Our guest today is Laura Marella, an advertising industry leader with experience spanning international corporate agencies, a startup independent agency and as an independent consultant. Laura recently co-founded Overflow, a platform based accelerator for independent Strategists that is launching in April 2021. Laura will discuss why she views decision making not through the lens of risk, but through the lens of opportunity. She will also touch on why inaction is often more risky than any action. You will learn about the growth of the gig economy and why it presents opportunities for women. Laura will also tell us the process of founding Overflow, what pain points does it solve and what benefits the platform offers.
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On The Madeline & Becca Podcast, we chat with leading women from a variety of industries about their career journeys and how they developed professional self-confidence.
Produced by Madeline and Becca
Episode #39: Why risk is opportunity with Laura Marella, co-founder & CEO of Overflow
Laura Marella: [00:00:00] We basically started this from our own personal experience, like almost all entrepreneurs. Rocio Hernandez and Jeanene Kroetch and I, we're all corporate escapee's and independent and strategists. And we love that life. We love the solopreneur life. We loved all of those freedoms that I just kind of mentioned. But when we started talking about the vision for Overflow, we basically did what a lot of entrepreneurs do and they said, OK, we love this, but how can it be better? What are my pain points? What are the things I struggle with everyday?
Madeline & Becca: [00:00:38] Welcome to The Madeline and Becca Podcast. The mission of our podcast is simple, to inspire professional self-confidence in women everywhere. I'm Madeline. And I'm Becca. On our podcast, you will hear stories from real world influencers, women who have experienced tremendous success in their careers by building self-confidence. Thanks for joining us.
Becca: [00:01:13] Our guest today is Laura Marella, an advertising industry leader with experience spanning international corporate agencies, a startup independent agency and as an independent consultant. Laura recently co-founded Overflow, a platform based accelerator for independent Strategists that is launching in April 2021. Laura will discuss why she views decision making not through the lens of risk, but through the lens of opportunity. She will also touch on why inaction is often more risky than any action. You will learn about the growth of the gig economy and why it presents opportunities for women. Laura will also tell us the process of founding Overflow, what pain points does it solve and what benefits the platform offers. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to hit subscribe and leave us to review. It helps us bring you more of the content that you love. Here's Madeline.
Madeline: [00:02:18] We're really excited to welcome Laura Marella, an advertising industry leader with experience spanning international corporate agencies, a startup independent agency and as an independent consultant. And Laura recently co-founded Overflow, a platform based accelerator for independent strategists that is launching in April 2021.So welcome, Laura, and thank you so much for being here with us today.
Laura Marella: [00:02:43] Thank you so much for having me. I'm really thrilled to be here. I love your podcast. Love it. Really enjoy it.
Madeline: [00:02:48] Thank you so much. We really appreciate that. And so, let's start, as we do with all of our guests, talking a little bit about your early career so our listeners can get a sense of your professional background. So, can you tell us how you got started?
Laura Marella: [00:03:04] Yeah. So, I think like a lot of people, my original vision for my career was actually compared to my actual path of my career were really, bore very little resemblance to each other. I loved advertising and I loved culture. I loved languages and sociology. At that time, they didn't really have kind of cultural studies. I probably would have been all over that if they did. But when I was in college, I didn't really know how to combine those two things in a career. So, when I was transitioning from college to the workforce, I thought the best way to combine those two things was to work in a global advertising agency and move around their different offices around the world and eventually move my way up to the CEO office. But I think as we learn and we grow in our careers, our vision for work and our lives broadens. And I'm kind of, I'm kind of a curious person. And I kept researching things and was fortunate to discover a part of the advertising world that incorporated culture in it. And this was this nascent niche of advertising and marketing called Hispanic marketing, which was great for me because I was able to work with the same Fortune 500 companies that I was working with before. But I specifically did it for the US Latino community. So, it was a great fit for me and my interests and turned out to be a great career path, both in terms of professional growth but also financially. It was, it was just really great. So, you know, I've had very diverse experiences, like you said, you know I’ve worked for the startups. And I've worked for major corporations and have been an independent contractor. And I've been, now I'm an entrepreneur. So, it's all been really great for me. I've enjoyed it very much.
Madeline: [00:05:05] So, in those sort of early years in your career, can you tell us a little bit about what strategies you used in terms of developing self-confidence and expanding sort of your early roles and gathering more responsibility?
