Episode 11 | Leah Neaderthal

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On this episode I’m chatting with Leah Neaderthal about leaving her home with her wife and child for 6 months to ride out the pandemic. We also talk about ditching the dye and going grey, as well as, what it took for Leah to be able to turn inward and begin to take care of herself and her needs just as she does for her clients.

SHOW NOTES:
Leah, thanks so much for being here today.
 

Thanks so much for having me. I’m Leah Neaderthal and I’m a business coach and the founder of Smart Gets Paid. 

All right. Awesome. I am so excited to have you here. Can you believe that it’s actually our friendaversary. 

Is it? 

It is! You and I met one year ago — so we were about three months into the stay at home order. And I signed up for your 10 week sales training program “Signed” and in May of 2020, I joined a small cohort of other women who also ran their own consulting and coaching businesses. And together we met with you weekly over Zoom for the next two and a half months, during which time a lot of stuff happened in all of our lives. So I’d love it if you would take us back to the beginning and kind of tell us how your story unfolded and what life looked like for you. 

Oh, my gosh, I cannot believe it! It both – it feels like yesterday — to have our friendaversary feels like yesterday and also feels like an eternity ago. 

I agree. 

So, and I’m just picturing back to when we had those calls, I was, all of those calls took place at my wife’s family’s house on Long Island. So I live in Brooklyn, as you know. And on March — I think it was March 16th, we’d been seeing the numbers rise in Brooklyn, which was an early hotspot. And I think on the 15th, my wife and I looked at each other and said, we need to get out of here. And luckily, we’re in a fortunate position of being able to do that because her family has a house on Long Island. So we packed up, as much as we possibly could, including, my son was six months old at the time, everything for him and as much clothing as we needed for what we thought was – most people thought – was going to be a few weeks. And we relocated ourselves to my wife’s family’s house on Long Island and it was crazy. 

Were you guys the only ones that relocated or were there others? Extended family, siblings that went out there to 

Well, at the beginning, we were the only ones. And it’s funny because those two first days were such a blur because, of course, we’re getting acclimated and couldn’t get into the house for a little bit. We had no child care, all the things were going on. But also my wife’s sister was on vacation at the time and she and her then fiancee were coming back into the States. And that’s a whole other story about how they had to get back in in the middle of March when everything was shutting down. But I remember being on the phone with them and saying, “oh, what’s your plan when you get back to the States?” They live in New York. And they actually said, “we’re not sure.” And I think my wife is like, “Please come help us. Please come to the house.” So they joined us and it was the four of us in that house for a few months. 

And they were helping with child care, right? 

So I have to say, for the first week, it was kind of the Wild West. Whoever heard him cry went to get him. Whoever didn’t have a call, could be around to play with him. We eventually got into a really good rhythm where we signed up for shifts — a few hour shifts based on whatever we had going on that day. And that was actually such a Godsend, because at least you knew when you were on and when you were not on. And I don’t know if I could have gotten anything done if we hadn’t all pitched in to establish that rhythm. 

It takes a village, especially with little ones around. 

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And he was six months old. He couldn’t do anything by himself. He couldn’t even sit up at the time. 

Yeah. I mean, and you continued to work. Your business is already acclimated to this sort of — it was already on Zoom — right. You’re already working with people distributed throughout the country. So, in a way your work didn’t change, but your world changed. And so you’re having to sort of soldier on and keep going and like, I don’t know, it’s just amazing to me – because I remember being on that first call with you, like, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t work and have my kids at home.” And it’s just so funny to now have you on to sort of hear about the chaos that was happening behind the scenes as you sort of like, kept it all together, you know? 

Well, I mean, you’re right that the business was well suited to this environment because it is online and all set up for that. But let’s just be clear that I was fully pretending like, or trying to pretend like nothing was changed, nothing changed. I went into problem solving for everybody else. I ran all of the Signed program, which you were a part of. I ran another live program — it’s all about Linkedin. I made a video interviewing people – women who’d been running their businesses for a long time –  talking about what they learned as they sort of overcome adversity, like we were going through this time, with advice that was great for everybody else, but I certainly wasn’t practicing for myself. I think that I did a really good job as a Type A+ overachiever, just trying to do everything and and really resisting the fact that this was not the same environment that I was used to running my business in.

Right. 

And as a result, I got, I quickly burned out. It’s funny, a conversation with you was really the impetus for me to look at myself, and what was going on, and how I was running my business at the time — and sort of resistance I was feeling, because I don’t know if you remember this, but we had a 1:1 call sort of later in the program and we got on and I open up the call with “Here’s what we’re going to talk about..” And you said, “Let’s just pause for a sec. Are you OK?” Do you remember that? I don’t know if you remember that.

