number 256. The power of showing up as authentically you 100 percent – no holds barred. With my guest Annie Rogaski.
Welcome to Fierce Feminine Leadership: The Success Podcast for Women in Business. Each week we feature interviews and advice to help you step into your power and lead your way. Now here’s your host, women’s leadership expert, Eleanor Beaton.
Hello there fierce ones. And welcome back to another episode of Fierce Feminine Leadership:
The Success Podcast for Ambitious Women in Business. This is episode number 256. And today we’re talking about the power of being the authentic version of you 100 percent no holds barred. With my guest Andy Rogaski. So maybe you have been in a situation in your career where you felt that in order to be successful you actually needed to show up as an alternate version to who you actually are in real life. In author Glenn Doyle Melton’s work she talks about sending forth her representative i.e. not showing up as herself but going through periods in her life where she would send forth her representative. Well the idea of sending forth a representative to act in her stead in the field of her work which ultimately was as a patent and trademark attorney.
That’s an experience that Annie Rogaski spent the first part of her career doing as a highly successful lawyer in, again, trademark and patent law, a very male dominated field where she felt that to be successful she needed to show up essentially as a man and I know that this is an experience that many of you may have gone through. Well Annie’s decision to change that to take matters into her own hands, to show up as authentically herself was not only life-changing but it was ultimately career-transforming and in today’s interview Annie’s going to take us through that decision and she’s going to talk us through some of the powerful decisions and contributions that she made after that point.
Annie is a lawyer and entrepreneur she has a passion for women’s leadership and podcasts. She co-founded a women’s leadership organization called The Club. It’s based in Silicon Valley. It just celebrated five years of inspiring leadership and the real emphasis there is on bringing women leaders together with a focus on professional advancement. She co-founded a women owned high tech law firm HIPlegal. She’s going to talk about where that law firm came from. It’s actually the offspring of a 30 day experiment that she did with her friends and cofounders called the Joy experiment. She’s going to be telling us about that in the interview and she is currently general counsel at a mixed reality Tech Startup Avegant. She’s also the host and producer of the Unraveling Pink podcast which tackles gender bias through conversation with men and women. So if you’ve heard her background and if you know my background you know we have a ton of ton to talk about. I really really loved interviewing Annie. So without further ado here is Annie Rogalski
Eleanor Beaton: Welcome to Fierce Feminine Leadership.
Annie Rogaski: Thank you. It’s nice to be on your show.
Eleanor Beaton: So where are you right now, I should ask.
Annie Rogaski: I am sitting on the window seat of my house. In Los Altos, California.
Eleanor Beaton: Oh I love it. Well I am in basically diagonally across the continent from you right now having not your weather so jealous. I’m jealous. So you are a lawyer and an entrepreneur. You are a podcast host, you are an advocate in the area of women’s leadership. I would love for you to tell us about the work that you do today and how you spend your days and weeks.
Annie Rogaski: Well every day is different. I am the general counsel of a startup company called Avegant that is in the Mixed Reality space so combining augmented reality with the reality that we actually live and it’s exciting to be a part of a startup team that is doing something that I think we’ll all be incorporating into our daily lives in the future.
That’s an interesting space to be and my day is different every day in part because of what I do for the company varies.
As a general counsel we cover all areas of the law. So my background is an intellectual property. I do a lot of patent and trade secret work but then whatever happens to come up for the company fits on the corporate side or the employment side that I handle all aspects of the legal needs of the company.
But then in my free time I also have a podcast called Unravelling pink and I often spends evenings or weekends either interviewing guests or editing and publishing and so that takes up a fair amount of my time as well.
Eleanor Beaton: What prompted you to start the show Unraveling Pink.
Annie Rogaski: Well it’s actually my second podcast so the first podcast I started was in 2014. I had a law firm and we were trying to get information out to clients because it was really hard to get people to come to us for breakfast sessions and things like that. And so at the time my husband had actually played a podcast for me and I had never heard that medium before and I was so struck with the intimacy of hearing a conversation between two people and kind of feeling like you’re in the room but you’re not.
And so I became enamored with the platform and decided to educate people about intellectual property issues through a podcast.
So I started HIP perspectives then and then when I came to Avegant I wrapped up my law firm podcast and I kind of missed doing podcasts.
At the time I had been I had been the president of The Club which is a women’s leadership organization I founded and what I was finding was that there the women’s groups were having great conversations and I think I needed that support and community to elevate each other. But what would what I didn’t see happening was men and women having conversations about women’s issues and gender issues. And so I wanted to use the podcast platform to start having those conversations to really tackle what are the gender issues that we’re seeing at work and what are constructive ways that we can solve them.
