Somewhere early in my life, I got the message that acknowledging my pain was not okay. Being vulnerable opened me up for attack. It was dangerous. Messages like “never let them see your sweat” often got mixed up with “no pain, no gain.” So there’s a mixture of: don’t show your pain getting the best of you yet show yourself conquering it all.
And it’s not working.
Just look at the stats of those suffering from clinical depression, clinical anxiety, substance use and abuse, suicide attempts and completion, marital and relational distress, and the effects of trauma and post-traumatic stress.
Hiding our pain—avoiding it, even demonizing it—is taking us out because it’s not sustainable.
But when you acknowledge your pain as an inspiration instead of an identity, this is where the gold lies that fuels your meaning and purpose.
On today’s episode, I’m excited to talk with cultural expert, speaker, educator, and consultant, Jess Weiner.
Jess continues to fight against being defined by her struggles, choosing instead to be inspired by them–even when the burdens of recurring struggles take her out. She has identified her blind spots, collected the data, and is now continuing to create and iterate–crediting her original pain story as part of her foundational inspiration.
Jess is the CEO of Talk to Jess, where she advises Fortune 500 companies to help them better reflect people in their media, marketing, advertising, and workforce. She is also an adjunct professor at USC in the Annenberg School of Journalism, an acclaimed author, and was recently named by Fast Company as one of the most creative people in Business in the areas of Diversity and Inclusion.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
- How Jess continues to heal, grow, and respond to her pain in ways that inspire change in her personal life and her body of work
- Why Jess’ recovery awakened her activism and led her to creative outreach avenues, including theatre
- How pain leads us down the path of self-discovery and unleashes some of our best work into the world
Learn more about Jess:
- Jessweiner.com
- Instagram: @imjessweiner
- Twitter: @JessWeiner
- Facebook: @Jess Weiner
- LinkedIn: @Jess Weiner
Learn more about Rebecca:
Transcript:
Jess Weiner: So when I say it’s not all of me, I think for a long time I identified myself with my eating disorder and with that one experience, and, you know, over time and growing and wisdom and life and work, I think you hit this place, I am now anyway in the middle of my life, God willing, where I’m like oh, this has informed a huge part of my life, but I have such an opportunity now to continue to find other parts of me and develop over parts of me, and develop other parts of me, and I don’t know that we get enough conversation around that part, which is like the, “Yes, this has been a huge part of my life, but it isn’t all of me. There are lots of other things that I am that have nothing to do with my body.”
[Inspirational Intro Music]
Rebecca Ching: Behind every successful leader is a pain story. It is simply the physics of living a life of truth. This pain story often holds the seeds of the fruits of what we witness in leaders today. Now, I’m not talking about you stubbing your toe kind of pain. I’m talking about the kind of pain that activates every protective part of your inner system at the threat of rejection, alienation, humiliation, failure, or being misunderstood.
Somewhere early in my life, I got the message that acknowledging my pain was not okay. Expressing my pain was a threat to being misunderstood, and being vulnerable opened me up for attack, and being seen as hurt was more than just not okay, it was dangerous. The messages like “never let them see you sweat” often got mixed up with “no pain no gain.” So there was this mixture of don’t show your pain getting the best of you and show yourself conquering it all the time, and we all know that that’s unsustainable.
Shoot, look at how we protect these days. What we are doing is not working as evidence in the statistics of those suffering from clinical depression, clinical anxiety, substance use and abuse, suicide attempts and completions, marital and relational distress, the effects of trauma and post-traumatic stress.
2:08
Hiding our pain, avoiding it, even demonizing it is taking us out because it is not sustainable. When you acknowledge your pain as an inspiration instead of an identity, this is where the gold lies that fuels your meaning and purpose.
I’m Rebecca Ching, and you’re listening to The Unburdened Leader, the show that goes deep with leaders whose burdens have inspired their life’s work. Our goal is to learn how they’ve addressed these burdens, how they rise from them and become better and more impactful leaders of themselves and others.
So does your pain inspire you, or does it take you out? Bottom line, we have a problem with pain. But really, pain is not the problem. It’s how we respond to our pain that impacts how we lead ourselves and others. And for many leaders I’ve come to know and deeply respect, what makes them innovative and resilient is not just their pain story but how they move through their pain story and how they found inspiration from continuing to rumble with their pain, often inspiring their life’s work.
Now, when you do the work to have the capacity to stay curious about your pain, look at it head on instead of fearing that it might take you out or be seen as your entire identity, this is when you have hope for the greater good and the courage to keep doing the humbling, deep work to grow and change. Doing a deep dive into your story of struggle and seeing the patterns will bring to light the areas you need the most support when you face your next growth edge or when recurring struggles visit you again.
My guest today continues to fight against being defined by her struggles and is instead continually inspired by them even when the burdens of reoccurring struggles took her out.
4:05
She identified her blind spots, she collected data, and she’s now continuing to create and iterate crediting one of her original pain stories as part of her foundational inspiration. I am so excited for you to get to know Jess Weiner.
I could go on and on with all the incredible work Jess has done with her life to date. She is a cultural expert, speaker, educator, and consultant and also the CEO of Talk to Jess where she advises fortune 500 companies to help them better reflect people in their media, marketing, advertising, and workforce. How cool is that? And back in 2006, she helped launch Dove’s campaign for Real Beauty, and if you have not seen this campaign, Google it after you listen to this episode. I used it in so many of my own talks in the community around body and size diversity, and check this, Jess is a part of the team at Mattel who changed Barbie’s body, creating the most diverse line of dolls yet. Oh, Barbie. [Laughs]
Some of her other clients include Disney, Aerie, Warner Brothers, Google, and she worked with the White House Council for Women and Girls under the Obama administration. Jess is an adjunct professor at USC in the Annenberg School of Journalism and acclaimed author and was recently named by Fast Company as one of the most creative people in business in the areas of diversity and education.
Leaders like Jess recognize the power in the importance of constant iteration. They see evolution as a necessity. They hold a deep curiosity about the work they’re doing inside and out. Jess is a leader who chose to recognize her pain when numbing it and running from it no longer worked and then used that pain to inspire her body of work. Leaders that can run the marathon of making a big impact for the greater good while also leading themselves well and not burning out, falling out, crashing are what we need today, now more than ever. Reoccurring struggles are inevitable. They’re deeply connected to our successes and also our biggest blocks.
6:16
While you listen to my interview with Jess, pay special attention to how she rumbles with her early struggles in her relationship with food and her body, her instinct to foster community, and how her pain led her to this thriving social entrepreneurship career that is literally impacting generations. And notice how she calls attention to her own recent struggles in leadership and the connection she makes to her own pain story as she worked through that difficult time.
[Inspirational Intro Music]
Rebecca Ching: Jess, thank you so much for joining me today!
Jess Weiner: It’s truly my pleasure! I can’t wait to talk.
Rebecca Ching: I am so excited about this conversation. I have been looking forward to it for a long time. You have an incredible body of work that I’ve been following for quite some time. I’ve been influenced and inspired and encouraged by it. And I’m so looking forward to our listeners to hear more why I’ve been so impacted and have them have the same experience.
You often share about your challenges. In your speaking and your writing, you often share how your challenges growing up, struggling with your own self-worth, your relationship with food and your body, how all of that informs your life’s work. Looking back on your childhood and adolescence, tell me about a time when these struggles with your relationship with food and your body really hijacked your life.
