Welcome to the How Leaders Lead Insight series and I have to tell you, today we have a very special discussion coming up. It's a conversation about work-life family balance. Now I got inspired to do this episode after reading my good friend, Indra Nui's book, entitled "My Life in Full, Work, Family and Our Future." Now everyone knows that Indra is the former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo. And Indra and I both worked together before she became chairman and CEO. And before I became chairman and CEO of Young Brands, we were both a part of PepsiCo and we loved it and we had a lot of great times together and I admire her very much. I saw her firsthand in action and she is absolutely fantastic as a leader. And as I thought about it, I thought it would be fun and insightful to hear how we both think about work, family and diversity. And with Indra, obviously coming up the ranks as an Indian female and me doing the same as a white male. I've asked my daughter, Ashley, a working mom with three incredible children, if I do say so myself as a proud grandfather. I've asked her to join us and conduct the interview so that we could get a different and I would say current perspective on this important issue. So let's get started with our conversation. Indra, thanks for joining me and congratulations on your outstanding book. I love the title "My Life in Full." David, thank you for having me on this podcast and I have to tell you, I was so excited about doing this because Ashley is going to be interviewing me and to me, this is the best thing that could have happened. Great, great. Well, you had the idea, so I'll give you the credit. Let's turn it over to Ashley. Well, thank you, Indra, and thank you, dad. I really appreciate this opportunity. I do feel like my life is very full. I'm so curious to explore this topic and this is going to be fun and Indra, I loved your book. I couldn't put it down over the last three weeks as I was trying to find moments to read it and pick up chapters. The first thing I have to ask you, that cover is absolutely beautiful, that picture of you. What are you thinking in that picture? So that picture of me, I struggled with for a long time. Annie Lebowitz, the great Annie Lebowitz, shot that picture. And it lasted two days, the shoot, 16 hours, and she must have shot about 2,000 pictures. But she gave me this picture of what's going to be on the cover. And it had a hairstyle for me that I'm really not used to, a little disheveled hair and a little bit of wisps on the forehead. And I was worried because it looked like I'd forgotten to comb my hair. But in reality, she was trying to get some movement out of my hair. And I showed that picture to my mother who says, "Well, why didn't you comb your hair?" That was the first reaction. But you know what is interesting? Annie has now taught me that having my hair perfectly co-ophed that looked like a wig is not the greatest look. You have to create a little bit of movement in the hair in order to give yourself a more sort of trendy look. So I'm now trying to be cooler in my old age, like creating this myself. Well, it's absolutely beautiful. So thanks for sharing that story. Can you tell us a bit about why you wrote this book? You know, I never intended to write a memoir. That was just not in the cards. I was going to write a series of policy papers and what it's going to take to grease us kids for women to ascend to positions of seniority in companies. Because people get asking me why I didn't replace myself with a woman. And that made me think about why didn't a woman bubble up to the top when I was at PepsiCo? I yielded a lot of women to other companies, but why didn't they wait around to be CEO of PepsiCo? And then I realized that the pipeline was broken. A lot of the women came into the workforce and then quit the second or the third level in the company because they couldn't balance motherhood and being in a very intense job. So on the one hand, I knew we had to do something for those women in managerial jobs. On the other hand, a lot of the frontline workers, the essential workers who are young family builders also struggled during the pandemic to come to work being caregivers, nurses, teachers, you know, working in retail or hospitality. But they didn't know who was going to take care of the children because the care system was completely shut down. So we had this dual problem both with the essential workers and with managerial workers. And I realized we had to do something to develop a strong care infrastructure for all of these people. So I was going to write a set of policy papers, but I was told nobody would read the policy papers because they're boring by themselves unless I use the arc of my life to inform the policy papers. So this is a non-traditional memoir and that there isn't a whole bunch of tell all stories. It's more the arc of my life, lessons leading to the moonshot, which is how do we develop a care infrastructure? You have a really interesting moment in your book that I just wanted to ask you about. Can you tell our listeners about the evening that you came home to tell your family that you would be the next president of PepsiCo? Can you share that story with us? Yeah, so let me draw the lessons from the story also. I came home late in the night and I just wanted to share the news with my family that I was going to be president of PepsiCo and on the board of directors. And there was my mother waiting on the top of the stairs saying, "I don't want to hear any news. Just go and get some milk." And I go, "Why me? You could have asked my husband who seems to have been here much earlier. Oh, he looked tired. You go get the milk." So I went and got the milk and I sort of was upset with her. Why don't you let me share great news with you instead of saying, "Go get the milk." And she said to me something which I've never forgotten. She said, "When you enter the house, you're a mom, you're a wife, you're a daughter, daughter-in-law, leave your crown in the garage. I don't want to hear about president or board. I don't know what that is. Leave the crown in the garage." Now, I'll be honest with you, Ashley. At that moment, I was pissed off because my point is, "Let me enjoy my few moments in the sun. Then just listen to me and enjoy my news." But then she was also telling me that you've got to be humble because when you 're at home, you and your husband have a very different responsibility than what you have to the company. So she was giving me a lesson in humility, priorities, and basically saying, " Don't try to come into the house and think all of us work for you. We don't. We're a mom. He's dad. Play those roles when you come into the house." It was a tough lesson, but I got it. That's funny, Indra, because when I come home, Wendy always tells me, she says, "You're not CEO around here." What she's telling you is, "Leave the crown in the garage." I love that. That's a great phrase. So let's talk about work-life balance. I mean, is this a real thing? Is this a real term? I don't think so. The word "balance" is what I worry about. I think it's juggling priorities because you start off the day saying, "Today, I'm going to focus on my work and the evening I'm going to go home and do something." And then during the day, you get a call from the school, "Oh, what if your kids fell and sprained an ankle or they're not feeling great? All of a sudden, your priorities are going to help because you've got to juggle the day again." So I think work-life balance may be a tough word. It's juggling all priorities needed to work in life. Now let me say one thing though. There's one good thing that came out of COVID. It's technology development. We now have access to Zoom and Teams and all of these teleconferencing tools. And our cell phone has become so much more advanced. We can FaceTime, we can Text, we can talk to our kids all the time. So unlike when David and I were coming up in the corporate world where they weren't these technology tools, you had to be present, you had to travel. Now you can actually do a lot of things remotely. I would have killed to have come home at 3.30 taking my kids off the school bus , spent an hour or two, then continued working at home. That luxury was not available. One had to travel, one had to go meet people. I couldn't prioritize not traveling versus traveling. And so I think that in my time, work-life juggling was impossible. I think in today's world, it's much more possible. Yeah, I completely agree with you. It's been so interesting to see how much I've gotten to know my coworkers' families better and how I've experienced being on these Zoom calls. You see their kids pop in and out. And there's permission for that I almost feel like now because all of us were trying to educate our children at home while we were also working. And so there