Welcome. This is Wendy Walner.
I am so excited to introduce you to another amazing person.
You know a lot about my reflection on Women's History Month is
relationships that I've been lucky enough to meet.
And so I think it's really appropriate to tell you that, um, not just who our,
our next conversation is, but,
but really how important the connections that we make are. So,
I am not a person who goes to nail salons, um,
barely ever see Wendy having her nails done.
So pictured sitting next to a woman who just looked like somebody I would wanna
talk to, and, um,
I was risky and brave and relentless,
almost like a little kid pulling on your jacket, saying, hi, hi.
Will you talk to me? Will you talk to me? And, um, that introduction,
that day at a place I'd never been before,
became this beginning of somebody that I have learned to admire,
that I've learned to follow, that I've learned to listen to,
and has really taught me some guiding principles.
So as we continue into Women's History Month,
I encourage you literally to look to the right and left, to look up and down,
to make connections with other women who can teach us and guide us. You know,
March 1st, I think all of us saw so much,
and we were there with our social media posts and we were out there, yay,
rah rah. And by March 3rd we saw less. And March 5th, kind of not at all.
And here we are mid-month. Um, so I know we have a lot of news.
I certainly understand we have banks closing and you know,
we still have horrific earthquakes. And I,
I'm so mindful of the devastation, but I do have to say that, um,
it is a little disheartening to me that for, for some reason on this month,
we've lost some steam. And so I question whether A,
we somehow don't think there's enough women to talk about, which is pretty, uh,
tragic statement to make, or b,
if we've lost some courage to continue the conversation.
So let's take a minute and talk to Rain Henderson,
who's had an incredibly stellar career,
has had some amazing life choices that she's vulnerable enough to talk to us
about, and to really en,
en engage in the words that she has added to my
vocabulary that has been such a guiding force for me ever since that
wonderful day in that nail salon.
Thank you so much for chit chatting with me today.
Always enjoy our talks and I always learn so much. And I know, uh,
I know you have so much to offer, but would you start with just a brief bio?
How did you get to be where you are and, and just a little bit about yourself.
Um, sure. Well, thank you Wendy. It's so nice to be with you. Um,
this is an honor, so thank you for having me. My name is Rain Henderson.
I have asked myself questions my whole life about what's important to me,
what do I wanna do, uh, what do I like?
I consider myself a highly empathetic and highly observant person.
So I tend to learn a lot by watching what other people do. And through that,
gonna say yes to things.
So long as those things pointed towards my personal North Star,
which was to prevent harm, which sounds humongous,
but I think because of my childhood experiences,
I knew that at the very least I wanted to do work that if it wasn't making
things better, at the very least, it was thinking about like,
how could you potentially take a,
a current system or a current organization and could you ensure that it's,
it's not doing harm, right? It's not doing harm to the environment,
it's not doing harm to people. Anytime an opportunity presented itself,
if I could answer those questions generally, then I said yes to the opportunity.
So that meting in politics, it meant working for nonprofits,
it meant working in the private sector and it meant working for individuals.
But I've also run political campaigns and worked as a policy advisor to a number
of people, including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who's a huge mentor. Um, and,
you know, bill and Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, uh, all people who sort of,
you know, really started out in the political sphere,
but have a very large focus on making sure that everyone has the opportunity to
live their their best life. Um,
I find myself today working as an independent consultant, uh,
with a team of women who I'm so proud to, to work with every day.
And we all came together about the same point in our career where we had,
I think, achieved a fair amount of, um, success on paper, right?
So certain titles,
what I wanted was agency and self-authorship to be able to make sure
that my life was balanced and that I was being my authentic self.
I love it. I mean, rain, it's like the first time I met you,
which was at a nail salon. Let's just go out and do that. You know,
you had such a profound impact because you really introduced me to a term North
Star,
but you explained it in a way that like really resonated with me and my life.
Work of finding balance and understanding how quickly we can lose direction.
What is your feeling about where we are today in the year 2023?
We need so many things for women, uh, and for all people. And, you know,
we talk about Women's History Month. I have a lot of questions about like,
what does it mean to be a woman right now? What does it mean for, you know,
people who identify as women,
for those who are born as women and those who are not,
and to find their place in this world. And so it feels like a,
a month focusing on women's equality and equity is so necessary cause
we have so far to go, and yet there's, there's so much room to think about,
like everybody else who doesn't necessarily identify, uh, in a particular way.
So I find myself having a lot of questions, but my,
my gut pull is I wish we did not need to set
aside days explicit recognitions, right? And yet we do.
And I think when I was younger,
I definitely took that for granted and I did not understand how important it was
to name these months, uh,
and these days so that we can have these conversations,
even if they're uncomfortable, even if we don't have the answers,
so that we can continue to, to wrestle with these issues. So for me,
thinking about this month,
constantly reminded just how much work there is to do to make sure that all
women who are born and identify that way feel comfortable and at peace
in that right? That that's, um, a place of comfort and joy.
Most importantly zoom right past equality to a place of equity. Um,
because it took me a long time to realize whether my opinions,
uh, would be as tolerated, uh, and is accepted, uh,
because of my comfort and my femininity.
And anything that creates dialogue, I think is necessary and welcome.
And having explicit focus on what it means to be a woman in this country,
uh, in this world, in this point in time, is necessary.
I love the idea of opening dialogue, right? Having the discussion.
Just shout out to where we need to end up.
