229: Zibby Owens, BLANK: Revealing Leadership Secrets Learned Through Motherhood: Lessons Business School Misses

Unimaginable Wellness For New Moms Who Are Founders, Entrepreneurs, Creators

What if your everyday mom moments could fill the pages of a book? What if motherhood has taught you leadership skills unmatched by any book or top-tier business school? What if the only thing holding you back from sharing your message with the world was simply not recognizing and appreciating your own value and the support others can offer once you do?

These personal topics, especially if you're a bookworm or entrepreneurial mom, are discussed in today's episode with Zibby Owens, bestselling author of "Blank". Zibby is also the award-winning podcast host of "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books" and the founder and CEO of Zibby Media. With four children and a Harvard Business School graduate, Zibby's journey is nothing short of inspiring. Check out her full bio below.

In the meantime, don’t forget to say hi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/ to let me know who else you’d like me to have as a guest. I love guest and topic ideas.

This episode is sponsored by my book, "Fertile Imagination," A Guide for Stretching Every Mom's Superpower for Maximum Impact. In this episode, I realized that Zibby Owens possesses a fertile imagination, the ability to conceive of something that a mom may not have done before.

I mean, how many moms do you know who, after a decade of being a stay-at-home mom, decide to disrupt entire industries? That's precisely what Zibby is doing, and that's why I was so inspired to have her on Unimaginable Wellness. Through my podcast and the guests featured in my book, I aim to showcase individuals who harness their imagination for good, making an impact that can reshape opportunities for their children and future generations.

Helping moms ignite their imagination to solve meaningful problems is what truly ignites my passion. As your host, Melissa, I urge you to consider: Do you know what truly ignites you as a mom, a human, a woman? If not, and if you're unsure how to rediscover your interests, then "Fertile Imagination" is here to guide you.

As a mom of three young boys, I've experienced the Groundhog Day feeling and the endless cycle of sibling squabbles. That's why I wrote "Fertile Imagination," to help readers like you embark on a journey of activating your imagination, listening to its whispers, and integrating what excites you into your daily life.

So, whether it's Zibby's story or your own journey of exploration, "Fertile Imagination" is your roadmap to unlocking your inner powerhouse and designing a life aligned with your passions.

This is an amazing conversation for you to absolutely take notes and maybe even look some stuff up because if you want to be an entrepreneur, Zibby does drop some nuggets of wisdom in terms of some tools you might want to consider.

But at the same time, it's important to appreciate that Zibby was able to create and is still in the process of building an empire. She's authored several books based on everyday life moments that many moms, myself included, often overlook as potential sources of inspiration and revenue as entrepreneurs.

There's undeniable value in our daily experiences, even if we don't always recognize it. My book, "Fertile Imagination," guides you in harnessing these moments that ignite your passion and shows you how to share, sell, or leverage them to make your maximum impact on the world. Visit http://www.melissallarena.com/fertileideas or fertileideas.com to grab a free chapter of "Fertile Imagination."

Now, let's delve into the official bio of Zibby Owens.

Official Bio

Zibby Owens — like Pippa Jones — wears a lot of hats. She is the award-winning podcast host of Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books; founder and CEO of Zibby Media, which includes the publishing house Zibby Books, a book club, retreats, classes, and events; and is the proud owner of Zibby’s Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Santa Monica. Her previous books include Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature, children’s book Princess Charming, and two anthologies that she edited. A frequent contributor to Good Morning America, Katie Couric Media, and other outlets, she is – most of all! – the mother of four fabulous kids ages 9 to 16 — and wife to Kyle Owens, founder of Morning Moon Productions. Follow her on Instagram and Substack where she tells it like it is.

Learn More

· https://www.zibbyowens.com

· https://www.instagram.com/zibbyowens/

TRANSCRIPT

How are you? I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. So I just got through your book, Blank, and oh my goodness, talk about like the turns and tosses and like the silliness. It was really entertaining. And as someone that reads nonfiction, for the most part, I was like, Oh, wait a minute, I'm missing out.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'm so curious, Zibby. I mean, I asked my listeners kind of what was on their mind, right? What did they want to learn about Zibby? Mom of four, someone that is disrupting the entire publishing industry. I mean, you're making us feel like rock stars. Let me just say any author out there.

