#294 Trish Gregory – Transcript

Jess Brady
Welcome, Trish.

Trish Gregory
Thank you, Jess, I’m so excited to be here with you.

Jess Brady
I am so excited. We are recording this the week of International Women’s Day, which I’ve decided is no way. very timely given the conversation that we are about to jump into today. Before we get there, I would love to maybe just for the people that don’t know you, and full disclosure, I know you because I’m lucky enough to now work with you. But for everyone else, can we go back a bit in time? And can we learn more about Trish?

Trish Gregory
Sure. Well, I was born in April, we might not get back that far. So. So I’ve been a financial advisor for about five years now. Before then had nothing to do with financial advice. Although I did constantly talk about money and investments and savings and budgeting. It has it funny that it taken me this long to become a financial advisor, because I’m sure it was so obvious to everyone around me. So I started out in Melbourne for a single plan of practice and move to a bigger practice, then had baby number three and moved to Canberra, where I am now. Little bit about me, I have three kids, I took my youngest to a couple of financial conferences in 2019. So he is I think probably has the most CPD for a young child ever financial one of the you know, his I don’t know what else people really want to know about me. I’m very open. And we’d love. I love to talk about money and women and money and military spouses and money. Because my partner was in the military.

Jess Brady
I love that I’m like, tell us about you. And then you’re like, and then I had baby three, I’m like, Okay, I think we missed some of the bits. But that’s okay, because that’s what we’re going to focus on today. So the reason that I invited you to be part of today’s conversation is being a financial adviser is a really big responsibility. And being a parent is also a really big responsibility. And you juggle both of those exceptionally well, well, that’s the perception from the outside. So I’d love to sort of peel back the veneer and figure out, you know, what is it like? And I want to sort of hear more about, I guess your journey is becoming apparent in the industry and learning around, you know, parental leave, and what’s worked and what hasn’t. So I’m going to we’re going to talk about all of that today. So let me just stop rapid firing questions at you and not giving you time to answer them. Maybe instead, I will ask you one specific question. And then we can go from there. Does that sound good?

Trish Gregory
Sounds good. And I did want to preface this for everyone listening that I am talking about my experiences and my knowledge as a cisgendered white female in Australia. So everyone’s experiences are different. Some people may think that what I’m saying is ridiculous. And that’s fine. But you know, I’m a late 30s female who has three children and has been around in this world long enough to not really care about people’s opinions of me anymore. And more think about what actually matters and how I can help. So happy for people to learn from my experience.

Jess Brady
Oh, I’m so about that. And gosh, if we weren’t when everyone else did thought we wouldn’t do anything. That’s my opinion anyway. Tell me what it’s been like having kids taking parental leave as a financial adviser.

Trish Gregory
Sure. So with my first two kids, I was just working a job, I was working in a university, so well for my first child. And then I didn’t go back to employment until financial planning. So I had four and a half years between first child and going back to employment. And so I was employed for about two years and got pregnant. So as far as being pregnant in a job, that’s pretty simple. You just do your job just get bigger and bigger, as well. I think it depends on the type of role someone is in, like, the role that I was in was going out and try as a growth advisor. So going out and trying to find clients. I think there’s that perception of clients that as they notice that you have a pregnant belly, they’re like, well, we don’t really like she’s gonna leave soon. Anyway, is the assumption.

Jess Brady
Did that really happen though? Did people really care? Or, like, was it a problem? Or perception?

Trish Gregory
I did know that towards the end when I was meeting people that there were less and less people signing on to be to sign up with me. And then someone said, Oh, yes, I did wonder about that when I call them back. A week or two before I was due to leave. So based on that one incidence Yes, I think people do notice that I never say anything, that it may alter the way that they think about coming on with you and as a as an advisor, so it’s probably something important for employers to think about.

Jess Brady
Okay, so can we also just get back? What? When you mentioned to your employer, hey, I’m having a baby? Was that a good experience for you? Was that a confronting scary experience? Given that you were in that growth advisor role? Like, what what was that experience? Like?