Laura Marella: [00:05:24] You know, I'm not really, I'm not really sure if I had a strategy. I think I had two very hardworking parents and they collaborated really well together on their business success, and my father used to say, like he had this saying, he said, you know I'm a great believer in luck. And I find the harder I work, the luckier I get. And I think it was, I'm sure it wasn't his quote. I think it was Thomas Jefferson. But I still attribute it to him because I heard it so many times and I was never the brightest person in the room, but no one worked harder than I did. And fortunately, in my career, I was surrounded by people who also worked really hard. And so collectively, we all became really lucky. We all, that hard work paid off and company growth and then the company growth paid off and expanded learning opportunities and then more professional advancement and then that, each kind of success built on future successes. So, I worked hard. And I had very hardworking teams, and so I was very lucky. I don't think I had a strategy.
Madeline: [00:06:38] Just good experience. So, can you tell us just I think for those people who are not in the industry, I think we all kind of wonder, what does that actually look like on the inside of working for an agency? What was sort of your roles and were you in the creative side? What were you sort of doing?
Laura Marella: [00:06:56] I was not in the creative side and I was reminded of that absolutely every day by the people who were creative. No, I started off in the media side, which was basically to help clients to determine where they spend their money. So, should they spend their money on television or radio or digital, etc.? And then after that, I evolved into new business development. So, I helped clients to like, come on board, basically told them about our services, told them what our benefits were, helped the teams to pitch the business. And then eventually from that role, I ended up after pitching the business, handling the business, and that led to broader managerial roles within the agencies.
Madeline: [00:07:40] So, I know that you are really well versed in understanding sort of the corporate world and navigating corporate culture. Can you speak a little bit to your experience within the corporate world and, you know, navigating some of those things we talk a lot about on the podcast about different people's experiences dealing with, say, office politics and how to advance their career within that very rigid corporate structure?
Laura Marella: [00:08:11] Right. I was not a great fit for corporate culture. But I have to say that's sometimes a tough question to answer from the standpoint that corporate culture varies so much from company to company. But in general, I would say the corporate advertising agencies are pretty universally male dominated corporate cultures. And I'd have to say, you know I'm glad I only had to endure them for about a third of my career. It was literally just about a third of it. And you know, while I think I was emotionally intelligent enough to navigate corporate culture, it really wasn't where I wanted to spend my emotional equity. If you understand what I mean by that, it's like I felt like I did what I needed to do, but I knew I was wasting valuable energy on internally focused concerns that literally had nothing to do with what was good for the clients or what was good for the business or you know, it was just misguided energy in my mind. And I think that, that is to some degree determined by the fact that leadership in most agencies still, I think today is dominated by men. Certainly, when I was in corporate, it was clearly dominated by men. You know, the values of the company became a lot more masculine when it's led by men. First, it sets a signal that men are more important, which is never a good thing for women. But then it also causes the women that are in the organization to feel that they need to reflect that masculinity back. I certainly felt that pressure as a young woman in the business. I felt like I needed to conduct myself and like kind of project that masculinity out to be accepted, to be kind of more forceful, maybe more emotionally guarded and it wasn't until I was older and I realized that many of the really important kind of leadership qualities that come naturally to women, the things that they call in corporate America, soft skills, you know, the things like empathy, you know which correlates with emotional intelligence and being a great listener means that you're a great communicator and that's important in business or being nurturing to teamwork and team interactions. And you know, these are all very good things. You know, the stereotype that women are great, multitaskers, men can't multitask. You know, that's actually a good and a bad thing because I think we do things. You know, we do more with less. And we just have to be careful that that doesn't turn out to be that we do more for less. You know, sometimes that happens, unfortunately. So, as I got older, I think I realized that those soft skills are the qualities that people in my team and my co-workers and even my bosses ended up valuing most in my managerial style. And I would just encourage people, I know the corporate world is changing. I know women are getting more and more prominence at the higher levels of corporations are getting board seats and things. So, I think this is changing, but I would advise women to make sure that they value their soft skills for how great they are for navigating a corporate environment and even in male dominated ones, I think it's, they're great qualities.
