A conversation with Mindy Berkower, Chief Client Officer and General Counsel of iRelaunch. A "relauncher" herself, Mindy enjoys making a fruitful match between professionals looking to reenter the workforce and employers seeking to hire them.
Mindy Berkower is the Chief Client Officer and General Counsel of iRelaunch which is the pioneer and leader in career reentry, bringing progressive employers together with “career relaunchers”. Currently, Mindy leads iRelaunch’s legal function, develops and manages key corporate client relationships, and advises on strategy and company practices.
Mindy shared that her mother was a strong role model for her and her siblings. Her mom went back to school after a career break to raise her children, and was an energetic, committed, can-do type of person.
Mindy had a dream of being a performer, a singer, but considered it impractical and did not pursue it after college. Instead, she went to law school and took a job with a corporate law firm in New York. The position was a good way to make money and to pay off her student loans, but she did not find it a sustainable way to live. She left the firm a month before her oldest son was born, and ended up taking a career break of 18 years!
“You can come back with a lot of strength and purpose, perhaps even more direction then you had coming out of college and going down a sort of pre-programmed predictable path. Whereas coming back from a career break, so many avenues and possibilities are open to you.” - Mindy Berkower
Key takeaways:
- When leading a group, make sure you understand the motivation of the other team members, and stress how the solution you’re presenting serves their goals. Mindy shared how possessing a certain level of diplomacy, clear communication skills and attention to detail served her well in the PTA as well as the corporate arena.
- Make an effort to find community, which played an important role in Mindy’s transition back to work. When she was exploring reentering the workforce after being a stay-at-home mom for 18 years, Mindy attended an iRelaunch conference in New York City. She kept in touch with people she met there, and joined the iRelaunch email list, which is how she found out about her first job.
- Keep networking. As we’ve heard from other guests, networking was very important as Mindy explored her next move. She let other people know she was interested in going back to work, believing that you never know who is going to be the bridge to the next opportunity for you. She shared a story of a friend of hers who was getting a pedicure, and was sitting next to someone who was the source of her next job opportunity.
About the guest:
Mindy Berkower is Chief Client Officer and General Counsel of iRelaunch. Founded in 2007, iRelaunch is the pioneer and leader in career reentry, bringing progressive employers together with “career relaunchers”: educated, experienced professionals returning to work after a career break. Since joining iRelaunch in 2013 after her own family-related career break, Mindy has held multiple cross-functional roles. Currently, Mindy leads iRelaunch’s legal function, develops and manages key corporate client relationships, and advises on strategy and company practices. Before her career break, Mindy practiced corporate and securities law in major NYC law firms. Mindy received her JD from NYU School of Law and her BA in Political Science from SUNY Binghamton.
Linkedin:- https://www.linkedin.com/in/mindysberkower/
Website:- https://www.irelaunch.com/
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Mindy Berkower: You can come back with a lot of strength and purpose, perhaps even more direction than you had coming out of college and going down a all right, college law, school law firm job, a sort of pre-programmed, predictable path, whereas, coming back from a career break, so many avenues and possibilities are open to you.
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, Mindy Berkower. She's the Chief Client Officer and General Counsel of iRelaunch, an organization that brings progressive employers together with career relaunches, educated, experienced professionals returning to work after a career break. Mindy herself joined iRelaunch in 2013 after her own family related career break.
She had been a practicing lawyer practicing corporate and securities law in major New York City law firms, and currently she leads iRelaunch’s legal function. She develops and manages key corporate client relationships and advises on strategy and company practices. So welcome Mindy to the Making Change with Your Money podcast.
Mindy Berkower: Thank you very much, Laura. It's a pleasure to be with you.
Laura Rotter: I'm going to start our conversation with the question I've been starting all my interviews with, which is, Mindy, what was money like in your family growing up?
Mindy Berkower: That is a really good question. I would say, say money was not talked about all that much. My dad was a dentist, my mom was a teacher and they enjoyed going out and we went on what I would call modest vacations. We lived outside of New York City and they really liked going into the city and having, you know, big evenings out and it never really occurred to me growing up to even think about how much does dad make? How much does mom make? What you know? Does mom have a pension? You know, dad's a solo practitioner. What does that mean? You know, what kind of financial planning do they do? How are they planning for their retirement? I, I will say, they made some not great decisions financially that I can recall. But they also, I think they were sort of shrouded in secrecy.