seems to be more permission to know and to have your family involved in your work. Very, very true, except that what we cannot allow happen is for the mother in particular, to be so stressed out because they have to do so much. And they're always begging for internet time or broadband access because everybody's on the web doing their respective jobs. So we have to make sure we also create structures to de-stress mothers and women in particular so that they're not just completely zon-tiling at the end of the day because they've been handling five priorities all through the day. And there's no safe spot for them to go and just focus on the job or whatever. So we have to think about future of work very, very differently. Yes. So I'd like to kind of jump into talking about family because that was such an important part of your book. And I know you both are family people. You love your families. You're viewed as your favorite accomplishment. So can you set the stage and tell me a little bit about your immediate family? Well, you know, I grew up in a very tight-knit family. I grew up in a conservative family, a family that believed in discipline, a family that gave me a very nurturing environment to grow up in, and a family where they believed that the girls and the boys should be equally educated and allowed to soar. So we were not discriminated against, which is very unusual. The other good thing is I'm married to somebody who believes that he's an equal partner in the marriage. So we both contribute equally to caring for the kids, household duties, everything. And I've married into a family where the family and my in-laws all believe that I should be allowed to work. So nobody has held me back. And then I look at my own family between my husband, my kids, they're my life. And between my mother, my in-laws, they've all helped take care of my kids. So this has been a multi-generational family structure, and everybody has inter generational responsibility to help all of us succeed. And I think of all the things I've done in my life, I would say my family is my biggest success that I feel good about. And it's not that it's challenges don't get me wrong. When you have two daughters, there's always a challenge. But... Really? You know that. Oh boy. And your mom's always the punching bag. And so having two daughters who both vocal, mom is a punching bag, that's been interesting now and then. Some of my dads get a buy, I don't know why, but moms are the punching bag. I got a load of that. Yeah. I wonder if you had a son if it would have been a different experience as well. I think so. I think there would have been a little bit less punching bag behavior. But that's a guess. I love my kids more than anything this one. Oh, for sure. Dad, can you talk a bit about Europe bringing how it shaped your perspective about work? Well, you know, my mom and dad are 92 and 91. So I'm really blessed to have, you know, I'm still in my life and just saw him in Scottsdale this past weekend, which was really great. But I grew up in a very unusual environment. I actually grew up in a trailer. My dad was a government surveyor. We moved every four months. My mom would check me into the school and say, "Hey, David, we better make friends because we're leaving." And that was the case. But I lived in small towns up and down the United States and lived in 23 states . By the time I was in the seventh grade. But I always had just so much love for my mom and dad. They taught me how to love and respect the family. I had two sisters and, and Indra, when we get together as a family, no matter how big the house is, the biggest house we had when we grew up was eight feet wide by 46 feet long. We sit in the same sofa, clumped together, hugging each other. So really close to that family. But you know, I was very, very blessed to have the upbringing that I have. People, I saw, "How could you, how could you've lived in that environment?" You know, and I always tell everybody I succeeded because of my environment. I was not, not in spite of it. It was, I think one of the best things that, that ever happened to me. My mom and dad wanted me to live the American dream. I was the first kid to go to the, go to college in our family. And, you know, thanks to a lot of great mentors and people who took me under their wing, I've been able to live that American dream. And David, you're one hell of an American dream because I think going to so many schools made you become more social and more resilient. And that's the David that I've seen and I've enjoyed interacting with. But you're raising a much bigger issue, which is the importance of families. Families are needed for young people. And in today's world where, you know, families are fragile, families are messy and people don't have, you know, the traditional families around them, how do we recreate social infrastructures and communities so people can help each other out? It's a big discussion we need to have at some point. And you're so right because, you know, if you have a mom and dad that loves you , you're so far ahead of the game, you know. And I know Ashley feels blessed that she had Wendy as a mother and hopefully me as a father. And, you know, we're, you know, just having her only child, you know, we've just done everything together. I think having that infrastructure, I always say if you have a great mom and dad and you're born in this country, at least you have a chance, you know, you have a chance to succeed and grow. And my mom and dad, I have to tell you to this day along with Wendy and Ashley, they're my biggest, they cheer for me all the time. You know, I can go on Squatbox and they'll call me and say, oh, my mom will say , you look so handsome, your tie was wonderful. And you're so smart. I go, I don't know if I ever know, but thank you. No, but David, there are so many single parent families. There are so many families where, you know, things are not as rosy as they could be. The real question is how do we create community structures that allow those young people to have family-like relationships in society within communities, either through libraries, civic centers, park benches, whatever, so that they too can feel supported and they can feel like they can go to somebody for love and affection and reinforcement. I couldn't agree more. And one of the things that, you know, Ashley leads is, you know, our LiftoLife Foundation. And you know, we focus on helping elementary school kids get their self-esteem. And a lot of times they don't get it home, you know, like understand what their super talent is, their talent is, put their heart into it, that becomes their superpower. And then, you know, in high school, we have this program called Lead for Change . And it's all about teaching people how to take people with them, understanding their background, what's, you know, their life, how it's impacted them. And given them the encouragement that they need to go forward to make a difference in the community. And I think we've all got to be looking for ways to build the self-esteem of people and help people, you know, really understand that they've got the capability to grow. And I think in today's digital world where everybody's cocooning, how do you get them out of their cocoons and actually come out to these places where people meet socially, you know, libraries, park benches, parks, barber shops, restaurants. How do we get people to sort of interact with each other and talk to each other ? There's a big, big need that's, you know, really we should take advantage of. Yeah, and another thing I just really appreciated about your book is how you continuously revisited the family structure and the support that women need to be able to work and earn a living for themselves. Because a lot of what I've done with our work with the Family Foundation has been around early childhood education. The majority of brain development in children happen from birth to age five. And so that's just a critical time in a child's life. And so it's really important that we provide support for early childhood education. A lot of that support is around building high quality childcare system that's supportive of working families where those people that are working in those childcare centers are equipped to deliver just a strong solid environment and education to those children that they serve every day. So it's a really important issue. Well, I agree with you and we have to pay them right. I mean, the one thing that surprised me was that many childcare workers get paid less than grocery store clerks who themselves are not paid too well. And then many of them take jobs after their childcare jobs in another shift. That's a tremendous price to pay. These are people taking care of our most vulnerable little babies. And so I think that we ought to rethink the whole childcare infrastructure. We have an opportunity to create ubiquitously available high quality affordable childcare systems in whatever structure we choose to put it in with a home care or center based care. But I think we really have to think about this. Otherwise, I don't know how we can deploy the smartest women in paid work to get the economy moving. