A conversation with Ali Glaser, a visionary leader, dynamic educator and strategic partner. Ali has dedicated her career to nurturing potential in everyone she encounters.
Ali is an executive coach who supports her clients in deepening their self-awareness, strengthening their personal and professional relationships and optimizing their individual and organizational performance. She has a particular passion for supporting individuals in achieving optimal work-life balance, ensuring they are well equipped to navigate challenges, and prepared to seize opportunities for growth.
Ali shared that her parents did a really good job of not making money a point of stress while she was growing up. She started working at a young age: babysitting when she was 12 years old; a shift at McDonalds when she was 14 years old; summers spent as a camp counselor. It was important to her to have independence in the form of her own spending money.
At the age of 24, Ali graduated with a Masters in Social Work and entered the non-profit sector. She had always been mission driven, but found herself less drawn to clinical social work than she had anticipated. Instead, her business acumen and leadership skills drew her to be an administrator, to develop programs, to lead teams and organizations, but in service of a mission - not in service of a profit.
In addition to her work in the social service sector, Ali is an adjunct professor and runs a coaching practice, focused on leadership development. She was able to complete two coaching certifications during the pandemic, when the classes shifted to being on zoom rather than requiring her to travel across the country. Ali counts herself lucky in that she has three jobs and she loves them all!
"That's something that I am really passionate about helping people with. How do I bring my best self to work? How do I bring my best self to my family or to my friends or to whatever it is? My children, whatever it is, that's important to me, whatever I'm involved with, how do I show up engaged, energized, confident? That's really at the core of how and what I coach people around." - Ali Glaser
Key takeaways:
- Rather than work-life balance, focus on self-care and burnout prevention. Ali is passionate about helping people bring their best selves to their work and to their families, to what they consider important. In order to show up the way we want to show up, she encourages us to ask ourselves: do I have enough energy? Am I getting enough sleep? Am I eating right?
- Set boundaries in your life. In order to make sure she is able to show up engaged, energized and confident, Ali is very intentional with her morning routine. She makes sure she gets at least 7 hours of sleep, She carves out quiet time and alone time, as well as time to workout and move her body.
- Manage your energy rather than your time. Identify the activities in your life that give you energy, and invest your time in them. Ali knows that being with her girlfriends gives her energy. She makes a point of coordinating get togethers with friends, even calling from the car to check in when she’s commuting. As she put it, one of these days the job will no longer be here, your family structure will change, but the relationships you invest in will endure.
About the guest:
Ali is an executive coach who supports her clients in deepening their self-awareness, strengthening their personal and professional relationships and optimizing their individual and organizational performance. She has a particular passion for supporting individuals in achieving optimal work-life balance, ensuring they are well equipped to navigate challenges, and prepared to seize opportunities for growth. Ali brings a level of energy and passion along with 25 years of experience as a non-profit executive and 16 years as a professor of social work to her coaching practice.
Linkedin:- https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliglaser/
Facebook:- https://www.facebook.com/AliGlaserExecutivePerformance
Website:- https://www.aliglaser.com/
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Ali Glaser: That's something that I am really passionate about helping people with. How do I bring my best self to work? How do I bring my best self to my family or to my friends or to whatever it is? My children, whatever it is, that's important to me, whatever I'm involved with, how do I show up engaged, energized, confident, that's really at the core of how and what I coach people around.
Welcome to making change with your money, a podcast that highlights the stories and strategies of women who experienced a big life transition and overcame challenges as they redefined financial success for themselves.
Now, here's your host, certified financial planner, Laura Rotter.
Laura Rotter: I am so excited to have as my guest today, Ali Glaser. Ali is an executive coach who supports her clients in deepening their self awareness, strengthening their personal and professional relationships. and optimizing their individual and organizational performance. She has a particular passion for supporting individuals in achieving optimal work life balance, ensuring they're well equipped to navigate challenges and prepared to seize opportunities for growth.
Ali brings 25 years of experience as a nonprofit executive and 16 years as a professor of social work to her coaching practice. So welcome Ali to the Making Change With Your Money podcast.
Ali Glaser: Well, thank you, Laura. It's great to be here.
Laura Rotter: So I'm excited about our conversation. My first question, which I ask all my guests is what was money like in your family growing up?