Jess Weiner: Mm, well, I think it not only hijacked my life but truly shaped the trajectory of my life and my career. So in some ways — you know, I’m still deeply saddened by the fact that it’s been marked so much by this, but I also have to say that as I hit the middle passage of my life, I have found a different kind of gratitude for the reality that this experience is what built me, it is what made the career that I have, it is what brought me to curiosity about things.
8:10
So I would say that in general I started dieting when I was about 11 years old, and that was not by choice. That was by a pact that I had with my mom who was a chronic dieter and over-eater. And so, I think as a young girl, that was all I knew. That was just my reality. That was my paradigm of which I looked at my value and my worth, was based on weight and what I was eating and what I wasn’t eating. And so, in some ways I was indoctrinated into that world pretty early on.
So I think it hijacked maybe some normal adolescent development then, right? Because I was certainly focused on things that I would never want another 11-, or 12-year-old to focus on in the way that I was. That definitely robbed me of attention to things in my life that I could have developed differently. But what it also did for me, if I can ever find the silver lining in some of that trajectory, is that it made me deeply curious about why things matter like that.
Rebecca Ching: Mm.
Jess Weiner: And that curiosity, perhaps, is what’s really been the thread of my work, albeit imperfectly, like we all are, but it’s been maybe the guiding thesis of my work, which is where do I derive value from, where do I derive worth from, and how do I separate out all of these early messages that really impacted me?
Rebecca Ching: Tell me and our listeners more about the trajectory of where you derived value and worth from. From this kind of moment at 11 and you started dieting and talk about the trajectory of where you drew from your worthiness from then to where you were at with your career today and your life today.
Jess Weiner: Yeah, I think that’s such a — [Laughs] how many hours do we have? But I would say that, look, my adolescent life from 11 ‘til at least into my late teens and early 20s when I was in college was certainly marked by a pretty active eating disorder that didn’t have, at the time that I was going through it in the late eighties, early nineties, mid-nineties, didn’t have a name yet. Right now we know it was an exercise bulimic or somebody who’s having a combination of factors, an EDNOS, right, an eating disorder not otherwise specified.
10:22
But at the time I didn’t know what to call it. I just knew it was my life. I knew that I yo-yo dieted. I knew that I restricted. I knew that I worried about my weight. I knew that I cared very much about what people thought about my appearance. And so, I oriented my values system around external validation, which, you know, a lot of people can say they probably have done that too, right, whether you have an eating disorder or not. I would say where mine fell more acutely was, now that I have some recovery and some tools and some perspective, what I mourn is the loss of being able to appreciate love and live in a really healthy, young body that I had.
Rebecca Ching: Mm.
Jess Weiner: I didn’t need to diet. I don’t know that anybody ever needs to diet. But I do know that I look back at that little girl and I think about what I could have spent those hours and hours on developing and creating. So that’s, for me — the eating disorder marked the early adolescent, mid-adolescent time of my life, and then when I got into college and started getting some treatment for it and started creatively expressing around it, I became a playwright first. You know, I was an activist I think at my core, so I think my recovery awakened my activism.
So in college, I found framework for what was happening. I had therapy. You know, I fell in love with therapy. I fell in love with the healing process, and I couldn’t get enough. And so, I had a framework. I had a community. I had a diagnosis. You know, all of those things are very empowering when you don’t know what to call what you’re doing, or you don’t know that you’re belonging to a community of people who feel very similarly.
11:58
So the activism led to a lot of creative outreach for me. I was a playwright. I wrote plays. I performed in shows that kind of unpacked social issues affecting women predominantly. And that was my early twenties, and that really kind of brought me into this space of wanting to have public and creative conversations around, at the time, what were still pretty taboo topics to talk about. I mean, you know this. We weren’t out talking about this as much as we are right now. So a lot of this was closeted, and I spent a good part of my twenties and thirties building a theatrical troupe of actors, and we traveled around the country talking to young people about issues, not just about body image because I think this is maybe important also to note in my trajectory is that I ebb and flow out of anchoring my work around the body. It started, for me, with this, but the issues for me are so much deeper and more layered than the eating disorder even or the body image. It’s created a journey for me to try to understand all of the intersectional reasons why I felt I needed to be small and disappear, why I was afraid to be vulnerable, why I anchored my value around people’s approval of me and not my approval of myself.
And so, I would say through my career, that’s why I’ve ebbed and flowed, and I’ve changed. And so, you know, I started out talking about these issues, but then it wasn’t just body image we talked about anymore with this theater company, it was domestic violence, and it was homophobia, and it was issues that were all intersectionality underlying lots of people’s issues with their body image and their appearance.
And then, you know, this kind of gave way to — I moved to California. I moved to Los Angeles and wanted to work in the media industry unpacking these things in a more creative and expansive platform, and ironically I moved to California but fell very much into the advertising space before the media space and so, was able then to lend a hand in launching some pretty significant campaigns like the Dove campaign for Real Beauty and guide those conversations for advertisers and for product brands that knew that this was an issue impacting women, I don’t think really understood the depth and breadth of it.
14:15
And so, then I sort of pivoted my creative expression into advising, consulting, and creating for brands and launched Dove’s campaign for Real Beauty, changed Barbie’s body in 2016, and continued to evolve that doll line with the company Mattel, and I’ve worked with a number of different partners.
And so, you know, now I sit in a career almost 25 years later that wouldn’t be here without that trajectory of that dieting 11-year-old, quite honestly, you know? But it’s not all of me, and I think that’s the part that really giving time to explore now is that there is so much more that has laid undeveloped for me that I’m looking to expand into.
Rebecca Ching: Tell me more what you mean by that, that it’s not all of you.
Jess Weiner: It means that for a long time my identity was around the eating disorder that I experienced as a young person, and I personally — and I’d be curious what you feel about this. I know you work very specifically in this space. I don’t know that I’m recovered. I don’t know that I will ever be recovered from a full ED at the end like forever and ever. I look at my life as a journey of recovery and not just from the eating disorder but from all of the packaging that I had as a kid, you know? I have a really challenging relationship with my mom, not just because of the body image issues, just for lots of other reasons. And I’ve got — you know, so a challenging relationship with mother impacts a lot of how a young woman develops in the world.
And so, some of that, yes, has to do with my eating disorder. Some of that has to do with the way I’ve attached as a young person, the way I’m looking at trauma in my life, I’m looking at how I’ve reacted and responded to trauma.
16:02
So when I say it’s not all of me, I think for a long time I identified myself with my eating disorder and with that one experience, and over time and growing and wisdom and life and work I think you hit this place, I am now anyway in the middle of my life, God willing, where I’m like oh, this has informed a huge part of my life but I have such an opportunity now to continue to find other parts of me and develop other parts of me, and I don’t know that we get enough conversation around that part, which is like the, “Yes, this has been a huge part of my life, but it isn’t all of me. There are lots of other things that I am that have nothing to do with my body,” or your body.
Rebecca Ching: Absolutely, and even, gosh, there’s so much power in what you just said. This is why in my clinical work I never really ran — I had a couple, but I never really ran eating disorder recovery groups. It was always broader, and that’s why — you know, we were talking earlier. I know you know Brené Brown, and why I do a lot of the shame resilience and that work because the eating disorder, our broken relationship with our body and how we feed —
Jess Weiner: Yes.
Rebecca Ching: — at the root of it is trauma.
Jess Weiner: Yes.
Rebecca Ching: And so, I know and I’m just reading because I was going over one of your books last night preparing for this conversation just seeing oh, my gosh, there were some pretty gnarly bullies, like chronic bullies. And then you talk about the intersectional piece of just breathing in sexism and misogyny and toxic masculinity and how body parts get more attention and that becomes our identity.
