A conversation with Lesley Jane Seymour, a media entrepreneur and Founder of CoveyClub, an organization to help women 40+ navigate the path of transition.
Lesley Jane Seymour uses her story of reinvention to inspire other women to reach beyond their self-imposed boundaries and realize that they can reinvent themselves--at any age. Through her online membership community, CoveyClub, and her podcast REINVENT YOURSELF WITH LESLEY JANE SEYMOUR, she enjoys connecting women to their dreams or to others who can make their dreams come true.
Lesley shared that her parents divorced when she was ten years old, a circumstance that contributed to her decision to make it her mission never to depend on anyone else for her financial resources. She vowed to be self-sufficient, and never to rely on others for money.
Lesley had a successful career as Editor-In-Chief of four national magazines: YM, Redbook, Marie Claire and More Magazine. She describes the hard work as well as glamorous lifestyle of these "high flying" jobs. She was flying around the world, receiving invitations to the White House, as well as being offered fancy handbags and clothes at a discount.
Her decision to leave the publishing world was made for her, when More Magazine was shut down by its owner. Lesley thought she would segue into working for the beauty industry on sustainability issues, after receiving her Masters of Science in Sustainability Management from Columbia University. Instead, the readers of More Magazine, angry about the plug being pulled, contacted her on social media and asked that she create something new for them.
"That has been my question my whole life: how do you bring the voices of women out and make them heard and make women more secure as they move through the world? And just because you lose your job, you can't stop answering that question, right? Or you're gonna feel unfulfilled." Lesley Jane Seymour.
Key takeaways:
- The importance of learning to delegate. Leslie considers herself a natural delegator and manager of people, but not all of us are. If you are considering starting your own business, learning to let go of tasks that can be done by others is an important skill. And nowadays there are resources available online such as virtual assistats, Upwork, Fiverr and others,
- Let go of the idea of perfection. Women especially tend to be perfectionists. That can be a roadblock to actually getting things done and taking the risks necessary to make changes in our lives.
- Cultivate the ability to ask for help. You'll be surprised as to how eager others are to be of service. You will build stronger relationships by being vulnerable enough to ask for help.
About the guest:
Lesley Jane Seymour is a media entrepreneur and founder of CoveyClub, a club for life-long learners launched in February 2017 (Covey is a small flock of birds). CoveyClub allows women 40+ to bond over issues of interest and concern through virtual salons (Coffee & Conversation Zoom calls) or topics in the CoveyClub blog, written and produced by the best journalists around the world. CoveyClub also offers a weekly podcast called Reinvent Yourself with Lesley Jane Seymour interviewing women who have done it, one-on-one networking groups called Covey Pods, a private social app (CoveyConnect) and special weekly coaching sessions called Positive Mornings. Lesley is also a certified Tiny Habits coach.
In January 2008, Seymour was named Editor-In-Chief of More Magazine, the leading lifestyle magazine for women over forty with a readership of 1.5 million and Editor-in-Chief and Social Media director of More.com. In July of 2015, Seymour created history by having the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, guest edit an entire issue—leading to 8.5 billion media impressions worldwide. In 2008, Seymour led More to its first National Magazine Award nomination. In 2012, Seymour was named Executive Director of Meredith’s Beauty Center of Excellence; in 2009 she was named number four on the 2009 Most Powerful Fashion Editors List by Forbes magazine. Before taking over More, Seymour served as the Editor-in-Chief for Marie Claire magazine, Redbook magazine, and teen book YM. She was Beauty Director of Glamour, and senior editor at Vogue. She is the author of two books: On the Edge, 100 Years of Vogue and I Wish My Parents Understood. In 2013 she was named Chair of the Editorial Advisory Board for Duke Magazine and a Global Ambassador for Vital Voices. She is a trustee at Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Linkedin:- https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesleyjaneseymour/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lesley.j.seymour
Instagram:- https://www.instagram.com/lesleyjseymour/
Website:- https://www.coveyclub.com/
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[00:00:00] Lesley Jane Seymour: That has been my question my whole life is how do you bring the voices of women out and make them heard and make women more secure as they move through the world? And just because you lose your job, you can't stop answering that question, right? Or you're going to feel unfulfilled.
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.
[00:00:40] Laura Rotter: I am so excited to have as my guest today, Leslie Jane Seymour. She's a media entrepreneur and she's founder of Covey Club, which is a club for women over 40 who are navigating the winding path. Through reinvention and I am a member and I first learned of Leslie when she was editor-in-chief of More magazine that was also a lifestyle magazine for women over 40 with the readership of 1.5 million.
And in 2015, Leslie created history by having the First Lady of the United States. Michelle Obama guest edited an entire issue leading to 8.5 billion media impressions worldwide. Leslie's stated mission is to connect women to their dreams or to others who can make their dreams come true. I am so excited to hear your personal story of Reinvention Leslie after being editor-in-chief of four national magazines.
So welcome to the Making Change with Your Money podcast.
[00:01:52] Lesley Jane Seymour: Awesome. I'm glad, glad to be here.