Trish Gregory
No, I actually told them very, very early on definitely before I needed to, because I was being put, they wanted my name and my experience to be in a project for a corporate, more corporate gig. And so I was like, Well, I would recommend you don’t, because by the time that we get this project through, I’m probably not going to be here. I’ll be on parental leave. One of the big challenges so my employers will find like no problem there. I think one of the challenges when I was when I was pregnant, and talking to people about it was I had planned for 14 months off from work from employment from paid employment, you definitely work when you’re new parents. So and whenever we go to industry events and talk to colleagues, everyone would say, what about your clients, you’re going, you’re leaving for 14 months? That’s a long time. And I think they missed a big point of that, which is all about my child, I wanted to Well, you were capable of having me take 14 months off it was from I think it was like October or November through to the following January. That’s why I was just trying to make it clean. So that was interesting people’s reactions to me saying I was taking that much time off.

Jess Brady
So for people who are nodding their head going, Yeah, I would be like, what about your clients? What did you say to them? Like, what what was the reaction from your clients? What happened? Did the world fall apart? Because you were not there for 14 months?

Trish Gregory
No, because we had that layout. We knew we were leaving, we knew I was leaving, we knew the date that I was finishing up, which means that there was plenty of time to hand over to one of my colleagues, my clients and give them a really good handover and talk to all of my clients about what was happening. And also, I said to them, Look, once I come back, which I didn’t, we ended up moving to Canberra. But I said, once I come back, you can choose to stay with a new advisor that is taking over from you or you can come back to me no problem. Either way, I don’t mind. So no one had a problem with it. It I think it probably did help they were going to another female.

Jess Brady
Ah, interesting. Okay. And so did that existing financial advisor already have a client base?

Trish Gregory
Yeah, she was another growth advisor. So yeah, she just took on my ongoing clients. I’m sure she got support around it as well. But I like to set people up pretty well to make sure that any advice is done. And so that when I leave, there’s good notes, and there’s a good handover so it’s as simple as possible.

Jess Brady
Sure. Interesting. Did you get paid parental leave?

Trish Gregory
No, I only got the I only got the Centrelink. 18 weeks, those no superannuation was paid either. Which isn’t kind of common in our profession.

Jess Brady
somewhat ironic. Ah, sure. Is that was that for baby? Number two?

Trish Gregory
That was baby number three.

Jess Brady
That was baby number three. Okay. So the first thing you had outside of the industry, and then you before you joined the industry is what I mean. And then the third was whilst you were an advisor, what do you think workplaces should do? If they have a staff member who has either told them that they’re looking to start having a family or in fact comes to them and says, Hey,

Trish Gregory
I pregnant? So I think it’s, it’s not as simple as a one size fits all solution because advice businesses are so big and so small there are, you know, this single player practices all the way up to practices that have over 100 advisors. So it’s, it’s not simple. I certainly think that the big financial advice practices should be doing minimum of three months full pay with when I was pregnant the first time at the uni and I had planned to going back but we moved from Wagga to Dallas. I got six months for paid leave. No superannuation, but I got six months for paid leave and I didn’t have to pay it back if I didn’t go back that was at a university. So very female dominated. But it’s something that you do if we had stayed in Wagga. I would have gone back to that job because why wouldn’t you? That’s Just a lovely, great feeling. And thank you for paying for six months. So I think employers need to look really hard at it not, not necessarily that you’ll get the money, your money’s worth to get the money back or anything like that. But from a staff retention policy side of things, because I wrote about this on LinkedIn for International Women’s Day, women that I can speak for myself and some of my friends I’ve spoken to. And a lot of people who have sent me private messages on LinkedIn. When I go on these sorts of rants, it’s the icky, icky feeling that you get when you look up a policy. And you go, they don’t have paid parental leave, or they have very little pay parental leave, or they don’t even talk about men in their parental leave. It’s just something that someone might go to the employer, and then they go, or I’m not going to be around at this place for long if I want to have a family. I did that when I before I was in financial advice. I in my early 20s. I remember looking up a parental leave policy at a company and I went there’s there’s nothing there’s not much here. I definitely will be leaving here when I find the one because I’m not going to stay. Because that’s that’s the reality, what people think about these days. Do you think it’s subconsciously

Jess Brady
says as a business? We don’t support or care slash want you to do that? Like, what is it? If a company doesn’t have a parental leave policy? What’s your perception of that company?