Jess Weiner: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Ching: And so, you really nailed this piece of while, yes, this is a real struggle and it’s a deadly struggle and it can consume us living life to the fullest, you know this firsthand, but it is a way that it protected you. It gave you a sense of control.
Jess Weiner: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: It was serving a purpose to help — at the heart of this was dealing with these breeches in relationship and betrayals and connection and attachment. And so, I love this conversation and, again, knowing that your career has been dedicated towards helping individuals and girls and communities and organizations and corporations rethink how they’re contributing to the messages that we breathe in.
18:29
Jess Weiner: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: And then on an individual basis, recognizing this is a part of my story.
Jess Weiner: Right.
Rebecca Ching: This is not who I am.
Jess Weiner: No, and you know what I love about being able to reunite with you to talk about these things because I think throughout all of the layers of my career, as you mentioned very kindly in the beginning that you’ve been attentive and supportive to, what I’ve appreciated is that you’re a person who has also given me space to evolve and to grow into the careers that we have. I think when we’re helpers and when we’re feelers, we can be so treacherous with each other, quite frankly. And you know I’ve experienced that in my career and I have spent a lot of time unpacking where that comes from, but I also focus a lot on how we are to ourselves, how we still have an expectation to do this work perfectly, and I think what I’m gently entering into, and Brené’s work certainly speaks to a lot of this, is broadening the understanding of how much trauma impacts, and I believe being a young 11-year-old, somewhat being forced to diet is traumatic, and it was traumatic, and it’s a bonding experience that has set up a lot of patterns for me in my life.
And so, what you said about relationships, I would almost say that my bigger struggle that I’m unpacking now as an adult, a healing adult professional, is relationship over body image. It is about understanding how to —
Rebecca Ching: Absolutely.
Jess Weiner: Yeah, how to form healthy relationships, how to have boundaries, how to establish expectations.
20:08
I mean, that to me is like the seminal work of my life right now, which has always been there to a degree, but I think when I look back, you know, I was young when I started doing the work around talking publicly about what was happening, and that’s not to take away the need. I mean, I think my voice was necessary at a time where there weren’t a lot of voices, but I also look at that. I look at a lack of community that existed then. I wonder if the kinds of things I spoke about 15, 20 years ago, if I were to speak about those now as a young woman, I would be welcomed into a slightly different community of voices because we’re able to have that now because of the internet and because of programs. But then it was like shouting into a canyon, and not only is that lonely but it also can be so isolating.
Rebecca Ching: You know, Jess, I mean, you really have been ahead of the curve, leading the way of having these nuanced conversations, whether it’s about recovery, whether it’s about women’s issues, whether it’s about navigating corporate messaging, you really have been — and I’m just thinking back and what I know of your story, what I’ve been following you and reading about you in our brief conversations, you’ve always been like, “I’m just gonna be me.” And then whether it’s the mean girls or society or a horrible teacher, they say, “No, you’re not enough.” And you’re like, “I’m just gonna be me,” and I know the listeners here will identify to that immensely. And so, then you kind of go, “Okay, then I’ll maybe be who I think they should be?”
Jess Weiner: Right.
Rebecca Ching: And especially you getting into acting, right? That was the place where you could be free.
Jess Weiner: Yeah, I love that. I’m actually returning a little bit to my roots, not as an actor but as a creator and storyteller.
22:02
Differently, I’m noticing that in my life I’ve always loved performing but what I mostly loved about performing was the impact it could have on an audience. And so, I’ve had that impact in other ways, you know? Obviously I’ve created campaigns or worked on brand programs that have impacted people, and I’ve spoken a lot all over the world, but I miss creatively imagining new ways to engage with each other and new stories to tell.
And so, in some ways I’m returning back to this childlike curiosity that I had that wasn’t weighed down (and that’s, I guess, a chosen word on purpose) by the pressure in this field to look a certain way. And look, I think a lot of people can relate to bullies, obviously, broadly, but teachers and parents who are not as connected to their own healing so that they can’t really be there in the way that you want them to as a kid, but you don’t know that. And so, I started to look at all these different factors, and I’m even more in the hunt right now to figure out who the heck I am.
I think the other part is when you become successful in any way, shape, or form, you know, you can become really beholden to what you think that’s supposed to look like too and what is success and how do you define it. And so, for me, the work is the work, whether I’m talking about body or career or relationships, it’s always unpacking and trying to get down to the core of who I am.
Rebecca Ching: I really appreciate that. And we love to put people in boxes. “Oh, this is your thing. This is your issue. This is who you are.” Our brains love to do that, and if we don’t stretch the muscle of curiosity, I mean, you were into storytelling before it was this brand cool thing to do. This is — you set up that whole acting troupe in college to tell stories.
Jess Weiner: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: So you were doing this intuitively before it was this thing, right? And again, we know that our brains take in stories and that’s how we communicate. You have this intuitive way of understanding how to reach people in a way that actually is transformative.
24:13
And it sounds like by connecting even to your own pain of the alienation, the rejection, and the constant rumbles and navigating with who am I and who I should be, and I think as a leader and as a thought leader, as an entrepreneur, there’s a certain tension of always being on that edge of doing something that hasn’t been done before.
Jess Weiner: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: And especially in this culture, and as a trauma-informed leadership coach, as a psychotherapist, my whole work is focused on trauma knowing that the critics — we’re in a culture that critiques for blood sport.
Jess Weiner: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: It’s not getting better. It’s just not, and so, how do you care for yourself when you’re continuing to create and iterate? You talked about re-evaluating boundaries.
Jess Weiner: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: And I’m curious about how do I have really good healthy relationships, which really is medicine for our soul.
Jess Weiner: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: How are you navigating that right now as you navigate these incredible things you’re doing professionally, taking care of that big heart of yours?
Jess Weiner: Yeah. Well, that’s a good question and an important question. I have maintained a relationship to therapy for the last 15 years, and what I do with my therapist, who’s quite an incredible partner in my healing, is we dial up the amount of therapy. I’m in therapy three days a week right now so that I have — I’m in the middle of unpacking some really big life moments, and I’ve been on a precipice of change, and I think I really sort of fell off the cliff into the change about a year ago, and so, you know, I dial up it because I am grateful that I can financially afford to be able to have more frequent therapy, and that’s, for me, a baseline. It’s just a baseline of how I stay on my path and how I get some outside help.
26:13
I’ve also gotten some intensified therapy treatment over the last year where I’ve gone to a program for a couple of weeks to get some additional tools, and I’ve gone on medication for the first time in my life, which I haven’t really talked about publicly but feel like I can for you and this program and our listeners, which is that there came a time in my life where I felt like the tools that I had weren’t enough and medication became a tool that I wanted to try, and it’s been incredible for me, especially around depression and anxiety, which, for me, it helped me in stabilizing so that I can continue to do this work.
So I talk about those things very specifically and tangibly because I don’t want to fill an answer to a question like that with a bunch of platitudes. Like writing in my journal was not enough. Taking a bath was not enough. Those are all amazing things. But I find that I want to be as specific and detailed as possible. I have to work at my mental health at all stages and places of my life, and because I have chosen to put myself out there publicly and because I have experienced some pretty painful critique and betrayal and confusing remarks and responses online, I have to balance that with a steadfast commitment to loving myself through all of those things, you know? Because again, those things aren’t me either. That’s other people’s shit, and, you know, not that that doesn’t bounce off of me. It certainly lands on me but it’s having to unpack that too. It’s a journey, and when you’re a leader, you have or at least I had in my mind, I’ll speak for myself, this vision that I’m supposed to be infallible and impenetrable and invulnerable. And that probably is the most dangerous thing a leader could think because it stops you from being really connected to purpose and people, and I walk that fine line every single day. There are still days where my therapist I call — we fall into the hole. I saw that hole. I jumped right into that hole. But then I can get myself out of that hole, and that’s progress.