[00:01:54] Laura Rotter: So, I always start off my interviews with, um, one question, and perhaps you can use it as a lens as we continue the conversation. Which is Leslie, what was money like in your family growing up?
[00:02:09] Lesley Jane Seymour: Oh, well, money was really a problem because my parents divorced when I was 10 and my mother claimed she didn't have any money.
I don't know whether she did, or she didn't. Very hard to know, because you're a kid you don't know. Uh, you know, the, and the old thing was, oh, you know, your father's not giving me any money. I have absolutely no idea, but she behaved that way. So that was a really important motivator for me, which was never let this happen to you.
You know, looking back at the numbers that I managed to squeeze out of her, I still couldn't tell you. This is 1969, whether they were a lot or a little, and my father was, uh, a very successful doctor. So, we became, we kind of moved out and had two d. Class levels. He went off to be an upper middle class and we were kind of left in the middle class.
You know, it was a pretty devastating moment when your mother says, I don't have enough money. So I made it my mission, maybe a little too much, but it was always, I was a little bit of a scarlet O'Hara, you know, when she ripped down the curtains and said, you know, uh, this is never going to happen to me.
Moment, you know, looking. Having my own money and not depending on anybody ever to have to ask for money. My father was terrible when you would ask for money. He made you feel terrible about it. And, um, I never want to ask for money from anybody and I always wanted to be self-sufficient. Yet the irony is I was never going to go into finance or something like that where the real money's made.
In my own business, um, did very well, but I always wanted to know I could be independent. And as I say to my husband of 30, I think we're 35 or 30, I can't remember, 30 something, and I say this to my kids too, is you always want to want it to be so that you're in a relationship by choice. You're not in a relationship because you can't leave.
And I hear that from people now. They have not planned properly and they are, they're, you know, the marriage is wearing out and they can't leave. And my thing is like, hey, I'm independent. I can do what I want to do and I'm here by Cho, everything I do is by choice. And um, you know, probably a little too much, you know, and I say this openly to my kids, probably.
I love to work is, is one thing I really, really, really love to work part of that's money driven, knowing I'm independent, but I do love the work itself. And maybe, you know, having kids, um, comes at the wrong time for us, all of us and did in our generation. It comes at the worst time. It comes at the time when your career is really taking off and.
The two are pulling at you and you know, we, we really had, my, my husband was in finance. We really had that kind of, I look back, high paced life and say, how do we do it? And we were running all the time, going all the time. But I always put my family first. So whenever, anything, when the choice would be made.
I also knew that from watching what my mother went through, is that you only get one family. You only get one choice. You can get another. I always told that to the people that worked for me, and I always not, not to be frivolous about it, it's not like, you know, I want to go to the candy store with my kid and I'm going to quit early, but for life, important things.
You can get another job, you can't get another family.
[00:05:48] Laura Rotter: I mean, I often think one of the best things that happened to me professionally was I, I suffered from infertility, so I ended up having kids later in life. And so my, you know, my professional career was able to take off probably more than had I, you know, gotten pregnant on schedule.
So what was. Your professional life? Like what did you, what did you go to college assuming you were going to do?
[00:06:12] Lesley Jane Seymour: I went to college. Here's the irony. I went to college, I went to Duke University because it had a marine biology, um, program. I thought I wanted to be a marine biologist. They take everybody to, um, they have a really, um, even back then, they had a really special program.
I got there and I found that my little girl's school education did not provide enough background in science and, um, I was not prepared.
[00:06:39] Laura Rotter: I'm curious, Leslie, like, why, why did you think marine biologist, did you grow up near water?
[00:06:45] Lesley Jane Seymour: My dad was a doctor and only believed in science, and I loved science.
I always did. Um, I did well in the science classes. I was given, I did well in the math classes. I was. I just assumed that that was the only, you know, you have parents and you assume they, they make it sound like there is no other life. Right. And, um, there is no other possibility. So you accept that. And I went to the, to my father's, I forget where I went.
I went at some point in my teenage years. To see an operation and I thought I was going to barf and I was like, you know what? I cannot do this science. I'll buy, but I'm not a doctor. I can't do this. I can't cut somebody open. I just, that's just not in my realm. I couldn't stick a needle in somebody either.
And, um, so I looked for other sciences that I really loved and I actually had a, um, had an internship at the, I landed an internship, and I don't remember how this happened. I guess I was interested maybe. I took a biology class in high school and I ended up at the New York Aquarium in the, as an intern.
In the pathology lab. And I loved it. I loved it. I was cutting open parrotfish and looking at the parasites and growing sea urchins. I had the time of my life. A woman who was in the lab at the time, um, became one of my lifelong friends, like a sis, like a sister. And, um, it was transformative. And so I think that's what made me think of marine biology.
But I got there and it was, it was really difficult. It was a struggle. There were people who were really much better prepared. And so my junior year I switched over to English. I was always a good writer and. I always knew I would write Laura. I thought maybe I would write about science. Switched over, graduated with an English degree, and went right off into the fashion business as a writer at Women's Wear Daily.