Ali Glaser: Interestingly, I never knew how well or not so well my parents did. I didn't know salaries. I didn't hear stress about money, but I also grew up fairly Modest for a middle class neighborhood. So money was not necessarily talked about in, it was very neutral. I would say it was, it wasn't a stress point per se.
And if it was, my parents did a really good job of not making it my stress.
Laura Rotter: Which is wonderful. You're very lucky. I think you're not unique in that you sort of, it wasn't talked about. I think that's true for a lot of people, but some people may feel more stress when they were growing up.
Ali Glaser: Yeah. And I, I look backwards and at one point I remember I want to say, I thank my parents.
I know I'm appreciative, but I looked back like when I was in college, like they really took care of me. They like, I was very, very lucky in that regard. And if I wanted to go out to dinner, I went out to dinner, but I didn't take advantage. So I think the fact that. We were raised with good values about money, you know, not overspending, not living above your means.
Laura Rotter: I mean, did you, do you have memories of, of working through high school? Did you work through college or that was something that you just took it for granted?
Ali Glaser: Oh, no, we, I started working as a babysitter at like 12 years old. And then my first job was at McDonald's and I was 14. Yup. I was 14. I worked there until. I was, I think, at least 16, or maybe just when I turned 17, I worked at camps over the summer as a counselor. I was always earning money, never probably to the extent of what, you know, my parents, how my parents supported me, but I always had money, both from, um, wanting to be financially... Like have some independence if I'm spending money relative to my age, right?
So at 16 or 17, whatever that looked like I remember that when I started dating someone who lived in New York I had to start paying my own phone bill because at that time We didn't, you know, it wasn't just unlimited family plan minutes the way it is now with cell phones. It was every call I made cost money and however long I stayed on the phone cost more money.
So I remember my parents saying, this is a lovely relationship you're in, but it's very expensive. And so the money that you're making, you need to start paying toward your, your portion of the phone bill.
Laura Rotter: That's so interesting. I don't remember that. Right. So were you, did you grow up in New Jersey?
Ali Glaser: So that I grew up in central New Jersey.
Laura Rotter: It's a different state with a boyfriend. Yes.
Ali Glaser: And it costs, it was a, it was an expensive phone bill back in, back in the late eighties
Laura Rotter:. So did you go to college locally or did you go away
Ali Glaser: to school? I, I went away to Penn state. And what's so interesting when we talk about it from a financial perspective, again, where I was saying earlier, my parents.
They paid for me to go to an out of state school. It never ever came up. They paid everything up, you know, for my college life for four years. And I raised a son with my husband who is now at in college. And we were very clear with him that he was not going to go to an out of state school. And if he pressed the issue, then he would be paying whatever we had budgeted for an in state school for him. We spent years and years and years saving money for him so that he would be free and clear when he got out of college. That's our gift to him. But because we, we value not leaving college with debt. And so it would have been not something that we wished him for him if he had, but he, he came around and, uh, you know, there, there were a few debates and, and a few good arguments made by him.
He got, he got into a lot of schools. I wouldn't have asked him to apply to them, but he, he applied to them on his own. We were very, very proud of him, but we were also like, well, now you've put us in a situation where we're having a battle over something that we didn't necessarily plan. So, I think all of that is to say that we work really hard to live within our means and we live modestly in order to do that as best we can.
Laura Rotter: And what a gift, Ali, that you and your husband are, you know, did make your son be aware that it is a gift to graduate without student loan. And I think my kids took it for granted. And then when they realized that their friends had a lot of loans, they were very thankful that, you know, we were able to pay for their college and that, that was not a burden that they graduated with.
Ali Glaser: That's right. I, I learned a lot from my parents growing up about money, about, you know, what to do, what not to do, what to value, what to, you know, what's important. And, uh, and I learned some of that from direct, directly from them, like things that they shared and said, but, but more than that, I think just the things that, you know, I didn't get a brand new car on my 17th birthday. I lived in a neighborhood where a lot of kids did, and I didn't feel entitled to, but I did get a car, but it was an old used car. It was lovely. It was my first car. It was money that we had saved from, for my parents had saved for many, many years, money that came to me as gifts that they had put in an account. And, and then it was half, half of it was money that was from my McDonald's fund and my babysitting fund. So, and I felt really good. And to this day, I feel good saying that I bought my first car, you know, I bought it.