I do! It was, it was our wrap up call when, when the program had ended. I totally remember. Yep! 

And I thought to myself, this is my student asking me, who’s supposed to be the coach, who’s supposed to have it all together, who’s supposed to have all the answers. She’s asking me if I’m OK. So, the not OK-ness must really be coming through.

No, I think I mean, first of all, this is the space I work in. Right? I do People Ops. And so I, you know, I think you did a great job of sort of holding it all together and helping women who are running their own businesses pivot in this crazy time. But I don’t know. I just think I sensed something that day where I was just like…I know we talked about it because I’m pretty sure this is all recorded too – so it’d be funny for us to go back and like, listen to what we were saying to each other. But I remember just being like, “you need to give yourself grace”, you know, like because you were going, going, going I just remember sort of watching all of the programs you were pushing out and I was just like, wow, she needs time for herself. This is crazy. You were doing like I think you are sitting outside on the front porch under a tree, like because it was too noisy in the house and I was just sort of like, oh, my gosh, her life is happening! I want her to just pause, you know? 

Yeah. I mean, you were, you were spot on. And because you can tell, I think actually by that time, we had more people in the house. So my sister in law and brother in law were with us for a couple months and then my in-laws came and other siblings came. At one point there were nine people in the house and four dogs. This is not a big house. So it was chaos, chaos. 

Beautiful chaos? Or not so beautiful chaos?

Sometimes really beautiful chaos. We had dinner together every night. I heard stories of the family that I might not otherwise get to hear. Everybody got to hang out with my son. I got to hang out with my son and see all of his developmental milestones and the little things that I missed during the day, I got to see them. But also, I’m a total introvert. I don’t thrive in chaos. I’ll say that. And I just didn’t I couldn’t find a space for myself. I couldn’t — it was just loud all the time — and it’s not where I can find peace.

Yep. So there’s this sort of loss of control that’s happening in your life for an extended period of time. There’s no break. There’s very little solitude, right? 

Yes. 

So how did that impact you? How did that manifest? 

I mean, looking back so many ways. But my stress level, and I’m sure like everybody else, was so high and it was really interesting what started happening or what kept happening — around the time that we left our home, I was really in sort of the tail end of postpartum hair loss. Do you know how like, (you may have experienced this too) it’s a stress-related hair shedding event. You lose a ton of hair after months of not losing your hair when you’re pregnant. 

Right. 

And I was losing a ton of hair. And I had these little whispies around my hairline as it was growing back. But my postpartum stress-related hair loss ran right into my covid quarantine, stress-related hair loss. And it was like, I mean, it’s never – it just didn’t seem to end. And I got really concerned because I was losing a ton of hair. And after a few months, I actually made an appointment with my dermatologist. You we could actually see doctors again. I went back to my dermatologist and she actually thought that I had this condition where you lose hair and then it’s sort of the hair follicle scales over – so it doesn’t grow back. And she tested me for that and everything and I freaked out. The test came back not like an overwhelming positive, but not a negative either. And I really freaked out. I mean, I if you’re listening to this you can’t see me, but I have, like, curly hair, and I used to joke that my hair is my entire personality. And I, I thought, I thought I was going bald. And so one of the things that – so that was its own sort of freak out and one manifestation of the stress, like how it was sort of making stuff known in my body. And then another thing that my dermatologist said was what makes this condition worse is coloring your hair. And I’ve been coloring my hair for years. I’m pretty grey. And so I thought, “OK, now not only am I losing my hair, it’s not gonna come back, but I have to grey at the same time.” and as I sat with that, I thought, this is something I’ve been putting off for a long time – you know – stopping coloring my hair. And I’ve waivered on it for years and I got suggestions, from probably all the wrong people, on what to do. But I said “You know what? This is it.” Of all the things I’m sort of pushing up against right now. I can’t push up against this thing. I need to just sort of give in to this. And so I made a decision to go grey.

Awesome! I fully support this! 

Awesome! Actually, what’s really interesting, you were also an inspiration for that, because I remember on one of our first Zoom calls I noticed that you were letting your grey grow out. And I thought “If she can do it, I can do it.” 

That’s amazing. 

And you have long hair. 

Yes. 

So, I mean, I was like, she’s in it for a while 🙂 my hair’s shorter than that. I can last. I could do it. 

I’m so proud of you!

Thanks! Well, so my dermatologist told me to go get a second opinion and so I booked an appointment with a Dermatology hair specialist at Columbia and to see her and she walks in, she takes her little thing and looks at my scalp and she goes, within a second, she’s like, “Oh, you don’t have that condition. You just have stress-related from hair loss.” 