Literally the day after graduation, I landed, got off the plane and started at women's wear and I'd been stringing for women's wear. I'd interviewed with them the year before. Somebody had hooked me up. Uh, a woman named Nina Hyde, who was the fashion editor of the Washington Post, had come to Duke on a fellowship, and I talked to her.
I always loved fashion. I wasn't like a fashionista. I just loved it. I could tell you my, all my, my main moments in life by what I was wearing. I couldn't tell you the date, but I can tell you was that little red dress with the, you know, the buttons down the front. I said to her, I said, it would be fun to combine my writing interest and fashion.
And she put me in touch with women's wear and I mean, this is really, truly unbelievable. People don't believe I didn't have a connection. I had no connections. And they gave me, they let me become a stringer for them while I was at Duke my senior year. And I used to write for Women's wear daily while I was there and have it published.
And I would go around campus reporting on my friends and what they wore and, and then I got a job and I started off there and I ended up, I loved it. I mean, I was thrown out into the fashion industry, had no idea what was going on at all, but learned it and loved it.
[00:09:51] Laura Rotter: That's amazing to hear, Leslie, especially when we've all watched those movies about how cutthroat the fashion industry is.
[00:09:59] Lesley Jane Seymour: It is cutthroat. I'm not telling you it wasn't. I grew up with the mean girls. I spent my 34 years of my life with the meanest people on the face of the earth, just about, and that's why with Covey Club, what's so great is it's not, it's the opposite. It's like, I don't attract, I don't attract the mean girls anymore because I, I did my stint with them.
I figured out how to work with them. I got along really well. I had an incredible career. But it's a mean, it's a mean nasty business. People are mean to each other. I made some good. But, um, you know, at one point at Vogue when I was working there, I was actually told, you're too nice. You're never going to make it here.
And, um, after nine years at Vogue, I left and went to glamor where the nice girls were. And what I say is that at Vogue, at Vogue, they would stab you in the back, but at least at glamor, they'd stab you in the front. That was better. So I could see them coming down the hallway with the knife.
[00:10:57] Laura Rotter: You know, my own personal experience of you is that you are such an open, friendly person. That's what's reflected in the Covey Club membership. So it is hard to imagine that you were, you know, in that world for as long as you were. So how long were you doing it before you woke up and said, I'm done?
[00:11:20] Lesley Jane Seymour: I was afraid to leave. You know what that's like. I mean, I had a high flying job.
I was flying around the world, hanging out at the White House, you know, going to. You know, once a month and what's not to love? You know, people sending me handbags and fancy clothes for a discount. Like, why would you leave this? I didn't leave it voluntarily. I left it because they closed the magazine and after I'd done that was my fourth magazine doing more.
I also did my first magazine at Earn Cheap which was a teen book. Then I went to Red Book to reposition that when I had young. I worked at Women's Wear Daily. That was my first entry job. Then I went to the New York Daily News for a year as a style reporter, and then I went to Harper's Bazaar.
Um, as a copywriter, I'm segued into magazines having no interest in magazines, but the newspapers were going out of business back then. Um, I love the fast pace of the newspapers. They were going out of business. And um, so I went to Harper's as a writer. Vogue called me. I ended up staying there for nine years and then had a baby, came back to Vogue and I decided I didn't want to, I was kind of the, I was like a mini managing editor.
I oversaw all the pages in the book that had to do with fashion. And Anna Winter was there and she was very good to me, but I was never going to be one of her pets. That became very clear you had to have a British accent or be up from Australia to be a pet. I left there and went to Glamor as the beauty editor.
I was freelance for a couple of years while my son was a baby. Um, he went off to full-time nursery school, went back to glamor as beauty director for three years, then went on to become editor-in-chief of ym, then read. Then Mary Claire, which is a French fashion magazine, but the English, uh, the American edition of it, where I can tell you very firmly that the devil does not wear Prada.
She also wears Dior and then off to more.
[00:13:20] Laura Rotter: So what year was that um, Like 2009 ?
[00:13:26] Lesley Jane Seymour: I don't even remember my numbers. I can't, I, I, it's all a blur at this point. I'd have to go back and look at my, it's all on my LinkedIn if anybody wants to know the timing. It's all on my LinkedIn.
[00:13:38] Laura Rotter: What attracted you to more, was there something about that particular demographic that you were in?
[00:13:44] Lesley Jane Seymour: Yeah, I was done. You know, I'd done three magazines already. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I'd left Mary Claire. I was at home being a, you know, in between these stints I would go at home and I would do various things. And I was going to be super mom for my daughter because Mary. I traveled so much that she was like really unhappy about that.
And so I was like, okay, I'm home to be Supermom. We did that for like a year and I very distinctly remember getting to a weekend and I was saying, okay, so what are we going to do? We can have a party, whatever. And she looks at me. My daughter's been always very frank with me and very funny. She looks at me and I think she was like in eighth grade, I can't remember if she goes, or sixth grade or something.