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really important topic. And I'm glad I'm hearing more and more people talking about it. And I hope it continues. Yeah, I hope so too. I think we need your voice to Ashley for the next generation. I'm trying. I've been talking about this for the last 10 years. But now finally, I feel like, especially with all the American recovery money that's coming to cities, cities are having these conversations. And it should be spent wisely. It needs to be spent wisely. Yeah. I mean, if philanthropy cannot do anything with the amount of money that we have compared to that influx, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. I agree. I want to get back to your upbringing just a little bit more. I'm really interested, particularly in what your mothers taught you about work. Yeah, it's interesting. It's my grandfather, my mother and father, three of them together. I watched the mother work all the time. She was always busy at home. She was not a mother who hugged you and said, I love you. I love you now that stuff. I mean, she barely had time to talk to us because she was always cooking and cleaning and catering to the elders. I don't believe any of us in that time of growing up had appears in other families where the mothers of fathers hugged them and said, I love you. So we didn't grow up being told me, I love you. We just assumed they loved us to pieces because, you know, they did everything for us. So we knew they loved us, implicit love. It was an upbringing where, you know, my mother would make us do things like at dinner time when she was having her dinner and we had finished. She said, give me a speech about what would you do if you're the Prime Minister of the country, the Chief Minister of the State. And then at the end of dinner, when we gave her the speech, she would pick a winner. It was never, you know, last yesterday, it was your sister today's got to be you. There was no, you know, one day each of you will get the prize, the best speech got the prize. And this prize was a tiny, tiny piece of chocolate. I mean, tiny. It could barely see it, okay? But then when you were given this piece of chocolate, you licked it for hours because you mean it meant something. Today, you give me a bar of chocolate, a gigantic bar of chocolate. It doesn't taste as good as a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of chocolate. So you know, she in a funny way, she made us be aspirational. She made us think about being bigger than we could ever be. We ever aspire to be. At the same time, she said, however, I'm going to get you married at age 18. How is this going to work? But you know, this is a societal pressure versus her own dreams for her daughters. And she played that role with great applause, I must say. She's still around. I'm blessed on that. My mom was always my, my coach. She, you know, when I had anything that was important in school, whether giving my first speech on idealism of America, she coached me through it and worked with beyond it and was right there with me. And I remember her being there when I was crying when I didn't win. And she still thinks I should have won to this day, you know, but she, but my mom, she's a very hard worker. And you know, I always would see my mother actually when I would go out in the restaurants because I would see people who were so committed to what they do. And you know, my mom and we moved to Kansas City after living in all these small towns. You know, my mom and dad needed to become dual income winners. And so my mom did things like she was an Avon salesperson in the neighborhood. And then she ran the bookkeeping for a small company. And then she ended up being a controller of another, another small company. And she's totally self-taught. But I always felt my mother, if she would have had the education, the training that I had, she could end up running a company, ask good of my father. But it's just, you know, I had the breaks of having them to help me kind of move forward and begin to achieve. You know, David, listening to your talk about your parents makes me emotional because, you know, they work their way through whatever they're doing to give their children a better life. And your sisters kept you grounded. Absolutely. I wanted to kind of get back to talking just about your early years because I'm really curious as I think about my daughters. And I think about the way we talk about careers. What were your dreams for your career when you were younger and your family? Not just your career, but your family. Did you have any idea of what you wanted? You know, actually, everybody in my family worked in a government job or a bank or a lawyer. So this notion of business didn't exist in our family at all. When my sister went into business school, she wrote the entrance exam on a lark . She didn't think she was going to get in. And nobody thought she was going to get in. She just wrote it because it was such an unattainable, you know, seat. She wrote the exam. She got in into one of the most prestigious schools where someone blew everybody away. But now put the pressure on me because she's the year ahead of me. We were intensely competitive. So if I had not written the entrance exam for the other school and gotten in, people would have said she's a success and interests of failure. So the only reason I wrote that business entrance exam was because I had to keep up with my sister. Fortunately, I got in and the rest was history. But I have to tell you, she was the real brains and she's the one that changed the trajectory of our thinking to say there's something called business. And I don't believe I sat down anytime and said, I'm going to be CEO of a company because I didn't know what that meant. Because always, let's do the job we're doing very well. The next one will come about. Let's do the job well. Something will happen in the next job. So it was never a question of plotting the arc and saying in five years I've got to be senior vice president, 10 years and EVP, those were just impossible because we didn't know what that was. You know, for me, I really found out what I loved at the University of Missouri where I fell in love with the advertising and marketing. Once I found that, I knew I wanted to get in. And I was just like you. And I had to get a job. My first job, I was a copywriter and a small advertising agency. And it was sort of like, that was it. That got me started. Then I looked at like, what was the next job? And what was the next job? The next job? And the next thing I know, somehow I ended up CEO of young brands, but it just was a constant progression of pursuit of learning and trying to get better at whatever we do. Andra, did you have any vision for how many kids you'd have or what your family 'd be like in addition to your job? No, I knew I wanted to get married and have kids, but I didn't have any vision or plan to have two kids or three kids or whatever. You know, I would have liked to have had more kids, you know, because I love kids, but then I was in a car accident and all that stuff. So a lot of things got delayed. You know, but also coming back to what you were saying, David, in every job that you did, you excelled. You worked at that job and you excelled at it. And that gave you the right to go to the next job. So you have to demonstrate excellence in the job, including parenting, you know , having my two kids is a bigger test. And so, you know, whether you want to have more kids or not, you've got to pass the test with your first two kids. And I'd say 50% of the time, they'll say, "Great, mom." The other 50% will say, "Mom, come on." She was not even there. So it depends on the time or day that you get them. Yeah, I'm curious as we move on in the conversation, just to talk about the early years when you both had young children. I mean, did you feel the pressure to do it all? Of course, all the time. But because I had Raj and we sort of divvied up all our responsibilities equally, Ashley, we would sit down with the calendars and plan out the next three months, six months, which family member we're going to import from India on a vacation for three months to help us out and then go back. Those days were very tough to get visas and all that stuff. So we sit down and plan these days and months and years very, very carefully. And if at any point in time, both of us were not going to be home or one of us was not going to be home because we made a commitment that one of us would always be home every