Eleanor Beaton: So one of the things it’s evident you know as you talk about your decision to start the podcast I mean you know you’re citing and referencing some different projects different passion projects and office and also different career focuses or folk I should say. Can you take us through your career path. Tell us you know maybe start with where you grew up what that kind of those early years were like him and how did you get to where you are today. So like the Coles Notes version of his life my life by Annie in five minutes.
Annie Rogaski: Now I’ll try to meet that five minutes.
So I actually grew up in California in the Bay Area where I am I live now about 60 miles from where I grew up. I have two older brothers and so I was always a tomboy growing up and always hung out with the guys which I think informed a lot of my path.
I ended up going to Santa Barbara for college and I studied chemistry and I was the only female in my major.
And so once again it was with the guys and that was fine. You get used to it and it never really struck me until later that I never had a female professor. I never really had a female classmate. It just was the norm for me. And then I went to law school and when I came out I got a job in intellectual property ended up in patent litigation and patent litigation is a very male dominated profession. It is usually people who have technical backgrounds so the number of women is smaller because of the number of women in the hard sciences and college and it’s a litigation in general is a pretty testosterone driven profession. Competitive you’re constantly battling and you have to be able to withstand that battle on a day to day basis which plenty of women can. But the profession had a very masculine tint to it. I very rarely saw other women in the courtroom with me.
I very rarely saw other women in deposition rooms and meetings and so it was kind of a continuation of my college experience. And at some point I would try to go to women’s events here and there. And I never really felt like I belonged there. I didn’t feel like it was an environment that was helpful to my career. And so I kind of issued them along the way. And at one point I was introduced to an organization called Leading Women in Technology and it had a completely different vibe. It was these ambitious women who would help each other. So there was this this disparity in my mind between ambition and helping and this was the one place I saw it come together. And so I went through a program called Willpower. Which was a year long basically career development program and I was probably too senior for it at that point but I really enjoyed the network that I got out of it in the workshops where we would sit at tables together and talk about how we wanted to accomplish things and our career and we would encourage each other but also really challenge each other. And so as I came up to the end of that year I was thinking I want to bottle this environment. This is what women need to see that we can support each other we can challenge each other and we can go along our ambitious path side by side without tearing each other down.
And at that point I was actually sitting on my couch with Labor Day weekend.
I was reading the San Francisco Chronicle and there was this article about women’s clubs and men’s clubs and men’s clubs you couldn’t get into unless you signed your son up when he was five years old and women’s clubs you couldn’t pay women to go.
It was you know it more of a social club it was tea and bridge and it wasn’t building careers. And I sat there and I thought this is this is the problem. We need women’s clubs that are making careers that are making connections that help us advance in her leadership pads. And so I started scribbling in a notebook. I jumped on a plane for a business meeting and I couldn’t get this idea out of my head. And that ultimately became a club which is women’s leadership organization. Designed around coming together in person so that you become more invested in each other’s success. When you sit across the table from someone and you hear what she wants to accomplish you’re more inclined to help her and open up your rolodex and make those introductions so that the club was all about bringing women together.
Eleanor Beaton: So there’s so much that I want to ask you about. No we’re not even yet finished with your story because we haven’t gone into the law firm that you focused that you launched and then ultimately your decision to move into another organization. We’ll get there in a moment. But I wanted to jump in. I wanted to pick up on a thread so you know you talked about how in the early part of your career really you know throughout your education as soon as you start to focus on the hard sciences the path of law that shows even growing up you know as as a kid sister to two older brothers that you spent a lot of time in environments where you might have been the only female the only girl or the only woman in the room what did you what did that experience of being the only woman in the room.
What did that teach you about yourself and what lessons did you glean from that that have helped you to be successful.
Annie Rogaski: So that’s a great question. And as you were asking it I had about a thousand things going through my head but I think that there’s good and bad out of that.
So I’m very comfortable in being the only female in the room because I’ve learned the skills that I need to make conversation and fit in. And so I feel like the the positive is I can connect well with men and that is something that I think I’m trying to do with unraveling pink and I think it’s something that gives me some credibility with with having those conversations with men. But one thing that I observed about myself probably mid career was that I spent the first I don’t know eight to 10 years just trying to, basically show up as a male lawyer. This was a time in the mid 90s late 90s where women were the man. It’s like you went into court and you didn’t want to be different. You wanted everyone to see you as a lawyer. And the standard for a lawyer was a man.
