The Keri Croft Show
The Keri Croft Show
How to Get Your Partner On Board with Your Big Career Move | Ask Amy x The Keri Croft Show
Amy Nelson isn’t just an attorney and founder of The Riveter—she’s a force of nature. For years, she’s been in the ring with Amazon and the DOJ—and she’s winning. Oh, and did we mention she’s doing all this while raising four young daughters? Now, she’s bringing that same fire to our new monthly call-in show, Ask Amy. She’ll be answering your biggest, boldest questions about pivoting in business—no fluff, no BS, just straight talk for women ready to shake things up.
In this episode, Amy gets real about what it actually takes to make a major career leap. What if your partner isn’t supportive? How do we communicate BIG family financial decisions to our kids? From looping her husband into the business plan to bringing in her mom as a third parent, Amy breaks down you can turn chaos into collaboration.
She torches the myth of “work-life balance” (spoiler: it’s BS), and offers tools to stay grounded, flexible, and focused—even when everything feels like too much.
And if you’re still waiting for a mentor to magically appear? Stop. Because sharing what you know to the world is how real mentorship and leadership begins.
This episode is for anyone ready to stop waiting for the perfect moment—and start building with what (and who) you’ve got.
DM the show with your questions for Amy Nelson. Now hit play and let's get to work.
Hey there you beautiful badass. Welcome to the Keri Croft Show. I'm your host, Keri Croft, delivering you stories that get you pumped up and feeling like the unstoppable savage that you are. So grab your coffee, put on your game face and let's do this thing. Baby Ready to elevate your self-care game?
Speaker 2:Boscal Beauty Bar is a modern med spa offering everything from cosmetic injectables, lasers and microneedling to medical grade facials and skincare. Conveniently located in Clintonville, Grandview, Powell and Easton. Making self-care a priority has never been easier. Use code KROFT for $25 off your first visit. Summer's coming in hot, but is your skin summer ready? Fine lines, sun damage, melasma If these are cramping your vibe, the Moxie laser at Donaldson will leave you glowing Nervous about lasering your face. I tried Moxie and it was quick and gentle, Perfect for first timers and all skin types, and my results 10 out of 10. And if you're a first timer at Donaldson, mention the Keri Croft Show for $100 off your Moxie treatment. Don't say I've never done anything for you, Amy Nelson. Welcome back to Ask, Amy, I'm so happy to be here. I am so excited for you to be here. First of all, I love talking anything business. I love hearing how other people do it. I love watching people do it. I love doing it myself, and so I feel like you and I, we just lock right in, don't we?
Speaker 3:We do, and here's the thing of why this is so amazing. We get to hear so many inspirational stories of people building cool things, but we don't often get to ask the questions of, like the more tactical shit. Right, and it's fun to. It's fun to talk about it.
Speaker 2:It is All right, so I just set our timer Okay. Cause. Part of the goal of ask Amy is no bullshit. This is all lean meat here. Okay, we don't have time for all lean meat.
Speaker 1:No, we're going to go right into the thing.
Speaker 2:We're going to answer questions and add as much value as we can. No fluff, all value. That should be your, your tagline no fluff, all value. Okay, here we motherfucking go. So before we start, I do want to a couple of highlights from the last show, your first inaugural show.
Speaker 2:One was women not asking for enough. I think when, when somebody asks you the question, what are some mistakes women make? And you said ask for the farm, I want, I mean, put that in your brain. Data, collect that. And anytime that you are looking for something in business, you ask always ask for more. All they can say is no, right, yeah, all they can say is no. And then the art of networking. So those were two things that totally bubbled up for me, and so we'll have more stuff coming on that. All right, without further ado, let's see what we got here today. Oh, so we're going to have a little focus here on partner and family support. So we've got some questions that we put together from some people about how you get supported externally when you're, when you're the woman in the business, which is really important. So how do you get your partner on board when you're making a big career change that impacts finances, time and or stability?