Well, that’s a relief, right? 

I know! Yeah, that was a huge relief! She went on to tell me that this type of hair loss she used to see before the pandemic, she used to see maybe two or three cases of this a week. And now she sees about 15 cases a day. 

A day? 

A  day.

Wow. 

So, at least I know I’m not alone. And in fact, at this point, there have been articles about this in the New York Times about stress-related hair loss in the pandemic. 

Man, we’re either losing her hair, destroying our livers or working out WAY too much!

Working out way too much, or you know, also like, putting on a little too much weight because… 

The Covid 15…. 19! 

Right! The Covid-19! And in that appointment, she also said, “Oh, no, you can dye your hair. You know, go do it.” But I already, I already made the decision. And so it felt wrong to go back after I’d come to terms with this. So I said, “This is it. I’m doing it.” 

That’s amazing. So how long ago was that and how is it going so far? 

So this was back in August when I went to the dermatologist. Oh, no, no, no, I’m sorry. I think it was sooner. I mean, this whole year has been a blur. I honestly don’t know any dates from all of 2020, but I believe it was July, August. 

That’s interesting because when we had our call, the one that you referenced earlier, where I was like, “Are you OK?” That was in mid-August because I — just our schedules didn’t line up. So it was a little bit after the course ended. And I remember you wore a baseball hat a lot during the Zoom calls. And I was like, “This is great. She’s so, she’s like really, embracing this like, ‘Hey, guys, we’re all in this together.’ You’re zooming from wherever you’re zooming from,” like and it just set this precedent — but now looking back like you were probably wearing a hat, you had this thing going on with your hair — but the way I read it was totally different. But I wonder if the timing of that call maybe you had just found that out about potentially your hair never going back. 

It’s quite possible, honestly. I mean, I love that that’s how it came across, you know, the super casual business coach who can wear a baseball cap on Zoom. 

Yes. 

But no, I was really self-conscious about it. 

Yeah. I mean, it makes complete sense. And I’m so glad you’re here talking about it and sharing because you went through that. And that’s hard. And you are, like you said, you’re having to show up for all of these other people. And it’s just a way to let yourself sort of process what you’ve been through and kind of leave it and move forward. Any other sort of self care lessons that…

Oh, my gosh. Well, I think that even within the realm of going gray, I think there is some self care that, functionally, in terms of like I don’t want to do the type of maintenance that we’ve all been taught is required of us in society. And I want to eliminate that stress from my life. I mean, I don’t know if this was a case of you, but like, it was a constant concern for me. How long has it been since I colored it? And how is it growing in? And what do I have over the next two weeks? And what am I going to see my in-laws again? Right. All of these things are considerations, especially also being a person on the Internet who is a business coach, who does a lot of digital marketing being visible in that way. So I think there’s the sort of functional self care of “I’m not going to participate in this,” but there’s also the emotional self care of “I opt out of participating in this expectation that society places on us.”. 

Yep. 

So there’s certainly that. But I mean, just in terms of other self care and there’s so much that came out of the pandemic in the realm of self care. I mean, I was talking with my therapist and she said all of these things because I was, of course, irritable, I was losing my hair, I was super stressed, totally eating poorly and all these things that we do sort of for ourselves, but to ourselves. And my therapist said something that really gave me pause she’s like “All these ways you’re trying to show up for other people, all these ways that you’re trying to keep it together, all these ways that you’re trying to just power through and when you started losing your hair, or kept losing your hair.” She said “That’s your body screaming at you, ‘please pay attention to me'”.

Yeah. 

And it was such a profound way of putting it. And I had to listen to myself and had to listen to my body. I really tried to temper my anxious eating, which was my sort of go-to when I didn’t know what to do and didn’t want to do anything, and all of that. I started working out again. I started spending more time outside. Actually one of the things I do, I’m like such a personal development junkie and I read a lot of personal development and business books and all of that. And I was choosing my next sort of personal development book to read. And I thought, “What if I actually just read fiction book?” What if everything didn’t have to be a project. And I did. And it’s been amazing. And I gave myself the gift of reading just a few minutes before bed. Just fiction. 

That’s wonderful. What books to read? 

Oh gosh. I read A Gentleman in Moscow, which is excellent. I read Pachinko, which was recommended it to me and was really good. 

I love that. 

Yeah. It was a gift. It was a gift that I could give myself. 