And so I spent the first part of my career really not being myself and I don’t think that was a good thing. It helped me succeed. It helped me meet the requirements and expectations of the legal profession and my law firm and the courts. And so I think I was able to be successful in that environment because I conformed to what was expected.
I had a point where I think I had a coach who who told me this story or gave me this analogy where if you are someone else at work it’s like this rubber band. The further you are from your natural state the more stress you put on that rubber band and it can be either stress to the point of not bouncing back or it can stress to the point of breaking.
And that was really powerful for me to hear because I realize that was what it was doing. I wasn’t bringing my sense of humor into work. I wasn’t bringing my normal personality and work. I was trying to be someone that I wasn’t just so that I could be successful in my career.
And so I started not doing it.
I started being myself and kind of bringing things back to who I was and found that either we were in a different time or I didn’t need to do that all along but I was able to start being myself and still be successful in my career. So that was something that I realized I was doing that I probably should not have been doing that. I was able to later course.
Eleanor Beaton: What impact did that have on… You were successful before and you have been successful after. But what were the deeper implications for you of being comfortable showing up as you truly were and not necessarily conforming particularly to a gendered stereotype of what a great lawyer looks like, acts like, is like. What are the deeper implications of that enlightenment or change on you.
Annie Rogaski: Well it gave me so much more energy and time.
Eleanor Beaton: It’s exhausting to be someone else.
Annie Rogaski: It is. It’s you know I talk about it. It’s basically you have two jobs your first job is to show up but expect expected and where. And the second job is just to do your job.
And so if you’re spending a lot of energy trying to mask who you are or be somebody that you think you’re supposed to be you’re you’re necessarily using energy that you could be using for something more constructive. So I definitely felt like I had more energy. I also was able to I think be a more effective lawyer. So for example I was a courtroom lawyer so I would argue in front of judges and juries and I remember one of my last before I got out of litigation one of my last appearance was I was in front of a judge who was probably around my age and I basically did a dance in the courtroom wasn’t really dance but I acted out what I was trying to convey in my argument.
Eleanor Beaton: Oh I love it. Where was Facebook Live when you needed it.
Annie Rogaski: There’s no way I would have done that ten years earlier but I was comfortable enough and who I was and who the judge was. And I felt like I could be myself. I thought this is it just popped into my head it wasn’t something I planned but like this is something I can do to illustrate what I’m trying to convey and I still remember the look on the judge’s face. He was smiling and it looks like he was trying so hard not to laugh. And everyone in the courtroom was looking at me like I was ridiculous but it got the point across.
And that was something I was able to do in my own style and in my own way. And I think it made it much more effective than trying to just give a dry argument that I would think a typical lawyer might want to make.
Eleanor Beaton: You know it’s interesting because you talk about this notion of just making the call. Look I’m not going to be that elastic band anymore. I’m going to show up as I am and it’s easy for people especially if you’re not working in a tough environment where the standards are great. Whereas it’s like you know you think leader think male kind of environment if you don’t work in that kind of environment it feels as though the experience that you’re talking about is a little bit archaic like it’s something that women don’t have to deal with anymore. And yet there are lots of women who may still feel that way in order for them to be successful. There is an expectation that they show up in a certain way. Now you made the distinction whether it’s just that times changed and I didn’t have to or that I could have been successful as myself all along. I’m not sure but I you know it worked for me. So my question for you is based on what you’ve seen you know do you think we’re at a different point now where where women don’t have to behave that way or feel that pressured to be successful. Or is there still a lot of work to do.
Annie Rogaski: I think we’re in a better place than we were 20 years ago. I think things have changed.
And I do think that the impact the millennial generation is having as a positive one for her for showing up as yourself. But I still talk with a lot of women and it may be that I’m talking with women who are of the same general age as me and so we might have a perspective that’s colored by our experiences early in our careers.
But there’s still this perception that I’m showing up with a a like wearing your armor to work or when you’re in a going to a conference it’s men and women versus going to a conference that’s all women.
The feeling is different. There’s there’s more energy needed when you’re in the environment with men than when you’re in an all women environment. And I felt that too. I do think that there’s a difference. And maybe men feel that as well certainly now with the with the #METWO Movement I’m sure that men are feeling much more like they have to show up with a little bit of armor on as well.
And so that may just be a function of the fact that we work across gender. But I do feel like there’s still a need to conform to
This is success metrics of the workplace and the workplace for the most part was set up by men and the success metrics were set up by men. I think there are lingering effects of the fact that we started out in male dominated fields and it takes some time to make all aspects of those cultures more balanced.