But what is it about Zibby? You that makes you so like inventive and innovative in terms of the way that you approach business, mom, life, and this book tour right now with blank. What is it about you? Where did you get that spark? That is a good question. I don't know where it came from, but I will say I like to have fun with anything I'm doing.

So I feel like, for example, the book tour, which I'm calling the Zippyverse tour and going to all these stops and I have tour t shirts and friendship bracelets and sunglasses. The point of that is to make it feel fun for the end user. to make authors, to make myself an example of how an author could be treated as a rock star.

I'm just like doing it myself. But also, I think most things that I'm doing are in response to something else. So this tour is in response to my last tour where I had a few stops, well one stop in particular, where literally two people showed up to an event and I'm like, I cannot have that happen again.

So instead of just blindly walking into places, I decided to be more in control of it and have my own tour website and then have people so I can be aware of which events are doing well and which aren't and monitor my own marketing. So I guess the tour is an example of how I do most things, which is get a lot of data, figure out what works and what doesn't work, try something new, do something different, have fun, and see if it works or not.

And it might not work, and if not, then I switch gears and try something else. And as to where it came from, I don't totally know. I think it's just who I am. I love it. I love it. And I think it's, it's so interesting because we physically met at Mom 2. 0, and I was just like smitten beyond belief. I was like, oh my god, just like, it's like you're like Shakira for us at this point.

Also on tour. By the way, like you guys should parallel share tour buses and such you're living parallel lives. Right. But I was so excited that you were there and I thought it was really, really interesting that you were sharing your perspective on the publishing industry. And you just mentioned data.

And I will say as someone who is excited about building a community of moms that have this like Fertile imagination, like really like expansive thinking approach to problem solving in their lives. I was thinking to myself. Okay. So what shifts are coming up? What do you know? Is there some sort of like magic eight ball in terms of what's happening in publishing?

Based on your right now real time experience on this Zibby tour Is there any are there any shifts in publishing? I'm sure like During other times in this industry, there are different genres that, for whatever reason, have been rising to the top. Right? Like, romanticy is huge right now, and I look at some of these festivals I'm going to, and the lines for the fantasy authors are wrapped around them.

So, um. The buildings. I mean, it's crazy. Why does that happen? I don't know. Like, why is, why did the rom com market take off right now? Not sure. Did anyone predict it? No. So what's coming after this? It's hard to say. I think that, People are looking more and more for escapes than more hard stuff. I mean, I love a good hard memoir that'll make me cry, I really do.

But I think for the most part, life is so heavy that people Need an outlet and books are becoming that obviously, as you well know, TikTok and Instagram have changed how books are consumed and found and all of that, which is really interesting. So I'm definitely watching all of that really closely and I find it very interesting and always wondering like, what else can I be doing?

Definitely have not mastered TikTok, so open to any. Anything, any suggestions, but the way that other people have adopted it and promoted books and have books and industries take off just points to the fact that sometimes you don't know where the next thing is going to come from, but the point is to be aware as it's coming.

Everybody bemoans the state of the industry and will people stop reading and I find it incredibly encouraging that so many younger readers are just totally into these things and I, these types of books and it speaks overall to the need for community around books and connection and that's what books provide and having people um, It doesn't have to be books that are on the bestseller list.

It can be books that are taking off on TikTok or that somebody you really respect likes or something like that. But there will always be that as a way to connect, which I think is great. And I think in terms of that idea of community, that is something that I secretly have always wanted to ask you, because I sense that the reason, or one of the reasons why Blank is doing so well right now, I mean, bestseller, is that because of the support that the community has been giving you, but then you've been nourishing this community too.

And so I'm just curious, like any stories of like meeting people in person who are part of your community and how we can continue to help this book, like keep skyrocketing. Oh, that's so sweet. And yes, I think you're right in, in part. I mean, I have been doing the podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books, since 2018.

And there are a lot of people who have sort of been on this crazy ride with me. I mean, in 2017, I went on social media for the first time. Like, I didn't even have an account. And I had been at home with my kids for 11 years, and I had been out of, I've just been out of it, even though prior to that I had been working in different things, marketing and writing, and I had ghostwritten a book and things like that.