Laura Rotter: And it's interesting that we started off this conversation with you saying that, you know, your parents didn't talk about money and yet it's very clear that they communicated their values around money to you, whether or not it was a sit down conversation, but you, you watch their behavior and what was important.
Ali Glaser: The values were most definitely instilled by how we lived and how, you know, things that they allowed, didn't allow, expected, didn't expect, but they were very, very generous. And that goes to that point I was making at the beginning, like when I went to college and I had their credit card, if I wanted to buy a sweatshirt with my sorority letters I didn't have to call home first, or I didn't get a call saying you're abusing the credit card. So I don't think I abused it, but I definitely had some privilege there, for sure. So yeah, my parents did a great job with that.
Laura Rotter: So when you graduated from college, what were you drawn to doing? And did, you know, finances play into the first job you took after college.
Ali Glaser: Well, I, I went into the nonprofit sector right away that I, I graduated with a master's in social work.
Laura Rotter: You did a BA and a master's.
Ali Glaser: I did a, yeah, I did two degrees back to back. So by 24 years old, I had my master's in social work, so I wasn't looking to. You know, make a million dollars. Not that I would, wouldn't want to, but it wasn't, it wasn't going to be in the cards, um, going into, but I was just very mission driven, mission focused. And it's the, the profession just spoke to me. It started out as like in middle school, I want to be a marriage counselor so that I can eradicate divorce across the country as a child of divorce.
That was the original thought was I can go into a profession where I could help families so that there wouldn't be divorce as there were as there was. So as I experienced, I should say so. Then I met a social worker at a career fair, came into like our eighth grade career day and She was also doing a type of social work that didn't have any interest for me Which she was doing like child protective services, which is amazing work, but not something I saw myself doing But again, that's where that professional aspect of, you know, meeting a professional in social work started for me as well.
And, and all through high school, I just, I went into peer counseling. I did all of the clubs that aspiring social workers want to do. I did that in college as well. I went in all the clubs and did all of those kinds of internships and volunteer opportunities that were very social service in nature. And I just knew.
And then what happened as well was the clinical aspect of social work, which is what drew me in, wasn't really where my skills and heart were, and I learned through a friend who was several years older who was going to Rutgers Public Health, Masters in Public Health at the time, and I was a junior in college and he showed me the MSW program at Rutgers and which I now teach in all these years later, right?
And as soon as I saw there's a clinical track, there's a policy track, and then there's an administrative track. And as soon as I saw the administrative track, I'm like, that's it. I am someone who has this mission focus, wanting to be in the social service sector, and yet I've got some business savvy and some business acumen and leadership skills that I want to utilize, and that's where it came together for me.
I can do, I can be an administrator, I could develop programs, I could lead teams and organizations, but I can do it in service of a mission and not in service of a profit.
Laura Rotter: So, Ali, help me to understand how you knew as a junior in college that you had business skills as well as leadership skills.
Ali Glaser: Business skills, I would say I had an interest in so I think that I just knew I liked program design. How do we we have funding to do something? We need to help people. How are we going to turn that into a program? In a community that people can benefit from. I had that always.
Laura Rotter: So you're sort of a big picture.
Ali Glaser: Yeah, big picture. And then tactical in terms of like getting it off the ground and running. But, but yeah, that's the, I've been doing that my whole career. Leadership skills. I want to give credit to, I was in a youth organization, B’nei Brith Youth Organization growing up, it is. It's an amazing to this day and a big part of our lives, an amazing organization that brings young teens together throughout high school and teaches them leadership skills.
It's fun. My best friends are from that organization. My husband and I met in that organization. It is social. It is spiritual. It is whatever you want it to be. But if you choose to be a leader in that organization, you will develop skills that will take you through the rest of your life. And I see that in myself, my husband.
I see that in my son, who was in that program throughout high school and is still involved in it as a college student and his leadership skills came. In large part as mine did from that organization.
Laura Rotter: Thank you for explaining that. I never knew I've heard of the organization, but I didn't know that they have… And is that something you volunteer to be part of sort of the leadership training or they identify?
