Insecurities to Vice President of Professional Relations with Heather Goodchild
We all have an inner critic deep down inside and insecurities that have us asking ourselves, “Can I do this?”
Heather was among one of the first and youngest female VP’s in the medical aesthetic industry. At the young age of 32, a top medical-grade skin care company CEO approached and asked Heather to step into a VP role.
Heather opens her heart and shares the insecurities she had stepping into a high-level position. She shares her struggles balancing work and family and what she does to be present and live in the moment. Heather talks about the importance of choosing what is best for you and your family, despite social norms.
“I am going to bet on myself” – Heather Goodchild, Vice President Professional Relations
Highlights:
💥 0:57 Who is Heather Goodchild?
💥 2:56 Insecurities stepping into a high-profile role
💥 4:01 I am going to bet on myself
💥 10:55 Defying society norms and choosing the life best for your family
💥 26:46 Put your oxygen mask on first
💥 29:22 Advice from a successful female VP
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Stepping Up to the Plate
We've gotten to watch each other's careers evolve and develop. And I think one of the My favourite moments with you, as I've shared with you before, was watching you interview for a role that you were taking a chance on yourself, you were betting on yourself and saying, what, I've got it. I'm going to come into this, and one of the things that has stuck with me all these years was you shared with us how, when you had this ring, and you've gotten it for yourself after accomplishing a key goal and achievement for yourself, and that's just something that's always stuck with me and watching you step up to the table and take a chance and betting on yourself. I think that has a lot to do with anytime you take on a role that you're advancing into, and so yeah, I did have insecurities, and some of them came in the form of the fact that I was taking on a role in an industry that you think would be female dominated.
But when it comes to leadership roles back in even 2014, the leadership roles were not female dominated, and so stepping into the role of vice president of sales, and the Vice President of Sales at that time, there was maybe one other female in medical aesthetics that I can think of that held that title, and I accepted the role at age 33, I was just turning 34 years old. So it's also from an age standpoint, I was also a lot younger than most of my counterparts, and so both of those things I had insecurities about and I also had insecurities, and that I had never done that specific role before. So I had that sort of like, Oh, my gosh, am I cut out for this? I am I ready for this? I think at some point, you have to step back and say, you know what, someone's giving me a chance. They're offering me this. They're giving me this window of opportunity. So who am I not to step up? And take that opportunity and to take that chance? So yeah, I do think insecurities probably come in many different forms. But just like you did, I took inspiration from some of the things you didn't say, you know what, I'm still gonna bet on myself, and I did, and it's worked out well. I'm proud to say as you look at our industry now, here we are in 2021. You see so many more females in leadership roles as we should be. So it's a great evolution and it's exciting to have been a part of that as well.
That's such a powerful story, and you and I can relate on so many levels on this because you're right when I was interviewing for our again, I was in interviewing for a rep role, and the person interviewing me said, would you consider interviewing for a management level? I said, Well, yeah, that's my goal, and I don't have formal experience leading a team. But she said, I want you to interview and it's interesting how somebody else could really see something in you.
They want to take a chance on you, and it's just a matter of you stepping up to the plate, and it was an amazing opportunity. Because you were in that interview, you got to see me interview is three hours in front of six people, and I was in a management role for seven years with our hands. So it was it, it was an amazing experience, and you're so right, it's just somebody seeing something in you that you have deep down inside and the value that you're going to bring into a role, and it's a matter of taking a chance and believing in yourself.
When Confidence Starts to Grow
One of the things that I've learned now, I'm 20 plus years, and in medical aesthetics, and having a career in this amazing industry, and learning along the way that I don't know that ever insecurities ever completely go away, it's not that suddenly they just disappear, I think the confidence that starts to grow is just that is you start to see, I'm getting this opportunity, or I'm getting this window of opportunity, and whether it's somebody directly tapping you on the shoulder and asking you to consider it, or you're seeing a window of opportunity for something that you could bring to the table, and that can come in the form of Yes, it's a roller position.
But I've also had, and I'm sure you have too, where you see that window of opportunity and you go, I have an idea for something I and that can turn into a programme, or it could turn into a product that then starts to get developed in the company. So I think as you start to gain more experience, that intuition or that willingness to raise your hand and say, I've got something, I could contribute here, you just embrace that a little bit more. But I think the biggest thing is, before you get to that window things happen, despite that nervousness, when you're in an interview, and someone says, well, would you ever consider like. Well, of course, I would consider how do I jump on this? How do I just step into that? In that moment, where you've got all of that flood of who am I to be doing this? To have the courage to just say yes, and go for it, can open up so many areas that you just never even thought of, or you never thought you would get to for years and years.