She goes, mom, you need to get a. Like, I'm going off with my kid, my friends. We're done. We're done here, and you need a job. And my, my old executive editor from Red Book had gone on to run more. She was leaving more. She'd gotten another job offer. And, um, she said, you should really come do this. And I was like, ah, I don't want to go back into magazines.
Like, you know, what I liked about it was that it was, for the first time in my life, I could edit for me, I was somebody in my forties, late forties or early fifties, I can't remember, but it was close enough to my demographic. Whereas when I did ym, you know, I was in my thirties and when I did, um, red. I was kind of the consumer, but it was much more of a mass consumer than I was.
Dude, the truth is to write about something, you don't have to, um, have lived that life to be a good reporter about it or to edit a magazine, but boy, it's a lot more fun. When you are, because then you wake up one morning and you go, I'd like to understand why I'm so depressed about the empty nest. I know.
I'll assign Laura to go out and find out why. You know? So that's what's really fun is that you can use yourself as the avatar, which is really fun.
[00:15:48] Laura Rotter: So, Leslie, You're describing going through a number of publications and also different roles, right? Because you started as a copy editor. What's your favorite role and what are your particular skills that you think have, made you good?
[00:16:09] Lesley Jane Seymour: What's interesting is I'm a really good fast writer. I'm a really super good listener. Um, so I can capture things that are out there. I'm a good trend spot. And I'm also a really good and interested manager.
That's the unusual thing. Whenever I was editor-in-chief of magazines, I actually read up about and learned and studied management. I liked it. The top management or whatever. There would inevitably the be the person who I've now become very executive coaching people who would come in, close the door and sit down with me and spread out the thing and.
Every other editor in chief is in this quadrant. You're in the quadrant of team leadership. Everybody else is in, I mean, benevolent dictator. And she's like, this is not good for your career. And I'd be like, why is it not good for my career? Like, I like running a team. She goes, oh, it's on purpose. I'm like, Yes, it's on purpose.
I like to run a team. People follow me because I want them to take the job, grow with it, take more than that job. I want them to be better than me. I don't want to do their job. I'd grown up under these micromanagers, I mean like everybody, they want to do your job too. It's like, why? If you're the editor-in-chief of Vogue, do you want to write the copy?
Like you don't want to, you shouldn't be like circling words in the copy. Like give it to your, somebody who knows you, knows what you want. Let go. These, the history of these women were women who were not, they were not managers. They just. You know, and a lot of them were, were micromanagers and it used to just completely choke me to death.
And I had this wonderful publisher with me at Glamor when I finally said like, I can't, I, I got to get out this business. I can't stand being micromanaged like this, like, Like you write the copy. If you're going to like go through and change everything that I wrote, then just write it yourself like you don't need me, like you want to do it.
Like, teach me what you want or, and let go. Or like, why am I here? Like, this is just beating my head against while it's so stupid. And she said to me, when I got my first publishing job, uh, my first editor, chief job, I said, you know, I have no training in this. How am I going to do it? Blah, blah, blah. And she just said to me, do the opposite of everything you learned.
And she was so right, Laura, she was a hundred percent right. My instincts were much better than these people I'd learned from. Every single one of them was a micromanager. I just would, and there's no yelling, no screaming. We don't do that. I mean, there were, I mean, you can't believe the antics that went on in most places.
I mean, when I was a copywriter at Vogue, I'll just give you one example. I mean, it, it is Hollywood. It definitely is h. We remembered, um, this is early on in my career, we would have these women who were the fashion editors, we had to get out of them, the words for various things, and they would come in and yell at you on a regular basis.
Like it's one fashion editor who was terribly talented but couldn't articulate or couldn't tell you what it was that she had done. You'd hold the picture and you'd go, why did you put the striped hat on the girl on the cover? I have to write about the stripe hat. And she'd go, that's not a. And I'd be like, okay, what is it?
I have to tell the consumer she's going to want to buy this thing That's a shirt that I tied in the, I'm like, okay, well can you tell me how to tie the shirt? She's going to want to, that's ridiculous, you know? And then I'd go to my boss and go, well, it's shirt's not a hat. You have to find out how they can buy the hat.
I'm like, There's no hat. Like what do I do? So the, they would come in and yell at us and there were six of us in the copy room and I remember one time this woman came in and yelled us for something. It was white Hermine and we said it was yellow and she was insulted. They how? You know who said it was white Hermine, new idiots.
She walked out. And we were all like trembling. It was like Oz. They would have these deep voices and my friends, I was like, well, at least I hear at Harper's Bazaar that the fashion editor slaps the copywriters, so at least we're doing better. Like we were really happy that all they were doing was yelling at us and not physically assaulting us, which used to go on.
Anyway, yes, there's your answer.
[00:20:30] Laura Rotter: I do have to say to you. What a gift, Leslie, to be someone who's able to delegate. I mean, it's not unique to your field, you know, having worked with various hedge funds that. Someone is talented in their field and so then ultimately needs to manage people and that is not a skillset that comes naturally to many people, so it really is a gift.