Ali Glaser: I think those that wish to sort of, I mean, everything's elected. You become elected by your peers to serve in different. In different roles, so there's chapter roles and then you graduate to a regional role and that, you know, there's just lots of opportunities.
And there are a lot of programs that are specifically to help develop those skills, the leadership component and. I think those of us who are drawn to it, there's an opportunity to become leaders and to learn how to lead, even at such a young age. And then there are those that want to join it just for social, and that's fine.
And, you know, there's something in that organization for everyone, but I can see. So much of my development started as a leader, as an adolescent in that program, for sure.
Laura Rotter: Thank you for sharing that. So, you graduated from college, you were not looking for a clinical role, I take it. So, what path did you take as you graduated?
Ali Glaser: I immediately got a job. I, my first job was at Big Brothers Big Sisters at their national office. I was doing program development. So I, you don't start out leading the organization at 24 years old with a master's, right? But I didn't go into that clinical route. I went into where I learned how to write grant proposals to get funding, how to write grants.
Yeah, that was my first job. My first title was grants manager before I became program development, something or other. And so, once you learn that, that helps you to find funding to then run programs eventually. It's still part of my job right now, uh, all these years later, so yeah, and then, and then I would administer programs with funding that we received to, to affiliates throughout the country.
And then I moved into another role in another organization where we were running statewide programs. We were, I was very much involved in youth mentoring and youth development work. And so we were, I became a trainer and so I would train organizations, I would train businesses on how to roll out programs to have their employees volunteer who wish to volunteer to volunteer while they were at work for local schools and we would build school business partnerships. So I trained the businesses. I trained the volunteers, the school personnel on how to implement these programs and and have a program where they can support kids who needed support with through partnerships with these business and these employees who would come out on their lunch time and, and get to volunteer.
And so that led to running a, in another organization, running an education department where it's a team of educators and trainers. And so, uh, I've been sort of involved in program implementation, program development and, and leading teams for most of my career at this point. And it's. incredibly fulfilling.
Laura Rotter: I can hear it in the passion in your voice as you talk about it. Ali, what would you say we've talked about that you have leadership skills and that you're a big picture person, though you also pointed out that you're tactical. So what would you say are the skills that you brought to, you mentioned a bunch of diverse roles, and do you have roles that are your favorite? You know, that you gravitate towards.
Ali Glaser: Yeah. Well, the coaching business that I started two years ago is my passion. I happen to be passionate about a lot of things. You know, I, I, I always joke around cause there's a panel at one of the local colleges that has over the years asked me to serve as a panelist for a careers in social work or social services, social work, I guess, and I would start my portion of the presentation by saying, I have three jobs and I love them all, right?
So, um, I, you know, because I have my, my work in the social service sector. And then I, I started teaching many, many years ago. So I've been an adjunct professor for the last 16 years. And then two years ago, I started my business. So not many people love even the one job that they have. Right.
Laura Rotter: I was going to say most people like, Oh my God, I'm miserable.
What do I do?
Ali Glaser: So I, and that's why I'm so passionate in my coaching work, which focuses on leadership development for the most part. But. Really, really, really passionate about helping individuals achieve work life balance and helping leaders to have an organizational culture that supports that and for themselves, but also for their teams, because it's the leaders in the organization that set that culture, that tone, that's their role, and so they both have to have it for themselves, you know, practice what they preach, talk the talk, right? But it's, it's leaders responsibility in an organization. To ensure that they're building the culture that they want for their employees.
Laura Rotter: I'm curious. So you started your coaching business two years ago around, right? The pet, you know, during, during the pandemic around the pandemic. First of all, how was that tied? Was there some sort of catalyst from the pandemic that, that you felt like this is the time and certainly discussions about work life balance, and it's an interesting term. I don't know if it's really a hundred percent exists, but certainly these discussions have become a lot louder since the pandemic.
So what the impact has been both on your individual choice and how you approach the work?
Ali Glaser: Yeah, well, I think the pandemic allowed me to take. A lot of courses online, which were much more accessible. So, it's very expensive to take all of the coursework and travel on top of that. And so, I didn't have to worry about traveling to four and five different, you know, four day courses across the country, right? I could just take, take them over a long weekend on Zoom.