night. And if at any point both of us were going to be away, we made sure that a family member was at home. It required a lot of planning, a lot of planning. Because we couldn't talk to the kids face to face. It had to be through landline telephones those days. If you even know what it is, you know, you had to plan life very, very differently, very differently. And you know, somehow it all worked out. But my hope is that this next generation doesn't have to struggle as much. So I think my own commitment to my kids is I know what I went through. I know everybody was. I want grandkids, you want kids. So whenever you choose to get married and have kids, we have to make life easy for you. Not go to what we went through. It's interesting, you know, when we got married, Wendy told me we'd never have children because she was a diabetic and she didn't think it was possible. She was a type one diabetic. But after nine years, she said, David, I want to have a baby. I said, well, you can't. And she says, oh, I've been to the doctors and we think we can give it a try. So she, you know, she got pregnant and, you know, after six months, she was like bedrest. And at that point in time, I had to take over a lot of things in the household. And I think that was when it really hit me. My gosh, she's been working as a sales representative for a television station doing a great job, picking up the laundry, picking up the, you know, the groceries, doing the bulk of all the stuff that really ran the household. And now all of a sudden, I was doing all of that. And it really opened my eyes up to just what a working mother has to go through . And you know, all the stuff she was doing. And I think from that point on, I became a heck of a lot better because I was more empathetic with everything that she was going through. And you know, I always really counsel everybody to make sure that you divide the responsibilities and that, you know, the tasks are not male and female, they're family tasks that need to be shared. I think that's a very important line, David. I think when we start talking about kids and all that stuff, we've got to make sure people realize it's family, not female, very important line. And I have to tell you, there was one time in my life, early on, where I took 10 days off and I said, I'm just going to stay home, not work and see what it's like to be, you know, a mother at home full time. In two days, I was exhausted, exhausted. There's so much work and you're on all the time. And there's no break. You know, you find things to do, clean the house, organize this, organize that. You're driving all the time. You're the driver, you're the organizer, you're the cook, the cleaner, you're everything. So I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to mothers at home, especially mothers who don't work outside the house and they don't have a break from work. We really owe them a debt of gratitude. And so you're right David. Yeah. And you're right. I fully agree with what you're saying. Yeah. I think it's really interesting that you did that sit down ahead of time because I feel like that's my Sunday night ritual is getting out our whiteboard and planning out what our week will look like. But it helps me maintain some mental health, I think, knowing that everyone's cared for. So I think these conversations with your spouse are really important. How did you all intentionally build alignment with your spouse around these roles and responsibility? I mean, was that a conversation you had early in your marriages or was it something that developed over time? And what advice would you give to us about how to do that? Pick your spouse very carefully because many times you end up falling in love with somebody you marry them without really knowing how you're going to navigate life. You think love will carry you through life. Sometimes it does. But in many cases, it doesn't. And so I think it's important that upfront you have the conversations on. I intend to keep working. Both of us are going to contribute to creating wealth for the family. We have to make sure we understand that families are fragile and we have to make sure both of us have the economic means to keep this family going. And it means you're going to have to contribute to childcare, not just money, time and effort. And we both have to address adversity together and the joys together. And you've got to make sure either family does not interfere. The parents of both husband and wife don't interfere in that discussions because in many Indian families in particular, actually, the boys' parents don't like to see the daughter in law working. So in my case, I had the opposite. I had in laws who said, let's support her. We're so proud of her. Let her keep working. And they were my biggest, biggest tailwinds. So I think it's important that you have these conversations. I don't know if you and Wendy had these conversations before you got married. Are you just assumed? I think we had love carrying the day for a while until we really got into our jobs and our careers. And then Wendy, she made a lot more money than I did early on in the career. And then she had health issues and we had the baby, Ed Ashley. And then all of a sudden, she's going to stay at home. And I think we worked our way through the process. But my feeling is, Zindra, is that a marriage life with your partner is sort of like being on a teeter totter. You're never 100%. You're never equal. You're never really balanced. There's always somebody that has to give more as things go up and down. And I think that what you want to have in a marriage is that sometimes you're going to have to give more than the other person. And you just do it because you know you have to. And you want the other person feeling the same way. And I think that's how Wendy and I basically stayed together over the years. And she's had a lot of challenges. But together, we've always been in there to support Ashley every way we could and to support each other with whatever health issues that we have. David, beautifully put, I think if both people in the marriage are committed to each other and the kids, okay, in the family units, they're committed to it. And stay committed to the fact that you work your way through adversity. It works out fine. When you see, you know, breaking up is an easy way out. I think that's when things get messy. Indra, you mentioned earlier just kind of talking about some of the standards that are put on women and the responsibilities. I was reading your book, watching a softball game and in between softball games from my daughter's tournament. And I had this mom come up to me and she looked at your book and she was like, oh, I've been wanting to read that. Because does it all address mom guilt? And I can't tell you how much I have women talk to me about mom guilt. You know, some story about how bad they feel about this or that. Can you tell me, do you think mom guilt is like a real thing? And how did you combat it? I didn't combat it. I lived with it. Yeah. I think we have a perfection gene. It's not just guilt. We have a perfection gene. We want to be the best mom. We want to be the best wife, the best executive, the best everything. It's not possible because they're all full time jobs. So in the course of juggling, we're actually making trade offs. And with every trade off comes a twinge of guilt. So you live with that all the time. It takes real effort to dump that guilt. And you know, if your chocolate chip cookie delivery to school is not perfect, when it's your turn to do cookies, you feel guilty. Forget it. A chocolate chip cookie, whether it's round or shapeless, still tastes like a chocolate chip cookie. We have to forget all this and go, hey, it tastes good. Eat it. You can send me that. So I think we have to let go of the perfection gene and sort of make life easier for us. I'm going to come back at something actually. I think our sisterhood has to get stronger. Women have to form strong sisterhoods. Where we tell each other, it's okay. Just don't worry about it. You deliver chocolate chip cookies, right? Half of them look like Australia or South America. It doesn't matter as long as some look round like the world. That's all that matters. They all taste good. It's a lesson in geography that the kids got. Don't worry about it. You have to find humor in everything you do. Otherwise the guilt overcomes. It takes you over. Definitely. But men also go through guilt, believe it or not. Yeah, that's right. You just don't talk about it. Right. Next question for Dad. Did you ever feel guilty? Did you ever envy the female role? Well, I've always been a person that wanted to be two places at one time. If I was out of town doing something, I wanted to be home. It's like I've always had that pulling, that tension throughout my life. No, that tongue is what causes guilt