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HackingHappy.co | Hack Your Way To A Happier Everyday
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Credits

Produced by - Lucy Kippist

Edited by - Morgan Sebastian Brown
‍Interviewers - Carrie Kwan and Lucy Kippist
‍Guest – Penny Locaso

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Episode 99 Transcript

00:00:04:03 - 00:00:29:14

Lucy

Just over nine years ago, Penny Lacaso turned her life completely upside down, leaving a 16 year career in a global giant, an 18 year relationship and relocated from Perth back to Melbourne to start her own a purpose driven company. Hacking happy Co, Penny now identifies as a lifestylepreneur and is absolutely driven to help other women redefine life on their terms. Let's jump into the interview now.

00:00:32:15 - 00:00:38:03

Carrie

So great to have you here today. And we love educating women on pitching with confidence. please give us a little bit about your, amazing work and, in there, perhaps an elevator style pitch format?

00:00:48:02 - 00:01:05:14

Penny

Oh, I love that. So if I had to give you a pitch, I would say I help busy, exhausted, professional women reignite their spark and inject more energy, presence and calm into each day. How's that? Give me the score Carrie.

00:01:08:21 - 00:01:17:05

Carrie

That sounds pretty warm to me. And where do I sign up? It’s reinjecting calm, I think. Who doesn't want a bit of a bit more com in their lives? It's fantastic in terms of helping, I think, deal with all this busyness that we constantly have and what I was hoping to ask was, your story does really mimic many of our community, right? Where we're kind of, trying to find, our connection with multiple identity hats being worn all the time. So you've come from a corporate to a passionate business owner. How do you define your ambition in that sense?

00:01:50:16 - 00:02:24:12

Penny

Oh, wow. No one's ever asked me that. How do I define my ambition? I would say my ambition would be, directly aligned with my purpose. And my purpose is to elevate societal flourishing through inspiration, action and the empowerment of women. So in terms of if that's my purpose, I have two ambitions. One is to leave the world just a little better than what it was that I arrived in. And the second one, which I know will connect with many of your listeners, is to be a role model for my son and to show him that you can positively impact the lives of others through the work that you do, and still be a present and connected mum.

00:02:48:04 - 00:02:50:06

Carrie

Beautiful ambitions. We need more of it. We also need you to really be unapologetic about those ambitions. You know, because I think you're right. A lot of our community do resonate with being a positive role model. You know, showing them, that they can actually have a professional career but also be there for their family.

00:03:13:05 - 00:03:34:14

Penny

It's interesting. Right? Because I think given we're talking about women and women in business, one of the things that didn't become apparent to me when I started my own business, but perhaps was the most powerful question I asked myself in, giving myself compassion around where I was going and following my true north was this.

When I started out, I was surrounded by a lot of entrepreneurs, and I spent a lot of time in the Start-Up world, and everyone was about scale. You know, it was like scale, scale, scale. How do you become the next unicorn? And I didn't even question it kind of was like, how do I make this happen? And I had to actually step back from the noise and ask myself, and there's no there's no, what would you say? There's no wrong answer. It's about finding what's right for you. And I think the most powerful question to ask yourself as a woman in business is, am I here to create scale in terms of do I want to be the next unicorn? Or am I doing this because I want to create a lifestyle? So it's not about saying I'm not ambitious because I want a lifestyle business, but for me it was never about scale.

It was about impact positively impacting the lives of others. And equally positively impacting the life of my son. And the best way for me to do that was to create a business around the life that I wanted to live, rather than just focus on being massive. And I think it's easy to get caught up in the being massive without connecting into why you started this business in the first place.

00:04:48:11 - 00:05:02:23

Lucy

It's a brilliant mission statement there. And obviously something you're living by and teaching others to do. But I'm wondering, in practice, what does that really look like? Like, what have you had to stop doing in order to live those values yourself?

00:05:02:23 - 00:05:33:02

Penny

I've stopped working ridiculous hours. I worked way more hours when I was in corporate than I do now. and as someone who studies psychology, and is very interested in how we perform at our best, how we get our best ideas and how we, can work with our energy rather than against it. I have learned the hard way that it's not about working more hours and squeezing more into an already full day. I have had to let go of this comparison to watching others work around the clock and think that that is how we become, you know, how we perform at our best. And so that's one thing I've let go of. It's actually reframing my mindset around what healthy and happy high performance looks like. And perhaps the most impactful thing that I've done is actually, spend a lot of time analysing and investigating my energy when it is at its highest and what actually recharges it, so that I can get more out of each day in less hours. And so much of that is around really simple rituals and practices, that enable me to feel energised and, you know, and clear in the mind.