Eleanor Beaton: You mentioned that early on in your career you took the opportunity to attend you know women focused events and you just weren’t getting the value. They didn’t feel like they were a good use of your time. What was missing and what specific things did you kind of take from that experience into the club.
Annie Rogaski: So for me it felt like women complaining about their lot and that I wasn’t interested in that. To me if there’s a problem then we need to go solve it. And I don’t have a lot of interest in sitting around and talking about how bad it is for women without also having the conversation about OK what can we do to change that.
And I just felt like it was it was more of a kind of a therapy session of of just complaining to each other and commiserating which I think it’s good to compare notes. But I think it’s dangerous if you kind of devolved into feeding off of each other’s negative energy. I think that makes things worse.
And I didn’t see in the events that I went to I didn’t see an emphasis on advancing professionally. And so for me if I’m going to go spend my time at a conference or at an event I want to learn something I want to expand my network. I want to find some way to grow on my path. Otherwise it’s not worth my time. And when I was going to these events it was much more like a you know cookie exchange or a holiday party. And there wasn’t an emphasis or a focus on growing as a professional. And so those were the things that were missing for me.
Eleanor Beaton: So what did you take from that experience and and forge into the club to tell us a little bit. You know The Club has been around for five years so congratulations to you. So let’s start talking about this organization that you’ve created. What were some of the specific tangible practical things that you wanted to see in the club that would help women advance professionally.
Annie Rogaski: So the the basic requirements for joining The Club are a first indication of what we are trying to accomplish and there will be typically two criteria.
One is you have to either be a leader or on a path to leadership. We wanted to not make it just exclusive to executive women. We wanted to have the full spectrum of new professionals or women who are new to business all the way up to senior women so that we could leverage that spectrum of experience. But you had to be somewhere on that leadership. So it had to be a goal of yours to be a leader not just to go into work and collect paycheck and go home. The second criteria was that you had to commit to helping other women that it couldn’t be something where you come in and you take what you need. You go home by by being a club member you’re entering into a bargain where you would get the benefit of all of these women who are part of the club but you also had to give something and that took different forms and it evolved over the five years. So we have things like mentoring programs that are we have what’s called micro mentoring. So for example I’ve put out on my profile that’s available to all club members. I’m happy to talk with anyone about what it takes to make partner a law firm. So there’s a specific topic that I know something about that I’m willing to share my knowledge with others. And so you can look for people who have targeted advice that’s relevant to you and go reach out to them. We’ve also built different programs within the club like an incubator program which helps women who are already successful in their companies but are looking to develop more of a public profile. So it’s focused on things like board service and developing your social media presence and communicating your value. So those types of programs everything’s focused on how can you advance on your leadership path and how can you help others within the organization.
Eleanor Beaton: I love it. And so tell us a little bit about some of the highlights you know from these five years what you’re most proud of when you think about what you’ve built.
The things that jumped out at me are we had a launch party.
We had a board of five people that started and we worked for a year. This is our evening work. We all had full time jobs.
We spent a year developing the organization and we had a launch party in October of 2012.
And I presented my idea the first time I publicly presented my idea I’ve always presented on behalf of clients and it was it was so scary because I didn’t know if it would resonate with anyone. I didn’t know if when I was done I would hear crickets and at the end people were excited about it and they came up to me and they said OK so what’s the next event. And we had nothing.
It was all we could do to get the launch party together. The next day we’re like OK we got to plan something what are we going to do next.
And so it was really fun to see the enthusiasm for it and to see people like just the hunger for coming together and inspiring each other. So that was one highlight.
And then another was probably about two years in one of the members Lorraine MacKinnon who’s now the president of the club. She came to me and she she said can I can I can I talk to you about something related to the club.
And in my head I was thinking oh now she’s going to ask me to do something that can be a lot of work because typically people say oh why don’t you do this why don’t you do that. And we had coffee and she had the idea for the incubator which is now in its third year. And she said this is my vision for it and I’d like to build it. And I just wanted to hug her because that’s what it’s all about. The whole point of a leadership organization is to take leadership and to grow those skills and end the fact that she had put so much thought and effort into what this program might look like and that she wanted to build it was absolutely amazing. And so that was another highlight. And then it’s just occasionally I will get an email or run into somebody who just tells me some impact that The Club has had to them and it is heartwarming to know that people are actually getting something beneficial out of it and making strong connections and friendships and growing in their careers.