Speaker 3:I mean I think you have to make it a joint project. And so, with Carl, my husband, when I was starting the Riveter, every decision I made to make the pivot he was part of because he needed to be comfortable with it from a financial standpoint and from a time standpoint. You know, I mentioned in the last episode that when we thought about making the pivot, we made a financial spreadsheet of like how long can we go continuing to pay for child care and me not working? And part of the reason that was the how long can we go and still pay for child care is because we needed full time child care. That was part of the bargain. If we were going to do it.
Speaker 3:It wasn't that Carl was going to work less and step in or you know, or that we thought I could do it if I was working 10 hours a week. We knew that I needed to work a lot to make it work. So I think that was a big part of it is that he was part of the calculation and part of figuring out what we needed around us to make it work for both of us, because we aren't doing these things in isolation and so I think you know bringing him into. It was a big part of it. And then another big part of it for us and I'm very fortunate for this, but, like my mother had retired and a big part of it for us was that my mom came to Seattle and stayed with us while we did this.
Speaker 3:Now, the Riveter was, you know, a specific thing, and that I knew I was going to have to fly around the country. I was opening spaces in multiple states, I had to pitch investors in multiple states and I needed my mom to be like a second parent to a third parent, to our babies, and she was willing to do that, but we also. We asked her for the help, because you have to ask for help from people around you, but you just again, it's all about, like, being transparent and bringing everyone on board.
Speaker 2:What do you do if your partner or your family isn't supportive of your career? Pivot.
Speaker 3:That's a tough. I mean, that's a tough one, right, I think. I mean there's a very real answer, like if your partner is not supportive of it. I think you have to ask two questions how does that make me feel if my partner isn't supportive of something that I dream of? And then, second, can I do it if they won't be supportive? I could not have started the riveter if my husband hadn't supported the idea and reshaped our lives around it. It wouldn't have been doable, which goes to the point.
Speaker 3:I think it's important to talk about things like this before you enter into a long-term partnership, like what do, what do you want? You know, there was never a moment that my husband imagined that I would be a full-time, non-working mother. He knew I wanted kids and he never thought that I would be the one taking care of them all day. It's wonderful if you want to do that. I did not want to do that. So I think you know. I think that's a question you have to ask yourself when that arises question you have to ask yourself, when that arises, if you do think that you can do it without the support of your family or your partner when you are making your plans. Don't count on their support Right when you're making plans for how much time do I need, or money, or you know these things like you're doing that without the puzzle pieces around you, and so make that part of your plan.
Speaker 2:Choppy waters ahead, y'all yeah, choppy waters ahead, y'all yeah, choppy waters ahead. How do you balance risk taking in business with the responsibilities of being a mom or a primary caregiver, which I think you kind of touched on, with your mom helping and?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I would also say the idea of balance and anything is impossible and I don't think we should be striving for it. You know, I a long time ago came to the realization that, like work, life, balance was like a made up bullshit phrase that doesn't exist Because, first of all, there's no standard of balance. It is the same for everybody, right? There's what you want your life to look like and there's also, like the idea that balance on one day isn't balanced on the other day. Our lives are. The demands change, you know, the demands change with the season of your kids' ages, which you don't understand until you're in it with your children.
Speaker 3:You know, I thought having babies was hard. I now think having babies was very easy, mentally, hard, physically. Now that my kids are older I'm like, oh my God, this is so hard mentally and it's for me the mental tough parts are much harder than the physical hard parts were. But I don't think you should chase balance, that's all to say that I think you should. You should worry about, you know, are you able to do what you want, to do the best way you can do it on any given day, which again changes, but, like for me, and this is good or bad.