00:06:24:03 - 00:06:24:16

Lucy

And that, journey that you've described about kind of stopping the train and turning it around to suit you. That sounds so good. But it's also difficult. It's difficult. It's hard. It's challenging.  It's a constant process, I'm sure. And I read a quote on Instagram the other day that said, as soon as you stop the comparison journey, you're going to watch people around you being rewarded for the behaviours you're trying to stop.

So it's such a personal, drive to do what you're doing, and it requires that energy and it requires that persistence to keep going that way. Just to take that another direction, though; you're helping other women who are exhausted

to get back on track and to follow in your footsteps. So I'm wondering, why are we all so exhausted?

Is it because we're all working too many hours? Do you see a pattern in the women that you're speaking to?

00:07:17:14 - 00:07:18:11

Penny

Without a doubt.

There are multiple bands. So the first thing that you reference is comparison is the thief of all joy, right. That is like a renowned quote. And it's so true. And I think it's probably not what people want to hear. And I'm actually working on this quite heavily at the moment because I still feel it myself. Actually, like trying to distance myself more and more, even though I need social media as a business, I think for many women, social media just makes us feel inadequate. And I hear it like I've done over, nearly 200 interviews now with high performing women in the last year. And the one thing they constantly say is, I'm sitting here watching all these other women online and how can they do it all, and I can't what is wrong with me? I just again, you know, we know this. You are comparing you behind the scenes with others you know, show reel. And I can tell you they're not doing it like I can. I can see it, you know, you can see the facade. And so that's the first thing is this misconception that everyone else has got it all together. We think that and it's just not true. The second thing is I think off the back of Covid, the boundaries between work and life were more blurred than ever. And no one ever taught us as women how to put boundaries in place. And I think the word boundaries has a very negative connotation, because it's often linked with saying no.

And most of us don't feel comfortable saying no.  

But the reality is that every yes you give to someone else else's a no to yourself, to your dreams, and often to your energy levels. That’s the second thing that I, that I say, the third thing and again, this is not new. We still live in a society. And there is so much research around these where women still carry the bulk of the load when it comes to family. So what we now have is these, you know, we've been sold this idea that we can have it all. We can do it all. And again, I call BS on that, I think, you know, you have to be able to prioritise.

And what you prioritise will depend on the stage of life that you're in. Yeah. And so I think if someone with small children, your capacity with small children is not the same as someone like me who has a 13 year old child, you know, and equally, like I say this, this idea that you can have it all, we're still in a position where until men do, more women are still carrying the bulk of the load. And what we say is for most women, that's two jobs. It's the work job, and it is the home job. And there's this whole undertone of what we call invisible work that is associated with a mental load of being a mum, and we can talk about that. That is carried. Right. And it's not seen. It's the simple things like people see a meal arrive on the table and no one thinks about the mental load that got that meal on to the table for that woman who's worked all day, had to meal plan, had to go to the supermarket and buy the ingredients, then had to cook the meal and put it on the table. Now I'm generalising, but that's kind of, there the things that I say.

00:10:27:16 - 00:10:31:08

Carrie

Absolutely resonate with what you're saying there. That invisible load. And constantly blending. Blending the two, like we call it harmonising. Because there's no such thing as a sort of that, that balance element. I love that you're actually calling BS on all of that Penny, because, you know, we do need to be realistic about what we can do. And then also remove that burden of, having to, to do it all, at the same time. And I love also that you called out that it is different capacity for at different stages of life that you're at. We can't forget that. When you're in the trenches on your belly and crawling through, it's a little bit different with the primary school age than now. I hear from, friends that have children that are in the teen years. They're finding that they need to be back there again and be a bit more present. Even though that their children are saying that I want them to be around, they actually really do want them to be around. They just don't verbalise it. Yeah, that life stage and life journey, is actually quite linked to how we see our ambition, how we see our professional career. So, you know, maybe it is that chance to just take pause and, and, look at where you're at and then sort of re plan, prioritise based on those phases with your career. Now you did mentioned the social media and we certainly know that a lot of, women in business, are utilising networks, social networks to gain visibility for their business. You've got a confident and consistent presence on LinkedIn. Are there any other tools that you've perhaps sought, effective in terms of boosting the visibility of Hacking Happy?

00:12:14:19 - 00:12:34:01

Penny

Yeah. It's interesting. One of them is. This is a perfect example. Right? One of the things that I love to do is podcasting. So the first thing you know, I would say to your listeners is, where do you shine? Like some people don't love podcasting? Like I've got clients that go, oh my gosh, the sound of my own voice kills me, right?

But, you know, I also wouldn't let that be a barrier because no one likes the sound of their own voice. And that might very well just be a limiting belief. You might be amazing at podcasting, but, so for me, you know, I love to speak. So, I currently seek out collaborations for podcasts where I find podcasts that speak to my audience.