Eleanor Beaton: Yeah I think that moment of having somebody else say you know yes you founded this and here’s this valuable thing I want to do. And guess what. I’m prepared to run with. I mean it would bring tears of joy to me either. I love that story. I love it right now one of the things that I find fascinating about the impact that women are having on the world of work is this idea of changing metrics. And you talked about how so much of the world of work was really created by men for men and you do it in different organizations and in different ways. I see women having an impact in making shifts sometimes significant and sometimes subtle yet still profound in the metrics that we use to measure success. Now I know for you there was a point in your career at which your definition of success changed. Can you tell us about that like how did that come about.
Annie Rogaski: Yes so I was at a large law firm at the time. I had been there for for 15 years and I remember sitting in my office one day and realizing that by all of those measures of success I was successful. I have my own clients.
I was the first chair trial attorney. I was making good money. I was respected by my peers and then and then I realized I wasn’t happy. And I had a think the legal profession allows you to just sort of jump on the training go without putting a whole lot of thought into where you’re going. If you are you know reasonably competent you can navigate the requirements to become a senior associate partner and move up the ranks fairly readily. It’s more challenging now I think but but you could just hop on the train and go and so I hadn’t really given any thought as I was moving up the ladder about whether that’s really what I want. And I realized that I wasn’t happy in what I was doing and I wasn’t really learning much. It wasn’t as challenging as it had been and the things that I thought I liked about litigation I didn’t really enjoy anymore.
And so I was having dinner with a couple friends in my backyard and we were all sort of at a point in our careers where we weren’t happy.
And we started talking about the things that made us happy and decided that we would undertake an experiment. And we called it the joy experiment and for a month we would track just individually on around we would track what made us happy what gave us joy. And I also started tracking what did not give me joy like the things I would want to avoid. And after a month we came back together and we had dinner again and we compared notes and it was really interesting to go through that experience and see the threads of what came together and what ultimately came out of us was the three of us started a law firm.
We were three lawyers in different places in our careers but all the same age and all looking for something different and we decided to start a law firm where joy was at the focus of it. So we had things like you know if you really if you go on vacation you really go on vacation and everyone covers for you. So you can actually take that time off and decompress.
We had as part of our standing partner meeting, any enjoys that we had.
So basically if you had you had an administrative task that was driving me nuts you would put it on the table and maybe someone would rather do that than something that gave them the joy of reading.
Eleanor Beaton: I love it.
Annie Rogaski: It gave us this vocabulary and a metric around something that we all valued. That enabled us to have conversations to maximize the joy in our jobs. And so that was something that I encourage people whenever I hear that they’re not happy in their jobs. Like oh you should do that Joy experiment and try it and see what comes out of it. You never know.
Eleanor Beaton: Know one of the things that is going through my head and has been the whole time you know I’ve been interviewing you is a word and that word is initiative. So it’s this idea of taking initiative when things aren’t working. You know when you recognize that there’s a problem of figuring out you know what what am I really feeling. What is the real problem here and then taking initiative to do something else you know to create something that solves the problem to try something to figure it out. To come up with an alternative to do an experiment. Where does that initiative come from. Like when you think back on the experiences that have shaped you. Where does this commitment to initiative come from. Because so there’s so many people out there who they notice that those low level things that are causing them like ongoing low level dissatisfaction like took they work but they don’t feel that same empowerment to be able to change it. So where does your initiative come from what experience or you know or theme or or lesson did you learn that that really has driven that theme throughout your life.
Annie Rogaski: Wow. Oh my gosh. I don’t know.
I’m trying to think of when I like it can I think of the earliest memory I have of taking initiative and now I guess the only thing I can come up with is I think my parents always had high expectations. And when you’re trained to meet those expectations sometimes you have to get creative in how you get there.
But I don’t know. It might also come from… I played a lot of competitive sports growing up and you have to find ways to overcome momentum sometimes.
And I as long as I can remember I was always one of the leaders on the team.
It may just be that I like to be in control.
Now that’s a really good question. I can’t pinpoint one thing. And as I reflect on my life I can’t think of a time when I was I mean I was a pretty intense child.
Eleanor Beaton: Well you know, and I’m hoping for people who are listening to this interview, that that’s one of the takeaways because I think you know this idea and of course the joy experiment just exemplifies it like you realize there’s a problem. You take some time to figure out you know what is the problem how long has this been going on. How serious is that. So much more fun when you have friends or you’re doing it outside over dinner. You know like coming up with an experimental way to address it and out of that came your law firm. So moving on to that law firm that’s not where you are anymore. What happened and what made you decide to go and work with a startup.