Trish Gregory
I think it’s that they haven’t given any thought to it. Because they haven’t had to think about it. You know, there’s the great story about Cheryl’s Dannenberg that worked for Google, they didn’t realize that you needed you really should have parking for pregnant women nice and close to the building because it you have to waddle as you get pregnant. And it’s it could just be because we work in a male dominated field, that these things people don’t see it. I don’t think it’s ever malicious. I don’t think it’s ever anyone going haha, we’re going to make sure our women are paid less. And we’re not going to support our women as much and blah, blah, blah. I think it’s just that companies don’t see it if people don’t call it out.

Jess Brady
And I guess more and more we are looking at what are the benefits of working with an employer like so we we obviously want to understand the salary. But there’s so much more to that now around obviously flexibility and additional additional benefits. And I know for people who are considering family, this is some I mean, we know because we talk about it in meetings all day, this is something that a lot of people look at, at sort of job seeking stage. And so you’re right, if you’ve never given any thought to it, it’s probably just that you’re missing out on good strong candidates who want to work with people that are progressive enough to have a policy.

Trish Gregory
That’s right, exactly. So I know someone whose spouse, she had a baby, I think maybe four or six months ago, and she’s desperate to get back to work. She loves her job. She’s on a huge trajectory up. So the parental leave policy has been fantastic for her and she loves her employer and can’t wait to get back. Whereas some other people if you have a lackluster or even worse, no parental leave policy, people aren’t exactly you know, they have to think about the financial aspect. They don’t have to think about that. I really like this company aspect. I mean, when you told me Broxson has parental leave policy, not that I’m having any more children. I gave you a big hug. I was like, Oh my gosh, thank you so much for being a small business that is doing, you know, as much as you can for women. It’s hard. It’s the economic side of things is really hard for small businesses. I imagine.

Jess Brady
It is hard. It is hard when Glenn and I so so we do have a three months full pay parental leave policy, if you’ve been working with oxenhope for 12 months, and will pay super contributions for up to 12 months that person is on parental leave, if they’re the primary carer and there is a commercial conversation about oh my gosh, like this is a big financial cost to the business. But we also realize that what would be worse is losing good talent and not attracting good talent and not having them come back to work with us because they didn’t like what we were offering them and we thought I mean, anyone that’s been through a recruitment phase recently will know like the cost of recruitment and training versus having a parental leave policy like put your financial analysis hat on. It’s a no brainer.

Trish Gregory
What do you think? I know you’re interviewing me but what do you think is the minimum size is a financial advice practice that could implement a decent parental leave policy?

Jess Brady
Such an interesting question, because you’re right, our industry goes far and wide. I mean, you know, you can have some really profitable businesses that only have one advisor might have a couple of support staff, but they have a lot of financial capacity to be able to offer parental leave to their staff. And so, I would say that there isn’t a size based on headcount, it needs to be a business that I just think it’s the way of the future, I honestly believe it’s something that we should all be striving for. Because if we’re trying to help our members, or our clients achieve financial freedom, but we’re not enabling our staff to do it through policies and procedures that we have, it does seem like a strange mix to me,

Trish Gregory
I would 100% agree. And I know we’re talking about paper and to leave, but there are other accommodations that businesses need to be aware of like, you know, the shelf, so Sheryl Sandberg parking close to the building type thing. Accommodating women as much as possible, some people absolutely thrive during pregnancy, I survived, felt very, very big and public transport in Melbourne being pregnant. Was fun from that, you know, understanding the fact that when you’re especially heavily pregnant, or even in the early stages of pregnancy, before you’ve told anyone really can be really, really tired. You can have strange aversions to food, and then someone’s you know, cooking up fish or eggs or pizza in the microwave. It’s, it’s, I think, I found, I always wanted to work and not sit not make it seem like this was something that was holding me back. But the reality is our body changes, our mind changes. Our especially first time mums really picture what life is, because it’s such a huge change. And I think employers have to recognize that. It’s not that you have to treat people with kid gloves, or like they have a disability, but you need to understand that there needs to be accommodations, because they’re changing so fast.