And, often I'll do an exchange like, it's a beautiful way, if you've got your own podcast, it's like, I'll come on yours and you can come on mine. Or sometimes we'll record one podcast and we'll share it across the both. So that for me has been amazing. And, you know, I have this practice of 100 notes where, you know, you can't be attached to the outcome like, that's one thing to lose Lucy's point early and, like, what have I learned to let go?

I have learned to let go of being attached to an outcome, because that has freed me up to say, you can't get yes’s and the less you get no's. So I ask, you know, I might pitch myself to 30 podcasts in a month, and I might only get half of those bookings. That's fine. Yeah, because I'm not attached to the outcome and it's still 15 more, opportunities to be visible to people that otherwise wouldn't have heard from me.

So that's one thing I do. The other thing I love, doing I mean, I'm an international speaker, and even though, you know, I get paid five figures to do this and I get to speak at some amazing things, I also have a practice where I look at what sort of conferences are happening that may not know about me, and a beautiful one that is just come up, especially now that I'm studying psychology.

A lot of the more technically based ones, you know, like with psychologists and stuff come together. They're not, they're not as savvy in the marketing space. And I say not as connected into, who's available. So I go and pitch myself to those. And one I got this week is to speak at the, Asia-Pacific, Women in Mental Health conference, which again, is all people in research, science and psychology, which is an amazing audience for me, but they would never have heard of me. So thinking about who might you be relevant to that may not have ever heard of you and has a connection to your audience beyond one person you know? Like that's why I love podcasts, and speaking, has been a brilliant way. Equally, I've pitched myself to things like Harvard Business Review and been fortunate enough to have that come off, you know, actually. And now that, you know, chat GPT to you can sit there and get some some decent support. I would never take anything cut and paste, but it's enough to give you a foundation with the base elements to be able to pitch yourself for anything without being an expert.  

00:15:16:15 - 00:15:29:12

Carrie

Interesting tactics. And certainly, you know, finding where our listeners might be playing or, you know, might be present. That's a really, really, great tactic just to see how you can actually be really creative with that.

So, turning, our conversation a little bit to the business of running a business. How would you describe your relationship to risk? As a business owner, and what steps have you taken to manage risk?

00:15:46:19 - 00:15:49:08

Penny

I would say, I would say I'm much more open to risk than I ever was when I was in my corporate career. And I think this is really interesting for women who shape from corporate into their own business. Because if you think about like there is conditioning that comes with a corporate background, right? And so having worked, you know, in a global giant like Shell for 16 years, we never did anything without doing a full risk mitigation plan.

There would be like a 300 line item project plan so that everything was planned to the nth degree. Every dollar within a budget was accounted for, right? And that was all done before we started. And when I left that and came into becoming, you know, an entrepreneur, I realised pretty quickly that was never going to work for me.

That was just you have to be nimble, you have to be adaptable. You have to be willing to experiment. But you have to do that in a measured way. So when I learned about this concept early on, you know, of a minimum viable product, I was like, it gave me permission, permission to experiment. I call it imperfect experimentation.

Yeah. So that's the other thing, you know, the idea of experimentation and that word when I was in corporate was not something people spoke about, nor was anyone walking through the corridor was talking about failing and how much they learned from a failure. So I had to almost re I had to unlearn and relearn. I had to relearn that experimentation was critical to actually growing a business, and that came with risk.

I had to learn that failure was only failure if you didn't learn from the experience, I had to learn to not be attached to the outcome. And these things really served me in starting to experiment my way to wherever I was heading. And giving, like I say, this idea of a minimum viable product. So everything that I do for the first time,

is in a small way, it's like, what's the smallest way that I can test this idea, get feedback, and then reiterate and evolve and improve? And so doing that is my way of managing the risk, but also co-creating with my community to make sure that what I create is actually having the impact that I want to have on the world and the lives of others.

00:18:05:23 - 00:18:14:08

Carrie

Amazing. And, you know, having sort of stepped in a foot in both camp corporate and entrepreneurship.

I think, you know that there is definitely that appetite for risk. And it diminishes or increases, but, I think you can also, you know, perhaps use a lot of the corporate thinking to have that to the background in part of your decision making process.but, you know, I'm sure you're enjoying moving a little bit faster in the entrepreneurship world.

00:18:40:14 - 00:18:57:00

Penny

That’s the other thing, right? You don't have the luxury like I used to have teams of 25 people. I had multi-million dollar budgets. Like you don't have that luxury anymore. Which means that you have to get more creative and you have to be more nimble. And, I think in many ways like that, that's a that's not a bad thing.

00:18:57:04 - 00:18:58:06

Carrie

Not at all.

00:18:58:06 - 00:19:22:23

Lucy

Our core values here at Mums and Co. are ambition, livelihood, and well-being. And we love to support our community to embrace all of those things together in terms of;we talk about it in terms of harmony at trying to put our arrow towards harmony. So when you're thinking about those three things together, how would you describe the shape of a good life for you?