Madeline: [00:11:56] Yeah, I couldn't agree more and some of those soft skills and that emotional intelligence. I mean, they go so far in terms of being effective both internally and externally with clients.
Laura Marella: [00:12:06] They do. Yes, for sure.
Madeline: [00:12:09] And so, I know that you have taken quite a few risks from leaving the corporate world and going into being, you know into a startup and then a solopreneur. And we have heard from a lot of listeners who sometimes get stuck in corporate roles for a variety of reasons. Right, I mean, paycheck or, you know, stability or whatever it might be who are wanting to take that that leap to the next step of their lives. Can you share your experience and your decision making process when you left corporate America and changed the trajectory of your career? As you said earlier in the conversation, your initial thought was, you know, start at the beginning and end up the CEO. And I think a lot of women have that. And then they think, wait a minute, as they grow, they think, let me talk about my priorities and what matters to me and am I growing here and all of that. So, can you speak to that a little bit?
Laura Marella: [00:13:02] Yeah, and do I want to become that?
Madeline: [00:13:04] Exactly. Exactly
Laura Marella: [00:13:06] And I quickly learned no. Let's see, so I thought actually, I thought about this recently because someone else said, oh, you know, the risk of starting a new business, aren't you, aren't you a little worried? And I don't really think of myself as a risk taker. You know, I feel like there are risks to everything and risks present themselves to you every day in everything you do. And while certainly I don't dismiss the fact that actions can have negative outcomes for you or they could increase or decrease the likelihood of risk, the presence of risk is kind of always there. It's largely out of your control. And so, I think that's one thing. And then I also think that people associate risk with actions taken. And I, the truth is that there's risk to inaction too. You when, for example, if I had stayed at the safe traditional corporate career path of J. Walter Thompson, my first job, and I you know, I would have seriously diminished my financial success if I had stayed there and done the kind of the safe thing. But on the other hand, my decision when I went to the Hispanic agency, Cassanova Pendrill and I stayed with the company after the sale as a way of kind of guaranteeing, I had this burnout contract that you're given when you, when you're sold. And it was a great kind of very tangible earn out. And, but staying with that safety cost me first a lot of work life balance. And then secondly, it delayed much more lucrative assignments that I could have had as an independent consultant. So, you know, even inaction to me has inherent risks. So, I don't, I don't really see decision making through the lens of risk. I prefer to look at decision making through the lens of opportunity. And when you view your life and decisions as opportunities rather than risks, you see them entirely differently. You see change and your approach to change is entirely different. So, you know, for example, you know, if you just think of the words, those two words risk, so, Madeline, just take you first. And when you think of the word risk, how, what does that kind of emotionally connect you with?
Madeline: [00:15:48] Right. The word risk has a connotation that is negative. It's frightening. It's scary. It's, you know, how hard am I going to land?
Laura Marella: [00:15:56] Right. So, it's fear, self-doubt. You know, it makes us physically, if you think of it just like, what does it look like? It makes us tighten up our shoulders and it braces us for the impact of something negative, some negative consequence. And then you know, Becca, the word opportunity. What does that connect you with emotionally?
Becca: [00:16:16] Yes. Exciting and hopeful.
Laura Marella: [00:16:18] Right? So those are, those are great things. Those are things that open our eyes wider, you know or physically we lean forward to those new experiences and our future. So, to me, I think it's not looking at risks. I feel like my career decisions were actions taken on opportunities. And I gained something from all of those decisions, even the ones that didn't turn out so well.
Madeline: [00:16:44] That's an incredible way of framing it. It is, because it is, it's, when you say risk versus opportunity, you have an automatic mindset shift.
Laura Marella: [00:16:54] You do. Completely.
Madeline: [00:16:57] What you have to gain versus what you have to lose.
Laura Marella: [00:16:59] Right. That's exactly it.
Madeline: [00:17:01] Yeah, I really, really, really like that. And it's true also sometimes opportunities that don't necessarily work out. You learn quite a bit from, we've heard that from our guests before where they said, you know what, sometimes I've learned from my failures as much as I've learned from my success. Has that been your experience too?
Laura Marella: [00:17:17] I would say yes, for sure. Every negative experience I've had has, I've incorporated in a positive way, some other place in my life. For sure, I can see, I can see it through the whole path.
Madeline: [00:17:30] Also, life is way more interesting if you, if you go after opportunities, isn't it?
