The Keri Croft Show
The Keri Croft Show
Ask Amy x The Keri Croft Show: Women in Leadership and Why Business Isn’t a Kumbaya Circle
Amy Nelson is back! Every time we sit down, I walk away fired up and inspired to do more, be more, and lead with more clarity. This time we dove into women in leadership and how damn hard it can be to walk the line between being “too soft” or “too much.”
We get into:
⚡ Leading with authenticity
⚡ Why being “bossy” is actually a compliment
⚡ Why asking for forgiveness beats waiting for permission
We also cracked open something really close to my heart right now: The B Lab. It’s the engine I’ve been quietly building to help entrepreneurs cut through the noise, get clear on what they really want, and actually start moving. Talking it through with Amy reminded me exactly why I started—because waiting for permission is a waste of your damn time.
Amy, thank you for always bringing your wisdom, your honesty, and your fire to this show. Every conversation with you leaves me better—and I know you'll feel the same.
Got questions for Amy? DM the show on Instagram or email us at info@thekericroftshow.com.
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 face and let's do this thing, baby Amy Nelson. Hello, carrie, it's been a minute Welcome back.
Speaker 1:Welcome back. Thanks for having me To Ask Amy on the Carrie Croft Show. So I'm all about talking about masculine versus feminine energy and leadership. Today, and I don't know if it's because of like a a clip, I saw Sarah Blakely and she was talking about Kevin O'Leary and Kevin O'Leary was like basically saying that, um, business is war and you have to go to bat and she, she like came after him. This has like been a minute, but something got. I got served something recently that reminded me of it and there's all kinds. You know that's a big conversation today around like leadership styles and leading with empathy and a softer leadership style, but it also lends itself to the conversation around female founders and the disparity between you know how much funding we get versus male and how many there are versus men? And you were just telling me you were just at, was it? Vidcon, vidcon, vidcon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so VidCon is this conference that started like 20 years ago and it's like the social media conference it's a lot of YouTubers, but now it's expanded to include people who you know make their living on Instagram or TikTok or wherever, and it was super interesting for a bunch of different reasons, but one of my biggest takeaways is that there are so few women leaders in this space. I went to like a before the conference started. I went to like an industry masterclass for people in the social media industry. It was invite. Only 90% of the speakers were male and 90% of the people in the room were male and it's just like.
Speaker 2:I've been in spaces like that my entire life. I'm a female founder. I've raised $30 million in venture capital. 98% of venture capital dollars go to men 98%, which is a wild statistic. Right Like. I was a lawyer and even though women are half of law school graduates and have been for decades, they're only 17% of law firm partners. Right Like.
Speaker 2:It's just like you see it in every industry and it's like it's horrifying. But I think you know one of the things I think is this perception and that women do have softer leadership styles, and so, like I might say this might be very controversial, but the truth is like when Kevin O'Leary says business is war, like in a capitalist society, the point of a business is to win, the point of war is to win. And so, like, I agree with him on that front. Right Like, and I think part of the reason women get less funding or women are put in leadership positions less is the perception that we have softer styles and also that the demand that we do like we are not allowed to be soldiers, we are not allowed to be generals, because then we're seen as bitches and assholes.
Speaker 2:I mean, Sarah Blakely built a juggernaut of a company and she's a badass and she's tough as hell. Yeah, Right, Like she is and I don't mean that in a bad way Like, I respect her for that and I don't think she's a bitch at all. You can be a tough as hell and not be an asshole, Right Like. I think she's probably both of those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I don't think she's soft. No, you can't be. No, you can't be. But it's like. I also remember when the Riveter had 150 employees, I immediately felt this conflict of what I thought my employees thought I would be and who I would be, because I'm this like pregnant lady, nursing, and who I am and who I am is someone who was raised on Wall Street, professionally, in rooms full of men, as a litigator, as a fighter Right, and I think that's why I've been successful, because I was trained to be in those rooms. I believed I should be in those rooms and I figured out who I was going to be in those rooms. And I figured out who I was going to be in those rooms and it wasn't someone who was soft. And I do see business, everything. I see it, as you know, kind of like a, like a, something to win.