[00:20:58] Lesley Jane Seymour: Well, and I love to delegate so much that you'll laugh when you become your, when you have run your own business. So I would take first these various classes, people were, you know, having, or what are they called? Mine, you know, you'd get together with various people who were teach you about how to set up as an entrepreneur and they would always be, there'd be like you.
Young people in the class, like 30 year olds old, and the person running up, they'll be like, now let me talk to you about, you can train somebody to do as good a job as you can for the lower touch. You have to let go. And I finally raised my hand and I said, I'm ready to let go of everything. Where's my staff?
I don't have a staff. My problem is I need a. You don't have to counsel me about how to let go. Just give me the staff and I'll teach them. But I don't have any money to hire staff, so now what do I do? Oh, that's lesson number nine. It's like, okay, not helpful. Not helpful. But no, I'm a big delegator. And the, the one thing about delegating, and I, and I say to people when I hire them, I say, here's the good thing about me is that I'm not going to get up in your business.
I'm going to expect you to do everything that I give you and then knock on my door for more and I'm not going to. To hear from you. Unless you need help with something, you don't have to check in with me all the time. Just do a great job, and that's all I care about. Ask plenty of questions. Always ask questions ahead of time.
I'd rather you do it right the first time. Don't waste your time doing it on what you thought. Let's just have, have and clarify so you don't do extra work. I don't have to do extra editing. Make it simple. Make things run very simp. And, you know, we would all leave on time and you'd see across, um, you know, across town, you'd hear these stories of editors, you know, at glamor, keeping people till four in the morning and rewriting things.
And I was like, why? Like, what is, it's not brain surgery. This is articles. Like you can only make an article look, you either throw it out, it's so bad you can't prepare it, or you edit it twice and each time it's 20% better, 15%, and then the percentage falls. There's no perfection. It's an, it's a, it's, it's an art.
But these, these editors who are grinding these people out till four in the morning and changing a word here and changing a comma there. And what are you doing that for? Like, uh, it just made no sense to me.
[00:23:24] Laura Rotter: So I'm hearing a bunch of strengths that have helped you. In this journey. First of all, you're a delegator.
Second of all, and as you know from running more in now, Covey Club women tend to be big perfectionists and really put that as a roadblock in front of getting things accomplished because there's so much fear around it not being perfect. But another thing I'm hearing, Leslie, is that you've reached out. You said that when you were going to be an editor in chief, you learned about being a manager.
You've been in, I think it's a mastermind group for in entrepreneurs.
So who, who did you turn to both when you made the big leap, but also as, did you always have a network of people that you could turn to?
[00:24:11] Lesley Jane Seymour: Yeah, I had a very good network. I'm a really good network person. Um, And you know the usual thing, Laura, is that you're disappointed by the people who you think will stay with you in your network when you leave a big, impressive job.
They don't return phone calls. That's always shocking. People you think you're really close to. And then people out there who've. Are happy to help you. That was the biggest surprise leaving corporate was how many people, when I would ask for help, jumped in and said, I'd love to help you, or, you know, gave you ideas or whatever.
When I was in corporate, no one helped me. I was there to help everybody. It was just take, take, take from the other end. Nobody helped you. I can't explain why. But it was all about doing things for other people, and I wasn't ever doing it. You know, like I have a lot of people now say, you should call so-and-so.
You, you did a lot for her in magazines. It's like, well, it wasn't like that. I mean, it served me too to have this celebrity in thing, but, you know, but did they ever give back? Hmm. Rarely. You know, but it wasn't like that.
[00:25:17] Laura Rotter: So would you say you have the ability to ask for help?
Because that's another thing women have a lot of difficulty with.
[00:25:24] Lesley Jane Seymour: I don't have, I have a, an ability to ask for help up to a certain point and I had to learn more to ask for help. And, um, I'm not embarrassed about asking for help, I just don't like to impinge on anybody or overdo it or whatever. I want to, I'm always looking for what's in it for them.
So I'm. Uncomfortable if I'm not, don't feel like I'm giving enough, or I give the balance enough or whatever. And, um, you know, along the way I've, I've made some new friends who are, you know, we give back and forth to each other. That's what I really love about the entrepreneurial world is, I mean, look at us now, you and I are talking.
You came to the club. You did a fabulous piece for us and now I'm on your podcast. So I love, I just, I love the back and forth. I'm, I'm very much interested in that and how we form those business and friendship relationships. And what I think is really interesting is when you get over 40 and also when you can go into your own business.
I don't know about you, but you probably, in the financial world, you were told you had. Your business and pleasure separate that the two should not melt. And what I love about entrepreneurs is that it's all together and I'd rather do business if I have. If I have somebody in the club, I mean, remember I, I rang you about something you don't do, but I'd rather hire somebody from the club than to reach out outside of the club or my network and find somebody new.