Laura Marella: [00:17:34] It is. It is. Well, it's much more hopeful and joyful.
Madeline: [00:17:39] Certainly. I mean if you had stayed at that first position, I mean imagine how you know all the things you would have missed out on.
Laura Marella: [00:17:46] Exactly. Exactly.
Madeline: [00:17:49] So, you mentioned some work life balance and we talk a lot about people who are handling having both a high powered career like you and also being a mom. Can you speak to that a little bit? I know we try to shy away from the word balance because I know it sort of seems like it's a zero sum game. And sometimes, you know, it's like, how do you handle both those things? Can you do it? What advice might you give to other women who are trying to handle both a high powered career, demanding schedule and then also being a mom?
Laura Marella: [00:18:24] Yeah, that's a, it's a really good question. Well, I would say, I would definitely not recommend anybody follow my example. I would say I'm a terrible role model for that. Maybe I'm actually the poster child poster child for how not to do it, actually, because my mistakes centered around this fictional idea that having at all meant sacrificing any semblance of balanced life. I mean, really, honestly, for many, many years, that's how it was. I didn't have any work life balance. And I, you know I took over night flights to New York so that I could tuck my kids in bed in the evening. I slept on planes and then I would go straight into the meeting after a shower first thing the next morning. And I was trying to be everywhere to every everything for everyone. And I didn't have any time left over at all for myself, little time at all for anything. So, I feel like for women in particular, but I think for men, too, if you feel like you have to have a traditional job and you know, best to seek out companies that provide more, more of a balanced life, work life through either flexible schedules or paid leave policies or remote working now. This is huge now. I mean, many companies considering it on a permanent basis or hybrid work at a minimum, you know, and more and more are offering those options, especially because of that. And, you know, it's also important to realize that traditional jobs aren't the only way to have a career, you know there are so many more ways now to monetize and productize your skills and talents without having to align with the kind of, that very structured, corporate demanding traditional work. So, I would recommend people consider all of their options. You know, work takes so many forms today. Independent work can even be much more lucrative than traditional jobs nowadays.
Madeline: [00:20:41] That's really, that's really good advice and one of the other topics that when we talk about personal and professional life is re-entering the workforce after maybe you've taken away, a step away for a period of time. Can you speak to that a little bit? Because I know a lot of women have a hesitancy when they re-enter the workforce to think, am I going to be up to the challenge or are my skills still relevant and etc., etc. So, what advice might you have for our listeners who are finding themselves in that position?
Laura Marella: [00:21:15] Yeah, this is I think the biggest issue, honestly. I think it's the biggest problem of corporate culture in particular. But work in general, like it's pretty amazing that at some point nearly everybody needs some time to take away from work to deal with either a serious personal or family health condition as I did, and I needed to step away from work for an extended period of time for those reasons or to bond with a child. I had four children in the space of five years. Yeah, pretty crazy. I'm a very slow learner. But still, with all of this, the number, I think it's less than 20 percent of companies, private industry, corporations or employees have access to paid family leave. I didn't have it when I had my four children. And it was terrible. I mean, it was you know, I had to go back to work right away. And I was doing the whole traveling with the breast pump thing and finding bathrooms to step into express my milk and the whole crazy world of you know. And as my kids grew, I was working at the wee hours of the morning and the wee hours of night when they were asleep so that I could still spend the time with them. I mean, I think women worry or I did worry so much about taking off and probably for good reason because, you know, there's a big career disruption issues for women, very well studied and very well documented that women who leave the workforce to raise a child or to care for someone often face a really severe downward career trajectory or wage penalties or literally can't re-enter the workforce. But I believe this is not just a women's issue. This is a men's issue. This is something we've got to solve and also, interestingly, the ability to get back into the workforce or the difficulties of getting back into the workforce has been a big driver for the gig economy. You know, people seek gig workers as basically people who have taken on extra job or extra income. And maybe it started off that way. But actually, two thirds of workers actually choose to leave their traditional jobs or choose gig work, so that they can have that work life balance and the flexibility that they need when they want to take care of their children, when they take need to take care of someone else in the family. So, you know, again, this is another one of those things the pandemic has accelerated, you know the learning curve regarding the importance of work life balance. And all of that has just broadened tremendously. And I think it's a great opportunity for women to continue their careers without the stressors of that unbalanced corporate life.