They, they kept a lot of things. I'm the oldest of three. They kept a lot of things from us, but they got through some tough times, honestly, without a lot of visible impact on my siblings and myself, I mean, they encouraged us. They pretty much said for college you need to go to a New York state. You know, public university, public college, and then you can go wherever you want if you go to grad school.
But. That was not out of step with a lot of what my friends were doing. Like there was no feeling of like, oh, I really wanted to go to, you know, this school or that school. So there wasn't any feeling in the family of any sort of constraint or deprivation or, I mean, we were perfectly comfortable and it didn't even occur to me that people lived differently than we did in our own little bubble, like I didn't feel, I, I grew up in Staten Island. I went to, you know, public schools, K-12, very happily. And the lack of financial sophistication did not expose itself until later as I became an adult and was like, oh, you know, an IRA or 401k, like, huh. And my husband is very into investing in the markets and, uh, very interested in that and, and has been since he was a teenager.
So my parents eventually pulled it together and then they retired very comfortably and now they're both gone fairly recently. And I'm the, the executor and I have insight into, their financial position, which turned out very, you know, perfectly fine for them. They retired to Florida, that whole thing. But growing up, I don't know there, they never talked about investing.
I don't think they invested. I think they were very bank account, plain vanilla, whatever went on with my mom's pension, it was sort of happening off in the ether. And as you know, as long as they could go out to dinner and a show and take us to Lake George, everything was peachy.
Laura Rotter: Thank you so much for sharing that, Mindy. I do think when we grew up, it was a very different time. There wasn't the kind of, public knowledge of wealth and the great amounts of wealth that we're surrounded by now, and I think it's true. We all tended to grow up in bubbles and weren't comparing ourselves to others when we were younger. I am curious that you mentioned that your parents did go through some financial difficulties.
Were you aware of it when you were still in their home, or this is as an adult that you became more aware?
Mindy Berkower: As the oldest, I was aware of it to some extent in my middle teen years, middle to late teen years. I would say that having to handle, my mom passed away in February, 2021. My dad last August, 2022, having to handle my dad's finances after he fell and while he was he had to go. It was like hospital rehab, nursing home, that whole thing. Um, really getting an eye on finances. Then somewhat after my mom passed away, it gave me even more insight because they're, you know, they were savers of every scrap of paper. You wouldn't know it by looking at their apartment, but red welds and drawers and closets had a lot of paper, not a lot of clutter on surfaces, but man, there was a lot.
So I learned things in this sort of retrospective sad environment that were very, that were very eye opening. So, I didn't know a lot, uh, at the time in my teens, but I certainly found out more fairly recently. Nothing eye popping, but just like, oh, they were dealing with a lot. That was interesting. Uh, to me, especially thinking back on to, to them, like everything was always great.
You know, that was the projected image. I don't think that's so unusual to have that can do like, everything’s great external picture of presenting to the outside world. Before social media, this was, this was before social media. This was just, everything was always great and this, this all made perfect sense to me that this is everything squirreled away in drawers, in files as opposed to out in the open.
Laura Rotter: Oh, it must have been interesting to learn that as you start going through their papers. They were no longer there too. Ask them questions about it then. So what's the age difference between you and your other siblings and are, do you have sisters, brothers?
Mindy Berkower: I have one of each. Uh, my brother is three years younger than I am, and my sister is seven years younger than I am.
Laura Rotter: And I, I'm curious how you were affected by the fact that your mother was, um, was she a working mom while you were growing up or did she become a teacher later? And how did that impact how you looked at what you would do?
Mindy Berkower: My mom started teaching right out of college, and she and my father also got married right out of college. They knew each other since childhood. Their families were friends. So, uh, my dad went to dental school and my mom taught, and, uh, he went into the Army for two years. Um, stationed in South Carolina, saving Fort Jackson, South Carolina from tooth decay, I guess. And, uh, so she, she took a career break herself, and then we eventually, after just a couple of years, moved back to New York.