Jess Brady
And now that we live and work the way that we do, you would imagine that this lends itself quite nicely to these examples or scenarios because people don’t need to come in and see you face to face anymore. And there’s so much more ability to be flexible. I mean, if a client or a member wants an early morning meeting, and that’s suiting your situation better at the moment or or later evening, like, surely the world that we’re in now, there is no better time to be able to say to staff who are pregnant, pick your hours. How do you want to do this from a flexibility perspective and give them that autonomy?

Trish Gregory
Absolutely. That’s right. And yeah,

Jess Brady
um, okay, so we’ve obviously talked about parental leave. And we’ve talked a little bit about you sort of recognizing that there might be changes and that that’s normal, and it’s okay, and you don’t need to panic and think that, you know, everything’s gonna go down the toilet, because it’s not. What biases have you faced as a female financial advisor with kids. have you faced any? Oh, yes.

Trish Gregory
Oh, yes. No. But I knew you were Yes. So like I said before, it’s usually completely unintentional shock, however, and that’s because we live in a patriarchy, and financial services, superannuation has all been set up for a male working life. Yeah. So that’s just the reality. And anyone who thinks differently is clearly not reading the same research I am. I actually wrote about this in one of my subjects that I did for my master’s. Because I always pushed gender in all of my assignments that I could, which was wonderful. CPD is unfortunately gendered. So because so when I was on parental leave, I was I had to complete CPD to see you know what it was then obviously, it’s changed for sia leaves it up to the licensees to decide whether someone who is on extended care as Lee said, looking after an elderly parent or on parental leave, the licensees have to make the decision on whether someone should do their CPD to maintain their registration or not. It’s very fuzzy. The problem with that is licensees are always going to err on the side of caution. We’ve seen what SL A’s look like we know that they’re very cautious and they over dramatize everything. Which means that when you’re on parental leave, especially if you’re doing you know over 12 months like I was you had to complete your CPD while you are parentally. Now that might not sound like much. However, medical boards like APRA AHPRA, the legal practice boards, some of them do give guidance around CPD when someone is on extended or parental leave. So this can be done. He just has to be legislated clear guidance from the body so that all the licensees can then say, I’m very comfortable. You’re on parental leave from this state to this state. Therefore will pro rata your CPD.

Jess Brady
I mean, it seems like it would not be that hard to do. And also, if you’re only for 12 months or 14 months, unless it’s an extraordinary period, like there’s not going to be that much change that you need to get across in the time that you’ve been away, right.

Trish Gregory
Yeah, exactly. That’s right. And it’s not as if you can’t catch up anyway. I mean, so I was away for 14 months, I went to a number of conferences, a number of road shows, and I kept my head very fairly in financial advice, while I was also studying laughters. So I was very firmly still in that game. And I didn’t have a problem compete completing my secret eight people might say it’s only 40 hours. But this is the unconscious bias. That is just one example. Have there been many more, there’s, there was another one, one other that I think of is it’s much harder to work part time as an advisor. And the problem with that against them from the top is the cost of having someone be an advisor, all those inherent costs that are whether you work one day or whether you work five days or seven days, the cost of being advisor is the same. So your PMI, insurance and registrations all that sort of thing for licensee or for an employer is the same.

Jess Brady
I’ve never thought about that. Why? Why is it a pro rata licensing is why that is such a good point. If you’re working two days a week, because you’ve got a part time scenario. Why don’t they order it?

Trish Gregory
Yeah, so and I know I’ve seen more and more job as that are maybe someone doing four days, man is certainly not common. And I imagine, like I’m sure it will be fantastic for two people returning to work to jog, share, do two and a half days a week or three days a week, ah, but then you’re paying for two advisors for your insurance, and you’d like to see costs and all that sort of thing. So I imagine that’s another systemic problem that must be overcome.

Jess Brady
And this is where when you start to unpick issues like this, you start seeing structural issues, he’s that seeing systemic problems that keep sort of growing in terms of like, oh, gosh, because I know how much it costs to license an advisor. And that’s a lot of money, it is a lot of money. And if you did only have them working a few days a week, that is a problem. And so I guess licensees need to seriously consider that and make it a situation where we encourage flexibility. Because we also know that when people are flexible and have that option, they perform really well. They actually significantly outperform people who are tired and overwhelmed and trying to do all the things. So we have to sort of stop pretending that hours worked equals productivity output because that’s also not true. I have never given thought to that lesson says if you’re listening, please change your processes. Please, please, please. What about when you took a baby to a conference? You told me this? And you told me you got an interesting reaction.