Madeline: [00:24:18] Yeah, and that was going to be my next question, which is, I think probably the workforce was definitely changing before the pandemic, but the pandemic has definitely accelerated, I think a lot of people have thought a lot about, OK, you know, just being away from the office like, am I really, is this really the life that I want to be leading in my career? So, for our listeners who maybe aren't all that familiar with the term gig economy and what that actually looks like and are there a lot of workers actually in that space and how can I survive in that space? Can you speak a little bit to what it is and your experience with it?
Laura Marella: [00:24:51] So, yes, the gig economy is a very broad term. So, it involves basically anyone who works in a flexible or independent workspace. So, instead of working for a corporation, for a specific company, for the government, they are independent contractors, and they take a lot of different forms. So, this can be things like public facing services like Uber or Care.com. Or many, many others. There are a number of them. But my experience specifically with the gig economy is an independent strategic consultant. So independent consultants, these are people who most of whom have worked just as I did in corporate environments and worked with clients and perhaps with agencies that have decided to work independently, have their own businesses and basically do the same kind of work, but do it on their own terms, and most of the people who do this kind of work, they love it because it allows them to have that flexibility and the independence to schedule your work around your non-working priorities. They love being able to choose how they work and what they work on and who they work with. And it's really quite liberating in so many ways. But, you know, sometimes they don't realize that it's also somewhat isolating. You have to, you have to balance it off because work has, corporate environments have that social aspect to them that sometimes being a gig worker doesn't have.
Madeline: [00:26:34] That's a great segue into talking about the very exciting business that you have co-founded and that is launching in 2021, April. So, can you tell us what is Overflow and what was the catalyst for you starting the business?
Laura Marella: [00:26:48] Yeah, so Overflow, the catalyst. So, we basically started this from our own personal experience. Like almost all entrepreneurs, Rocio Hernandez and Jeanene Kroetch and I, we're all corporate escapees and independent and strategists. And we loved that life. We love the solopreneur life. We love all of those freedoms that I just kind of mentioned. But when we started talking about the vision for Overflow, we basically did what a lot of entrepreneurs do and they said, OK, we love this, but how can it be better? What are my pain points? What are the things I struggle with every day? And we saw, we saw it even then we saw this growth of the gig economy. But this is pre-Covid. So, it hadn't really taken off the way that it has now. And we saw all of these platforms that have been created to kind of recognize the growth of that commerce that was flying through gig workers and independent workers. I mean, sorry, and corporations. So, companies like Fiverr and Upwork, and they were all kind of capturing that transfer of commerce between them. But over time, what we saw was and what we experienced is that those platforms have the effect of commoditizing, independent workers and commoditization is never good for the profitability of the supplier. And it's especially not good for something with intangible value, like strategic consulting services. I mean, a widget maybe, I don't know. But strategic service is not good. So, being strategist's, we sat down, and we basically created our business model around those pain points the consultants have and we created the service that answered all those pain points. So, there were basically three of them, I can touch on them quickly, if you want.
Madeline: [00:28:46] Yeah, please do.
Laura Marella: [00:28:49] So, one is that even though you want to be independent, it doesn't mean you want to be alone. And that isolation that I was talking about and strategists have always worked in a collaborative way. They need an easy way to collaborate with not just other strategists, but also with other collaborators, creatives and analysts and people in other marketing subspecialties. That's how we do our work. So, we solve that challenge because when you're an independent, you don't have that bench strength accessible to you, so our platform creates a Collab, is what we call it, where our members have access to all the rest of the members, other consultants, collaborators, clients, all of those resources that they have from a human standpoint that are in the community and that can fill those voids for them. And they also provide you with learning and training, the things that you, it's almost like being in a corporate environment, but not the politics. You're still independent. Secondly, the independent consultants waste a ton of time on trying to get resources like research in particular. All the big agencies, all the corporations, they all have databases, social listening tools, case studies, research reports, things that strategists need as validity for their work, if you will. And they don't have access to them because they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, we actually buy those resources on behalf of all of the membership and then we make them available to the membership at affordable price, just for an individual, so very small, very low cost to them. So that helps inform their work and helps their win rates and grow their business a lot easier. And then the third area is a business building issue. So, we all have a lot of IP or intellectual property that we create. We create white papers, we create tools, we create workshops and training, and all of those things are available, we have them to sell, but there's no place to sell them. So, we're creating a marketplace for us, for our consultants, our consulting members to basically sell those products to clients.