ultimately. I think if people like you, men in the halls of power, can say, we're going to support women. We're going to make sure they're not treated differently. We're going to make sure that if we spot unequal treatment, we're going to nip it in the butt, the world would be a better place. And I think women in particular won't have the burden of being treated differently at work and carry that home. Then you feel even more guilty. Why did I go to the office when I'm treated like shit and I come home? I think you always have to look at it through the lens of would I want my daughter or wife to go through these experiences that other people are going through? And the answer is no change the environment. So we've got to make men in power, people like you, to stand up and say, we're going to stop this unconscious bias at work. Yeah, I agree. And things happen when you have female executives on your team. It's like, I remember coming to Yum one day and an buyer line, our chief people officers says, hey, I want you to come down and see something. And I'm really proud that she did this, but she created the daycare center. And we went in there and she did this. But you know what? I have to be honest, wouldn't have been on my top 10 list of something that I would have personally done, but she knew it was needed. She took ownership of it. She made it happen. And I talked to Tracy Skeens, who runs our HR function at Yum. And we have baby bonding now, four weeks vacation as soon as you hit the door. These are things that wouldn't have been necessarily top of mind for me. But I think when you have that female voice in your company that's strong and really will make the statement, you start doing the things that you need to have done. So maybe it wasn't top of mind for me, but I have a great appreciation and empathy for the importance of having women in positions of power to make these things happen. And I think we have to put families, family builders, women into the core of all these discussions, not keep them fringe. And we have to bring empathy and humanity into the workplace and decision making. I'd love to talk about work a little bit now because I feel like we're headed in that direction. In 1994, there were no female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies. And honestly, I don't know how many women actually recognize that stat. I wrote it and I was like, "That's crazy to me." And then I kept seeing on Google, the press just screaming about how we had 41 female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies in 2021. And two of them were black women. And the press was acting like this was such an accomplishment. I look at that and that doesn't feel like much progress. So really, what do you think it's going to take to get more women into the C-su ite? Two or three things. One, we have to develop the pipeline. We have to make sure women stay in the workforce. Women are wicked smart. 70% of high school valedictorians are women. More than 50% of the top grades from colleges are from women. And STEM disciplines, women have one whole point of GPA more than men. Women are getting more professional degrees. Women are hungry. They want economic freedom. They want the power of the purse. So we have this wicked smart talent pool at a point when we want the best and brightest be working in our paid jobs. So the country can move forward. You know, I look at MIT where I sit on the board, Ashley. 47% of MIT engineers are women. And so Caltech, Georgia Tech, they're all 30, 35% women. So women are really doing extraordinarily well. So we have to find a way to deploy them in the workforce but keep them in the workforce. Women leave for several reasons. One, they don't know how to balance motherhood and the job. And we haven't made it easy for them. Second, they're just tired of things like unconscious bias in the workplace, the fact that there's no pay parity many times. And so I think we have to remove all of these barriers that exist in the workplace. So women don't see their confidence being stripped through things like unconscious bias. And once you strip confidence, it strips their competence. So we have to make sure the workplace is friendly to both men and women. It's friendly to the best talent, not just friendly to the definition, the ideal worker of the past who happens to be a man. But the ideal work of the future is just a talented person. It doesn't matter what gender they are or what ethnicity of color. So we have to start thinking in very different ways. And so if we did that, I think we would keep more women in the workforce, create a better environment, create care support structures. And I think humanity will come back to companies, purpose will come back to companies, and we will have a much better version of capitalism that's practiced. Yeah. Actually, maybe you should be CEO of that. You know. Seriously. No, I mean, I've always aspired to lead an organization. I think for me, I also really, if you were to ask me when I was a child, I wanted to be a mom. That's what I wanted to be. I was very set on. That was my thing. I feel like I've found a nice in between right now that really works well for my family. But I do know the sacrifices that I'm going to have to make if I continue to grow in my job and in my career. So I'm realistic about it, but I also sometimes don't want to take that step forward just because I know the time that I have right now with my children is limited. And so I am hopeful though, because I do feel like this conversation and more people are talking about it. I feel like that was one of the blessings of COVID if there were any was that people are starting to recognize how challenging this is and that there need to be more pathways and supports behind getting women in the workforce. But actually, actually, you made some great points because you're right. It's got to be allowing choice, whoever wants to do whatever they want. If they want to balance work and motherhood, we should give them the choice to do it. If you want to be in the workforce, we should give them the choice to do it. We should give them the support structures to do it. So it's about choice. This is not about mandates. You have to work or you have to stay home. This is about enabling choice. And that's really what we're talking about. I think it's kind of interesting in your book, you talk about the flexibility stigma, you know, that that is a challenge for women in the workforce. And, you know, sometimes I wish men recognized all the challenges that women are facing and when we're trying to work and how we're getting things done that, yes, sometimes we might require some more flexibility. But that doesn't mean we're going to do a bad job. We'll probably double it. But that's pressure again. Well, you're right because I'm worried that if the rules of the company are, whoever wants to come in, come in, whoever wants to work from home, do it, you shouldn't end up with the situation where all the men come to work and all the women work flexibly, in which case we're creating two classes of citizens. Now we're all in the early days of deciding what the future of work is going to be. I hope it's more rule-based, which says this group comes in two days a week and this group comes in three days a week the next time. So I hope it's more rule-based. So no group feels like they were separated into those that went into the office and were visible versus those that worked remotely. I worry about this a lot. Yeah. You know, the two skills, Andrew, that are so critical today for successful leaders, the ability to have empathy, the ability to collaborate. And you know, all the research that I've seen says that women have those skills in spades compared to men. And I think, you know, finding a way to showcase that is going to be critical for women and men as you climb the ladder. And it's going to be hard to do that at home. Yeah. And you know, we're not talking about men or women. We're talking about all the talent. Talent. So what gender and ethnicity are the best talent has to be deployed for the future of the economy. I like that definition. I think it's the best talent. It's not male, female, it's the best talent. And those are the people that should be moving ahead and taking on more and more responsibility. That's right. Andrew, I'd really like for our female listeners to just get some advice from you about how to handle yourself in the workplace. I know I've been in situations where I've been called honey. I've had people talk over me. I even occasionally get asked if I'm in high school. And I know I look young, but I'm starting to get a little bit older. So I think that's going to go away soon. But I do have a high voice. I've been told on the phone to get my mommy when I was like 15 years old. So these things stick with you, you know? And so I'm