Laura Rotter: And these are coaching certifications?
Ali Glaser: Yep. So I have two coaching certifications, two different programs that I was a part of. One focuses on executive coaching and leadership coaching. And the other was a more generic, amazing program. It includes executive coaching skills, but also folks who do life coaching and other kinds of coaching participate in that program.
And so I did both and both offered me a variety of skills and competencies. And Love that I got to do that, but it would have been less accessible and it would have been probably a lot longer of a period of time over which I would have completed the coursework because much of it's self paced. You could sign up every other week or you could sign up every other month.
And some people, it takes three years. It just depends. And I, I was very motivated to kind of, and also very. Just enamored by what I was learning and couldn't wait to dig into the next course and kept signing up for the next one and the next one. And so I, I, I, you know, so it took about a year start to finish to get my certifications and all the coaching.
You have to do hundreds of hours of coaching. As well. So all of that, uh, and then I was ready to launch my business. And so it was, that's, it's exciting. It's great fun.
Laura Rotter: And then the concept of work life balance, what's your experience of how that discussion has shifted? Yeah.
Ali Glaser: Well, for me, it was always about self care and burnout prevention, probably more so than work life balance.
Those, those are the trainings that I was doing long before I became a coach. But now I incorporate all of that into working with each of my clients. So I think that what I learned during the pandemic certainly was it was interesting because I did some seminars on. on burnout prevention during the pandemic.
And specifically, I did a lot of them online. So, folks, because there was, it was so pervasive. And I'll share with you that in advance of one of those sessions that I had offered to do, I put out a thing on Facebook, very unofficial, very unscientific, but just said, Hey, for an upcoming presentation I'm doing, I want to know what are all of your self care challenges.
And I got comment after comment after comment. People had so many self care challenges and then a few nights later, I said, now I want to hear, what are your self care strategies? What are you doing to help yourself around self care or to prevent it or to not prevent burnout, but to, you know, work on your self care?
And I got a third. Of the responses. So, so, so many more people had so much more to say about what they were challenged by. And yet, when I asked, well, how, what are you doing that you could share with someone else? That would be a great strategy. And I certainly got, you know, people for walks and doing all sorts of things.
Right? But it was also interesting because then in the training that I did, I put the, some of the responses side by side, like, some people were overworked. And some people were out of work and some people were, they were on zoom all day. They didn't have time to eat. That was their challenge. I can't even find time for a meal.
And other people were like, I have so much time on my hands now. All I'm doing is eating. I'm overeating. And so it, but what was most noteworthy was that people were struggling with it.
Laura Rotter: I mean, I certainly saw in, um, My own adult children that suddenly not having a separation between the office and the house, you know, they'd wake up and immediately grab the computer while they were in bed and start working.
And it was really very, very stressful and no ability to interact with. Peers and coworkers to, you know, unless you made an effort to reach out to someone to find out that, you know, they're struggling with the same thing, or they're having the same experience with the team leader or something. There was just no normalizing because you're sort of alone in your apartment, which I was really, really a hard situation.
And I think really back to the idea of work life balance. Let alone burnout, what work life balance when everything's taking place,
Ali Glaser: You know, I think it was about boundaries. So there were a lot of folks who were, who were in organizations like leaders of organizations were also in a crisis mode. Not only were they, as we all were in a bit of a crisis around what's happening in our, in our world right now and what is this going to look like and how do we safely move about our lives, right? But also lots of I remember a lot of extra meetings and, you know, strategy meetings and all sorts of extra things happening because we were experiencing something so profound. But yet we were also trying to continue to. Do our jobs and serve the people in our communities that we were meant to serve and do the work, but we, we had the overlay of, we're running an organization in an unprecedented situation and we have to, we have to work on that.
And so there's that. And then there's what you described of setting those boundaries or not setting those boundaries. Around when work and home life, personal life kind of just blended together for so many people, and that's something that I am really passionate about helping people with. How do I bring my best self to work?
How do I bring my best self to my family or to my friends, or to whatever it is, my children, whatever it is that's important to me. Whatever I'm involved with, how do I show up engaged, energized, confident that's really at the core of how and what I coach people around.