I think at some point she started substitute teaching. And then got back into full-time teaching. But you know, in that period, my brother was born and my sister was born. So her career break was probably, I. It could have been eight years, 10 years. But then she, she came roaring back. She got her masters, she got an advanced certificate in administration and supervision.
And this was all within the New York City school system. And she was, you know, working until retirement. So that made an impression, uh, on me. I mean, she was a real energetic, committed, can-do kind of person, and she was a strong role model for, for the three of us.
Laura Rotter: Yeah, I think these role models and being aware of them is so important. My mother, too, was a teacher and she loved teaching. She never wanted to be home full-time. She was home early enough in the day. She happened to have been in an early childhood teacher and ultimately became an administrator, so she did have some more balance than you know, again, you would've had as a corporate attorney, but it definitely, when you see that your mother gets up in the morning, goes out, earns money, it does have an impact on how you see yourself and whether or not you are gonna have a role in the workforce.
Did you know early on you wanted to be a lawyer? I'm curious, when you went to college, what were you thinking and what your goals were?
Mindy Berkower: Yeah, I mean, I majored in political science, which was, you know, there are many majors you can have to then head to law school. Doesn't have to be political science, but I did choose political science.
I did have in mind that I wanted to go to law school, of course, in, in high school and into college somewhat I had the secret dream of, you know, being a, a performer, a singer. And maybe trying out for shows and didn't, didn't pursue that, you know, beyond, um, you know, beyond the college years. Uh, but that creative side was always, uh, was always there, but definitely not to me, definitely not practical and bill paying and I wasn't, you know, I knew I was not talented enough to, to do that. And law school, you know, that was a, a very trodden path from college, you know, into some kind of graduate program, in this case, law school. And, um, I went into big firms because of the, it's very hard work and they certainly own you.
Um, that's how, that's how I felt. I can't even count the number of plans that I had to cancel because of work. But it was a very, you know, high paying job to be an associate at a New York City law firm. The training was good, the exposure to people, uh, you know, other lawyers and clients and just the general practice, uh, was, was valuable. I, I got very good training, but it was a tough road and it's not the only way to be a lawyer. You know, that it was a good way to make money to pay off my student loans and to, to learn to get good training, but I knew when I left, which was right before my, my son, my older one was born, that I would not be coming back to that kind of practice.
It just was not a sustainable way to live. Um, and my, my husband has a similar at the time and now has similar kind of job. He's a lawyer too in, um, in a big firm. So very tough to have two people in the family with that kind of work. And there was no remote work at the time. This is, this is quite a while ago.
I, I did wanna become a lawyer. Did I really know what that meant at the time? No. And I went a certain path that, you know, allowed us, both of us to, to save money because we could never go anywhere as it were. So we saved, saved money, you know, bought a house in, in the suburbs of New York and commuted in.
You know, we decided that that just wasn't gonna work for both of us. You know, when we started, uh, having family.
Laura Rotter: Thanks so much for sharing that. I am quite aware of that legal world. My father was an attorney with, um, Wachtel Lipton. My sister out of law school was an attorney with Wilke Far. My cousin was an attorney, was Skadden Arps. My uncle was an attorney with Proco. I mean, everyone in my family was an attorney. My father said to me, you don't have to practice law, just go to law school, it'll be a, a great degree to have. And I, I said, nah, I don't, I don't think so. But, and it's true, Mindy, that the easier path, as, as you said, almost when you graduate from school, you can be recruited from these big firms.
They wine and dine you when you're a summer associate. And then suddenly the, uh, the real world when you start to work and. Again, I remember my father saying that he felt like he was a fireman. You know, he'd get phone calls 10:00 PM on a Saturday night, and it's a very hard life. You have to, and, and I think most of the partners I knew at that time were, were, were divorced or divorcing.
So it was a, a very hard life. You never considered becoming a dentist that didn't? Uh,
Mindy Berkower: Absolutely not. Although one of the clever things that my, that my parents did financially was. My siblings and I each had stints as dental assistants for my father. So that was a way to fill a need he needed, no pun intended. Now I'm realizing that sounds like a dental joke. It's not. But it was a way for him to have. Help in the office in, in addition to his full-time help, but have help in the office and give us money, have us earn and know what it means to earn and have work. And these were not no-show jobs. These were real jobs.