wondering, what advice can you give to women who are working and in these situations? How should we handle these interactions? I think one of the problems we have in our society is that in every part of the world, women are either two tall or two short, two fat or two thin, they either high pitched or two low pitched. It doesn't matter what you are, you're always labeled and talked about as if you were just not adequate. That's how people view women. In fact, things like if somebody delivers a breakfast covered in a wrap, they wait for the woman to open it. Even if the woman is the senior most executive, the men won't open it. I mean, these sorts of gender behaviors prevail even today. Now you've got to find ways around it. I'll be honest with you. One, you've got to let competence speak for yourself. At the end of the day, you've got to be as good as not better than the other people in the room because at the end of the day, competence is what carries the day. But let me give you a couple other survival strategies. When you see that plate of bagels or donuts in the center of the room waiting to be open and nobody is opening it, if you choose to open it, take the plate, go out, pick yourself a donut, leave it far away and then come back in. Leave it far, far away. So if anybody else wants donuts, they've got to go and get it from there. That way you're not trying to be the person that's acting as the service person . I remember in many meetings, they would expect that I was going to write action items from the meeting. I was a fairly senior executive. The junior men wouldn't write the action items. So I said, "Okay, I'm going to teach you a lesson." I would write the action items and put deliverable dates and why this action item was important but I spun it in my own way. I put in dates and I thought made sense. People would call me and say, "But those were not the dates we agreed on." I said, "We never agreed on any dates. That's a problem." So I gave you dates. So if you want me to write the action items, I'm going to spin it the way I think makes sense for the company from my perspective. That was the last time they asked me to write action items. So we all have to develop our own skills to say, "Okay, if you think I'm good enough to write action items, let me add value to it." So I think it's important that we develop our own survival structures. However, there is no substitute for our sisterhood. Our sisterhood has to help us navigate to all of this. If we see other women being treated differently, we've got to stop and say, " Hey, why are you rolling your eyes when she talks? Why are you talking over her?" Or somebody should say, "Are you waiting for the women to open the tray? They're not going to." Let's all join together and open the tray, guys. Or let's take turns. We'll pick our name from a hat. That person's going to open the tray, but we need strength and numbers. I'd love to ask you, Andrew. You talk about competency. Do female leaders have the luxury of making mistakes? Can you give an example of an epic fail you might have had or a time when you failed? How did you come back from it? You know, when women leaders make mistakes, they judge more harshly than men. I'll also tell you that if something went wrong in PepsiCo, even in a division, they always said, "Indra Nui, CEO of PepsiCo, and they ascribe the blame to me." When something went well, and if it had been from corporate, they would say, " It's from the division or from somebody else." So in some way or shape, the mistakes always found their way to my feet, which is okay. I was tough enough to handle it. The thing is, at exterior, you have to show that you're very calm, you're resilient, and you have the courage. Inside, you're probably mad, you're churning, and it's okay to go and shut the room and shut the door in the bathroom and have a good cry, because I've seen men throw things around and fall at a word, just burst, pew out. I couldn't do that, because had I done that, I would have gotten a reputation I wouldn't have liked. And so I would think those fall at a word inside, but go to my bathroom, just utter it and have a good cry, put some makeup on and come back out again, looking very calm and collected. So these are all coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, women have to still operate by a different set of rules unless you want to be branded. So it's how you develop your own set of coping mechanisms and who's going to be your support structure when you really need to let go and say, "You won't believe what happened to me today and then work. Let me tell you." And somebody just listens to you, doesn't judge you, just gives you advice and says, "Come down. This tool will pass." There's one question that I really just, I think our listeners would really benefit from. You both seem to be mentally stable and healthy individuals, at least from what I can see. I know Dad pretty well. But how did you take care of yourself and your body while finding time to work? I think CEO jobs are very, very, very stressful. Neither you have the resilience, you have the backbone, you have the courage, you have the support structures to navigate through these difficult jobs or you should not ascend into those jobs because you can't come into the CEO job and then develop resilience. You come into the CEO job because you have resilience. Sometimes you don't even have time to take care of yourself. You don't have time to exercise. You're traveling too much. So you eat all the wrong fruits and you miss meals and you do all those things we say is bad for healthy living. Where I feel again optimistic, Ashley, in today's world with more technology available, I think we can actually balance a good life, a healthy life with a stressful job because we can work out while we're talking. We can build a Zoom call and work out. We can FaceTime people without having to go visit with them. So I'm very, very optimistic about what technology is going to do to enable any leader who's got enormous responsibility today, somehow stay healthy mentally, physically and be healthy at work in terms of decision making and navigating through incredible environmental issues to the geopolitics, supply chains, social issues. They have to navigate through a lot. I don't know. How did you manage that? It was just an enormous amount of stress. I was in the food industry and I grew up in an industry where Colonel Sanders ate a chicken wing in every restaurant he visited in that day. I said, "Well, I'm going to go and win the franchisees over." I ate a chicken wing and every restaurant I went into, I go into nine or ten a day and the next thing I know I weigh about 235. I lost the balance and I realized that I had to get better balance and actually it led to us getting healthier foods. We got baked chicken and KFC and my own personal experience so I could start eating fresco tacos. So I started having products that we could help balance out the life but it was also something that our customers wanted as well. So we eliminated the veto vote by having some healthier foods for people which we needed to get at. So I had to balance that but I always tried to work out every day, find time in the morning. That was very important for me to get my workout in and stay balanced by having quiet time, you know, prayer, just meditation. That would help me get my mood elevator up so I could go to work and be semi-t olerable to work with. In your book, Indra, you talk about a lot of the male advocates and mentors you had and dad, I know you had the same throughout your career. I know for you that had to be interesting to have a male mentors take such interest in you and help you to continue in your journey up the corporate ladder. But what advice would you give to men and women in leadership positions about ways to advocate for each other? Especially how can men advocate for women and minorities in their organization? I think you should mentor somebody because you see something and then it's a real talent and you think that a little bit of help they can go far and contribute massively to the company or the world in general. Somebody goes to somebody and says, "When you be my mentor, it doesn't mean anything. Mentors speak you." And mentors should pick people irrespective of gender or ethnicity. They should pick the best talent. I keep coming back to this. Pick the best talent. Pick the best people you think are going to do great for your entity or for the country or society as a whole. That's how my mentors picked me and they were not just mentors. They were supporters, they were promoters and they were also my biggest critics . And things didn't go right, boy. Did they tell me off? And so I think that I benefited from that. But as a mentee, my responsibility was to the mentor, was to listen to them. If I didn't listen to them and didn't