Speaker 1:So I feel I feel you on that Cause. I feel my opinion on it when I saw that I don't totally disagree with him but I also understand what she's saying. So I think my opinion lies probably somewhere in the middle. Yeah, kind of like you, uh, because also I too have been in the throes of corporate America with AT&T dog eat dog, like my God, if you. You know you have to fight to survive in, especially when you're in sales. It's like, and you're climbing the line, it's like a whole thing. And then you go and you swing over to being an entrepreneur and building your own thing. I feel like part of me overcorrected a bit. And when you do that, when you and I wasn't soft by any means, but I think I was overly generous- Also you kind of probably wanted people to like you.
Speaker 1:I want, I felt that like in this way because you felt like then they'll work for you or then they'll invest in you or then they'll hire you, like. But I genuinely wanted because I think it was my sales background I understand the value of someone feeling ownership in something, yeah, and so I genuinely wanted people to win and I genuinely I wanted to bring them along. But I feel like when you do too much of that with people, yeah, they will take oh, and I so. So I from experience know, yeah, that in my at least, what I have experienced is that you do have to write a line like you're in business for a reason. We're not all here to like be around the campfire and be a family. And that was always a thing too where I said something so controversial to to the team. At one point I said you know, we're not a family.
Speaker 2:Oh my.
Speaker 1:God, but they, I mean, it was like I had, I was the, I was like I felt like Cruella DeVille right, and I was like like families, protect their week yeah.
Speaker 2:Businesses don't.
Speaker 1:And so, if we are going to protect the week, none of us are going to have a revenue stream in a year to even have this conversation. And so there is this balance where I think leadership, if you lead from a place of wanting the greater good for everyone, you truly value and want people to come along on the ride. Come along on the ride and you're very transparent and you, you show the vision, yeah Right, but then you have to hold people and yourself to the same sort of level of accountability expectation. That's where shit goes awry, you know, because you're like, yeah, those are hard conversations. Like, if you're expecting business to be this, like Kumbaya, like we all kind of, I just don't believe that's what is going to happen it's not.
Speaker 2:And there's like two, two things that made me think of right like you, you can be a killer in business, in politics, whatever, and still have a leadership style that is humane and maybe somewhat softer. Right like, look Like. Look at Winston Churchill, right, who, like, saved the world in many ways. Right, like Britain took the brunt of, you know, the European fight in World War II until we got in it. And if you look at Winston Churchill like he wasn't, like you weren't scared of him. He inspired a nation, he told you. Like you have to do this. We can only be okay together. Right, like he was, he had a leadership style that wasn't like Jeff Bezos, right, but like he won. They're looking like Abraham Lincoln. I don't think anyone would think of him as like a rabid dog killer you know what I mean but like he if he won. And I, and I think like I Look at like Patagonia, david Gellis, a New York Times journalist, just came out with a book called Dirtbag Billionaire about the founder of Patagonia.
Speaker 2:And like winning for Patagonia is different than winning for Walmart and right, and so he built this great company on values that make sense, and but he's still one. I think part of it is like define what winning is, and in a for profit business, part of winning has to be making money Right. Like A for-profit business, part of winning has to be making money right, like if you're a nonprofit, it's different. It has to be making money and to make money you need to have the right people in the right positions doing the right things. But beyond that, like, you can make different decisions. You can make different decisions about winning if you're a public company and a private company. You know it's like, but I do think there is this really, really hard thing that women leaders have to deal with, that you are expected to be softer and gentler and if you're not, like it's going to be a challenge for you.
Speaker 1:It's like you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, because you're expected to be this soft sort of empathetic, all you know all these ooey gooey things. And then if you are, if you lean into all those things, then you would have a propensity to be walked on. If you naturally flow toward maybe a more alpha style, but that's just who you are, but you still have empathy, you still have. Then you're this brazen, bossy bitch that has you know. So it's like how does that work? You know, like it doesn't happen for men. No, it doesn't. It just blows my mind, I mean. But I want to ask the question like, why does that continue in the world today? Why is the double standard just like rolling? It's still just there, so it's just so like right in front of your face all the time.