Yeah. And it’s just interesting that it took your therapist to help you sort of pull out and see that because you basically were in that role for so many other people. And so, I mean, I just couldn’t be happier to hear — and I watched your journey on social media — to just see that you were taking those steps. And this year was insane for everybody in so many different ways. I mean, I remember sort of — it’s kind of something interesting you helped coach us through –was like over the summer. I don’t know if you remember, like when everything happened around Memorial Day and all that stuff that was going on and we were in our pod and people were like this, how do I keep my business going when, like, all of these things are happening in the world and, you know, you had really good sage advice and just how to navigate all of that. So, you know, I want to say thank you, like from our perspective, like you gave of yourself and you gave of yourself until your body was like, “stop it!” But I do appreciate that you showed up for everybody. 

Thank you. I’m also thinking back to the first call that you and I had. We had our wrap up call at the end where you, thankfully said, “Are you OK?”  

I hope that didn’t push you over the edge. 

No! It didn’t! It really brought into clear focus that it’s hard to describe. But I guess hearing somebody else’s genuine concern gave me permission to sort of look at how was I really? And then that first call we had, I think you said something like you were talking about how you didn’t want to focus on your business or you were going to sort of stay in learning mode while we were all in quarantine and your kids were home. And I think you were really worried that I was going to get mad at you or tell you not to do that or tell you you were a failure or something like that. And I said, “Yeah, good – just stay in learning mode – do it when you’re ready.” 

Yes, I do. I remember that. And you gave me the permission because I was feeling, I was so sort of mixed up and torn up, like I’ve launched this business, but I cannot do anything with it because circumstances dictate that I take care of my kids all day, every day, seven days a week. You know, while my husband’s work went crazy and his work is established and there was this guilt, there was probably, like jealousy and anger, if I’m being totally honest, that I had to put everything that I was trying to build on the back burner. And there was a lot of that. And so for your, your immediate reaction was like, “yeah, totally. That makes sense. Do that. That’s great. It’s like you’re still building your business, you’re still doing these things.” And I just needed somebody who knows what they’re talking about to just sort of say, “Yes, you’re all good. This is fine.”. 

Yeah, I think I could even see the relief on your face. 

That’s amazing. 

It’s hard for overachievers like us to say “yeah I am going to pause right now.” And so the fact that you could stay in learning mode when you had the time or the pockets of time or pockets energy and really just wait until the time is right. So there’s this concept that Dr. Emily Nagoski and her sister, Emilia Nagoski wrote about in their book “Burnout”. It’s this concept of the monitor. The monitor is kind of like this internal voice that’s like, “how much am I going to, like, be angry and push back on this?” Kind of like you’re stuck in traffic. Are you going to sit there and just be pissed off? Or are you going to sit there and go “Oh! I guess I’m in traffic and I’ll just check my phone” or whatever. And when your monitor kicks in or when your monitor says, like, “all right, we’re not going to really fight this,” it’s actually such a big relief. So I could see that with you. You’re like, “oh, permission to not fight right now.” 

Yes, one hundred percent. And I’ve since also found a great therapist who helps me a lot after just processing all of this, because I think that I was sort of teeth gritted. You know, we’re going to just like get through this. And then when it just didn’t end and it didn’t end and it didn’t end. Yeah, I hit a wall too. 

Therapists are the real heroes. I mean, there are a lot of, there are a lot of heroes right now. There are frontline workers and delivery people and all that and also therapists. 

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. 

It’s funny, also at this time, you know, I couldn’t read fiction forever. I read the book “Maybe you should talk to someone.”

Oh, I’ve never heard of that. 

It’s really good. It’s about a therapist wrote it about her therapy that she had done for herself and also her practice. And she just happens to be a great writer. And it really gives you insight into what’s it like for therapists on theother side of the couch from her. And so while I’m in therapy and the pandemic, I said to my therapist, I was like “I know that you can’t really tell me how you’re doing. That would sort of break a wall. But I want you to know that I’m thinking about you and I hope you’re doing OK.” She was like, “thanks, I appreciate that.” And that was like, all we needed to say about it. But, you know, you just check on everybody.

Yeah, hundred percent. Well, now, OK, so we’re in 2021 about a year after we’ve met. So what is life looking like now. Are you back at home in Brooklyn? Are you still on Long Island? Do you have your former child care or some new form of child care? What’s happening? 

Yeah, so we are back in Brooklyn and we do have child care. And I can come back to my office space. I work in a shared office where we all have things like one person offices and all the protocols. And so I think that if it’s not back to normal, it’s back to something, something that works. I can have the opportunity to leave the house. My son gets the attention he needs and I’m not feeling pulled to spend all my time with him when there are also things I have to do. And my wife and I just got vaccinated so that’s a huge relief. 