You know, we had our hours, um…I think his late days were Mondays and Thursdays, so we would work Mondays and Thursdays after school until eight 30 or nine at night. He kept long hours for people who who couldn't get there during the day. And then on all day on Saturday, which was a short day in the summer, it was a half day in the summer, but otherwise Saturday he worked a full day.
So that means we worked a full day. So we learned chairside assistance with the tools, you know, the mirror and the explorer. And so that was a really smart thing for my parents did decide to do, to employ each of us in turn, I told you the age differences, so we weren't ever working there at the same time.
But it was a really good job and I earned money and was able to have, you know, spending money or uh, um, I think I put some into savings. And just see that example and also see my father at work and see him interact with his patients and get to know some of, some of the patients. Um, so none of us ever wanted to be a dentist. I can, I can speak for my brother and sister.
Laura Rotter: And, and I'm curious before we continue on how your life evolved. Do you still sing? Is, is singing still a part of your life?
Mindy Berkower: I, I do not sing. Although when my son was in preschool, I decided now or never, and I took private singing lessons, classical singing lessons, which was a surprise to me.
The teacher said, you know, you have a, you have a voice that could be trained for, um, you know, for classical singing, for opera. So knock me over with a feather. That was a shocker. So this was, this was a music school in, in Westchester. Do you remember Northern Westchester Center for the Arts?
Laura Rotter: I do not, no.
Mindy Berkower: Do you know it closed down some years ago, but, um, it was in Mount Kisco. It was a really great organization, but most of the students were kids. So when it would come to these, Periodic recitals, like the winter recital, the spring recital. There would be this big, not quite an auditorium, but a big recital room full of. You know, parents waiting to see their kids sing. And there was this very small handful of nervous but intrepid adult students, uh, like myself, who would then get up and perform whatever our recital piece was and either singing or there were some adult piano students. Um, so I, I did that for a few years and it was fun.
But I had a wonderful teacher and she was very encouraging and in fact, a little too encouraging and wanted me to take it. Like, you have to get head shots, you have to sing at weddings. Was like, I do not wanna do that, that, that, I do not wanna do that. But I did get the opportunity through that to sing the, what was the name of it?
It was a part of the, um, Handel’s Messiah. Oh. The Rejoice portion of handles Messiah with the full orchestra as part of their holiday. Concert at Northern Westchester Center for the Arts. So that was sort of a pinch me kind of moment. So, but no, I don't, I'll sing in the car. I'll, you know, if somebody invites me to karaoke, I, I'd be happy to go, but, okay.
Laura Rotter: I will keep
that in mind the next time. I'm assuming you're a soprano.
Mindy Berkower: I am in that, in that vicinity. I, I haven't given it a good go in a while, so I don't know what would happen if I went back to some of. The pieces, I was, the operatic pieces I was singing. It would be interesting and frightening to see.
Laura Rotter: So you were saying how you were at a, a corporate law firm and, and that you left while you were still pregnant with your first child.
Mindy Berkower: I left about a month before. My first child was born. We actually adopted both of our children. Uh, so that was good project management to make both of those things happen.
But it was about a month before my older one was born and I had no, no immediate return to work plans, like I left my firm and then my younger one was born seven years later and my total career break was 18 years. So it was a long stretch and I was really pretty absorbed in raising them and running the house.
And I would, and I know other people felt this way too, other women felt this way too. I would always hate being out if, if my husband and I would go to some social event and somebody would say to me, oh, what do you do? And I would say what I did, and invariably they would say something like, oh, well that's the most important job in the world and good for you, you know, something condescending. And I was already, you know, as, as we all do, struggling a bit with like, all right, now that I'm not a big time corporate lawyer. What am I, you know, what, where's my, my own identity as opposed to my identity in relation to other people, to my children, to my husband, to the PTA, to, you know, to any, uh, to, to an external source.
Uh, so I never liked those questions, but. That was very telling that I didn't like those questions. Uh, and, and others I've spoken to who have been outta the workforce feel the same way. That really, uh, powerful feeling of identity that we get from our work. I'm not saying that's the only source of identity.