You may think I've got to do all these things before I even get to that, and so that's one of the things when you get into mentoring people who are coming up in their career, and they're saying, Well, what did you learn along the way? What advice do you have? Oftentimes, my advices is, when someone says, hey, are you interested in being involved in this? Always saying, Yes, always be dividends back to me, and so that's one of the key learnings that I take is just go for it, just say yes, see what happens, and oftentimes, it opens up things that you just never even thought were possible.
Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone
We talk a lot about saying yes, I know that I used to be terrified, and I still have that nervousness when it comes to public speaking, and people would present me and say, well, do you want to speak at this? Do you want to speak at this event? I always said, yes, and the reason being is even though it terrified me. Even though I would get nervous and sweaty palms. I believe that when you put yourself out of your comfort zone, and you say yes, it opens the doors to so many possibilities and so many opportunities, and each time you say yes, you strengthen your skills and your confidence, and what used to be a fear of speaking, I've now spoken in front of 1500 people before and now I'm doing a podcast. So, it's when you say yes, just like you're saying when you say yes, it opens the doors to so many possibilities.
Yeah, and things you may not have considered for yourself before that you find Gosh, I actually really enjoy this or this is a lot of fun, and I just never would have thought I see myself here. I don't know that. I don't know when I began my aesthetics career that I envisioned myself leading a sales team necessarily or having the pressure that comes along with I'm the head of sales. But here I am, and I love so many elements of what I get to do. But I don't know that ever would have, that wasn't my natural path, or what I thought was my natural path, and so was just being open to things that came my way saying yes, jumping in experiencing them, and then here we go. Here's where I am today. I think that how do you get to the like, just say, yes, it comes in your professional career, but it also comes in your personal life too. I think back to some of the conversations you and I have had with, well, how did you evolve into being a mom and having a career and, getting to where you are and doing both, and I shared with you something very personal, and that my husband and I decided when I had stepped into a representative role, and I was pregnant with our first child, Edison, and here we are eight months along, what are we going to do? Are we going to get a nanny, who's gonna stay home, and we had gotten to the decision for us, that was right for us that one of us was gonna stay home, and we were at this point where I was loving what I was doing, and my husband, who was also in sales at the time, really wasn't loving what he was doing, and again, at that time, in 2006 2007, it was not a norm.
Females to be the ones that you know, who didn't stay home, if it was going to be a parent, in most cases, it was a female, we decided as a partnership that my husband was going to be the stay at home parent, and he did, he took it on, and it's been 13 years now, and he's remained the stay at home parent. But that was us both saying yes, to something that was very counter stereotype, very kind of counter-culture. We had even within our own family, we had opinions coming at us on our decision there. But I look at my kids now, and I look at the opportunities that have been presented to them, to him, and to me, as a result of both of us just saying, yeah, we're gonna do this, even though it's counter. I wouldn't change it for anything, and I don't think he would either, and it didn't come without difficulties. Though that's the thing to know is sometimes when you say yes to things, and maybe it is a little different, it's an outside-the-box sort of thinking, that is exciting, and you do get to pave the path for others to follow. But it doesn't mean that you're not going to be faced with some adversity or some challenge, or some people kind of telling you that you're not doing it the right, the “right way”. So think that's another piece of advice, know that yes, jump in and say yes. But also be prepared for the fact that sometimes that when you do that, you are going to be faced with some challenges that come their way too.
Challenging the Traditions
Women have really made an impact where they're starting to work more in the workforce, and we're having both working parents, and there's still those values where you want somebody to stay home, or it'd be present for them. Talk a little bit about the others outside perception of what it's like to have you being in such a powerful, incredible role and having your husband be a stay at home and how do those perceptions influence who you are and how you feel sometimes and also how your husband cuz I can imagine that dynamic sometimes can be a little challenging, too.
Yes, it can be and you know, again, in the early days, it was even more so now it's become we recently moved from California back to Florida, and when we were in California, where we were in our neighborhood. It was 5050 in terms of like, who is staying home and who is going to work. But in the earlier days, it was very much. He was the only dad showing up just one class with the kids and so he gets some strange looks. When I have this memory that I don't know that I'll ever, ever let go up because it was such a hard thing for me but it was my daughter was in kindergarten, we were in California at the time, and I had the opportunity to actually pick her up that day, and I got the Oh, so you're the mom? It was really hard. It was just like, yeah, I am a mom, but I'm also all these other things, too. I think there are those things where people put their sort of put their, their impression of what's going on, like, okay, so you're choosing a career over your kids. That's kind of what I got. How I internalize that, and my husband is how to internalize it when he gets to strange looks of being the dad that showed up with the daughter at swim or taking her to a slumber party or that sort of thing. So we've had to work through those, and luckily, I think, you know, society has evolved in a lot of ways on that front, too. But it is an important time point right now, because of the impact that the global pandemic has had. We're hearing so many more parents are now having to choose because of homeschooling and things like that, who's going to stay home, it makes sense for us to try to figure this out.