Laura Rotter: Ali, I'm feeling drawn to ask you as someone who I know you got on this call and said you had just been away for a business conference and you have a podcast tomorrow and you started your own business while you continue your existing roles. How do you create appropriate boundaries in your life and what? Self care routines. Have you instituted to help you?
Ali Glaser: I do a number of things. So I I know I have a sense of awareness about what I need in order to show up engaged, energized, confident. In my life. And so I'm very intentional about incorporating those things into my life.
One of them is simply, I don't do well if I don't get seven hours of sleep every night. So I sometimes have to negotiate with myself. If all of a sudden I've found myself staying up too late, watching a show or reading a book, or I got home from a meeting and I was all wired and I couldn't get myself to sleep.
Then I look at my alarm clock. I don't set it for the same time. I'll adjust it because I'll say, what do I have to do differently in the morning? So that I can get the seven hours. It doesn't it's not an exact science doesn't happen seven nights a week, but I'm intentional about it. I'm aware of what I need, and I'm intentional about making it happen.
So that's something that's really important to me. I start every morning with as much quiet and alone time as my schedule allows for an hour is lovely. Sometimes. Because of maybe I went to bed too late. It's 30 minutes, but I am very intentional about my morning routine So after I get hopefully enough sleep I also wake up and I I make tea and I just sit very quietly I out I'd love to go outdoors to do that with now that the weather's nice and I just I'm just there I just be I exist and I give myself that time before I want to put my music on and start my day and kind of get moving It's so it's so that's part of my routine.
I then work out. I then every morning, again, as many mornings as possible. And I do strive for six or seven of them a week. Um, I do a workout. I'm kinder with myself 50 than I was at 30 with what constitutes a really good workout. Sometimes it's just, did I stretch? Did I do a few pushups? Like just to get the blood flowing.
And ideally it's a much longer, you know, more strenuous workout that I enjoy. I do like cardio activity and I do like, you know, I like a lot of different variety in the gym and in working out. And so that's shifted as, as I've gotten older, that definitely has shifted in terms of what feels like a good workout at 50 feels different than it did years ago.
But anyway, so I do all of those things usually between 5-8 in the morning, you know, that waking up, having the alone time, having my tea and then slowly kind of like, all right, time to work out time to all of that starts my day. So by the time I show up at work, I've really taken care of myself in the morning.
Laura Rotter: I love that. Everything you said resonated with me, though. It sounds like you must go to bed relatively early.
Ali Glaser: If I do, I do by 10 o'clock. If I'm not lights out, then none of those things happen the way I want.
Laura Rotter: I mean, uh, I also have discovered, I mean, in my previous career, I just never got enough sleep. I was constantly sleep deprived and I really strive to get eight hours of sleep each night, though, as I've gotten older, I don't get it, but I, I know that I probably need closer to nine hours sleep though.
I go to bed a lot later than you. Well, not a lot later, but generally between 11 and 1130, but I. walk my dog in the morning, I meditate, I journal, I exercise. So I have a late start to the day, which for better or for worse, sometimes translates into a later end my day. I haven't, I haven't figured out the bookends.
I figured out the morning, the evening has been a little bit more of a challenge, but I, it's a trade off that's worthwhile to me. I don't want to like slam into my inbox and, and the news first thing in the morning, I need some separation.
Ali Glaser: And that's a shift that I've made and that's a shift I've made as I've gotten older and it's a shift I've made as I've become more intentional about what I need and how I'm going to do all of the things that I like to do and want to do in a given day because it's really more about managing your energy.
The time is finite. Everyone has the same 24 hours, right? But how we what kind of energy we bring. So it's really more energy management than time management is in terms of how I look at it. So I need to manage. All of those things in order to, to, you know, you mentioned like a busy schedule. I, I do keep a busy schedule, but I also like a lot of downtime too.
And so what happens for me is on the weekends, I kind of shut it all down. I don't see clients. I rarely have work to do on the weekends. Um, I might be doing some business development, but to me, that's super fun. So, and then there are weekends where I'm like, I'm not even doing that, you know? Um, so I, I tend to pull long days.
Infusing things throughout the day. So for me, it's also connection and connecting with friends. So if I feel like I've gone too long without, like, I've had a long stretch where I was traveling where I just. A number of things were happening. I felt very busy. Like I'll say, I haven't seen a few of my girlfriends in a while, um, time to do that.