Uh, I don't mean to say that at all, but it is important. I think you, uh, if you take a career break, you might lose that sense and feel like, well, I'll never get that back. And that's certainly not, that's not true. Uh, you can come back with a lot of strength and purpose, perhaps even more direction than you had coming outta college and going down a all right, college law, school law firm job, a sort of pre-programmed, predictable path, whereas, coming back from a career break, so many avenues and possibilities are open to you that you may not have considered.
Maybe you went down a certain career path cuz you sort of fell into it as your first job out of college or because like you're saying in your family, like, oh, well just go to law school because that's just a good job to have and you end up in law school or medical school or what, whatever being an accountant.
Whatever it is, and maybe that wasn't really what you wanted to do, or you wanted to do something different than whatever that, whatever college career services or your family directed you, uh, into
Laura Rotter: Mindy, you bring up a lot of important points there? First of all, how culturally we equate our identities with our work and when you're at a party, people are making small talk.
What do you do? That's what comes up. And anytime we go through a career transition, whether we decide to stay home with our families or like, I decided to finally leave Wall Street. It's hard. We're, we're so identified with our previous positions. I had a friend point out to me, you're always introducing yourself as a career changer who, because that was my identity for so many years. And I do also think, especially as I look at my adult children, that we don't necessarily do them a service by expecting, right? When they're 10 years old and they argue, oh, you'll be a great lawyer and put them in this groove of just letting life happen to them in the same way that perhaps we might look back and feel like life happened to us.
I, you know, I turned around and, you know, there I was in this position on Wall Street and what a privilege, almost though very frightening as well as we go through change to get to know ourselves and, and maybe come up with a different path that, that's suits us better. So I'm curious when you decided that you were ready to dip your toe back into the work world, what? What was going on?
Mindy Berkower: Well, I was thinking about it as my kids were getting older and I purposely took a PTA leadership role that was offered to me as a way to consolidate and focus my volunteer efforts. So instead of, and we actually talk about this at, at my firm iRelaunch and, uh, and we call it strategic volunteering.
So instead of volunteering on this committee, like bus safety and kindergarten book club or this or that, which are all good to do, bring it all in and be the head of your PTA. Or be the, the longtime chair of a particular mission driven committee, like, or work out in the community, volunteer in the community.
But this was, I call it my skin thickening PTA experience because, and I'll be careful in how I say this. The PTA had it, had it all going on compared to my law firm years dealing with contentious situations and high level negotiations, and it was perhaps because it was unexpected in in the community, I learned quite a bit about what kind of leader I wanted to be and what kind of leader I didn't want to be.
And I think I also learned that one person's leadership style. Might not suit me, even if it suited that person. And be careful who your mentors are. Make sure that your mentors are those whose approaches, that are approaches that are comfortable for you and that are authentic for you. And don't try to be something that you're not.
And I also learned a lot about entrenched interests and turf protection in the PTA and backroom deals. It was really quite something. What kinds of things went on and how uncomfortable they were at the time, but how in enriching and preparatory the experiences were. For then getting out there and, and relaunching and, and honestly, I, I'm grateful for, for those two, two years and they set me on the right path to have good stories to tell and to feel motivated, like, well, if I can deal with that and the total lack of boundaries, because when you're in the PTA, I'm sure you know there are no boundaries because you, you sort of live where you work and people know you, and people will tell you what they're feeling at any time of the day and in any, in any corner of the town, uh, where you happen to encounter them.
So, um, Yeah, that was really, that was really something. But I, I myself went to an iRelaunch return to work conference at NYU in 2012 because I had seen the conference advertised in an email from my law school, and that was a very powerful, pivotal experience for me as someone, I, I wasn't working for iRelaunch, I was just attending the conference and seeing how many other people there were just like me.
It, it, you can be sort of isolated when you're relaunching your career. So having that community and being at a conference being, uh, we have a private Facebook group, it's a forum. So being in a forum like that where you can ask questions or, or just knowing people in your community, making your own return to work group and accountability group, to have that sense of shared experience and community is, is very powerful.