Speaker 3:You could judge me as a parent for this, but like I bring my kids along on the journey, right, like they know that their mom and dad take massive swings. That's who we are. They might not be that person, but I want them to have visibility into who we are and that we do it and we tell them. It brings risk to their lives too, you know, in certain ways. But and I think kids are capable of understanding a lot more than we give them credit for, and so if you kind of bring them along on the journey, they will be more understanding and a part of it. I like what you said about.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, I agree with the balance thing. But when you said your goal should just be to do the best you can on any given day, when you zoom in like that and just focus on that day and just really doing the best you can, I think that's less overwhelming, I think it's highly concentrated, like I can do that. I can actually do my best for this one day. And then the next day comes and you're like, okay, I'm gonna do it again. Yeah, but when you're looking at the landscape and you're like, oh, I need to find balance in this, this crazy terrain I'm looking out into the distance, I don't know. I like that. Another.
Speaker 3:Another good piece of sage wisdom for maybe Nelson, but it is also like it's a skill I use to cope with trauma too, right, or anything hard like this isn't trauma, but'm lifting weights. If I'm like I cannot do 12 reps, yeah, I'm like, well, then do two, right, and then you can do the next two and the next two. And when life is overwhelming or shit is too hard like that, you can't think about doing the best for the whole day. Think about doing the best until you get to lunch, or doing the best you can do for the next hour. Yep, it's okay to chop up hard things into very small, manageable bites.
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Speaker 3:There are a lot of people in the world who avoid looking at money or understanding money because it's scary. I think the best thing that you can do is to maintain knowledge over your finances and the landscape that you're living in, over your finances and the landscape that you're living in, like if you, you know, I know, as a solopreneur, what are my expenses, what is my revenue, where am I Right, and that gives me peace at night. You know, I, uh, you, you have levers you can pull up and down. If you have a company with a number of employees, like you should know, you know, when am I getting into trouble with being able to maintain the current level of my workforce? How many contracts do we need? Right, just kind of you need to under. You need to have visibility into all of it, understand the basics and know when you need to. You can ramp up or you need to pull back, and it's just having control over it, is having knowledge over it.
Speaker 2:How can women set boundaries with their partners and families so they can fully commit to their business goals?
Speaker 3:I feel a lot the same about boundaries as I do about balance. It's just so hard to implement those, those kind of like lines in the sand, because life isn't something you can draw lines in the sand on. In most cases, I think it goes back to open dialogue, transparency, communication, like when I say my husband was on board with this. He is, but like there were times when we got in massive blow ups about either of us needing more time or our kids needing more of us and we didn't know how to give it to them. But the best you can do is constantly communicate what you're doing, what you need, what's coming up, and also kind of like where you're scared and where you need more support. I think that's a big piece of it too. So I think just trying to keep open lines of communication about it.
Speaker 2:So what's the best way to find a mentor or community when making a big career shift?
Speaker 3:I don't love the idea of trying to find a mentor. I think the best mentors in your life are people that you meet in one way or another, who you connect with and become your mentors. You know, I had a mentor in terms of raising money from VCs and he was a former Microsoft marketing guy who became a VC. And he approached me because he wanted me to be a guest speaker at his class at the University of Washington. And he came and he met me because he wasn't just going to ask me an email and we spent time together and I was telling him about the Riveter and he said you know, this is an amazing business and you're an amazing founder and you have no idea how to sell your story. And so he taught me how to and became my mentor. And I mean I'm very convinced I couldn't have had the successes I had without his absolutely stellar guidance. But like I didn't go out and seek a mentor to help me raise VC capital, you know I needed, I knew I needed one, but I thought I would find one along the way and I did, and so I would just advise you to keep an eye out and an ear open to finding a mentor within the relationships you're creating and then, when you do latch on, hold on, ask for help and then also reciprocate and try to provide value, service, friendship, friendship, you know, to the people who are giving you their time and their wisdom. So I think that's a big one.
Speaker 3:As far as community, I think it's incredibly important to try to find a community of people that you can share your struggles with, get feedback from who can connect you, and that is different for everyone. I think you have to find, like, is there a great community that's involved in what you're doing, or is it something that will rise more organically? You know the riveter, like what we do is build community and network and skills around pivots. But there are amazing other communities for everything someone's doing. You know there are communities of CFOs where people can talk about those specific struggles. Like there's EO, which is entrepreneurs organization, where certain sized CEOs of certain sized businesses not certain sized CEOs, but certain CEOs.