So I know you're super familiar that I've spent the last 30 years on this naming
of work-life balance, but however you wanna market it.
And I certainly recognize a lot of people call it different things.
I'm not even always so interested in what people call it other than really
feeling that we can have it all, however you define that.
So you've shared your successes and your dreams.
I also know that you're a mom and a wife and you've got a lot of other roles.
So what do you think? Can we have it all? And what does that mean?
Can we have it all? Can we do it all right. I've had many mentors say,
you can't have it all. You can try to do it all. . Um, um,
recognizing my privilege,
recognizing that I've made decisions I think are very different than decisions
that many people make. Um,
I think there's so many messages in our society about what it means to be
successful, um, what it means to sort of, you know,
dominate or slay or all the world's words that are sort of in the vernacular for
successful people, but also for successful women.
And how much those have not resonated with me over the, you know,
course of my career. Um, because I, I want to have meaningful connection.
I don't need to stand out, I don't need to slay, I don't need to dominate.
What I need to do is feel very connected to the people I
work with and the people that I'm working in service to. And same for my family.
And so I think I've made a lot of choices that are really leading with the
heart. And I, I think that very much goes against our culture. Again,
both a point of privilege, but also hard earned in,
in many regards to get to this point where I can see now some of the fruits of
the choices I've made. You know, also, my husband stays home with the kids.
So we have tried many different formats. You know,
a number of years ago my husband was going through his own career pivot. We,
we tried a number of different formats for him too,
and ultimately decided that he was going to be the one that provided the primary
childcare and served in the role of when school calls,
like dad's the one who's gonna run and do the, the pickup. Um,
and so I think it's important to recognize that I feel like we have it all cuz
we've made those choices and we can activate on those choices.
But that means we don't have the income that we would if we were a double,
you know, income household.
It means there are certain things that we compromise for our children that they
can't participate in because it comes down to a financial decision. You know,
we feel that we are in more ways balanced and aligned with our values than out
of sync. You know,
20 years ago it never came up sort of this idea of sort of like what it meant to
be a woman who might potentially wanna have a family.
And about seven or eight years ago,
I started to notice a shift that when younger people and younger women in
particular would ask me about my career path,
they would ask me what were my family planning goals. And,
and I found that so interesting and so brilliant because as somebody who has the
ability to give birth and who wanted to do that,
there are things I wish I had thought about differently or that I'd been able to
talk about sort of more openly. Um,
and that it was a factor rather than this thing that I felt like I had to keep,
you know, kind of compartmentalized and figure out ways to sort of deal with it,
um,
off in the corner rather than it being sort of central to a part of who I was.
And you know, in my, in my circle of life, my job as a piece,
my family is a piece,
but for a long time in my early career I hid the family part.
I've been with my husband 25 years,
but there are a lot of people who still don't know that because I felt like it
was important to be seen independently.
And I also got a lot of advice from women I really admire who told me that that
was the way to, to show up and was to sort of keep that compartmentalized.
So I think for people who are thinking through this,
whether you can have it all, what is important to you?
Like what does having it all mean? Just keep asking that question.
Rain.
I don't even know if you know how powerful those words are and how important it
is cuz we don't hear them enough, right? We don't hear the inspirational,
ask yourself the questions, trust on the answers.
It's a one final question for you. Often I'm asked,
who would you put the picture up of? A woman that you would shout out to?
Oh, it's my grandma, Abby Larson. Ah.
So tell me, introduce me to her.
So Abby Larson,
at a time when it was not common to be a woman who had her own career was well
respected, had a very robust friend network. I mean, we used to joke,
my grandmother, unfortunately, she, she passed far too young, but you know,
when she was 78, I had call her on a Friday to say, Hey grandma,
I'm coming into town. And she'd be like, that's great, find some food. Like,
I'm busy. I have plans. You know, it'd be,
and it'd be like Friday night at 10 o'clock and she would be going out to,
to meet people or to do things. So she had a very full social life,
but it was all centered around her values and what was important to her.
And so what I got to see from her was, you know, the importance of connection,
the importance of, you know, kind of knowing your values and expressing those.
And, um, anybody who wanted to run for o Office, uh, in our town,
you came and you called on Abby Larson to sort of get her blessing.
And so just watching that and seeing that she was respected,
she seemed to move through the world just like any other man and had the respect
of many men, um, in, in that town. And so I,
I always think of, of her, I've had a lot of good mentors. Again,
Hillary Clinton, Senator Gillibrand, Rebecca Tracer, I mean,
the list goes on and on.
I'm just so blessed to be surrounded by brilliant women. Um, but the,
the person that always just seems right here, central is a Larson.
I love it.
So thank you for introducing us and thank you so much for taking time out of
your day in helping us celebrate and honor Women's History Month.
And congratulations on all your successes.
Thank you. And likewise, really appreciate it.
Really wanna thank, um, everybody and you and,
and just this whole process has just been amazing.
And I really want to also just take a second to sort of drill down
that one of the most common questions I get is how did I like build bli?
And it's just been such an integral part of my learning,
my quest for learning and, and my desire and cherishing relationships.
So we are really excited to continue this conversation.
I am grateful because the people are sharing their stories,
their successes, their ideologies, their north stores.
So let's be open to learn from 'em and let's really thank them for being part of
our world. Thanks everybody.
This has been a production of Balancing Life's Issues with your host,
Wendy Walner, produced by me, Kai Sorenson.
Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and you'll get brand new episodes
as they drop. Got an idea for the show.
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