The Myth of Doing It All – Type-A Conference 2011 Liveblogging

Our closing keynote speaker is Liz Gumbinner with “The Myth of Doing It All.” Liz says she’s more of a “Type-B” mom, but she’s happy to be welcomed into our ranks. She has an advertising background. Donny Deutsch was her boss. Then she took some time off, wrote some books, got married, had kids, and started her blog. She and Kristen Chase started Cool Mom Shit, and changed the name after two days. There were no review blogs or giveaway sites at the time; they were just doing what they were passionate about.

Then they started Cool Mom Tech. She’s now working with iVillage on The Conversation Thread.

Things she does:

• Creative Director, Deutsch NY
• Author, Mom 101
• Publisher Cool Mom Picks, Cool Mom Tech
• Panelist, The Conversation Thread
• Contributor BlogHer, BabyCenter
• Author, columnist, speaker
• Mom of 2
• Blah blah blah blah blah

She looks at this list and says, “Who is this woman?”

“How do you do it all?” is the worst question to be asked. There is no good answer.

Things she doesn’t do:

• Housework doesn’t always get done.
• She may have chipped toenail polish
• She doesn’t always keep up with her hair color
• She doesn’t exercise a lot

Women don’t really do it all. We all have to make concessions somewhere. She can take a day off for a well child visit, or she can skip that so she can take a day off to go to her daughter’s hip hop recital. “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen eight little white girls in Brooklyn dancing to hip hop.”

She has The Pile. The Pile hasn’t been touched in over a year. Until she decided she wanted to take a picture of The Pile for this presentation…and her husband had cleaned it up. (We have a Pile like that, too.)

She doesn’t volunteer much. She doesn’t invite people over because her house isn’t guest-quality. She doesn’t RSVP yes as often as she RSVPs maybe.

NONE OF US DO IT ALL. Lift the veil on this false image of perfection.

Life is a series of choices, and we have to give things up along the way. She doesn’t want to hear anymore about “women who do it all” in the media. She wants to hear about “women who do a lot.”

If you are a professional blogger, you are a working mom.

For those of us who work from home, we have our own special hell. We have internal guilt and guilt from external sources. She doesn’t want to exclude the men in the room, but there are some things men will never experience – like returning from maternity leave.

1. Know why you blog. So much inner conflict comes for not having clarity of purpose. Knowing the answer will eliminate so much stress in your life. Write it down in one sentence and stick it to your laptop to look at each day.
2. Know what you’re good at. Whatever these things are, it can help shape where you’re going. You need to reveal your authentic self in your blogging. (My therapist would approve of this whole “authentic self” thing.)
3. Know what you’re bad at. Own your weaknesses. Some of us are just bad at things. She’s just bad at doing dishes. (I’m just bad at cleaning in general. I can’t make a room look neat and clean, even after working hard at it.) She’s bad at following up on lunch dates. Learn to delegate things you’re not good at. Don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good. It’s okay to be good enough.
4. Screw it; do what you want to do. We’re so busy, blogging should bring you joy. If it’s not bringing you joy, you should do a reset and take another look at it. If you feel like you’re drowning in your blog, you’re doing something wrong.
5. Learn how to say no. It’s not just about knowing when to say no, we have to know how. Women, as a whole, tend to build relationships. Men, as a whole tend, to build status. At conferences, women will stand and wait for the microphone. Men will stand up and say what they want when they want. (We witnessed this at the Blogger Town Hall Meeting earlier.) There is so much power in the word no because it means you know the strength of your convinctions. Positioning is the art of sacrifice. You can’t be all things to all people. This applies to PR folks. Not everything is a good fit for you.
6. Learn how to say yes. There can be some important relationship-building that you’ll miss if you take a hard line against giving away ideas for free. You can set a time limit on your free advice. You don’t want to throw all of your ideas at a brand in an hour-long conversation, but you can talk to them for 10 minutes and let them know you’d be happy to go into more detail if they would like to hire you as a consultant.
7. Know your worth. The easiest way to focus your energy is to know how much you’re worth to marketers. It’s not just about your time. Is it taking away from time with your family? Is it taking away time from writing other things? How much are you worth to the marketer? Consider what the marketer is getting out of working with you. You can make a chart; make up a timesheet to determine how long it takes you to run a giveaway, etc. Also? Value is not just about money. If a post gives you joy, it’s worth it.
8. Be annoyed less. People get annoyed at a variety of things. Recognize your annoyances and limit them. Especially limit them publicly. Stop being annoyed at bad pitches. You can just delete them. Don’t get your panties in a bunch when someone addresses you as “Dear mommy blogger…” And also, don’t constantly tweet about every annoyance. Constant public infuriation is bad for your health. Twitter drama is a delay tactic. Getting sucked into it gives you an excuse not to move forward with your own stuff. Don’t always look over your shoulder at what other people are doing.
9. Love what you do more. Find a way to love it. We can be so goal-oriented that we forget to enjoy the journey.
10. Make yourself a priority. So many women forget to take time for ourselves. We have so many demands on our attention: kids, husbands, bosses, PR reps… Do things that just make you feel better, whether it’s a pedicure or one uninterrupted hour of watching Bravo. (Or, ahem, playing World of Warcraft…)

(In the spirit of knowing our limits, making ourselves a priority, knowing when to say no… I’ve been liveblogging for almost 14 hours this weekend, and I’m just going to have to leave off the Q&A here. Sorry! My brain has had enough.)

I am liveblogging as a volunteer for the Type-A Parent Conference, and an edited version of this post will be available directly on Type-A Parent.

Christina Gleason (976 Posts)

That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.