[00:30:59] We call, you can tell we're not creatives, it's called "the market." And that's a third area where consultants can develop passive income streams. So, again, it helps them with that work life balance. They don't have to constantly; they don't have to constantly work to earn. They can create a product, put it in the marketplace and sell it even when they're sleeping.
Madeline: [00:31:26] Right. So, that could actually create a passive income stream. If it's out there, if it's on your desktop, right, it's not going to be used in the economy.
Laura Marella: [00:31:33] Collecting dust.
Madeline: [00:31:35] Right. Exactly.
Laura Marella: [00:31:37] And that's what you need so that you don't have to constantly, you know your income isn't tied to how many hours you work.
Madeline: [00:31:43] Yeah, that's a really great idea. And it's interesting because I haven't seen something like this out there in the space.
Laura Marella: [00:31:50] Either have we.
Madeline: [00:31:51] Yeah. I mean, it's really, I know it feels like I've just never seen anything like this, which obviously you're solving a need that is out there. So, for our listeners who are thinking about you know perhaps are strategists and who are thinking about maybe taking the leap on their own, they could join Overflow to be able to have access to all of these resources to not be alone.
Laura Marella: [00:32:17] Right.
Madeline: [00:32:17] To have access to the research tools and then to be able to have the IP, you know, making income for them, for their business.
Laura Marella: [00:32:25] Correct. Well, you summarized it much better than I did now, although I just think it's such a great idea.
Madeline: [00:32:33] So, can you tell us a little bit about the types of the clients and sort of what your mission is? I know you have sort of an indie focus and.
Laura Marella: [00:32:44] Yeah, oh, so are you are you talking about the mission of the company overall?
Madeline: [00:32:49] Yeah, yeah.
Laura Marella: [00:32:50] So, our mission is to grow the businesses of our community. I mean, it's really that simple. Beyond that, we also are a public benefit corporation, and we are looking to help grow the B economy is what they call it. It's basically a stakeholder economy that we're looking to grow, that's a community of businesses that are as committed to social impact and an environmental impact.
Madeline: [00:33:18] And I know when I was looking at your website, you talk a lot about the growth of purpose driven work. Can you speak to that just a little bit and the benefits of that?
Laura Marella: [00:33:29] Yes, so purpose driven work has been actually around for quite some time. A lot of corporations have embraced purpose driven work, but I think it's evolving well beyond that now. So, what it's really come from ultimately is from something called stakeholder capitalism. So, have you ever heard of stakeholder capitalism?
Madeline: [00:33:54] You know, I have not.
Laura Marella: [00:33:56] Okay, so stakeholder capitalism is, it's a free market model. It’s an economic model. It's been around for decades and expands on the mission of business. So, normally business is driven to serve shareholders, the people who own the corporations, people who own the stock. But stakeholder capitalism serves not just the shareholders, but also the stakeholders. So, by stakeholders, it means its customers, its suppliers, its workers and the communities. So, another wards, shareholder capitalism very much about shareholder value and always kind of as the biggest priority at possibly at the expense of other factors like environment and worker compensation and social issues and in comparison, stakeholder capitalism kind of takes a longer term view of the company's purpose and their impact, from both a profit standpoint, they're not, you know they are for profit companies, but also from a stakeholder standpoint. And they call it the double bottom line.
Madeline: [00:35:01] And so in terms of just like the importance of tapping into both personal and professional communities to support your career, it seems like you are creating sort of a marketplace for that.
Laura Marella: [00:35:19] We are.
Madeline: [00:35:20] Can you speak to that a little bit and how you've seen that in action and how powerful that is?