But. I had been out of it for a while, and as I've gotten back into it, I've done what I always do, which is sort of share from the heart and share the backstory and share my deepest feelings, which I've been doing since I was 14 and started writing for Seventeen magazine about like how I felt about my body and gaining weight and all of that.

So I've been really open about like how excited I am when good things happen, how dejected I feel when like, years ago when I first lost the Webby Award. So now here I am like six years later and this year I won the Webby Award. So like there have been people who have been along the way. So for me, it's more a symbol of things than the award itself, although I'm very excited, but it's like My kids helped me that first year try to campaign and get their friends to vote and all that stuff and then they were there when I didn't win like comforting me and now this year I could tell them that like we won and they could all like hug me and now they're older and so anyway people I think are rooting for me because I've been really open and yes I help lots of other people but I love that I mean it helps me just as much but I love getting to know authors and talking to people and and and you Just because other people have helped me so much by sharing in their memoirs or their essays or whatever, I give back by doing the same thing and hope that it, you know, I'm paying it forward and that it helps other people.

And I'm, I, I do think that my community has turned out to read blank and that makes me really, really happy. I think it's also a quick read. I think people are enjoying it and it's more, it's more fun. I think, I just think people are looking forward to it. Now for something like that, that's just a little more fun, and I totally agree with you in the sense that a lot of the moms around me, like I've noticed, there's like this like book club mentality.

Either you're in a book club to like escape family life, and it's just like chit chat with girlfriends about like really random things. Or like a book club and you're an aspiring author. And like, you want to get in the minds of perspective readers. And so the escape society, I'm just going to like name them that.

I wonder like, okay, like fact and fiction are so blurry right now. And I was reading blank and I couldn't help but think like. Does Zibby have like a secret Instagram where she's like going to open houses? So what's the secret there? What's fact? What's fiction? And, and I loved the book. It was very unexpected.

Thank you. Yeah. I love going to open houses. I have gone to 8 million open houses. I always like pull the car over and pop in. It's something like the kids are like, I'll be like, open house. They'll be like, no. So I just love doing that. I love seeing, I love design. I love just seeing how people live their lives too.

Like I, I don't know the fact that like people just open up their homes. It's amazing. So I do not have a secret Instagram account, but, but I do love open houses. So that part is absolutely true. That part. And then there were So many other moments in the book, and I'm not going to give any spoilers away, but there were so many moments that I was like, yep, that visual.

I know it. I've seen it. Like, let's just talk about, for example, one, like the Benihana Onion Volcano, like it. Yeah. When you said that, or when I heard it in the book, because I have the audio version, I was like, yep, I know what that looks like. I know those volcanoes. And it's like one of those mom moments, like, should we get like a fire extinguisher kind of a thing?

But where did you pull out these different sort of like visuals that were like, so quote unquote, gettable? I mean, that's my life as a mom, like, I, I mean, I, I am doing all these things, I am in it, like, I have four kids, like, this is my life, and it has been for a very long time, so, I'm just putting in all the things, they just come out, like, I'm, I wasn't like, oh, I need to be sure to put the Benny Hanna image in, in fact, I barely even remember where that is, but, It's, it's just like, I've been, I've seen that so many times, and I have, I could fill endless books with just the kid stuff, so I think that I've noticed as I write fiction, which is new for me, I mean, this type of process, I, I, things are coming out that I don't even know.

I mean, I'm writing my next book now, and I have this huge outline, so I really just have to like, put the words in, like I've already figured out the whole story, and it's, I actually made it kind of a little less fun for myself, I think, because I already know everything, and now I just have to, like, write it and make it fun, but.

Anyway, I started writing it with this detailed outline and like, I wrote 10, 000 words about something totally not even in the outline. Like where is this going? But it's like I had to, I invented this whole backstory. Point is like my subconscious kind of takes over, I think, or whatever happens. But fiction is something I don't totally understand how I'm doing it.