28:26
Rebecca Ching: Can you talk a little bit more about that, about your understanding that if a leader thinks that they’re impenetrable how dangerous that is (I mean, those are my words) to themselves but also to others. Can you talk a little bit more about what you’ve learned and what you’re rumbling with around that right now?
Jess Weiner: Yeah, I love that you use rumble. [Giggles] You know, look, I sit in boardrooms and meeting rooms all the time with supremely powerful individuals that control and dominate a lot of our public narrative, right? And one of the things I’ve noticed in the way that our industries, plural, lead or think about leaders is somewhat of an antiquated, masculine version of leadership. It’s pretty, pretty rock solid on no emotionality, no relational experiences, not ever saying, “God, you know what? I don’t know that. Let me figure that out!” or “Let’s figure that out together!” There’s no vulnerability in those board rooms, and so, what I do by nature of my work right now is show up and just ask gentle questions. I mean, people often want to know, “How do I get a brand to do a certain campaign?” It’s not that I get them to do something. I go on the journey with them. I just ask the questions that I think speak to them as people, not just as their titles, their job titles, but as people. Because every person that I work with is– most of them are parents. Some of them are not, but most of them are parents. All of them care about doing a good job in the role, and all of them want to be valued and loved. That’s normal for everybody, even the CEOs that I’m talking to, right?
30:03
So I show up and I ask these questions, and so, why being invulnerable or impenetrable would be dangerous is because you leave no space for growth or change or pivoting, and if the world is teaching us nothing right now but about age and growth and pivoting, right? Everything we’ve planned has gone up in smoke. Everything that we had plotted for may not happen. And businesses more than any institution right now are recognizing that their systems are broken, and they have to change it.
Rebecca Ching: Absolutely.
Jess Weiner: As a leader, if you’re not willing to also acknowledge that within yourself, I don’t know that you really inspire the kind of commitment we need to lead people into better places and better experiences.
Rebecca Ching: So what are your — I don’t know if they’re your red flags — what are your tells when you start to fall — when you ride that fence of curiosity and journey with your clients or even journeying with those parts of you that need healing to falling into, “I’ve got this. I’m impenetrable.” What are your tells that you’re leaning towards that dark side?
Jess Weiner: Ooh, wow. I would say when I start to feel dispassionate about something, I know that I’m numbing, I’m tuning out., I’m not feeling anything. I feel everything all the time! [Laughs] So when I’m, like, neutral about something, I’m sort of like, “Huh, what am I protecting? What am I afraid of really accessing right now?”
I also find — you know, this is something that is fairly new for me to talk about, but I think it’s important to this conversation. My client work alone, what I’ve been mostly challenged with over the last couple of years is the growth of my own industry, my own business, my own team and how to assemble a team and how to hire a team and how to fire a team, and I have really, really sucked at this the last couple of years, I have to say. Yeah, you too?
32:09
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs] Oh, yeah, about five years ago I had my big facedown with it all too and big rising.
Jess Weiner: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: I mean, it’s a huge learning curve.
Jess Weiner: Oh, man.
Rebecca Ching: As a business owner, as a leader, we don’t get taught how to do this stuff, especially when you care about the feelings and the people. But yeah, no, it’s like next —
Jess Weiner: Especially if you’re, like, a different kind of business, right? Like, we don’t make widgets. So not that there’s anything wrong with widget makers, but we don’t make a finite product, right? We make a living, breathing, evolving product including myself. I am also a personal brand, right?
Rebecca Ching: You got it.
Jess Weiner: I make revenue off of my intelligence, my IP, my expertise, and that is an absolutely fluid proposition because I am still an evolving human. So when you said what are my tells, what do I know is I know the last year and a half in my business I’ve made more money than I’ve ever made before, I had more clients and more employees, and I had a massive breakdown last year around that, that this was — I was so deeply unhappy. That’s when I really started to struggle with anxiety and depression. I was not connected at all to my authentic leadership and made some very bad hires, choices that were not helpful to the work that was there, and then really struggled going back to relationship to figure out how to get out from underneath it because when you’re the one hiring and you’re the one generating the income that’s paying — well, you’re a small business owner. There’s a whole other set of challenges on top of that that nobody — you know, there’s not a lot of sympathy for and empathy for in a lot of ways.
Rebecca Ching: No. Nope.
Jess Weiner: You know, I struggled with all of it, and there are things that I did really poorly and there are things that I did really well that I had to learn the hard way, but you’re right. It was a hard rising for me. It was a big fall, a big rising, and a big reckoning with the fact that I might do that again, right, that this is part of my journey is figuring out how to lead not just teams of client people but my own people.
Rebecca Ching: And yourself, yes.
34:17
Jess Weiner: And myself. Most of all, myself. The last three or four years have been transformative, and I’ve withstood some pretty crappy scenarios that actually reminded me of the stuff I had to go through when I was a kid.
You know, bullying doesn’t stop when you’re 12 years old, and as you said, we do it kind of for blood sport now and I would also say sort of the anonymous trolling that people can do on the internet can mask faux concern, which is really sort of like vitriolic nastiness. And so, where do you navigate that? I think about that as an adult woman navigating that, I have so much compassion for our young kids who have to navigate that.
So all of that is to say, my big tell is when I’m really sad too because then I know I’m disconnected from my truth and relating to people and relational experiences, they’re like life to me.
Rebecca Ching: The numbing, the dispassionate, the sadness, those are your tells when you know you’re out of integrity, you’re out of alignment with your values, with what matters most.
Looking back on kind of this expansion, expansion, expansion of your very successful business — if everyone who didn’t know you just looked on like, “Jess is killin’ it, right? She’s got a big company. She’s got a big team. She’s making more money than ever,” and that was also kind of the crux of your facedown. When you look back, what were some of the contributors that got you to that point before you had your facedown?
Jess Weiner: I think that goes back to our original part of this conversation which was aligning value and worth on external validation. I mean, when you’re an entrepreneur, the interesting thing, right, is you eat what you kill, so you hunt all the time, right?
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs]
Jess Weiner: We’re hunters all the time. So you can get very wrapped up or I could get very wrapped up in the next kill, the next client, the next project, the next thing, and everything lived in this future state, and as you know, I wrote a book called Life Doesn’t Begin Five Pounds From Now. I could have made a book that said Life Doesn’t Begin After The Next Client Deal, Life Doesn’t Begin After The Next Contract.
36:32
I constantly was pulling more onto my plate where it was, like, spilling off the plate and then I couldn’t even see that I had a plate anymore.
Rebecca Ching: So you were just doing and doing and just because you could and —
Jess Weiner: Because that’s what we value in this culture! We talk about how we value thinness. We also value wealth and we value success, and we value those sorts of triumphs over everything. We’re all like hashtag girlbossing ourselves to death. I mean, the reality is I didn’t have any balance, so how did I get in that space? I forgot a lot about who I was at times, meaning who I was not who I was as a businessperson, as somebody with accolades here and there, but as somebody who is still needing to rest and evolve and lay down and, like, [Laughs] not constantly produce. I don’t think we’re built for that.