Speaker 3:If you're under five, four no, it's like no, but it's. Ceos of certain sized businesses can get together and share experiences, which is really important, because they can't complain to their employees or get feedback, you know, so they have to, you know, to meet with other people, but I think finding community is really important, and so just go out there and figure out where your people are.
Speaker 2:And another thing I would add to that is always thinking about paying it forward to. Regardless of where you are in your career path, you can be a mentor for others and I think when you're looking from that perspective, I always think like the universe kind of pays you back in ways. So like don't always just be thinking how can someone help me out there, help somebody else, with nothing in your mind to get in return other than just feeling good that you did it. Those are always very helpful things to put in the universe.
Speaker 3:And if you don't know how to be of service and help people, here's an idea that helps everybody and helps you you should start telling the world what you're good at and providing value and service. You can do it on social media. You know you could. If you say you're a podcast producer and this can also help you find a mentor start posting about producing podcasts. Start telling people everything you know about how to do your job. They're not going to then not hire you because they're not going to say well, I've learned everything I can from this person. I don't need a podcast producer, like they're going to hire you, and that is a way to be of service to people everywhere and at scale. Just give away the farm. Tell them everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're still gatekeeping out there, you're so circa like you're not in the 2025s. Yeah, gatekeeping is so counterintuitive. Yeah, there's all kinds of information out there. People can figure things out, but you can't replace who you are and your unique value. So when you open the kimono authentically, it will always pay dividends. It will never short side you.
Speaker 3:It's the same thing, too, for the importance of building your network and building your community, because one of the things that people will still come to you for, even if you do give away the farm and all your expertise, is how you put those things together and who you connect it to Right, and so that it's. It's another way to be of service.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:How do you get in the right rooms when transitioning into a new industry without feeling like an outsider? I mean, you have to ask people to put you in the rooms and then you have to also show up in the rooms yourself, even if you don't know a single person there, and it feels scary. So I remember when I started raising money for politicians. I did it because I had worked in politics but I had then become a lawyer and that was my full time job. But I still wanted to stay involved in politics and I thought well, I'm in Manhattan, I can raise money, there are a lot of very wealthy people here. And so I started talking to people about what I was doing and and also trying to learn more. And I went to a women's campaign forum training. That was three days. I didn't know anybody there.
Speaker 3:It was in DC, I lived in New York, but I went and did it over a weekend and the whole weekend I sat next to this lady who was in her 70s and she was so interesting. But I had no idea who she was and I thought she was just like me, wanting to raise money, and we, you know, built a friendship. But, like I went to this room where I sent the address and I was like this lady lives on Central Park and it turned out she was this amazing woman and she was Senator John Hines's stepsister and she started inviting me into rooms full of people where I didn't feel like I belonged. But she felt like I belonged and but by putting myself out there, opening myself up to new experiences, ultimately I became someone who belonged in those rooms. Right, and like that's kind of that's how you get there, you show up and you talk to people and stay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and you know what, just don't be afraid to be an outsider for a minute. Everybody starts. I mean, it's okay if you're uncomfortable and you have to sort of again going back to the cold calling, differentiating yourself, showing up being uncomfortable. It's just part of the process.
Speaker 3:It is, and look, we force our five-year-olds and six-year-olds to do it right? They show up for school and they don't know anybody and they have to go into a classroom and spend eight hours a day there. Kids do this stuff all the time. You can do it as a grown up too.
Speaker 2:All right. So that wraps another episode of Ask Amy. All right, riveting, thank you. Thank you. So you know, the goal for the next episode is to have live call-ins. So let's just, we're going to stay on the edge of our seats because that's going to be even better, but until then, just send us a DM or send us an email if you want to ask Amy, and if you're still out there following your girl, follow me on YouTube, spotify, apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1:And until next time keep moving baby.