But I know that it's like a mishmash of all these things that are in my brain, like a. Okay. The endless trips to Benihana and like the fact that my daughter's hydroflask like never fits in the car and like they pushed me out of the way to like get to the radio thing and I'm like always about to get crash my car like all those things are just my life that's just my day to day life so and I know I don't always post that stuff like on social media and in my newsletters like I'm very intentional about not including my kids and things that are too specific to them.

Um, But that is my life. I mean, I post the glamorous parts and I post, I mean, I hope to, I hope, I hope I post like enough real stuff that people know, but I don't want to reveal personal things about the kids. So anyway, all to say, yes, I've been there many times. You have like best customer out of Benihana, right?

So it's, yeah, totally like, okay, it was just hilarious to me. Like when that mention happened, cause I was just like, taken there immediately and then wanting teriyaki chicken. But anyway, that withstanding, you're actually making me hungry right now. I know it's, it's early, but like I could, I could have a turkey right now.

So this, this, so this is something that I find really common with so many women that Have been either out of the workplace or they're like starting brand new. Like you just mentioned these tiny, regular, banal moments of motherhood. And what you managed to do, my interpretation of it is make it into a story, make it into something that matters to a reader and like engage the reader.

Like, why is it that. In, in your situation, I assume like that that's enough for a story, enough to engage a reader. And I found so many other moms are like, but I have nothing to write about. And you can write a whole like 10, 000 word thing about that. Well, I think it's how much we value those stories. I think a lot of moms don't put worth into what they're learning, but we're learning lots of things every day as parents.

I mean, I learned more from being a mom than through all my education and I've gone to lots of schools and da da da, but it's an on the job, constant learning, constant changing, like full body experience and no one can tell you how to do it and you can't study for it In that way, it's like a nightmare, right?

You have to just, it's the most important thing in the world. And, you know, for people who like to prepare, there's not that much you can do that will actually help, right? Until you get to know what you have, what you're dealing with, the sleep books. Do they work? I don't know. I mean, I've read a lot of them.

Did they help me? Not so much. So I think that as we are dealing with our kids, and learning and ingesting information. It's, it's information that others are ingesting in an equally unsure point of their lives. And by reflecting it back, I think we're reminding each other that none of us are in it alone, even though it can feel very isolating.

I mean, a night at home, my kids are older now, like my youngest is now nine, but Like the the tantrum not ending at home at bedtime. I mean, I have felt like well, is this ever gonna end? Will this kid ever stop crying or will this child ever fall asleep or how am I ever going to get out of the situation?

And There's nobody to call, like, it doesn't matter, you can't, so, anyway, it can feel very lonely and isolating and terrifying, but really we're, so many of us are going through similar things, so as long as we share it, it makes it, and add some humor to it, I think it will help get through those day to day moments that can feel really difficult.

I agree. And I also think about my kids almost like imagination experts in residence. It's like, they help me imagine how a situation can be more fun. They help me imagine how I can like, lighten up. Mom, I've heard that before. Like they, they really do help me navigate the, the, the stuff that is impossible to just kind of navigate with just my thinking, rational brain.

Right. Cause things don't always make sense. And, and what you mentioned right now, as far as motherhood and loneliness and just like solitude, that's how I felt when I was writing my book. And when I was reading your book, I was like, wait a minute, like, how is it like, I almost feel like we all need an outlet, like if we do embark on writing a book, right?

And so maybe I haven't found one yet. And like, I need to go get one. But at this point, it's It's going on artist dates for me, so I'm all about like Julia Cameron's like idea of like going and doing fun things. So as you're on this Zibby tour, I'm just wondering like, do you have an outlet? Maybe one where you just kind of step it up in your enthusiasm and feel energized and things like that.

Hmm. Outlets for me. I really enjoy design, like graphic design and all that and like Canva and creating things and I'm not good enough at it. Like it's very frustrating to me. I want to be and I keep trying, but I seem to, I know what looks good, but sometimes I don't know quite how to get there. So I have a lot of fun.

Doing that and trying always to improve and also teaching myself new things like this morning for instance Like I had a bunch of files on Dropbox that I'm like, I need to get these files onto YouTube There must be a better way So like next thing, you know I'm like learning how to use Zapier and like trying to schedule zaps and I'm like, I don't even know what I'm doing I'm probably about to make a huge mistake.