Annie Rogaski: Well so when I was with HIPlegal one of the services that we were starting to offer was we’d come in to a company’s facility one day a week and just sort of be onsite. And if they used us great and if they didn’t we wouldn’t charge them.
But the idea was that there are no excuses. There are a lot of legal issues that people think about on a daily basis but if there’s not someone right there they’re less inclined to pick up the phone and call because they feel like oh it’s probably just a small thing. And so I wanted to be on site where I could I could help more and I could help identify issues early and often it was at the time the CEO was a former client of mine and I had worked with him before and he had some projects that I helped him with and he was starting to think about hiring a GCE. He felt like he needed more on onsite legal support. He had not had a lawyer there before and so he tried out the one day a week thing which turned into really doing three days of work for one day as we all know how that story doesn’t quite work for me I’d like to get paid for my work.
And he said you know I think we could use your full time would you like to come on and.
And that was tough because you know having built something with my partners. I didn’t want to abandon that and I didn’t want to abandon them. But I did realize when I was working with a guy that I liked being closer to the business I do like the business side and you don’t get as close to that when you’re outside counsel. And so I started thinking about it more seriously and I talked with my partners at HIPlegal and the response was just amazing. They both basically said you know we started this firm with the concept of finding the joy in our profession and if going to go it is what gives you the joy in your next step of your career then you should do that.
And so I made the decision to go it was it was tough and you know transitioned a lot of work before I went out to Avegant but that their support was was from the foundation of how we started the firm from the joy that we were all trying to find in our careers which I thought was was a really nice way to to end my time there.
Eleanor Beaton: I want to wrap up by asking you who inspires you and why.
Annie Rogaski: So I’m inspired by a few different people and none of them are celebrities. I’m not really inspired by celebrity people I’m not sure why but…
Eleanor Beaton: Not even Beyonce? Not even Beyonce…
Annie Rogaski: Well, there is Beyonce.
Eleanor Beaton: That’s right. Exactly. She is in her own category. I’m teasing.
Annie Rogaski: So one person who inspires me is a good friend of mine and Joanna Bloor and she has a company where she helps people find their awesome and convey it.
And what inspires me about her is that she’s constantly learning and challenging and whenever I spend time with her I almost feel like I have to prepare for an interview like a job interview.
That level of preparation even though she’s one of my best friends because I know she’ll challenge me.
She won’t let me off the hook and if I say something she’ll follow it up and she’ll have all these ideas and she’ll be ready to introduce me to someone. And I have to be ready for that not so good friend. Yeah she is amazing. And the other people who inspire me is are are actually my co-workers that aubergines. So I work with a lot of young engineers young and old engineers not old but you know older and mature more mature young young and mature engineers. This is my first time really working with tech folks other than lawyers who have tech backgrounds. And what strikes me about them is they’re always trying to solve problems. And so you don’t get to just complain about something at the lunch table and think that that’s the end of it or someone’s going to commiserate with you and then it’s the end of it they start talking about how to solve the problem. And so I was actually talking about my frustrations with audio quality on my podcast and not being able to find a good place to record in all of this. And I was not thinking of building anything that they start talking about building a soundproof room or just a frame that you could take down when you’re not recording. And it just struck me that they’re moving on to solutions that their minds are thinking in such a way that a casual conversation could become a new company or a new idea or a new product. And that way of thinking is so foreign to what I grew up with in the legal profession that I am constantly inspired by them.
That’s super inspiring. I’ve had that I have had that same conversation with people I need to go out with different people and come up with a new Yeah Yeah you know yeah that’s a great that’s a great great group. I want to thank you so much for joining us. And I mean we really haven’t talked that much about your show Unraveling Pink. It is a fabulous podcast. Maybe you can can share with listener’s where we can go. What if if if people want to learn more about you they want to take a listen to the show. Learn more about the work that you’re doing.
Where can we go to find you where would you direct us so you can find the show on unraveling pink dot com. It’s unraveling with one L I discovered you can actually split two ways. Only has one L. I also have a personal website. Annie Rakowski does come not quite as updated and I’m on LinkedIn and unraveling pink is. There’s also a Twitter feed that’s at unraveling pink and I’m at it. At any rate aski on Twitter.
All right Annie Rogaski dot com unraveling pink dot com. These are two great places to start. Annie Rogaski thank you so much for joining us. I’m sure some of the leadership. Here it’s been a pleasure.
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