And I think that happens as you get older, we get more comfortable. And I think also that was, I think it was a very male thing to say that, you know, no emotions, no emotional connections, no. Keep your personal out of it and. That was my, my, a lot of my corporate experience was, you know, keep the two separated and now I bring them all together and it's. It's a, it's a better amalgamation in my opinion. Uh, I so
agree that it's a benefit of being an entrepreneur that I hadn't anticipated, which is just meeting new people. And at this point in my, you know, it's, I'm in my seventh year, I really only reach out and spend time with people that I actually am drawn to reach out and spend time with, which was very different. In my previous career, I wouldn't say what I did before. There was a lot of mixing, but there were so few men, so I wasn't invited to the next game and I wasn't invited to the strip club and I, it was just, you know, wasn't the traditional audience. There were a handful of us that did the kind of investing that I did, and all the guys went out together to a strip club.
There was someone else I ended up spending time with, but I was like, really? That was what you had to do that night. You couldn't choose another activity where you could also invite me. I am so glad I'm not part of that world anymore. Will you anticipate painting being let go, given. What might have been happening with ad pages, it more and more, and as you describe it, maybe for our listeners, what you think helped you get through that big period of transition as you decided your next steps.
Well for more I was, it's interesting, you got to remember that I had been fired from Marie Claire. My, you know, love of my life because I got caught in between. That was like 10 years earlier. I can't remember. I got caught in between two corporations that had never worked out what their responsibilities were like.
Now, looking back, the thing I didn't know, they had a, they had a partnership of 50 50. If you go to work, Somebody who's in business with somebody and you're the monkey in the middle, somebody has to have 51, and they had not. So I was the person in the middle. I would get the call from the French going, Ooh, we want you to put black and white on the cover and no sex line and blah, blah, blah.
And then you would do that and it wouldn't sell. And then my boss would come in with a hatchet and go, why didn't we sell? And be like the. Don't want those, change it back. Stop talking to the French and you'd be like, ah. And then the French would come. I mean, you, I was the monkey in the middle. I did not understand, like if I had known that, I would've said before they hired me, you have to work out in my contract who, who I have to respond to.
And instead they would bounce me between the two who had very different competing ideas about where the magazine should go because they had different financial responsibilities. The Americans did not want to go upscale because it would compete with a product they already had, which was Harper's Bizarre.
They wanted to keep it downscale, competing with Cosmo, and because then they could make more money on the newsstand, you would, that was more. And they could collect more money, but I didn't know any of this. I was just in there loving, being, working for the French and I was a Francophile and all this stuff.
So it was a disaster. Did that for four and a half years, survived it. When I went to more, I was a different person because I had learned from that experience. I was a very much a little puppy. I was like, you tell me what you want. I, I'm a, I'm a doobie, and I don't, I don't pull on your shirt unless there's a fire.
I just make it all happen and you take away. You take away 20% of my funds to get it done, I still go under the limbo bar and I still deliver the thing. Right? That's, that was my bad learning. My, my really most important thing was I did too much to make my boss happy with no. Pushback and when she removed the top photographer from us without replacing him with somebody in the, at the time when you could only, um, sell magazines by what celebrity you had on the cover, and the celebrities wanted to be shot by a certain photographer, I didn't fight back.
I should have quit right there and I didn't. So I went to more with a very different attitude. Which was, you know, anytime I get into trouble, I'm going right to management and I'm going to toss back into their lap any management issues that they have. And you could see that there were, it was a public company, so it was a very different kind of thing too.
Everything was out there. You could see more, never fit. It was called Meredith Corporation. They had better Homes and Gardens. They had massive circulation. 6,000, 6 million circulation. More was this outgrowth of Ladies Home Journal. It was this upper ES echelon, high-end, high education coastal cities, not country, rural.
I mean, it would never fit. So it was very, very clear that, you know, they kept trying to push the circulation, make us bigger, bigger, bigger. They would use all the same stuff for better homes on more. And the two were not the same item and more was a fashion and beauty potential magazine. We should have been with Hearst or with Conde Nast, but we were with, we kind of like Born to the wrong family and they tried to sell it to Conde Nast at the end.
They tried to, which would've been a good marriage, but it was when magazines were going out business. And, um, so it was very clear to me, Laura, all along, like, this was treacherous. I thought I would be there for two years. And the hilarious thing is every single quarter we were always on the chopping walk.
You could tell we, you know, we just weren't the size of better homes and gardens. We were, you know, and it, there were just all kinds of things they would do to us to take revenue away and put it towards better homes and gardens, all kinds of stuff. So it was very obvious. That we were always tentative.
And in fact, my friends, it lasted for eight years like that. But my friends got tired of hearing about it and when it finally, when it finally closed, they were like, they were like, oh, go. I'm like, no, no. This is it. This is actually the closing. I told you. They were like, oh, okay. Eight years later, you know?
But we were prepared and um, I knew it was coming. The last year was very clear. I mean, You know, they'd taken us down from a staff of, I think I had 34 people. I'd been crunched down to 24, still turning out the same business as before. Across town at Time, Inc. What was Ben Timing, Inc. They were firing 400 people at a time every, every half year.
You'd have to be an ostrich to not know what's going on here. It was just, yeah, so it was very obvious to me. It was just a matter of when, and so it wasn't a surprise to me. I'd gone back to Columbia in the nights to get my sustainability degree. I thought that's what I would do. I thought I would segue over into the beauty business and work for, you know, a big beauty company.