It ended up not totally working now I have to go back and figure it out But like Okay, that's fun for me. I, I, I just enjoy a challenge. And even if it's something as simple as that, so I realize that's not as lofty as Julia Cameron, but also I have so many things that I do. I mean, I have my podcast, which I have been doing daily for four plus years, and I still have tons of episodes each week because even though I've gone to three times a week, I had booked so many that, uh, the ones I'm doing now are coming out so late, which is ridiculous.

Like, I really have to, now I might have to change it all again. But anyway, I have all these different things that I am constantly kind of multitasking. Doing the podcast or having a meeting about, like, the marketing of a particular book or helping another author or writing an essay or maybe I should do a gift guide for Mother's Day or like, I mean, like, I, I am always like that.

So I feel like my life is one procrastination from something else all the time. But it sounds like productive procrastination, which I want to make a thing, like, I think, I think we need to celebrate productive procrastination, because if you have so many ideas in your mind, it's kind of like, all right, follow this thread and then go follow this other thread and something's going to work for sure.

And. And I'm wondering, like, when it came to your own business and when it came to, I'm not sure if it was like a clean transition from podcasting to publishing, but when it came to your own business, how did you like follow the thread in terms of like brick by brick building out this Zibby verse, which is like, wow.

I mean, I didn't try to start a Zibby verse. Like, I'm literally wearing a sweater today that says Evyverse, that these two amazing women, Susie and Andrea, who live in Minneapolis, who I've gotten to know, and I went, and they offered then when Blank came out, to your point, to like host me in their town and introduce me to all their friends.

And I was like, I'll go to Minneapolis. So I went, and they gave me this fabulous event, and then they gave me this sweater as a gift that like a friend of theirs like sewed on. I mean, it's so nice. I, that was not the plan. Like, I really started out, to be perfectly honest, just trying to sell a book. I didn't have a platform.

I wanted to write a book forever. I'd written, I'd ghost written a book. I'd had a novel rejected in my 20s and I wanted to get back to it. And I had a bunch of parenting essays I'd been writing. That I wanted to turn into a book and so I started a podcast and I just, I think I'm just good at taking something and growing it and turning it into something else or just seeing opportunities of what comes next or if somebody else suggests something like testing it out or trying it or like mulling it over and figuring out how I would do it and just trying.

I mean, it was so frustrating at the beginning. I was like, okay, no one is ever going to download this podcast. I'm going to be stuck at 86 downloads an episode forever. And I was like, but you know what? I still love what I'm doing. So even if I only get 86 downloads an episode, I'm not going to stop. And even if I have like five different books rejected, I'm not going to stop.

Like, this is what I want to do. I, I, I'm very persistent when it comes to things that I enjoy and that I feel like I'm on the right path, even if it's not being validated to me externally, so I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing and see and that's how I've gotten here and The publishing, obviously, was a different level because it took a lot of investment and hiring and all of that.

So I did a ton of research. It took me a couple years to decide to do it. Like, I thought about it for a while before I did it. I had lots of calls. I had, there, there is some method to the madness. But in the end, I just thought, what's the worst that happens? I try to start a publishing company to help authors and it fails.

Still, still cool. So, that's sort of my attitude. What's the worst that's going to happen? Yeah, and I think, I think a lot of times we just like assume like the worst is like total demise, the end of, of all our finances and just like, it's very catastrophic, I think, or maybe it's just my anxiety or something, but I, I see that, I see that, and so right now, just to kind of like put it out there, as I think about it.

Cool. My book, and I think about, okay, how can I bring together a community of moms who want to think expansively about what's possible for themselves, who want to use their skills in ways that have never been used by other moms around them before, like What would you suggest would be, like, my first step?

Okay, so, developing a community. Well, you already are doing a community. You have a podcast. You wrote a book. I mean, you don't need You don't need my help. I should be asking you, like, what has worked for you? Seriously, you know, for me, what worked for me is really taking like activating my chutzpah, honestly, that is what has worked for me so far, like talking to people who I know the book will help feel empowered, like one of the people that read my book, for example, she's like, I felt like I was back in fourth grade when I read it.