Laura Marella: [00:35:25] Yeah, I think this is just, again, whether your part, whether you're an independent worker or you work as part of an organization, professional networks are tremendously beneficial. I mean, I would recommend them to everyone because, you know, you might first of all, there's so many. You have to proactively seek them out usually. I mean, you might be invited into them, but they're so supportive, not only as a social outlet, but support for your business, your career. There are literally countless professional communities. Social communities support communities, really serving every industry, every interest, every archetype of individual. You know, most of them are free or have very nominal costs. And, you know, they can help you to continue to grow your network of clients, help you to grow your skills, help you to obtain resources very cost efficiently, even grow your business. And that really was at the essence of what we wanted to create, obviously. But they exist out there, not so many of them exist in the totality that we do, but they each maybe pick off different pieces of it, these ecosystems, and they kind of grow by referral and their organic word of mouth. So, reach out to friends and colleagues who you've, you know, maybe have also gone independent or in the career that you're in and find ones that have helped them. And then it's remarkable. Once you've joined one of those communities, they usually have partnerships and ties with other ones. And soon you'll have access to a huge support network of peers and coaches and maybe even some new friends.
Madeline: [00:37:12] Definitely, and I think I mean, not just for women, for everybody, it's so important to have that support and sense of community and I think we are really, frankly, missing a lot of it during the pandemic. And a lot of it has gone online because of, you know, just the in-person aspect of a lot of this just doesn't exist. So, I think the growing importance of the online community, I think really can't even be overstated.
Laura Marella: [00:37:36] Yeah, It's enabled it. So, it's so much easier now. I mean, before you used to have to, they were kind of limited to geographies. And, you know, believe me, I love the in person. You know, I don't connect through zoom well. I really don't.
Madeline: [00:37:52] We know how it all goes. It's so hard.
Laura Marella: [00:37:54] Yeah, I do, but I you know. But I really love people. I love meeting them in person. So, but it is nice because you can meet people from everywhere, you know, and then just, you know, pick up your cup of coffee at the same time. It's just great.
Madeline: [00:38:10] Yeah, Becca and I have been joking around that we're never going to say no to another invitation to do anything ever for the rest of our lives during and after this. So, I just want to note for our listeners that we will link Overflow in our show notes so if you're a strategist and you want to check it out and will you have social media pages too like, probably I'm assuming LinkedIn and Instagram?
Laura Marella: [00:38:37] We will. Yeah, I personally do. Laura Marella. And both of my partners do as well. Our company LinkedIn isn't up yet, but it will be soon.
Madeline: [00:38:46] That's great. So, as we sort of shift into our last segment here, which is something we talk to all of our guests about, which is you know as you sort of sit here and reflect on self-confidence, because that's our mission of our podcast. So, can you tell us just how have you developed self-confidence over the course of your career? What has given you confidence as you sort of reflect back on it?
Laura Marella: [00:39:12] So, yeah, I think when I was first starting out in my career, it really wasn't so much confidence that I had as just the absence of fear. I was kind of like a toddler learning to walk. And I had no clue how I was going to do it. But it seemed kind of natural that I was just going to figure it out somehow. But I think confidence as you get older and you start learning and you unlearn that absence of fear comes in, I think that first, I don't think confidence is really anything we have. I think it's something we do. And the best way for me to explain that is like when you're faced with something that you've never done before and maybe you're questioning whether you have the ability to do it, look at the situation and kind of scan it for similarities with other things you've done already in your past, maybe other obstacles that you've overcome or skills that you've already mastered. And when you do that, when you recognize the similarities to your previous successes, that will give you the confidence that you can do it again in this situation. It's one of the things that I think when I've come up against new learning and things that maybe make me less certain. But to me, the biggest contributor to my own self-confidence is conviction. And conviction gives me the capacity to remain confident, even in the face of adversity or uncertainty. So, for example, I am about to bootstrap this new business venture. I'm using a technology platform that isn't functioning yet and is being created. You know, marketing this to clients we don't have yet. The business offering and the model has never been proven before to sustain a business. But I can tell you honestly, I have never been so confident in my entire career. And it's because I've seen the things that my partners and I have done in our past that we've already mastered. And I have full conviction that we are creating something that will benefit our members. So, to me, the best way to develop confidence or not to have confidence, to develop confidence is to build it from your past successes and from conviction for what you're doing.
Becca: [00:41:56] We hope you enjoyed our interview with Laura. You can learn more about Overflow on their website, Weareoverflow.com. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed our podcast hit subscribe and leave us a review. Thank you always to our home team of friends and family for supporting us in our mission. This episode was produced and edited by Madeline and Becca Thanks for tuning in. And remember, you are somebody.