Congratulations! 

Thank you! Have you been able to do that? Is that sort of on the horizon for you? 

I have. I actually just received my second dose this morning. 

That’s awesome! 

I was like, “Oh gosh, I’m recording with Leah. I hope I don’t have any side effects by the time we start recording.” But yeah, I mean, I was just going to ask you actually, you know, so you’re back in an office space in Brooklyn, in New York. We know that New York had a really tough time early on. Was there any hesitancy or fear or anxiety or were you like, “Let me RUN to the office, like, get me back in there?” Because I think for me, when I was thinking about returning to this new normal, I’ve had some pause like, oh, gosh, I think I’ve become like a germophobe, or a little bit of a shut in. But now having the vaccine on board, it feels lighter. It feels like, “OK, we’re going to emerge from this. We’re going to have life again in maybe a new sort of way, but we’re going to get to leave our houses.” So how is that for you? 

Yeah, I think both my wife and I, because she has an office in this building also. I think we were both a little nervous. But from what we can tell, they’re very strict protocols here. And so that make us feel good and made us feel confident, like we weren’t putting ourselves totally at risk. But the other thing is, we live in Brooklyn. We don’t live in a big place. And my wife, who I adore, is a very loud talker and she has to be on the phone a lot for work and zoom calls and all that. And we can’t work in the same space. It’s just impossible. So it’s sort of forced us out of the house. And so we, any sort of hesitation we had once we saw that things were good here, we said “Alright, we’re doing this.” 

That’s great. And I’m sure just having that routine back and for your son as well, I don’t know if he’s like, has somebody like in a nanny share or if he’s, I don’t remember how old he is, if he’s going to daycare yet. But all of these things, I think these social things for us as adults and for small ones, too. I think it’s just so important and I’m so happy that we’re getting back to it. 

Oh my gosh, me too. Yeah. So he has a nanny who we adore and he adores. And so she gets him out of the house. We live right by a park, right by a number of playgrounds. Going to the playground, that took us a little bit to get used to and to see how it’s going. But now let him go to the playground. And I think the only thing that I really wish for him was normally there would be a lot of just activities, music things, reading things and dancing. None of those are happening right now, but at least he’s getting somebody who’s totally focused on him. And I mean, it does feel like we’re, we’re going somewhere. I don’t know. This might be the long tail. Like, how long is it really going to take to get back to something that feels like it used to? But we’re getting there slowly. 

Yeah. Baby steps. You know, I think part of getting there is closing the door on 2020 at least for me! So that I can move forward. So I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story, your insights, your wisdom and being candid. I mean, it was a hard year for everybody, and I’m really happy that you’re saying that out loud for yourself too. 

Yeah, absolutely, and thank you for being there with me. 

Yeah, I can’t believe it’s our freindaversary. Like, seriously, it’s crazy. We came into each other’s lives for a reason, which I love

What a great book end for that though. I mean, not that this is the end of our friendship, but, it’s a nice way to sort of look back and see where we’ve come from. 

Yeah, I agree. This is great. Thanks for tuning in to Hindsight’s 2020. I hope you leave feeling more connected and able to see your own silver linings. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a few minutes to subscribe, rate and review the podcast on iTunes. Special thanks to my sound engineer John Kuer of Wayfare recording. We can’t do any of this without your support. Follow us on Instagram @hindsights2020podcast and join the conversation at Hindsight’s 2020 Podcast on Facebook. 

ABOUT LEAH NEADERTHAL:

Leah Neaderthal is a sales coach for women who run B2B consulting and coaching businesses, and the founder of Smart Gets Paid.

A three-time business owner who started her career in corporate marketing, Leah didn’t learn to sell by being a commissioned salesperson. She taught herself everything she could about selling, overcame “selling shyness,” and created a sales approach that feels comfortable, builds strong client relationships, and gets results.

Now she shares the secrets she learned along the way, teaching women how to get the B2B consulting and coaching clients they really want, get more yes’s, and get paid dramatically more for every contract.

Leah is the creator of the SIGNED 10-week sales training program and the Pack Your Pipeline 21-day LinkedIn Accelerator, and other programs. She’s also the host of The Smart Gets Paid podcast, where listeners go behind the scenes into her actual calls with clients where Leah is tackling their biggest sales challenges, and they can learn sales strategies they can use in their businesses.

Prior to starting Smart Gets Paid, Leah built, grew, and sold three businesses. Learn more about Leah at smartgetspaid.com or connect with her on LinkedIn.

BOOK LINKS:
Burnout

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist and Our Lives Revealed

A Gentleman in Moscow

Pachinko

 

 

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