And I did that a couple of weeks ago. I came off of a busy couple of weeks and then I had like a five day weekend. I think I saw four friends in three days, like, because I just wanted to kind of make up for the lost time. So is it ideal to see them, you know, on a more balanced? Throughout the weeks or the months without it being all at once, but but for me, that's what gives me energy So sometimes it's even just calling someone on the way home from work and saying we haven't chatted all week.
I need some friend time So we coordinate, you know are catching up on a commute or something like that So I do I do have an intentionality about the things that I am very well aware are what I need to keep my energy high and infusing those and then being disciplined about actually, you know, doing them.
Laura Rotter: And I love that you mentioned your girlfriends and connections because those two require intentionality and investment of time. And so often that falls off. The to do list, I'm speaking for myself. Even you're reminding me that a friend had reached out to talk this week. And I'm like, no, this isn't a good week, but I did then schedule a time next weekend.
And we need those relationships. We certainly can't like rely, you and I are both married. We can't rely on our spouses to be the sole person we're communicating with all the time. So thank you for bringing that up and emphasizing that. So Ali, please share with our listeners, first of all the name of your coaching business and then who you work with and anything they, you know, might be helpful.
Ali Glaser: Yeah, so I started my business, it's called Ali Glaser, Executive Performance. You can find it at aliglaser.com or on LinkedIn. It is a coaching, training and consulting business focused on leadership development. And working leaders of all levels. So emerging leaders through CEOs. I worked with them all and we work on whatever the goals are for for the individual who I'm coaching.
So it could be a skill competency. Peace where they're looking to get promoted or, or understand just how to be a better leader. It could be that they're having work life balance issues and self-care issues around managing all of the demands of their lives, both in their personal and professional lives.
And, um. It could be relationship issues at work, you know, clients that are in new roles and have to navigate relationships with new superiors, new team members, new colleagues. So lots of, I have another client who happens to be an entrepreneur and is, we've been coaching her through her co, you know, developing her own business.
So lots of different ages and stages in terms of my clients. And, but all our. typically professionals who are in some stage of their career and usually looking to seize opportunities and need some support in doing so.
Laura Rotter: Thank you. And I'm curious, what, was there a catalyst two years ago that you said, okay, now I'm ready to do this?
Ali Glaser: It was building for years. It really was. And I'll tell you a quick story. 25 years ago, I was in my first job in Philadelphia in a conference room where leadership consultant, I think she was doing a strategic planning session with us, some things, things that I do now all the time. But it was my first time in a, in a room like that being led by a facilitator.
I think I emulated myself after all these years later. And I remember saying to her. Can you tell me your background? That's what it was. And, I must, I don't know if it was her or me, but she immediately got defensive, as though I were, like, questioning, like, her, her, like, her credentials. Exactly! And I, that was the furthest thing.
I was looking at her and saying, tell me more about this. This looks really interesting to me, this job that you're doing right now. So I was, I had this, you know, I was sort of taking myself out of the situation we were in and looking at it from a, this looks interesting. Maybe I can be doing this one day.
And my boss actually had to step in and say, Oh, what Ali meant was, I think she's inspired by you and wants to understand you more. And I, it took me a while to even figure out what just happened there in that moment. But that's, so I can, I remember that vividly and, and then I was beneficiary of lots of leadership development and offsite retreats for our teams.
I've been. Engaged in that work as part of my job for 10 years, 12 years and just started saying this. I can do this work. This is what I want to be doing in other organizations. I want to be leading this. I want to be the one at the front of the room. And then just I think the opportunities around training.
I was every opportunity to learn leadership, training, management, training, all of that. I always was like, I'll go. I'll go. I'll do that. And I just started building up this. Yeah. You know, degree of competence in this area. And then COVID hit. And like we said at the beginning, it just created an opportunity to get a lot of training in a fairly short amount of time and do a lot of virtual coaching and virtual sessions, both coaching and training.
And the training started. And as soon as I started, you know, continuing to go through the training and the coursework, it actually was just a quick three months. From Thanksgiving until Martin Luther King weekend, where I designed the business, wrote the website copy, determined like what my brand would be, hired a designer.