00:19:22:23 - 00:19:59:14

Penny

I love the word harmony. Because, you know, if we go back to this idea of balance and it being BS you guys have tapped into exactly you know, the direction that I'm heading with all of this in that harmony is a much more beautiful words, than balance. And it's it feels more attainable to me. And so for me, if I speak to those values and what a good life looks like for me, I always come back to one piece, one psychological piece of or theory that can completely change my mindset around finding harmony. And that was the theory of what's called conservation of resources theory. And the way it works is that each and every one of us are just one human with 24 hours in the day. And when you wake at the start of the day, we need to think of ourselves a little bit like a mobile phone and the battery, the little battery light that you have on the mobile phone. So when you wake at the start of the day, you have a set level of mental and physical resources available to you and how you choose to use those resources throughout the day will determine whether they are recharged. And that little light, you know, it gets higher or whether that light goes down and you end up with, you know, the warning sign saying you need to plug me in and put me on charge. What has happened, though, is that many of us just walk over our body's warning signals because we're so good now at being disconnected from our bodies, because we spend most of our time in our heads. And what that means is we put our central nervous system in a chronic state of stress. And it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when you burn out. So knowing that, and I share that because I hope that is helpful to your listeners. The most important question one can ask themselves is how can I inject the recharge? The micro recharge is into every day. And that, to me, is what makes me lead a great life.  

Because saying I'm going to have a holiday in four weeks time and take a month off is not going to pull your body out of that chronic state of stress. It's why most people go on holidays who work 100 hours, you know, a week and get sick within the first couple of days because the body's shutting down. So, so a long way to get to the answer to your question. So for me, a good life is having those micro moments of recharging the day. So I know without a doubt that if I don't move my body in the morning, whether that's yoga, whether that is, I love to lift very heavy weights. Don't ask me why it's my boyfriend said that I missed my calling as an Olympic weightlifter. You know, I know that I have to move my body to recharge it, and I have to do that multiple times in the day, and we all do. But most of us again, do prioritise that. So I, you know, for me it's movement.

It's always being connected with nature. So I make an effort to go outside and I do one decent walk in nature every day. And then often I'll go to the park at the end of the day with the dog to close out my workday, because I think it also having a clear delineation that work has ended is perhaps one of the most powerful things you can do.

But again, that most of us don't do because we've been sold this idea of, oh, we can all work flexibly. But what that means for many of us and the research says more than 33% of us can now not disconnect and switch off. So when your brain never switches off again, we go back to conservation of resources. You're going to wake up tomorrow and your batteries already going to be on a half charge. You're not full and you're wondering why you're exhausted even though you slept. So yeah, it's having those micro re charge moments and being with my son is probably the other thing making sure there's time in my day to be fully present with him.

00:23:01:23 - 00:23:23:20

Lucy

Love it. Great invitation there to break it down into micro moments. Excellent advice. So the final question for us is inviting you to share, in the spirit of women supporting women who are the ambitious, the women that you know, who are unapologetic, blending their motherhood and their ambition that you'd like to say hello to.

00:23:23:23 - 00:23:35:11

Penny

We talked about stages of life. I'm going to take one from the different stages. Right. So I would say my mother. So my mother is now 74. Even though she has grown children, she is very present and makes a conscious effort in being present in the lives of her children and her grandchildren. And like she does things like takes my grand, my nephew mountain biking for four days. She is fully in the space of still being a mother and a grandmother, but she also lives out her ambition. I mean, this is a woman who was a, Greyhound trainer had her own dog grooming business for 30 years and a farmer on 140 acres with, you know, 50 cattle as we grew up who reinvented herself at the age of 60 as a yoga teacher and started teaching yoga to the elderly and, and the disabled and children with down syndrome. And she's now, learning and training herself to support, a group called grow to support people with mental health challenges who can't afford psychologists so that she can be a facilitator in that at the age of 74. So she's 74 and she's still ambitious and living out her dreams every day while still being a mum. And the other one is Shari Rubenstein, who I'm sure you guys have probably heard of, who is a dear friend of mine and the founder of OneRoof, which is a community for female entrepreneurs that I've been a part of. Gosh, for the last eight years. And she's got two tiny children, so she's definitely in the trenches. But what she's done in terms of pivoting her business from a co-working space to an online, co-working space off the back of Covid, is truly inspirational, and she's real and raw in the journey of how hard it is with small children.

00:25:17:17 - 00:25:18:16

Lucy

Thank you.

Lucy

Before we wrap up our interview with Penny Locaso. So today we have a great question from one of our listeners. And that question to Penny is - what is your favourite way to start your day?

Penny

On the days that I don't have my son. It's meditation and journaling at 5 a.m. On the days that I do have my son, even though he’s 13 and it's jumping in his bed and giving him a cuddle. Only because I know I probably have limited, limited cuddles left before. He's like, this is weird, mum.

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