Some of the recent research I've read is that it's predominantly women, and I hope we don't take a step backwards, where women feel like because I am the mom, I live to take a step back, and I hope the same thing for men. I hope they don't feel like Gosh. I have to keep going in this job that I don't like, that I don't enjoy, because I'm the man, and that's what my family needs me to do. I hope that enough people have a partnership where they can go. Let’s look at what makes sense for our family. Let's look at what we're enjoying out of our career, and I think that's important. Because you and I have talked about. You can, if you fall into those stereotypes, and you just keep pushing yourself to do something that you're not truly enjoying, that may have an impact on your family too, and not always in a positive way that I'm all for like you get in and you pull up your bootstraps, and you get through it. But if you're in a position where you get to make a choice, where you've got the luxury of being able to say one family member gets to stay home, that's amazing. Now really think about it and not fall into those stereotypes is would be my advice, and I know it's easier said than done, even in 2021. But I do think we're at this roughest turning point where I hope we don't go backwards.
The Dynamics of Family Life and Work: A Balancing Act
Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's definitely there's, there's a dynamic that's different when you've got one parent staying home or the other, and we're making choices that may go against the tradition of society.
I understand what that's like, and having to make those choices, and not only looking at how it's going to impact you, your spouse, your family dynamic, and just making sure it's right for you guys at the end of the day, that's what's important, and you make your choice.
Absolutely. At the end of the day what's right for you is what's most important. I think that's a tough thing. That's a tough one when you're managing through your career, depending upon where you are in your life, listening to those outside voices, which can be social media, it can be the stereotypes of society, but it can also be your friends and family, and sometimes that's the most difficult is being able to take a step back and say, no, this is what's right for us. This is what is right for our family, and this is the decision that we're going to make, and for some that means one parent staying home, for some that means that it is both parents going to work and deciding to fuel their career and doing it that way, and again, it's all about what's right for you. There isn't a right or wrong way to go there. It's just having the courage to say, this is what we're going to do for our family. Because these are the dreams we have. This is how we want to proceed. So yeah, and it is one of those that, if there's one bit of advice there, I think it's to get quiet with your partner, or if you don't have a partner, get quiet with yourself to take a step back and really get quiet and I think females have been given the gift of strong intuition, and every time that I find myself going man. Shoot, it's usually when I didn't listen to my gut or listen to my intuition. So being able to give yourself that space to get quiet when you're making this big life decision is another key learning, and it's something I still struggle with today. But it's one of those things where if you can take a step back, and believe in your, it goes back to what we started with just having belief in yourself. Yeah.
Absolutely, and also recognizing that sometimes you make a choice between you and your partner on whose career maybe going ahead at different times. So like my husband, and I, for example, he was really, really unhappy in his job when we first got married, and so eight months after we got married, he joined the military, and he was 32 years old, and he had this envision like, Well, I'm gonna get married, I need to make a certain income, and I said, but you're not happy. You you're not happy what you're doing, like close your business down, he joined the military, and throughout our marriage, there's been different times where we've had to really kind of make this choice as whose career is going to take a little bit of a lead, and so when he was in 2019, he was deployed for a year, our twins were two years old, and I was travelling 60% of the year, and at that time, I wasn't taking on as many extra projects as I typically would, and that's because my plate was very full at the time.
When he got back from his deployment, it was at that time when I started to do career coaching and branch out on my own, where he said, okay, this is your time, this is your time to take the lead, and we’re really going to invest time and extra hours in supporting you, and so it shifts, depending on what's going on with our careers. It's not one person or the other, you really have those conversations together.
Wear Your Mask First!
Absolutely, and I've seen. I've friends, I have family members where both have this great career, and what can happen again, kind of fall into that stereotype. I think we've talked about it, where it's like, you've got a partnership, and you're both going all out. That has to be not just in work, but it also has to be in personal that means with a partnership, then you've got to have those conversations on Okay, we're both doing this, then that means that how are we going to split up other responsibilities, cooking, cleaning, the kids functions. What is that going to look like for us? We've talked about. I think we both share a common thing where we've decided, like even making the bed, it's who gets up last? That's the person who's going to make the bed. It doesn't mean that just because one person is doing this or the other. So we have our responsibilities that we take on it doesn't just mean that because I'm the female that all the housework falls on to me, or that because my husband's the stay at home dad that he does all of it. There has to be this like, share, and you have to agree, and you have to have conversations about it. But yeah, friends who sort of go, Okay, we're both working, but I'm, I'm a female, I'm the mom, that means I cook I clean, I do everything else too, and it's like, where are you and all that though? Where are you? How are you not getting lost in it? That’s what is heartbreaking to watch is. This thought that you can, it's okay for you to get lost. It's okay for everything else in life to come before you, and I don't think it is.