take their advice, I'd go back and tell them why I didn't take it. So it was a mutual respect for each other and I treated all my mentors with great respect. I think that's what people forget. A mentor means the investing time and effort in you. Treat them with respect. Always give them feedback about why you, not feedback. Tell them why you didn't do what they suggested you do. Keep that avenue of communication open. And if you did that, you'll find us a more productive mentor, mentee relationship. You know, I think being a mentor, I agree, you want to mentor the special talent. But I think one of the things that is your CEO or your high level of the organization, they're special talent out there. And if you can focus it and all things being equal, I try to focus on finding the female that I thought was going to grow. Finding the black person that I thought really had the potential to go forward. Because one of the things that I realized over time is that when you have minorities moving up the organization, it's amazing how many people they take with them. It's amazing how many, you know, like we had one person run operations who was black. All of a sudden we had some fantastic black operators in our company that moved up and took on more and more responsibility. So I always, I really, I have to tell you, I was biased in terms of how I would spend my mentoring time so that it would be focused on minorities. I thought that's, that would give us the biggest payoff in terms of making an improvement in an area that I knew we had to get better at. No David, I think you did a very, very good job in that. But your point is very well taken in that when you elevate people who, you know , never got to these positions of power. Now people look up to them as role models and say, I took and get there. And the environment changes because people now learn how to work with diverse people. And they no longer exhibit the kinds of behaviors that felt a little bit awkward in the past. So you're absolutely right. And I'm glad you did what you did because you're known the industry for having mentored great diverse talent. Another question that I had was, and this might be a chicken and egg situation, but just hear me out here. Do women need to ask for things or do men need to notice that women need them? Things like a pay raise, more flexibility, parental leave. What advice would you give our male and female listeners? You know, this is why we have human resources departments. You know, a woman should never have to ask for pay parity. Human resources should be looking at every job all the time and saying, hey, there's a man and a woman in the same job. Why is a woman getting paid 5% less? First of all, even the woman finds out it may be too late. Okay. So the point is we have to go back and ask the human resources functions. What is your job? Your job is to hire, train, develop, retain the best talent. As part of retention, it's paying them the right wages, parity with the men for the same job. Nobody should be discriminated against because of their gender. And nobody should get an edge because they represent the ideal work of the past and the new ideal worker gets treated differently. Don't do that. So I think that the time has come for us to hold HR functions responsible. And HR functions sometimes mirror the CEO's thinking. Boards have to make sure the tone of the top is right. And they should put CEOs and jobs who take this issue very, very seriously and look at it on an annual basis to say, are we treating all our employees failing? I think this is something that is a skill that some companies do very well at. Other companies don't. The time has come to take this very seriously. I agree with you. And I always viewed, I know I was a CEO, but I always viewed myself as a chief people officer. I felt like I was in charge of talent. I was in charge of the work environment. And that if we created the special place to work where people felt valued, it was going to be because I was going to make that my top priority. I find all the great CEOs I talk to, they do that. But you have to have an advocate. You have to have an HR leader who can really carry the ball for you and make sure that happens. If nothing would make me matter, then if I would see a high talent female who's doing a job better than the male, and she's making 10% less. I mean, I would get ripped. We'd have our people planning processes. When that happened, I would go nuts. But it's funny how people, it's okay as long as it's not you. If you're the one that's getting discriminated against on the pay or whatever, then it's a problem. But you've got to have people really have their antenna up to make sure that that doesn't happen. And I have to tell you, I think a lot of leaders and a lot of HR people are tone deaf. They just don't get it. But I think this is where the change has to happen, David. Change has to happen. But I'll be honest with you, actually, before this change happens, if a female notices that a pay is not parity to somebody else doing the same job, you have to ask for it. There's no question about it. You have to because if the HR department is not going to sensitize everybody, we've got to sensitize people ourselves. But remember, when you ask for it, you have to make sure you get it. If you don't, that creates a different sort of a cloud for you and for the company. So I would come back and say, HR departments have to step up to the plate. How did you, Andrew, get over it? I read your book. You found out that some people like myself, you've got a ton of options. You didn't get the options. How did you cope with that? Because I'll tell you, that's the thing that always, I never really cared about money. I've never cared about money. Money came to me. The only thing I was was competitive. So I kind of said, if Andrew Newy is getting this, then I'm going to get this. How did you cope with the fact that you found out these guys were making a lot more money than you? You know, until Steve Reynemann became CEO, when he just adjusted everything. I mean, he was just a great guy, that way he said, "I can't believe that your pay is not at this level. You gave me a big raise, lots of options." Until then, I was just happy to be in the room. Most of the problems are because of my cultural upbringing, strictly my cultural upbringing, which basically said, "Just do the job and shut up." The money I was making, David, was more than I've ever seen. So I never asked for it. I knew everybody was getting options like you won't believe it. I remember those days I was doing the spin-off of restaurants, all of those food service, thank you very much. Casual dining properties and also spinning out the bottlers, buying Tropicata. I was working 24/7 with little babies and I would always be surprised that I wasn't getting those options. But at that point, I said, "You know what? I was making more money than I've ever seen and I was the only one of its kind in those halls of power and I was not comfortable asking for money. I was just not." Which I right now, I retrospect, it was a mistake, but I was just not there. Later on, I made sure that never happened to people around me. Good. I'm curious as you talk about the human resource function and some of the changes you would make. Is there anything if you went back to PepsiCo to be CEO or dad if you went back to Yumbrands to be CEO? Is there anything that you would do differently or is there a particular focus that you would put on that function for the future? I would basically say, "Let's put women, family builders and families in the center of our discussion." Even if we didn't have COVID, we should have started the discussions on what support structures are we going to provide. Just like David, we had onsite and nearside childcare for a lot of PepsiCo facilities. But you know, for the factory workers, we didn't have that much support. If I had stayed around, I would have thought about how to cooperate with other factories in a particular area and provide childcare for factory workers. I think the discussions would have advanced a lot more on providing support to families to be able to juggle work and family and somehow not carry the guilt of work at home and home at work. I would have worked on that. I don't know, David, what would you have done? Well, I think I would have tried to do what I think a lot is happening right now at Yumbrands. I'm so pleased that we have 12 weeks of baby bonding. I think that is just like, you get four weeks right out of the door. The thing that I was really excited about at four weeks vacation season to start, the thing I was really excited about is that our restaurant general managers also get that 12 weeks of baby bonding or close to it. In the old days, it was just the headquarter people and not necessarily the people in the factories