Speaker 2:Part of it, I think, is we have created in our country, and probably in a lot of countries, this idea of scarcity for women, like there's only room for one woman at the top or something, and which isn't true, but like we believe it and we live it, and so I think we're a lot harder on women than we are on men, because we think with men there's like there's room for 99 of them at the top. So of course they'll have issues, of course x, y or z, but for women, you know, it's like and we women we do it to ourselves like we perpetuate this internalized belief of how women should act and then we punish them when they don't act that way. Right, like I've watched so many female founders be fired from their companies for things men have done a thousand times and I'm not saying that things were right but like men are allowed to do them, why aren't women and women were responsible for the firing as well as men. I don't know. Like, do we need, like a handmaid's tale uprising? I mean, I don't know. I don't know how you change that, other than you know.
Speaker 2:What I'm trying to do with my four daughters is to teach them the things I think boys are taught. I am constantly encouraging them to fail, fail, fail again. Like you're not trying hard enough if you don't fail right. Like nothing happens if you're not failing. Or you know, like someone called my oldest bossy and I said good. I said good. I said good, own it. Like nobody calls a boy bossy right.
Speaker 2:She says, no, I'm like, there you go. They're telling you that because you're a girl, keep doing whatever you're doing, keep doing it Like. I just am leaning into those things and like, sure, I will probably like raise the daughters that are considered to be the brazen bitches, but I'd rather have them be that than be a wallflower.
Speaker 1:Oh, without a doubt, yeah, and I think too a wallflower. Oh, without a doubt, and I think too, um, for women who are struggling with, like how you're supposed to be. Like I look back on when I took over my first team at AT&T and I became like the sales director and I was in, you know, I had my whole team, was maybe two women and like all men, yeah.
Speaker 1:But even before that, when I was a peer, a salesperson, I never walked into a room in business and thought to myself like, oh, let me put this mask on or let me let me how. How should I be? I always just was who I am, and so I think, no matter what, that's going to always win. If you're someone who, every time you're walking into a conference room or you're walking on stage to talk or you're, you know, having a meeting and you feel like you have to be really careful, you're like almost putting on this like veneer or something, that's where I feel like things go sideways.
Speaker 2:You have to just be who you are, because you can't fake being a character for years. It's going to come out who you are. However, you are right and I think you like you're much more likely to succeed maybe not the way you want to, but you're much more likely to succeed if you just are who you are. I also think, and like this is an optimistic take on things, but, like I personally am not interested in leading another company of 150 people, largely because of these. These like you can do that and that wasn't possible 10 years ago and that's cool yeah right.
Speaker 2:So it's an unlock for women, like, if you can't get the pay you deserve, go build your own thing if you like. Are you know if you're facing like a glass ceiling? Like, just go build your own house yeah and like and we can do that now and we couldn't do that 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:So we're really lucky, lucky to be able to do that. No, and I'm like so pumped that my whole entire business model is going to be around helping people do that. I can't wait for it. So crazy, but it's so weird. It took me almost two years to birth it.
Speaker 2:I don't think that's weird. It's like you were ideating for a long time and I think you were also at a point where you're like I'm not going to do it if it doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but now that I'm, now that the baby's been born, yeah, so crazy. I'm like wait, of course you know it all. It all makes so much sense looking backward, but I'll tell you what the torture chamber that has been this brain for like a year and a half is wild.
Speaker 2:I get it. I get it, but I'm so excited that you found the thing and that you're doing it, because that's the other thing. I think that, like you know, a lot of you are not this, but a lot of people, and I think I used to be this way, like I felt like I was like waiting for permission to make the pivot or start the thing, or that, like I didn't have the expertise so I couldn't do it, or someone had already done it, or someone had done it better. You can still fucking do it, yeah Right, like, yeah it's. You know, like Uber existed when Lyft was born. They're both multi-billion dollar businesses. Good job, yeah Right, there's room. There's always room.
Speaker 2:I totally agree, and so, like you know, you are probably the person in the world I would say least will wait for permission.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I will always ask for forgiveness later. Yeah, ask for forgiveness later. Ask for forgiveness later. It's always and you know it's funny my speaking of AT&T one of my mentors, carol Vanette, who was just so great to me there. That was something she always said. She was like never ask for permission. You ask for forgiveness later. And that like that was like. I mean, I stood at attention on that. I'm like I like the way that sounds.