Laura Rotter: Shared experience is so important, which is one of the reasons I started this podcast. Cuz I feel like as we go through transitions, it's to normalize it and to realize that other people are going through or have gone through the same thing. So Mindy, can you share with our listeners, I guess, what were the skills that you brought from your work in the law firms and of course from who you are as a person to the PTA and then what, what skills were continued to be developed?
Mindy Berkower: I would say wanting to close a transaction and I'm, I'm not talking, I'm not talking from a wheeler dealer, um, smoky room, kind of, kind of, um, situation, but more bringing people together.
And making sure everyone's interests are served, ironing out the details, and then closing on that goal. That is a shared goal. So whether it's in a corporate contract or stock offering from back in the day when I worked on those kinds of things to making sure that the very expensive rented theater sets that the middle school theater group wanted to have for their, uh, production were properly insured under the auspices of the school district and making sure that contract, proper contracts were signed at the time, making sure that there were no bouncy castles rented because those were not, those were specifically excluded from the PTA insurance coverage. Um, so attention to detail and I guess a sense of goal oriented-ness and purpose, and serving people's needs in a logical way, and then being organized following through all, all of that and having a certain level of diplomacy, which I think is, is something to continue to develop over one's lifetime in different situations. I think that's really important. Communicating clearly. So I think that whole from the law firm days, the client service piece, and the communication skills have followed me all the way through to my current role at iRelaunch and to the roles I've had before this one at iRelaunch.
Laura Rotter: One of the things I'm hearing, Mindy, is this skill of developing a consensus by understanding others' motivations, right? We, it's so easy for us to come to the table and a discussion, understanding our own, and that's a skill of listening and understanding others that is so important and many people just do not have as we see in the world around us.
You know, people just don't wanna listen to each other. So I'm hearing you say that, that that's part of sort of your softer skills in addition to the other skills you have of, uh, attention to detail and getting things done. And you mentioned community being very important in your transition. And of course, iRelaunch playing a big role other.
Other resources before you talk more specifically about how iRelaunch works today that you turned to as you were transitioning back into the workforce?
Mindy Berkower: Well, the, the conference was a very big resource for me and keeping in touch with some of the people I met at the conference as well. Then being on the iRelaunch email list, which is how I found out about my first job there, the availability of that job. Getting the newsletter and seeing, iRelaunch, advertise for this. Not the job I have now, but my original job. So, uh, keeping in, keeping myself informed of opportunities at the time. And then networking through my law school's, uh, career services office, that was, that was an important piece. For me, letting other people know that I was interested in going back to work, which is a good piece of advice iRelaunch gives because you never know who is going to be the bridge to a potential opportunity for you, either the source of it or a Oh, yeah, I heard about you know, they're hiring at X company or my sister-in-law was just talking about an opening in exactly that field in, in, in your field at her company. Like you don't know where those conversations are going to happen. A friend of mine was getting a pedicure and was sitting next to someone who, uh, became the source of her job opportunity that she ultimately took and was in for eight or nine years.
Laura Rotter: I love that story.
Mindy Berkower: Yeah. You never know. And, and actually in my time at irelaunch, in addition to resources on the website, we have a podcast as well. 3, 2, 1. I relaunch, uh, talking with people about either their own career relaunch or, uh, if they're an employer, their return to work program that they may have started. To hire other, you know, to hire relaunches. And then advice on different aspects of career relaunching, such as the imposter syndrome, or I think we have one on financial, one or two on, on planning, uh, financially for your career break and things to keep in mind. So, um, so yeah, there were, there were more resources than ever.
We have a, an online self-paced roadmap. That people can use and, and those have developed during my time there. I certainly would've jumped all over those if they had been in existence back when I was relaunching.
Laura Rotter: So, Mindy, for our listeners who are hearing this and saying, I wanna learn more about iRelaunch, I'm ready to go back to the workforce, what would you suggest they do?
Mindy Berkower: Well, I would say the first stop is irelaunch.com. It's a great website, lots of free resources to to explore. Signing up for our email list and our job board would be great first steps. We run a return to work conference twice a year in May and October, and registration is free for a period of time. Uh, so, um, and then low cost even after it's free.