So what I did, just to kind of follow this story through, I had this sort of breakdown moment where the bigness was not what I wanted. In my heart and soul I wanted it to be more refined and simplified and more aligned with who I am, and so, I paired down. I sold part of my company. I downsized my employees. I changed focus and direction a bit. I doubled down with some of my core clients that we’d been doing incredible work with, and I gave myself space to create again. I’m gonna be launching my own podcast and video series on something wildly different that I’ve never really talked about publicly before about death and loss and living and really about urgent living.
38:10
And so, I’m experimenting and I’m doing some new things, and it took me to go facedown to get here, and I’m still figuring it out, but I feel a lot more connected and balanced and healthy, and that’s probably — I mean it is the most important thing for me.
[Inspirational Music]
Rebecca Ching: How you move through discomfort of your pain can often keep you stuck or bring you to deeper learning and growth. Pain activates the most primal reactions in our inner system and nervous system. Our brains see pain as a threat of death. Living the life of an unburdened leader requires updated practices, tools, and frameworks that can help you and your nervous system tolerate the next challenge, a new season of growth, or rise from a loss or failure without feeling like you’re falling back into old ways of seeing yourself, those you lead and serve, or the world. And pain can cause us to turn on ourselves and others, bringing up blame and disconnection and fear and shame. And goodness knows, we can’t just think through shame. We have to also feel through it. And this requires some clarity on your own unique shame triggers and practices so you can respond to shame without feeling pulled away from your core values.
Shame resilience is one of the essential pillars of unburdened leadership. It is one thing to intellectually understand shame, but it’s another thing to really live it and respond to it. If you want to learn more about developing your own lifelong shame resilience practice so your pain does not cause you to shrink, lash out, or hijack your confidence or clarity, then book a connection call with me today at www.rebeccaching.com!
[Inspirational Music]
Rebecca Ching: I want to circle back to something you said, too, kind of pre-building up to this facedown with your work. There was just relentless (you talked about) betrayal and criticism. Can you elaborate more specifically on what you experienced and your responses to it?
40:17
Jess Weiner: Yeah, a little bit. I mean, I want to be careful how much I emphasize this for the hurtful part and how much I maybe can emphasize what I’m learning from it because I think sometimes it feels important and protective to me too because they were pretty yucky scenarios. I mean, look, you and I know I’ve had moments in my career where I’ve expressed things publicly, changes that I’m making in my philosophy. I wrote an article for Glamour at a time that had a lot of mixed results. The interesting thing was I spent so much time focused on how negative I felt the response was, and at different parts of my healing over the last ten years or so since I wrote that, I have found so many positive responses from people that I forgot about, including your lovely response when that piece came out.
And it was just about a time when I was questioning what I was deciding was healthy for me, right? Here I was sort of living in a body at a time that I didn’t feel healthy in, I wasn’t feeling good in, and I was challenging sort of what I felt like I was supposed to just accept and love and do somewhat blindly. And so, when I expressed that change in my belief about my own trajectory, and I did it fairly publicly, I had backlash then, and that was painful to feel like I had kind of disappointed people or I wasn’t pleasing people or people were mad at me, but they didn’t know me, you know, all the things that go into sharing anything vulnerably in public. But I think the things that I’m speaking to around betrayal and these other things happened a little bit more behind closed doors for me. This happened with my employees. This happened with people that I worked with and friends that I’ve had or people that I’ve known where, specifically in my work life where I noticed a pattern of how I was hiring people and why I was hiring people, and the same patterns kept showing up, right? And much like in life, I find those patterns get more and more and more acute and difficult and painful until you really crack open what’s going on there, right?
42:15
So I brought in mean girls. I hired mean girls. I hired, you know, saboteurs. I confirmed for myself my own limiting beliefs about my own worth and worthiness, right? And I was acting those out in my work life. And so, to me, I think what I’ve learned from that more than anything is that I need a space and a place for myself to process the things that I’m doing, and I want to be careful in where and how I share those things, so I sort of went inward for a long time where I didn’t share publicly. I felt like, “Oh, boy. I have to have this fully figured out.” Again, it’s invulnerable, right? So nobody can point anything negative out, I have to have it perfect.
And then I realized, “Well, screw that. Then I’ll be inside forever,” so I’m gonna choose to share with a better protection for myself. I’m choosing to hire very different people. I have a very different team now around me that feels better, feels more supportive, feels right on what I need to be doing to create the things I want to create in the world. But it’s a lot. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that too as a leader and as somebody who hires other people but man, I was definitely like Jim Collins says, getting the wrong people off the bus and the right people on the bus, from good to great. I was struggling with that.
Rebecca Ching: Yeah, thank you for articulating that because I think many people are gonna benefit from hearing this, and if we don’t deal with those burdens our system is carrying, we keep trying to work them out in our present. There’s a certain core wound in my story that I kept trying to work out with who I was surrounding myself with, and it was a cluster, you know?
44:01
And so, I realized, “Oh, I need to work that out not with anybody else but [Laughs] me and my therapist and my coach and my family and rumble there. But I also learn by doing. I jump in, and I know you’re like this too.
Jess Weiner: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: I’m like let’s figure it out, and my heart and my intention was good, and the loneliness comes in in being so misunderstood even though the boundaries or the intention or the structure, framework, all of that stuff’s important. At the heart was really just trying to do something positive and that the pain and the loneliness of being misunderstood, and then also, I think for me, the grief of, “Ugh, I did this again! I’m done with this. I’m done with this pattern in my life. I need to do the unburdening work around that.”
Jess Weiner: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: And really focus on that, and for me and a lot of the leaders that I know and work with, often we are healing through our work and our entrepreneurship and our businesses. It’s just how we roll.
Jess Weiner: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: And so, I appreciate you sharing that. But it comes back to I keep thinking about those mean girls that I read about in your story, and it’s amazing, and they’re out there figuratively but how they can sneak in because our homeostasis — we are so used to the shit sometimes that we tolerate it, and I didn’t realize I’m like, “I’m still tolerating this! Oh, my gosh!”
Jess Weiner: I had some great perspective given to me when I went into do some more deep work around trauma and was looking at how when you’ve experienced trauma and let’s say you’re more of the adult adapted child, right, when you’re looking at that external validation and you’ve got individuals in your life that are really kind of shiny and high-intensity but low-worth, like they don’t bring what they say they’re gonna bring, right? I can be very sort of susceptible to some of these kinds of different folks and attachments and what not, and I think that what you mentioned — so when I look at trauma and I look at how much trauma impacts relationship and patterns and, like what you talked about, working things out, I think the other part of this for me that was — I don’t know if it was somewhat self-inflicted or if it’s just a part of living in the world that we live in, but the pressure to be an entrepreneurial female business owner, that whole sort of success and hustle porn that we all kind of subscribe to, right, of bigger is better and more is better and more and more and more and more, I think there’s a real fallacy in that and a lot of amazing business leaders that I speak to, specifically women, are deeply challenging that because it betrays and belies what’s also really important as a leader, which are relationships.
46:49
And I think that — so if you’re working out your relationship patterns and how you’re hiring or who you’re hiring or how you’re managing or leading, you know, one of the things I discovered in the growth and scale of my business was that I wasn’t particularly great at managing at that level. I’m a much better leader in a consulting capacity or in a teaching capacity but in a management capacity, those were not skillsets that I cultivated, and so, I wasn’t great at that and yet when it’s your shop and you run the show, there’s not a whole lot of grace given for you to learn those things, right, from yourself and from others.