Speaker 2:It's really good, I mean the other thing is like I mean, very few people are going to stand in your way to try to stop you right. Like you will be so successful in life if you just do the thing, if you just begin, even if you fail, like most people don't even try. The way I've been thinking about it lately is like the main character energy. I love that phrase because somehow we've reached this point in American history where so many people are embracing this idea that, like they're, they can sit on the sidelines and watch the show happen. Like you're the main character of your own life, you there is no other main character. And like if you don't put yourself in that position, what's the point?
Speaker 1:But so many people hold themselves back and it's just very it's. It's tragic to me.
Speaker 2:Like society teaches them to, and that's one of the most dangerous things right, it's like you're taught you go to school, you're taught to wait your turn and raise your hand right. You're not taught to begin and ask for forgiveness later. 're taught to wait your turn right, stand in line. It will give you a role. And then you're taught to you know. This is, I think, now like the one thing I want to teach my kids is don't go work for someone else. Like then we're taught to go to college and then go work for somebody else to help their dreams come true, to help them make more money. So maybe you can retire when you're in your six, like late 60s or something. Yeah, it's just like we're teaching people to sit on the sidelines. Why and that's not who we were 200 years ago no, and it's weird to me that we've become that and I don't like it?
Speaker 1:No, me neither. That's why I'm so like every single person that has been taking like. Well, I do the 15-minute call. That's usually how I engage someone, but there have been certain people that I've met who are now clients and they're becoming like the first prototype for this engine that we're building, which is really cool.
Speaker 2:So cool it is.
Speaker 1:And, um, to say that if, like, I can't even put into words what it's done for me, just this small group of people watching them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Kate, this small group of people watching them yeah, kate's been witness to this too. Some of them need a little more mindset than others, but some of them are on the precipice like of this really fucking great thing, and to help them along, that's their way. It's like I couldn't. There's nothing in this world that would give me more joy. I love it from a business perspective, I love it From a business perspective.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:It's so great, it's amazing. I hope I just I want more people, whether they're it's like you know, I can only do so many with the B lab. There's millions of ways that you can do it out there. I just, even with just conversations like this, if there's one little nugget that someone's like you know what, yeah, me too. I deserve this too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think, too, like with the V Lab and the engine you're creating and I think this is something that I think we should all embrace right Like we can test our businesses, what we're good at and how we help people in more one-on-one or like curated, more expensive ways, and then from there we can build it at scale. I know you like you'll take this and build it at scale so it can help thousands of people, and so, and like I think we should give ourselves permission to do that that way. Right, you're like my goal is to help 100000 people, yeah, but I'm going to start by helping five, yeah.
Speaker 1:And my my initial goal here. What I'm the phase we're in right now, what I'm really excited about is sort of the approach that we're taking about is sort of the approach that we're taking. So the inputs we're asking for from people are completely they're not different, but it's so much more 360 than a typical business engagement. So, for example, I want to know your birthday because I want to know your sign.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:I want your Enneagram. I want to have an entire input on your mindset and where you're at personally. And then I want a comprehensive data collect around your current state of your business and then what an ideal future state looks like. So when you take something like, it gives me a good look at these goosebumps, that's amazing. And then you funnel it through my authentic view of the world and my authentic experience in business and you're able to have these manual stopping points. So my goal isn't to be like, ok, here's a bunch of data, let's let AI shoot out something. My goal is to really hear and see exactly where you exist right now from a personal perspective and a business perspective, because those things can't exist separately. Right, if you're a fucking dumpster fire personally, the odds of that transcending into your business are pretty significant right so to understand and get a very interest like a very cool scope of who this person is.
Speaker 1:And then we have manual stopping points where it's like I will work with open ai 4.0 or whatever the fucking version is. We will finesse and figure out like, okay, this is the path, like this is what we need to do and that that will. We will be able to scale. That's so cool. Right now, where I'm really geeking out is with these individuals who are so up close to me but like they're like case studies for the bigger good.