Fertile imagination, like that teacher who's like, you can do it. And a little bit like Navy seal ish too, but you know, more like the teacher that's kind and generous. And like, that is what I was going for. So I wanted to just like, put myself out there intentionally to your point. Right. So it was kind of like, okay, like, where are these moms who need this information and who are super educated too?

And I think. That's like a tiny little nuance, but it's like, I don't know about you. I know you went to HBS, I went to Tuck. We have our MBAs and I can't say that doing a ZAP on Zapier was something we learned in our relative business schools. I'm just saying. Right. Do you know how to do zap since Zap, zap year?

I know. I'm a zapper. Yeah. I zap. Yeah. Oh yeah. We zap. We zap. We zap a lot. I get my emails with all my little zaps and this is how Zapier saved me time, right? So yeah, I'm happy to go in there and like help you zap stuff. Yeah, I might need that after this call. For sure. For sure. But like, this is not what we were taught like in business school.

It was more about like how to plug into an organization and how to lead and how to like look at P& Ls and stuff. And granted, of course, we have our respective PNLs, but I'm just wondering, like, what would you say is the most valuable thing that you've learned as an entrepreneur, like doing it here in your space that you think should be taught in a business school?

That's a great question. Because yes, I did take these things in business school and they, did they help me? Right, exactly. Like, I mean, honestly, I think they should teach you that You can watch a quick YouTube tutorial about literally anything and teach yourself how to do it. That is how I started a podcast.

I was like, Google, how to start a podcast. You know, how do I? I watch videos all the time. Like we got locked out of the car the other day and everyone's like, what should we do? And I was like, I'm sure there's a YouTube video about this. And like, there was. So, I think it's, it's knowing that like, there are so many experts in so many things that anything you want to do, there is a guide.

And now it's easier than ever to take people's advice and have them teach you. I think being open to learning and innovating, and this is something we learned is, The ability to sort of shift gears and be, pay attention to market trends and da, da, da. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we learned that, but you know, I feel like my cases in business school were like operational challenges and, you know, the cranberry manufacturing and like, I was like, what?

And like, then in like our one conversation or one class, it was called leadership about like all the ways that people led wrong. And, and so I think about that, but I'm also like, I don't want to ever lead as the professional only version of myself. Like, I've decided that the best way to lead is just to use myself, even if it's my mom's skills.

in the workplace. Like, I feel like I lead as a mom and I feel like it has only made me a better leader and they don't talk about that at business school at all. There is something about like taking care of people and gathering people and the softer skills or moments. Like with my company, I decided like three days a week, we all, Like take a break and go and have a nice lunch together every week.

That's what we do. It's part of our culture. It's just like what we do. And I have them to my home and we sit around my dining room table and have lunch. And it's so nice. And it's like, I want to take care of them. I want to my teammates, like my most important dinner guests, because that's what they are.

They are so important. And why would you treat an employee any differently than that? Like, if you don't want to have them. If you don't feel like they deserve that, they probably then should not be working for you. Do you know what I mean? So, and, and leaving, like I leave every day at 2. 30 and go pick up my kids.

And I get it all done the rest of the day, but like, do I need to be in the office? So I just think there are so many things we could have learned about there are ways to make it work and finding flexible environments and leading by example and Making it work. And, and then I guess just always, like, I think that businesses, leading a business is like raising a kid in that as soon as you feel like you have it down, everything changes.

Right? I got it. And now, suddenly, they're a year older and I don't know what I'm doing again. And none of the clothes fit. Like, I have to start again? Are you kidding me? And that's what it's like in business. Like, things are constantly changing. Oh, okay, maybe it's an external change that's impacting the organization.

Maybe it's an internal growth change. But we have to be ready to, like, run to the gap and get new clothes. It's so funny. I was just telling a client yesterday that using your imagination is like the perfect change management tool. Like, I mean, so many people that have businesses are able to just go from one thing to another quite quickly, just really edit, change, refocus, and then, and then not feel like, kind of like, I don't know, maybe it's just me.

Like for me, I would kind of feel like men. I did it wrong. Embarrassed. Like I was going this way and now I'm like, no longer doing this thing. What people are going to think. And so I think that's something else that stops you. And the same could be said when you're at a target and your kids have a meltdown and you have a choice, be the mom that you intended to be in front of other people or care what they think.