and on the front line. I think spreading this care, spreading the fact that everybody needs it at every level of the organization I think is something I would work on. The other thing is I found it very interesting, Indra. When we were spun off from PepsiCo, I went to go see Roger Enrico. I remember it was on Martin Luther King Day and I made this presentation on why I should run the company, et cetera. I remember walking up those steps at PepsiCo and I was on the cobblestones and I was kind of like, "This is so beautiful. I love these cobblestones. I've locked it up. I think it's great." Then I read in your book that you got rid of the cobblestones. I thought it was a great thing for me to say, "Okay, if I was going to go back, what would I do?" I think I'd be more empathetic because tell everybody why you got rid of the cobblestones and I thought we're so wonderful. I think it's a great male-female thing. In PepsiCo, we did put in 12 weeks of maternity, paternity leave, flexible work hours, onsite, nearside childcare, adoption benefits. We really did everything right for families. One of the cobblestones, anybody with heels always got the heels caught in the cobblestones. Women were tiptoe. One of the heels it was. But men also said their shoes would get scuffed in the cobblestones. My mom used to talk about it all the time. Expensive shoes would be gone in a while. You walked in with sneakers and changed into heels. My point is why? Why do you need to have cobblestones in a female-friendly company? Guess what? We're going to change the cobblestones. I kept the cobblestones in the side, changed the walkway into a flat stone that looked architecturally good. Don Kettle, who put those cobblestones in, was very proud of it, saw that any freaked out, he said, "Who messed up my cobblestones?" He went to Roger and he started to say, "Who the hell touched my cobblestones?" And Roger goes, "Not me. It's that Indra. You know how she is. She did it." But you know what? Don never came and talked to me about it. Never did, but his wife, BIM, wrote me and let us say, "Thank you. Thank you for doing this." Well, that's great. And I think it's a great story because there are a lot of things that you just don't know or you don't sense. And that was a great story for me. And it made me think that if I was going to go back and see, I would try to look for those kind of signals, be even more aware of them and do whatever I could within the company to make our places family-friendly and female-friendly as possible. I just have a question about women reentering the workforce. Brenda Barnes is a great example of someone who left her job as president of PepsiCo. Then came back as CEO of Sarah Lee. What can companies be doing to make it easier for women to come back if they left? Because there's so much knowledge, so much experience. How do we get them back in the workforce? So there used to be something on the Mommy track. So it was an on-dramp and off-dramp. That's it, you left. And if you want to cut back, it was tough. Now people are actually talking about a return ramp because they're realizing that the women who stepped out of the workforce extraordinarily well-educated, very smart, and just because they went on to have kids, doesn't mean they shouldn't be back in the workforce . And in fact, they became even better at organization than juggling when they went off to have their kids. So most companies, now including banks, the big investment banks are saying, " How do we create a return ramp for all of these women?" All men who choose to take time off to be with their families to somehow come back to the job. Now there are two things to think about there. If you're willing to come back with a different cohort, meaning let's say you went in a newer class of 19, let's say your class of 2015, when you stepped out, you might come back and be in the same cohort group as the class of 2020, you should feel bad. Okay, about it. That's one. And companies can do another thing. They can keep you connected to the company while you're gone. Send you little reading packages. Send you material to keep up to date on the company so you're not completely out of all the developments. That way when you come back, you feel somewhat connected to the company and you can pick up where you left off. But if you want to go to some other company, that's also an option. I think in the next two years, ready to return initiatives are going to be the normal. We have a talent shortage in the country and we have so much talent is just figuring out a way to bring them in and retain them in the workforce. Real quick, you have to do this really fast because we don't have a lot of time . Favorite family meal? When we sit down and have breakfast on the weekends, I make the Indian breakfast and they all eat it. Dad's pancakes. Beautiful. Best gift you ever received from your child or spouse. And they wrote me letters telling me how special I was mostly for my children because they're very expressive and they write draw pictures and put stickers with it and I've kept all those notes. It has to be the letters you write me every birthday and father's day. Favorite picture of your family? Can you describe it? The most favorite pictures, my two kids in the school uniforms and Raj and I standing next to them waiting for the school bus to come and pick them up. It's not one picture. It's our family wall that we have. It's when you walk in and you see how you've just basically grown up as a child and how we've grown up as a family together and all those family pictures together. It's that collage. Favorite children's book? Oh, what's the saggy baggy elephant? I read it for the kids so many times. That one and Winnie the Pooh and the honey tree. Those are the two. My God, we still sing Winnie the Pooh at home all the time. Go Dog Go has to be. Beautiful. What's the best advice you ever received from your grandparents? My grandfather told me that if you're not a lifelong learner, you will atrophy. So he said, "Doesn't matter if you're 70 or 80 or 90, you have to remain a lifelong learner." So keep thinking your back in school and keep your brain sharp. That's a tough one because my grandfather's passed early in my life but my grandmother's taught me to play hard and play fair in cards. That's true. Great. Thank you. I'd love to end with a final question to both of you. Can women and men have it all when it comes to family work and life? What hope can you give us? We have to define what is having it all. What does it mean? If you want to have a great job, a productive marriage and great kids and somehow remain same through it, to me that's eminently possible today with all the technology and the culture and the company's changing. And there's so many entrepreneurial options available for both men and women in our economy today. So I'm very optimistic. I'm very optimistic as well. I've just written this book called Take Charge of You, How Self-Coaching Can Transform Your Life and Career. Ender was very nice to endorse it by the way. But I think the only way you can have it all is you really self-coach your way through it. You've got to understand what your priorities are, what really gives you joy. You have to ask yourself some key questions along the way so that you keep those things in balance. And then I think you've got to develop an action plan that allows you to live your life around the priorities and the values that you've set. And I think if you do that, you can have it all. And I also know that I need to give myself a little bit of self-coaching here. It's time for us to wrap this up. So Ashley, thank you very much for doing this interview. I know you like podcasting, but you're not going to take over my show. You're going to have to come up with your own. Sounds like a plan, Dad. Thank you, Dad. And thank you, Indra. It's been such an insightful conversation and one that I have a lot of take aways to walk home with. I just really, really love your book. It's absolutely wonderful. So everyone who's listening, go out and buy it today. It is so important for us females to have someone like you to look up to. Thank you for setting such an incredible example and for using your next set in life to really drive this message about family and work home. It's an important conversation and I hope it continues. Thank you, Ashley. You were fantastic. It's been a pleasure meeting you. And I look forward to seeing you in person. David, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. Thank you, Indra. We appreciate you very much. Hey, thanks for listening to How Leaders Lead with David Novak. Check out our other episodes and make sure to rate us and write a review. And for more information on how to become the best leader you can be, check out David NovakLeadership.com and follow me on Twitter at David Novak-Ogo. [MUSIC]