Speaker 1:So, like to have an engine. Then you come through. Right, the Amy Nelson extraordinaire comes through. We work with you. Next thing, you know you're off and running, but we have the data. Yeah, we have your experience now in the library. You know to like, help, scope out. Oh wait, there's someone who's very similar situation to what you went through. It's just a whole thing that like the, it just all clicked like in all sort of like it's, it's wild and I cannot wait to like and like scaling it. Yeah, that sounds really exciting and like I am excited to get to that point. But like right now, these human beings who I'm seeing, like get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like fuck, yes, that's amazing. I mean, that's huge, right, like these are the things, and like it's interesting, because it's being stuck without all of this analysis, without all this data, is what stops us from taking the first step or the step that changes everything Right. And also, you know, a lot of people in this position are working alone and they don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of, they don't have any creative partners, and so this is a huge asset. On that front, too, I want to do it.
Speaker 1:You like the name the Bee Lab.
Speaker 2:I do like the name, the Bee Lab. I love it. It's really, really funny. I wanted to call the riveter school the riveter lab.
Speaker 1:You did, I did I'm glad you like it. Um the b, I just felt like, well, lab came first because you know, again it's good, there's been so many iterations. I started with goal getter, yeah, but goal getter was more like mindset, like that was. It was not it right. And then I was like, okay, the total badass workshop, and that was just like this, like regular consultant. Then all of. And then I was like, ok, the total badass workshop, and that was just like this, like regular consult. Then all of a sudden I was like you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to stop worrying about that. I'm going to stop worrying about the name and the brand because I'm a big like logo branding
Speaker 1:girl, right, and I was like, let's just forget about that for now. You're getting these people through the door. There's demand here like they want to work with you, so let's just focus on that and over delivering. Well then, as soon as I did that, I was driving one day and I was like what is it that makes this special? And I started naming it in my head. I'm like, well, first of all, I'm, you know, the one client I've got, she. I'm putting her on the mic and like we had them bring, like we had her bring a. Uh, she brought this like vision board in and like it's just been this like pop off the page. Experience, right, an experiment, if you will, a pushing of someone like it's. And I'm like, wait, it's a lab. I'm like what it's? We're totally in a lab here. And then I was walking the same day in the park and like, out of nowhere, I was like, wait, it's the B lab. I'm like of nowhere. I was like, wait, it's the B lab.
Speaker 1:I'm like build brand badass, believe B body, brain and like I mean, I named probably 25 words and it was all B and I was like fucking B lab.
Speaker 2:I think it's awesome, I think it's great, you do, I do, I think it's great. I would tell you if I didn't think yeah, I kind of really love it.
Speaker 1:I just want to, you know, I wouldn't ask everyone that, but I would definitely ask you. And then um so there's then, so far, we have six different entrepreneurial journeys. So when we do the inputs right now, it's like there's six separate input paths and they all start with B.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 1:So I feel like they kind of had to, but it ended up making sense. There's one that's like beginning, so it's the person who just is on the starting. They, they, they're like I'm looking out, I've got a thing I have nowhere, I don't know what the fuck to do. There's all these things to do, right, there's someone who's blocked, who's even a step away from that. They need some mindset help. They need some either like internal, external auditing of, like their self, their inner circle, which I happen to have spent how much time building when I was kind of thinking of the other thing.
Speaker 1:So I've got all that I mean, and SOS, like that's already pretty much baked. Then there's there's one woman that's coming next week and she's in the build out phase. So she has a successful model here and she wants to scale it, Love it. So that's exciting, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's great model here and she wants to scale it, love it.
Speaker 1:So that's exciting, that's awesome, that's great. There's another girl who is um, it's called bottleneck, so she started something and she's selling it. Something's not working, something's not right, and so we kind of diagnose, like what are all the things happening? What's? Like so you take a really wide scope and then you kind of figure out okay, based on the person, maybe it's very obvious, or maybe there's a couple of signals where it's like, okay, if you maybe you know, start tweaking these three things, we can like move through the bottle I think that's awesome.
Speaker 1:So there's six different entrepreneurial stages. Let's call it that we are separating out and creating separate inputs for because they kind of have different situations.
Speaker 2:I'm in a bottleneck, you're in a bottleneck. Oh yeah, with the riveter, yes.
Speaker 1:All right, Amy, thank you so much as usual. You are just so enlightening, I could talk to you forever.
Speaker 2:I learn so much from you every time and love hanging out.
Speaker 1:I feel the same way and if you're still out there following your girl, follow me on YouTube, spotify, apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, keep moving. I love you.