And our iRelaunch return to work roadmap that I just mentioned is included with registration. So, um, it's a really great deal and there's, uh, it's a three day conference, two days of content, all virtual by the way, now we pivoted to virtual in 2020. And, um, two days of content on relaunching and hearing from employers who sponsor the conference about their programs.
And then the third day is a virtual career fair. So it's a great way to absorb content and put it into practice right away by having interviews just like this. I mean the, the video interviews look. Just like a Zoom call, but they're on the virtual event platform that we use. And it's been a really successful pivot from when we had to do it in 2020 when our events were in person and like the rest of the world, we had to make a big sudden adjustment. It's worked out really well, uh, for, uh, for the employers who we deal with and also the relaunch who can attend from home or wherever they are. They don't have to make an expensive trip to a physical venue and also get all dressed up,
Laura Rotter: And I'm just curious, how do the Ivy launchers get to know each other when they're not in the same room?
Mindy Berkower: Is there Yeah, we have a session. I think now it's the week before. On Zoom where people can see each other. But we do encourage people to get to know each other through our Facebook forum, uh, which is a private group. And you don't have to go to a conference to be in the Facebook forum, but you do have to be a relaunch here.
So we have some threshold questions people have to answer in order to be admitted. That's a really good place to get connected with other relaunch.
Laura Rotter: Perfect. Thank you so much. So as we come to the end of our conversation, Mindy, I do like to end these talks with the question about how, how have you redefined perhaps success for yourself, perhaps financial success since you were, you know, a young, new law firm member?
Mindy Berkower: I'm much more conscious now than I was then about all of the decisions, micro-decisions that go into maintaining a, uh, healthy financial life. I won't say that finance and investments are my favorite topic. I still, and maybe it's from childhood where it just was not talked about, I still feel a little underconfident investment related discussions, but I, I think it's all a question of being open to learning, just like with anything else. So I'm really happy as part of my relaunch - I'm really happy to be earning again, uh, just like in my, you know, dental assistant days going back that far. And then certainly, you know, with other jobs, including my, my law firm jobs, it feels really good to have been contributing.
Financially to the household, uh, over the past 10 years. Not to say that contributions weren't, my contributions weren't important, sort of financial before I started, before I relaunched because of course, Who you're gonna get to do all the stuff that you need to raise a family. You know, you either have to pay someone to come in to have that important role, um, you know, a nanny, a babysitter, uh, or you have parents nearby, or a relatives or, you know, you take it on yourself.
So there's certainly economic value beyond the important personal value, but the actual money coming in that that made me very happy to be back in an earning role and also then feel, have that piece of my identity back as a working paid professional. Yeah, I still don't love investment related conversations, but I engage in them and, uh, You know, feel much more comfortable having them, perhaps more, more comfortable having them.
Even after seeing the trajectory of my parents' financial situation and how that ended up well, that, that feels very, very powerful. And there were lessons there that I'm still identifying and sort of sitting with.
Laura Rotter: Thank you. It's a big role to be an executor in the state and especially your parents and all the emotions that go along.
With the roles. So good luck as you continue to do that, and it's been a pleasure talking to you and hearing how your professional life has evolved and gave you time to be with your kids as they were growing up. And it sounds like you're really enjoying what you're doing now. So thank you so much for being a guest on my podcast, Mindy.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Mindy Berkower, Chief Client Officer, and General Counsel at iRelaunch. Some takeaways from our conversation when leading a group, make sure you understand the motivation of the other team members. And stress how the solution you are presenting serves their goals.
Mindy shared how possessing a certain level of diplomacy, clear communication skills, and attention to detail, served her well in the PTA as well as the corporate arena.
Second takeaway, make an effort to find community, which played an important role in Mindy's transition back to work when she was exploring reentering the workforce.
After being a stay-at-home mom for 18 years, Mindy attended an iRelaunch conference in New York City. She kept in touch with people. She met there and joined the iRelaunch email list. Which is how she found out about her first job
And finally, keep networking. As we've heard from other guests, networking was very important as Mindy explored her next move, she let other people know she was interested in going back to work, believing that you never know. Who is going to be the bridge to the next opportunity for you? She shared a story of a friend of hers who was getting a pedicure and was sitting next to someone who was the source of her next job opportunity.
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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/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.