And then be that another kind of mom. It's. The parallels are striking between motherhood and entrepreneurship for sure. So on that point, I'm just curious, like, can we name the superpower that you got from being a mom that you apply in business? What, what would you name that superpower? Being humble. 100%.

The superpower is the ability to constantly learn and change. Honestly, I mean, you have to constantly adapt to changing conditions as a mom. So adaptability. Yeah, I think constantly being able to adaptability. Yeah. Regroup to do lots of things at once and to deal with things that are ultimately out of your control even when you care Yeah, and that's when it's like the hardest, right?

It's like when it's your heart when it's your name when it's the Zibby verse, right? It's different than if it were this third party entity and I think I think we can, we can close the conversation there because I think right now a lot of listeners are probably wondering to themselves like, holy cow, maybe there is value in my like super regular mom life moments.

Maybe I could write a story, right? Much value, so much value, so much value. And I think now the onus might be on people that have these like MBAs and things to put that value in like an income statement, like goodwill, at least, right? Like just like find a place. To, to demonstrate that we, if we use the success markers of the world, like finances and money and all that, like, how, how can we translate that to like real income financial security for moms?

I mean, I think, I think the value is huge. And so my hope, my intention is through your story, Zibby, through this conversation that anyone listening feels like, what? Heck yeah, I matter. I matter. And I think that's so true. Thank you so, so much, Zibby. This was amazing. Where can people buy your book? Blank. Yes.

Please buy blank. You can buy it literally anywhere. Go to your local independent bookstore, order it online. My website is zibbyowens. com. You can, there are links to lots of places to buy it there. You can get a signed copy at Zibby's bookshop through my website. You can. Get it, I don't know, wherever you get books or you can listen or you can read it on Kindle or whatever and you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens or and or my sub stack zibbyowens.

substack. com and you know, I tell it like it is. Absolutely. Thank you again, Zibby. Thank you. Here are the three things that I would love for you to just really reflect upon after this wonderful conversation with Zibby Owens. Point number one, if you are a mom, even if you have not, I don't even know, use social media for the last decade, I want you to realize that it doesn't matter.

Everything that you want to know about launching a business, you can just Google it, you could even use AI. to help you get started. There is no reason not to explore your entrepreneurial muscles. Absolutely zero reason. So Google it. If you want to build an empire, launch a community or write your own book.

Point number two, We underappreciate ourselves. Let's just imagine what it takes in order to run a house. Imagine what it takes to raise a wonderful human who is going to contribute to society after we leave this planet. There's so much value in what a mom does and no, we do not need to see that value demonstrated in the bank account in order to appreciate it.

You have value that I promise you can absolutely change the world, but we need bravery. That might be what's missing. Bravery. Just be brave to demonstrate to the world that you can do A, B, or C. Be brave to actually start taking the steps and figuring out how you want to express your skills and talents with the world.

And realize that whatever it is that you're doing at home, someone else is paying someone to do that too. Please be aware. So. Underappreciating what you're doing at home, even if it feels like it's, you know, what every mom would do, of course, is, is something that needs to be re evaluated because you have so much value, and I think it's very obvious in the conversation we had here between myself and Zibby.

Point number three. So here's a very big call to action. If you went to a business school anywhere in the world, right, I would invite you to actually speak to a dean and ask that person, whoever they are, if they're open to having you teach a class, maybe on how to be a humble leader, maybe on how to be Empathetic as a leader, maybe on how to really, um, be a more nurturing leader.

These are the skills that you already have built in, in terms of being a mom. And these are skills that you can a hundred percent teach at a business school, and I would invite you to have that conversation with a Dean. As a matter of fact, I plan to do that myself. And so there you go. That is my action item.

Other than that, be sure to buy Zibby's book, Blank. It is available everywhere that you would ordinarily shop for books. Also buy my book, Fertile Imagination. Imagine double fisting two books by moms who might not have time to read a lot of books, but made the time to write books. And I would encourage you to think about your own life experience as worthy of filling the pages of any book.

Thank you again. Next episode drops on Tuesday. Make sure that you follow Unimaginable Wellness.