I love the beauty companies. They have all kinds of sustainability issues. I loved Columbia. It gave me this wonderful idea of what I could do next, but they pulled the plug two years before I got my Master's. So I was shocked by how soon it was. I thought I had two more years, so I had to make a decision.
I thought I would finish the degree and go off and try to work in the beauty industry. And my readers came to me and they were so angry about the plug being pulled on more that they came to me on social media and said, do something else for us. And I was. I don't know what that is, but I'm a good researcher.
Here's, here's a 54 question survey and they filled it out. 627 people filled out that survey. I know. Shocking, right? That's how much they love the magazine and I literally made a map and that's how Covey Club was born. And it was originally going to be, don't laugh, it was going to be an online publication, original content that I published.
Weekly. Like how insane was that all by my, I mean, just the whole thing was ridiculous. Anyway. There was no financial way to make that happen. I took my severance pay, put it towards it. I said to my husband, this is what I'm going to do next. And um, that didn't work out. And so what I did is when I found out that no one would pay for that, I leaned into the club part of it.
And the club, I always knew it was going to be a club of some sort. I'm a big connector. I'm an Uber connector. I'm an uber extrovert. In case you can't tell. I like to connect people. One of my secret powers is, and one of my real joys in life is taking a photographer friend I knew from high school and hooking them up with somebody I know who was in, you know, publishing and looking for somebody to go shoot pictures and, you know, Sicily or whatever.
I love that. I just get a kick out of it. It's very rewarding for me because I feel I've, I've been very lucky and very helped by people making connections for me. I get a joy out of it. And so I said, how do I lean into that and lean into that part of Covey, which is what I want to do. I know there are other women who like to do this too, and I know that I can help other women.
So that's kind of where we leaned into. And then through the pandemic, we really ramped up our teaching part of Covey, and that's kind of where we found out. Our tagline really came from some research I did with the Covey members, which was, we hold a space for you while you figure out what's next. And that's the magic of Covey.
We, and what I say to other people, what I do, my, my job is to find the people, places, products and things to put in front of those women in transition. And then they decide what it is they need. And we see people come in. Who in who are saying, and I and I, a lot of new people call me up and they're like, you know, but here's my end to kind of, you know, I have a job and I'm kind of drifting.
I'm kind of stuck. I like, I really don't want to do it anymore, but I don't know where to go and I am the financial lead on this. I can't, I can't quibble. And I'm like, they're like telling me this as if I've never heard it before. And I'm like, uh, you like I have a smile on my face. Cause I've heard it all before.
I have so much stuff for you. I've got a podcast for you with 200 interviews of people who have done just what you're talking about. I have classes for you which you can access through the Covey app. Even the old ones we've done. I've got new classes for you. I have articles for you. I have how to, I have essays.
I have personal groups that get together and work on these things in our little pods. And I'm just like, don't worry. In two to three years you'll come in this one end and you'll come out the other end in a, in a perfectly redone state. I don't know what that is for you, but you will, you will graduate from us and you'll, you'll have whatever that thing is, you'll find the coaching, you'll find whatever it is you need, you'll find it because that's what happens.
And, um, it makes me feel really good because it's, it's a, I kind of see us as a tube in the middle of your career, your life, you go through the Covey tube, you come in going like, ah. And then you come out the other end going, wow, this is great. Right? And so far we've had tremendous success. And that's not what I thought I was going to do.
Not a million years. I thought I was going to do content online, but we actually do something. We actually. We can create change without, I'm not a coach. I did get my coaching in tiny habits. That was it. Because I feel like tiny ha habits changing get you through the beginning of that tube. The thing that stops you is, is the, is the not knowing how to start.
That was the only coaching. They're enough coaches in the world. They don't need me to be a life coach, but, But that's what we do.
[00:39:25] Laura Rotter: I do have to agree. The content is great to me. The community is so special because we're all, as you described, one group, you were in so many groups I join, I feel like a little bit of the odd person out because of my age and so, or if I'm in a group of my age.
They're, you know, just talking about their kids. But Covey Club is different because it's women who are 40 plus who are transforming. And so if that speaks to you, which it does to me, it's, it's so wonderful to be in a space with like-minded women.
Leslie, as we get towards the end of our conversation, how would you say your definition of success and financial success has shifted you and I sort of knew years, um, where we were making by anyone's standards a lot of money and using that to define who we were. So how has that changed?
[00:40:28] Lesley Jane Seymour: You know what's interesting? I never defined. How, I mean like it's funny because my husband was always like, wow, the year you got fired, that's the greatest year.
You made a shit ton of money. Holy shit, can you do that again? And I'm like, no, I don't want to do that again. That was horrible emotionally. Um, but you know, he is a finance guy. He's like, everything's about like the number. What was the number? Like I hit my biggest number ever. I hit it out the park that year because they had to collapse a contract.