And so, I’m not trying to do sort of like — I think leading a business takes a lot of risk, and I think that there are people who will always be able to risk in the way that entrepreneurs do, and then there are those that that’s not comfortable for them, and to try to understand the risk and the sacrifice and the vulnerability that comes from trying to build something and build it with people, we can’t underestimate that. You know, we read a lot of success stories, so we think somehow it’s supposed to be that easy. We’re still humans figuring out our shit while we’re building stuff.
Rebecca Ching: Until we breathe our last breath.
Jess Weiner: Yeah!
48:01
Rebecca Ching: Until we breathe our last breath we’re on the healing, growth, development, curiosity journey, and that actually is a sign of strength and courage even though the messages say you’re supposed to have it all figured out.
Jess Weiner: And by the way, I really sucked at doing some things, and I hurt people along the way, and I messed up in big ways that I have learned from.
Rebecca Ching: Yeah, me too.
Jess Weiner: But what I think my request for myself and my relationships in the future is that I enter, now, relationships trying to give enough grace and space to know if things go awry, I would like to learn with more compassion. I would like to experience those lessons with a little bit more space and compassion instead of I really, really spent time beating myself up, and that also isn’t helpful. It’s never really helpful but it certainly isn’t helpful to really receive the lesson because the beating myself up becomes a way that I also stay invulnerable because then I’m just beating myself up and I’m not as open to learning.
Rebecca Ching: So what’s shifted for you? When you have a hard learning coming at you, what’s the shift or what are you trying to shift towards instead of beating yourself up, like, “You suck. I can’t believe you did this again.”
Jess Weiner: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Those are the things that pop up reflexively that I have to — they’re not as loud at all anymore. But they still show up to try and protect me and keep me small.
What are you moving towards then? Because we can’t give what we don’t have. If you want to give more compassion, how are you showing yourself more compassion in your mistakes?
Jess Weiner: And by the way, we teach what we most need to learn.
Rebecca Ching: Amen, sister.
Jess Weiner: So I definitely have been on that journey. I start to talk to my inner child. I start to think about if I was that 11-year-old going through this what I would say to her, what I would want her to understand about this. How would I handle it if I’m having a tough time with an employee? What would that be like if I had an 11-year-old having a tough time with a friend? What would I — you know, and I mean it just from the sense of how would I gently coach and talk about, like, “Okay, you know, you screwed up. Can we identify where that comes from? Can we talk about how it makes you feel? And can we talk about what we want to do better?” It’s just a gentility that I think I’m adopting in the learning.
50:15
And also recognizing, you know, I’ve been running a little bit in my life. I’ve done so many incredible things that I’m so proud of, and I love the work that I do now. I feel so blessed, and I mean that truly. To be able to do it at the level that I’m able to influence culture, I feel so excited by, and yet I also need to make sure that I’m tending to that inner part of me that is still learning, that can still make mistakes, that needs to get nurtured a little bit more. Now I’m actually quite grateful for all this really shit facedown stuff in a way that I might have just said it in platitudes before, but I genuinely mean it.
Rebecca Ching: Totally.
Jess Weiner: I’m not evolved if I have not experienced that, so I’ve been reading a lot of Pema Chödrön. I’ve been looking at a lot of Buddhist teachings, but what has been really resonating for me around managing specifically my anxiety and depression, the Buddhist teachings have been very helpful. What I’ve noticed most is that instead of running from that hardship, if I sit in it and I invite it in, I am getting some incredible peace from that, whereas I thought, by the way, I would crumble as a leader if I sat in the shit, right? I had to run from it or fix it, and instead inviting it in has been some of the most difficult yet illuminating growth spurts for myself.
Rebecca Ching: It’s hard to see when you’re in it, but it’s definitely that feeling of gratitude of the key learnings, and integrating that feels empowering, but it takes a while to get there for sure.
Jess Weiner: Yeah. For sure.
Rebecca Ching: Thank you for articulating that. I want to make sure that we cover some of the kind of touchstone aspects of your body of work at least that have impacted me, and I know more people than they probably realize, and that’s working with Mattel around Barbie and also the Dove Self-Esteem Campaign. And I want to start with Barbie.
52:13
So, okay, first, I have a confession to make. [Laughs]
Jess Weiner: [Laughs] Uh-oh.
Rebecca Ching: I feel like I have to do this out of integrity because if I’m talking about Barbie, and anyone who knows me is listening to this and I don’t acknowledge this to you, I would be out of integrity. But I have been, for lack of a better phrase, and this is not a hashtag, but I have been a Barbie basher. I have been someone that when I would give all these talks on body image and all of this stuff like, “Look, if Barbie was blown up and she would be out of proportion, she’d be crawling, and how can we have Barbie –.” And I’ve never bought a Barbie for my kid.
And so, then I saw your work, and then I started paying attention to you, and you were working from the inside, and it reminded me, it brought me back to the criticism I received. Right out of college I actually worked in politics, and I went to DC and worked for a senator, and I got a lot of pushback going, “Oh, you’re working for the man. You’re working for the corrupt powers that be. You’ve sold out.” And this is fresh out of college, and I’m like, “Are you kidding me? This is where you get to have a say. This is where you get to see the power inside and then hopefully inside out.” This is pre-therapy. I just knew intuitively this is where you can — I mean, you know, whippersnapper 21-year-old redheaded me like, “I’m gonna change the world!”
But it brought me back to that, so it’s kind of my initial — and then I started following your work and I’m like, “Oh.” And I can see people going, “Oh, you know, she’s just getting paid but really they’re just gonna do what they’re gonna do,” and I could hear the critics and the cynics and particularly in the food, body, ED treatment community, it can be hard. It can be harsh and rigid if there’s — you know, it’s just challenging in that space sometimes.
So I shifted. I shifted because of my awareness of your work (so I want to just name that before) and recognized that you wanted to go in. I mean, you fell into it.
Jess Weiner: Mm-hmm.
54:09
Rebecca Ching: And it took a long time —
Jess Weiner: Yep.
Rebecca Ching: — to really shape Barbie’s look and body size and skin color and her vocations. It took time for it to be more than a Barbie platitude, [Laughs] right? And so, can you talk a little bit about that long-game journey of that change and then I’ll have a follow-up question after that.
Jess Weiner: Yeah, of course. Listen, I understand where and why the world has connected to Barbie in such a polarizing fashion, especially now that I’ve worked internally with the team is that, look, around the world Barbie, as a doll, as a brand, has a 99% awareness rating.
Rebecca Ching: That’s huge. Wow.
Jess Weiner: The only other brand that has something like that might be like a Coca-Cola. So I want you to think about that. In countries and in lands that are so far away from where we live, Barbie is still a recognizable brand property. So the impact is far and wide, and I understand that she’s a lightning rod for cultural conversations. We did a documentary on Hulu a couple years ago called Tiny Shoulders.
Rebecca Ching: I saw it! And I saw you in it! I was like, “Oh, I know her!”
Jess Weiner: I know, right? We were in the war room for the change of Barbie’s body, but why I loved what they gave the title “Tiny Shoulders,” I really do think we’ve put a tremendous amount on a plastic, 12-inch doll, right? She signified a lot of cultural traps that exist around beauty and body image, and by the way, the company is not — Mattel and the teams at Mattel, which is a 60-year-old company, and Barbie just turned 60, there’s a lot of growth if you think about we just talked about the body of work we have, right, as people growing. Companies are very similar. Now, I’m not saying companies are people, but I will say companies are run by people, so there are humans inside of those businesses, and so, we can’t forget that.