And by February 1st, my website was ready to launch. So it was a lot of slow building. And then it became like this. I mean, there was a lot of conversations and. Strategy around branding and all of that, that went into it. But that all really took place in a three month period of time from actual, I'm going to do this now to launching my business,
Laura Rotter: which I hope you recognize Ali, that that's still is a very brave step because so many women. will perfection themselves to death of well, maybe I need one more training and I, is that the right name and just procrastinate, procrastinate and you know, you went for it, which, you know, as I get to know you is not surprising.
Ali Glaser: Thank you. Thank you. It was I'm I'm a pretty determined person. It could take me a while.
Hey, it took 25 years from this of understanding that there's a job for me out there like potentially like that, but everything I've done along the way has really been building toward it. And then I just think sometimes there's just opportunity meets preparation and it's it's go time.
Laura Rotter: Beautifully said. So as we get towards the end of our conversation together, I do like to ask how your definition of success has shifted over the last 20 years, let's say.
Ali Glaser: Success now has more to do with fulfillment, personal fulfillment, not external validation. I think I'm definitely not immune to external validation, that is. Part of my nature, but it really has shifted to what kind of an impact can I make in this world? And how can I make an impact while being engaged and excited and fulfilled? That's really what my focus has been. And that's the direction that I continue to move. So I recognize that, but how does it serve me can out of context can, but what it really is about is I do have a limited amount of energy, right?
And time. And so I want to use that time and energy for good, whether that's. In a friendship that is providing me with something really fulfilling or with clients that are fulfilling You know, I don't i'm in a position where I can be picky now about things right so Whether that's I don't have time for this nonsense This could be a potentially good opportunity But do I really is that how I want to spend my time and energy so really assessing each each situation in my life and in my business For what?
How do I want to spend my time? How do I want to spend my energy? It's not about making a million dollars. It's not. I mean, if that ever happens, it really never was, but it does feel good to be at this stage of life and have the opportunities that I have before me. I feel. Incredibly privileged, blessed, and surrounded by, you know, really positive people and experiences and opportunities, and I don't take that for granted.
So, Laura Rotter: Ali, if someone's listening to this podcast and feels like, I want to reach out to her, I want to learn more about how we might work together, what's the best way for them to find you?
Ali Glaser: So, AliGlaser. com is really easy to remember. A L L I. G L A S E R, AliGlaser. com is my website. There's a contact form on there.
Also links to my email and my LinkedIn profile. You could find me on LinkedIn and then everything's connected, right? So once you're on one of those pages, you'll find everything else. So, uh, shoot me a DM, uh, send me a text or an email and we'll get on a call and strategize how we might be able to work together.
Laura Rotter: Wonderful. Thank you so much for being my guest, Ali. I really enjoyed our conversation.
I hope you enjoyed my podcast with Ali Glaser. Some of my takeaways, rather than work life balance, focus on self-care and burnout prevention. Ali is passionate about helping people bring their best selves to their work and to their families, to what they consider important. In order to show up the way we want to show up, she encourages us to ask ourselves, do I have enough energy? Am I getting enough sleep? Am I eating right?
Another takeaway is to set boundaries in your life. In order to make sure she is able to show up. Engaged, energized, and confident, Ali is very intentional with her morning routine. She makes sure she gets at least seven hours of sleep. She carves out quiet time and alone time, as well as time to work out. and move her body each morning.
And my last takeaway, manage your energy rather than your time. Identify the activities in your life that give you energy and invest your time in them. Ali knows that being with her girlfriends gives her energy. She makes a point of coordinating get-togethers with friends, even calling from the car to check in when she's commuting. As she put it, one of these days, the job will no longer be here, your family structure will change, but the relationships you invest in will endure.
Are you enjoying this podcast? If you are, please share it with a friend and don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss next week's episode. And I greatly appreciate a rating and a review if you're enjoying it. Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening to making change with your money.
Certified financial planner, Laura Rotter specializes in helping people just like you, organized, clarify, and invest their money in order to support a life of purpose and meaning. Go to www. trueabundanceadvisors. com forward slash workbook for a free resource to help you on your journey.
Disclaimer, please remember that the information shared by this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. It's for information purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.