They had to pay a contract. And um, I'm like, no, I'm not in the business of like running out my contract because these two people can't get along. It was nice to know. And to have that security there. But for me it really was, you know, how was I, um, impacting the world? And that's why I continued to do Covey Club is because if you, if you look back through your life, there was this woman who I did this really interesting program with when I was at more, I was a dean at Duke who went on, I think she ended, went on to be the president.
I think Middlebury, I can't remember, but she had this weird thing. I went to a conversation she had called, what is Your Question? And it was the most miraculous thing. She asked, what is the question that has been, you've been trying to answer your whole life? And her point was, if you look back in your history, there is a question that drives you all the way.
That kind of is the thing that holds all the things that you do career-wise together. And when I did the work to figure out what that question was, um, my question is how can I support women and give women a voice who, who don't feel they have a voice? And that very clearly comes from my mother, and it's a question that I could not answer for her.
That has been my question my whole life is how do you bring the voices of women out and make them heard and make women more secure as they move through the world? And just because you lose your job, you can't stop answering that question, right? Or you're going to feel unfulfilled. I'm still doing the things that I did and I'm doing at a lower level.
You know, I'm not traveling around the world. I don't get tickets on the Concord. I still love to serve. So that's what I do and however I do it, you know, whether it's through Covey Club, whether it's through whatever, I'm not, I'm not done, and no one's telling me I'm done. And thank God there's digital. And, um, I don't, I think that's the thing you have to figure out is what, and I think that question thing is a really interesting thing.
Like if you're being forced out of a job or if you're leaving a job because it no longer works, you have to ask yourself, what is that thing that, that question that drives me, that, that was present in this job? Or maybe it wasn't, which is why you're unhappy, that mission that you feel you have to do and you have to be really honest with yourself.
It wasn't. You know, I've done 25 years of therapy. It's very obvious to me what my, what my driving force is. But you have to get to be honest with yourself that sometimes our driving forces are created very early in life. And sometimes they're good and sometimes they're bad. Was that a good driving force?
Cause I couldn't, you know, I couldn't help my mother when she was little, when I was little, but so I help women today. Uh, it's, you know, it's a, it's a broken twig, right? Wouldn't have been nice to, you know, had a childhood where other people were helping me. They didn't. It's okay. I have a very fulfilled, wonderful life going this way.
But you have to be honest with yourself. What is the first question? Where did it come from? As helpful. Because when you get frustrated with that and when you're, you know, and you're going to get frustrated there, you're going to do things wrong. You're going to get hurt, you're going to, there's all kinds of crap that you do wrong and you know, especially when you're on your own and, um, you have to say, okay, but does do, I still want to do.
And if you still want to do that. And that's, and I'm comfortable, that's my driving question. It doesn't end with a job that someone else provides for you. It continues in yourself and in your approach to the world. And. You know. I love it.
[00:44:59] Laura Rotter: That's so beautiful, Leslie. Thank you so much. And I think it's really like almost a charge to our listeners to ask those questions.
And you also have to hear yourself say it out loud. And that's also the value of community. So, if people want to learn more about Covey Club:
[00:45:19] Lesley Jane Seymour: Yes, come to covey club.com and join us. You can sign up for the newsletter, which is free. You can join us, um, actually to get support of wonderful women like Laura, who are in our pods and come to our classes.
And it's a, it is a community of people who are trying to figure out what's next for them. I also have my podcast, which is called Reinvent Yourself with Leslie Jane Seymour. You can find it on Apple and you can find it almost. And if you scroll through the show notes, show notes, no matter what your background is, you're going to find people who did it with money, no money with help, with no help, with a health issue, with no health issue with there.
I guarantee you, there are people there just like you who have made whatever it is they want in their life happen, happen. And, um, we're also on Covey. You know, Covey Club is on Twitter, uh, not Twitter, sorry. It's on, uh, Facebook and all social media and then I'm there too. You can find me on Facebook. I'm happy to talk on LinkedIn.
[00:46:20] Laura Rotter: Thank you so much. This has really been a wonderful conversation, Leslie. Thanks for agreeing to be my guest.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Leslie Jane Seymour, the founder, and c e o of co club.com, and I'd like to share some of the takeaways that I have from our conversation. The first takeaway is the importance of learning to delegate. Leslie considers herself a natural delegator and manager of people, but not all of us are.
If you are considering starting your own business, learning to let go of tasks that can be done by others is an important skill. And nowadays there are resources available online such as virtual assistance up. Fiver and others, I'd be happy to talk to you about the second takeaway. Is to let go of the idea of perfection.
Women especially, we tend to be perfectionists and that can be a roadblock to actually getting things done and to take the risks necessary to make changes in our lives. And finally cultivate the ability to ask for help. You'll be surprised as I have been and how eager others are to be of service. And the relationships you'll build by being vulnerable enough to ask for help.
Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to subscribe, so you won't miss next week's episode. And if you love the show, please leave a rating and a review. I'd really appreciate 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 organize, clarify, and invest their money. In order to support a life of purpose and meaning, go to www.trueabundanceadvisors.com/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.