56:08
And so, why I say all of this is because that is what got me to work with the brand team was the people that I met there because when I went in, I too was a Barbie basher. I went in for a consultation meeting and I thought, “They’re not gonna listen to anything,” or “They’re not really earnest in what they want to do.” And I could 100% with every fiber of my being say that the people that I’ve worked with inside that company and on that brand absolutely want to do right and well by young people, they want to do well by their own business because their business, this is not a, you know, non-profit entity, this is not a charity, but they want to do better like most people do, and so, there are systems in place that in corporations especially that stop not just Barbie but any company from changing, right? There’s always that mindset of, “Well, this is the way we’ve always done it so that’s the way it’s always done.”
And so, when I come in and I’m trying to shake up something or I’m trying to add value to thinking in a new direction, you can’t walk in and just be like, “Guess what you guys? You’re murdering the hopes and dreams of young people everywhere.” I mean, nobody’s gonna get motivated by that, right?
Rebecca Ching: No.
Jess Weiner: So when I talk about we spent a lot of time — so this is what I will say, we spent a lot of time with external experts and advocates in psychological spaces, in social work, in body image, in lots of places. I was able to bring in voices inside of this company to further educate the humans that work there. That’s always my kind of first goal, right? So when you know better, you’re going to do better, and I think this is my ninth year. They’re still a client of mine and a partner, and this is my ninth year working with them.
Rebecca Ching: Wow.
Jess Weiner: It took us five or six years to build the change that we saw in Barbie’s body, and by 2016, she now has some of the most diverse physical attributes that you can do in an 11-and-a-half-inch doll, right? You also have to remember that little, tiny fingers play with this doll, and they have to be able to move things and take off clothes and brush hair.
58:10
There’s some functionality also as to why Barbie couldn’t evolve in the way we want her to in our life, but that could be another podcast. The big thing for this was there was a willingness, there was an interest, but I still constantly had to make the business case for it because this is one thing that we never really get to talk about as activists from the inside. You can advocate all you want internally. Consumer behavior and purchasing power is the ultimate greenlight.
So Barbie’s body and Barbie’s skin colors had been changed quite a bit before I got there. The problem is is that when you go to buy a Barbie at a Target or a Walmart, you have very limited shelf space. So Barbie could produce 50 versions of a doll, but Target may only buy one of them. So then you go into your local Target. You go to look for that diverse Barbie doll, and she doesn’t exist. And so, what do you do? You go online and say, “Screw Mattel! They said that they were gonna do this, and they didn’t do it, and it’s not here,” you know? And I think most consumers don’t understand the supply chain issues, the real estate issues in retail, what impacts getting the change into market.
And so, we are battling multiple things, right? And then what happens when you’ve got 12 different kinds of Barbies on the shelf but your consumers in that neighborhood only buy one kind of Barbie, and then you go to the bargain bin and you see all the diverse Barbies laying in the bargain bin, that sends a horrible message in other ways, right?
So what I’ve learned the most in this whole change agency space for them was they were only the tip of the iceberg of systems we had to change. They were only the beginning of people we had to get kind of onboard. And in 2015, when I had a chance to work with the White House Council for Women and Girls under the Obama administration, we were able to host a really wonderful comprehensive summit at the White House with dollmakers, toy makers, children’s entertainment makers and researchers and parent activists altogether probably for the first time in one room to talk about the impact of stereotyped bodies and racial stereotypes on children. But we had to invite the Targets, the Walmarts, the Toys-R-Us’. We had to invite the whole ecosystem in in order to really make that change.
1:00:22
And so, that was probably my greatest learning with this process was that, to the naked eye — and it’s important that we critique and hold consumer businesses accountable because they’re a consumer business. They only live and die by our contribution to their product. And I think we have to, if we really want to make that bigger change like you said, I couldn’t do it just by banging on someone’s door on the outside. I had to go inside and figure out, “How can I be of service here and how can I bring the outside in in ways that are helpful and supportive to the ultimate goal,” which was to get as much variety into market so that little girls, like myself and other little girls out there, who go to look for a doll that looks like them can actually find one.
Rebecca Ching: You know, I just think it’s important to note the long-game journey and the bandwidth and the endurance that this required for you. You talk about showing up at that first meeting with your own very clear assessments of Barbie as she was and maybe even the company, and you invested in people.
Jess Weiner: Right.
Rebecca Ching: Your identity wasn’t in, “How are people gonna see me?” At least in that perspective you were like, “I want to make change, and I want to make long-game, sustained change.” Whether you articulated that in your head or not, that’s what you did.
Jess Weiner: Right. I think the challenges, especially as we talked about in this fast-paced world of critique and we’re always looking at things with the angle of which we’re living in. We don’t know what they’re facing. I think internally there are some — I’ve had incredible champions and work partners on the journey at Barbie. I’ve had them in all of my other client partners as well. You know, Kim Culmone who runs the design for Barbie has been there for over 20 years.
1:02:02
She’s a long-term champion for the changes that are being made. What I end up doing is just coming in and helping to validate and bring in external resources. There’s no way one person can single handedly change all of this, but it’s like we can come in and I can bring the energy and the expertise and the relationships that they need to continue to do their jobs really well.
So they’re incredible champions internally. Unfortunately they, too, don’t get often the notice and the recognition because they’re working every single day to make that change, but I think what I’m focusing on now after having some success in those areas, and her change in the body was incredibly successful for the brand and for girls everywhere and boys everywhere who play with the doll, and I also think that it’s important for us as consumers and advocates and activists that we’re asking really good questions and we’re going a little bit more than just what we see on the surface, you know, because I think that’s how we’re gonna sustain the changes that we’re making. It always comes down to whether or not consumer culture is reacting to that as well.
Rebecca Ching: Mm, thank you for talking through that, and I want to just touch briefly also on your work with the Dove Self-Esteem Campaign. That was transformative for me and many people. It’s so wonderful to be able to share the images and just have these conversations. It was so novel back then. And so, we’ve got, especially Barbie and Dove, there are definitely a lot of similarities in these clients of yours and the work and touching on the body and image and beauty and enough, and we talked about the critics, but we also have a very cynical culture too. I read somewhere that someone said cynicism is a sign of lazy thinking, right? It’s just easy to just be cynical. But that can take a toll. When people are really questioning, “You’re working with Barbie?” “Oh, you’re trying to change this with Dove?”
1:04:06
Again, how have you navigated the backlash and the critics when people question your work on these incredible — I mean, I’m biased. I think they’re incredible campaigns. I have a bias towards being an activist on the inside. But how have you navigated that over the years?
Jess Weiner: You know, it’s kind of, I guess in some ways, my attention to the general backlash for questioning whether or not a company is in the right, I guess, light in the changes that they want to make, I guess some of that’s diminished for me because I feel like we’re living in an era where we’re expecting this of all brands and businesses. When I started working with Dove, I mean, Dove has been my longest partner. I’m 16 years working with this company and with this brand, and I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done. Have they screwed up? Absolutely. Have we all screwed up over 16 years? You and I just spent an hour talking about stuff that we’ve done in our lives.
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs] Absolutely.
Jess Weiner: So I guess in some ways I just want to remind people again, companies are not humans, but they are employed and populated by humans, and humans are fallible, and much like the work that Brené talks about too inside corporations, they’re all figuring out how to lead courageously and they’re all figuring out how to lead more openly. And so, that’s gonna show up in the work, and I’m not giving them a pass for screw up. I mean, I think there are some companies who make mistakes and are not learning from those mistakes. I don’t choose to work with those companies. I choose to work with companies and organizations who are committed to making change even when it’s hard. And by the way, do you know how difficult it is to get a billion-dollar business to stick with a plan that doesn’t show profitability right away.