I think it is okay for everything else in life to come before you. You've got to raise your hand and say, you know that whole on an aeroplane. You put on your oxygen mask before you put it on your kids? Well, if you take that into life, that also means like, you've got to recognize. Do you recognize yourself in the mirror anymore? I've been there, I've been in those times where it's like, I got so consumed on a career front on something where I look up and go. I don't know that I even read who am I? Who is this person that I want to be? Am I actually her? Where has she gone? And where is she gone? I let everything else take lead over what I needed and how to take a step back because I was getting utterly burnt out.
I can completely relate to that because when my husband got back from deployment. At first it was him integrating into our life. I had been doing everything for a year. So I said before you just start picking up and doing everything, kind of see the flow of things, because a lot changes between one of our kids like two to three, and it got to a point at one day where I was still doing everything, and I looked at my husband and I said, I can't be the best wife, the best mother, or the best version of myself, if I'm burning the candle at both ends, and so I wrote a list of all the household chores that needed to be done. Now, we have support. So we have somebody that does our landscaping, we have somebody that cleans our house every other week, just because I rather have that than right now I want to spend my weekend with my kids. But all those other things that need to be done around the house, and it wasn't, because I'm a female, I'm going to be doing the cooking and the cleaning. It was he chose something that he wanted, and I had him choose first because I knew. I needed to get some buy in on this. But you know, he chose something and then I would choose something and then he would choose something and I would choose something, and so it's interesting because I chose yard work. I love yard work. My kids and I do the weeding and you know, cleaning up the yard, and that's traditionally, I guess the stereotype of what men would do. We chose the chores that we, I guess, enjoyed the most, even though we don't really enjoy them. But it's coming together and having those conversations, that's so important. Because you're right, we have to put the oxygen mask on ourselves first to be able to take care of everybody else, and if we're constantly burnt out, we're not being the best version of ourselves. We're not showing up as the mother as the wife as the employee, and it's so important to have those conversations.
I think, and I've learned over there. My husband and I have been together for Gosh, a very long time we're coming up on in July it'll be 17 years married, and we've been dating since I was 18 years old. So it's we've been together a while, we've grown up together, and one of the things that I've noticed, kill do or he'll ask me, where are you right now? Where are you right now? I realised in that moment, what he's sort of telling me, is like you're not present, your mind is somewhere else. You're thinking about all these things, and that’s one of the things that will snap me back in the reality or the times where I'm distant. He'll say, hey, roomie, and I'm like, okay, yeah, at this point, I'm acting more like a roommate in this relationship, that I am a partner and his wife, and those are some of the signals I get when it's like, okay, you need to take a step back, because you're not showing up as the person you want to be, or the person that you are, because you're allowing this other stuff to consume you. So it's not to say like, oh, one day, you realise that this has happened to you, and then you're perfect from there on out, and now it's a constant sort of re grounding yourself and knowing I think that's one of the things that helps as if you can identify some of those maybe inclinations or triggers that are sort of indications that you're headed that way that can be really helpful to sort of take a step back and say, okay, I've got to reprioritize or I've got to really look at how I'm spending my time, and some of that time is not just what you're doing. Some of it is what are you thinking about? Like where occupying your brain capacity as well.
Three Things to Help You Have Balance in Your Lives and Say YES to the Things You Want to Pursue
#1 - When you identify that someone has seen something in you, go for it. Believe them.
I've been fortunate enough to have Mary Fisher who is our CEO of color science. She was CEO of skinmedica. Prior to the our Ghana acquisition, and she's been a woman in my life who has seen things in me before I've seen them and in was choosing to believe her and then going for it. That was instrumental in my career growth. So I think when you start to see people around you saying, gosh, have you thought of this, I could be doing that, believe them, believe that even if you're not quite there yet.
#2 - Give yourself the time and the space to step back and think.
What we spent quite a bit of time doing, whatever your life looks like, if you're in a life partnership with marriage, if you're in a partnership with someone you're dating, or if you are on your own, give yourself the time and the space to step back and think about what that looks like and what you need, whether that's what you need from yourself, or what you need from your partner to create the life that you want, and so give yourself the space to have those conversations, again whether it's with yourself, or with your partner, or sometimes both.
#3 - Recognize your insecurities, and go for it anyway!
We realize that, I don't know that insecurities ever go away, and so at point, you have to just say, that's there. But I'm going to do it anyway. I'm just going for it anyway