Rebecca Ching: Absolutely wow.
Jess Weiner: To have to explain that to shareholders if you’re a publicly traded company? So I get sometimes when there are skeptics and naysayers. I say, “Great, come back to me when you’ve done this kind of work in a different way that you can show me as a case study. Otherwise shut up. Honestly.”
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs]
1:06:05
Jess Weiner: You know, at one point it’s like — and I mean that with as much love as I — if I could be Southern, I would say, “Oh, bless your heart.” But I just want to be like, you know, truly, go and try to do it and then tell me from that perspective what has worked for you, otherwise you can be an armchair quarterback all you want; I’ve got skin in the game. I’ve worked with an organization for 16 years, for 9 years. My partnership with Aerie is going on 4 years, with American Eagle. You know, I have long term partnerships with Disney. I work long term with partners because change doesn’t happen overnight, and people don’t change overnight. We just talked about all of that.
So I think I get amped up, like you’re hearing in my voice right now, because I want to focus on what it takes to move a billion-dollar business forward. To have somebody like American Eagle commit to not retouching or photoshopping images since 2013, what that’s done for a generation of young girls who go in to buy their first bra, and I don’t know if you’ve ever been into an Aerie store but one of the greatest things that I love that this company does is you go into a dressing room and there’s a gauze covering, a curtain over the mirror before you look in the mirror, and when you pull the curtain back, it says, “You must love what’s on the inside before you can love what’s on the outside.”
Rebecca Ching: Wow. I haven’t seen that.
Jess Weiner: When you’re trying on a bathing suit, you know? When you’re a 13-year-old going to buy a bra or a 30-year-old going to buy a bra, what a great reminder. That company committed to bringing that message in their stores. I focus on those things because those things I can teach other businesses from. People are not motivated by feeling like shit, like they’re not doing anything. So I’m trying to find the wins and create and wins so that we can create more momentum on this chain.
Rebecca Ching: I can’t help but think of 11-year-old Jess walking into that room today seeing that today and going, “Okay, we can do this.”
Jess Weiner: Yes!
1:08:05
Rebecca Ching: You’ve got her back today. You’ve got her back, and the bullies and the naysayers and the folks that aren’t in the arena doing the work, we send them to timeout with love and respect and maybe a middle finger on occasion.
Jess Weiner: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: Just sayin’. But I think, too, because I love this phrase “activist from the inside.” I’m gonna be using this more and giving you credit. So I guess I want to wrap up with how are you gonna continue to be an activist on the inside for you as you’re doing all this other work?
Jess Weiner: How am I going to be an activist on the inside is I’m going to —
Rebecca Ching: For you.
Jess Weiner: For me, I’m gonna continue to love myself through all of these evolutions and that love doesn’t always mean — you know, I always want to say that love doesn’t mean that it’s gonna feel perfect or look perfect or even feel great. Probably quite the opposite or somewhere in the middle. I think I’m going to continue to relentlessly excavate all of these old patterns and belief systems and organizing principles that have held me in spaces and places that no longer feel good. I’m going to try to dial down and pause when I really need rest so that I don’t burn out. That’s one way I can preserve my wellbeing and the energy I can give to others. But the other part of this too is that I’m just really practicing being more fearless in that vulnerability and not worrying as much. I’ve been very there with you during this conversation because I felt safe, I feel like you have hosted a place for that, and I want to bring this kind of conversation out there.
And so, when my critic voice pops up, which she will because she always will have a seat at the table. I’ve tried to make her chair smaller and smaller but she’s always gonna be at the table to some degree, I just have to gently and lovingly say to her, “Yes, I know that was scary. Yes, I said some things I hadn’t said publicly before. Yes, somebody might listen and start to pick you apart, or yes, somebody’s not gonna like what you say, but my God, let’s focus on the total opposite, which is could this conversation be freeing for somebody else? Could somebody else hear something they needed today, and you were the conduit for that gift? Could you, by being you, really help be of service to other people?” That’s the way I’m gonna continue to advocate for myself and be an activist from within is cultivating that more gentle conversation to my critic.
1:10:31
Rebecca Ching: I think that’s a powerful parting word with the self-talk. If I say to myself, “Can I, by being myself, be of service to somebody else, then darn straight I’m gonna show up and do that.”
Jess Weiner: Yeah. Yeah!
Rebecca Ching: Ah, Jess, this has been so great. Before we wrap up, tell our listeners what you are working on right now. You’ve touched on some of it today but if there’s anything else you want to add in, I want to make sure we get that and where people can find you.
Jess Weiner: Well, I am getting ready to launch, on June 18th, a new — so I don’t know when people will listen to this, but I’m getting ready to launch a new podcast and video series called We’re All Gonna Die Anyway, which is a title I’ve had in my heart and is actually something I’ve said to my close friends for a long time. It’s always been my way I’ve kind of navigated and mitigated the reality that life ends for all of us. We all have the same beginning and the same ending. We’re born and we die, but what we do with the time in between is really what living is, and I wanted to create a series of conversations and videos with incredible people, some of which I know very well and some of which are total strangers, to talk about life, death, and everything in between, to really go there to talk about how we pivot from loss and grief, both of losing people but also losing parts of ourselves, which you and I touched on today.
So this was my love letter to living a little bit more of an urgent life, of creating a life you love on your own terms. And so, I’m launching that in June, and then that will probably give way to the next book that I’m writing, which I’ve been working on for a while, which is all about how do we want to live a good life and what does a good life mean to you. So some new conversations in the atmosphere, and I’m continuing to work with my brand partners, but I’m excited about this new creative direction and coming back to my roots a bit and doing some things in a different way.
1:12:20
Rebecca Ching: Ah, wonderful. And where can people find you, Jess?
Jess Weiner: So I’m everywhere! I’m on www.jessweiner.com, and I’m on all of the social medias except for TikTok. I can’t figure that out. I’m too old. But I’m @jessweiner on Instagram, and yeah, then we’re starting a Good Life Community, so I will start a community of people, and I hope you’ll come with me, that will help to share and guide others on their journey of creating a life they love on their own terms.
Rebecca Ching: I am so there!
Jess Weiner: Yay!
Rebecca Ching: I’m a part of anything that you’re leading, so count me in! So thank you again, Jess, for the generosity of your time, your wisdom, your courage and vulnerability in answering my questions today. I do know that because you showed up the way you did today that you are gonna be in service to many people, so thank you, thank you, thank you.
Jess Weiner: Thank you from the bottom of my heart! I really appreciate it.
[Inspirational Music]
Rebecca Ching: I hope you were as inspired as I was listening to Jess share her journey with pain and how she continues to heal, grow, and respond to her pain in ways that inspire change in her personal life and her body of work. What is your relationship with your own pain? Are you hiding it or avoiding it? Take some time to reflect on how pain has inspired your mission and your body of work. Get curious about where fears are lurking around facing and owning your pain story. And notice where fears of being misunderstood are keeping you stuck from taking the risks that are required for you to grow into your next level of leadership.
Jess reminded us today that the work is never done and that if we listen to our pain, it can take us on a path of deep self-discovery and even inspire some of your best work offerings to the world.
01:14:07
Thank you so much for joining this episode of The Unburdened Leader. You can find this episode, show notes, and free Unburdened Leader resources along with ways to work with me at www.rebeccaching.com, and make sure to check out Jess’ soon-to-be-newly-launched podcast We’re All Going to Die Anyway featuring inspiring conversations about life, death, and everything in between. Details are in the show notes. Thank you for listening!
[Inspirational Music]
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