Trish Gregory
I did. Why what? Well, it was really funny. So I took Felix when he was three months old to Steve Crawford’s less talk more action conference down in Melbourne. So that was handy. I didn’t have to travel anywhere. Just I just took the train. And he did amazingly, Felix did amazing. I mean, it was my third child, and you want to do with children. And Steve and I had a conversation around it before I said to him, Can I bring a baby and he went, I suppose. So we don’t really have any facilities for baby. And I’m like, that’s fine. I don’t have a problem with that. And everyone in the everyone in the conference was great. And then I wrote an article about it and had it on Wi Fi. And some of the responses on that article were Don’t you know, oh, well, I’ll just bring my baby panda next time or I’ll bring my dog

Jess Brady
Hang on. Wait, did this really happen? Yeah,

Trish Gregory
I think someone said I’ll bring my Eagle my pet eagle and people won’t have a problem with it. You know, obviously people but also a lot of people said, it’s really why wouldn’t you just leave your baby at home? The article I did point out in my article that I was on parental leave and then that kind of got cut out controversy that way, I suppose. But he was definitely still breaking He couldn’t have been away from me for two full days. And yeah, quite a few people were like, we’ll just go next year. And I had that as well, when I went out to fin con. And I was talking to people getting tips on how to go to fin con with it at that point nine and a half months old. And a few people said, Just go next year, which I’m glad I didn’t, because that was 2019. When I went to America,

Jess Brady
you’re like we can’t because you don’t know this. But there’s a global pandemic coming and no one can travel. Thanks, bye.

Trish Gregory
Exactly, I looked into the future knew what was going on.

Jess Brady
So people wanted you to put any sort of innovation or learning and development for your career on hold, because you had some tiny, beautiful little baby that God forbid, every few hours needed to feed and be changed, and then we’ll just sleep.

Trish Gregory
Absolutely. That’s right. That’s right. And makes money because some people said to me on the second day, they went, I didn’t even know you had a baby here.

Jess Brady
Oh my gosh, I guess it is just this belief that like babies belong at home, and that these two worlds can collide. But we know they they need to. And a lot of women like I have a lot of girlfriends that have had babies, and they’ve absolutely enjoyed the time at home. And as you say there’s a literal reliance on themselves on us sometimes. But often, they are really lacking connection. And they really want to learn and they really want to be surrounded by inspiration. And they don’t want to miss those opportunities. And what we’re basically telling women is you have to choose, you don’t get the option to have both, despite the fact that it can be positively done. That’s not okay here. And that’s not the industry being this friendly, highly collaborative world that I’ve known as a childless woman. So isn’t it interesting how something’s so important can really shift the narrative to say, No, you’re not welcome here right now.

Trish Gregory
Absolutely. And I’ll give you another point. So when I went to fin con now that I’ve got this platform for a moment, when I went to fin con, they gave, they had free childcare, and it was completely booked out. So I handed Felix off to strangers, which was fine. At the end of the day, and I took him for lunch, I it was free was covered by a sponsor, they brought registered caregivers in and I have two rooms for different age groups. And you drop your kid off when you want you pick your kid up, you know, by the end of the day. And that meant that I could go and do the conference, and then pick him up at the end of the day, feed him with the party at midnight because of the difference in time. And you were at a conference and we were at coffee. Well, we met the best people I think at one o’clock in the morning when Felix and southern bouncing around. But no conferences in Australia have that yet. And I would love for that to be a reality because the women who have young children, if they’re breastfeeding their children, they might really want to come to these conferences that they can’t because they have a baby.

Jess Brady
And even just the fact of having childcare, it just is such a loud signal that you’re welcome here. You don’t need to wait another year, you don’t need to pump in the toilet. And you know, you don’t have to shy away from the fact that you’re a parent and an advisor, God forbid, you’re both in fact, welcome. We got you. That would be just such a big signal, I think not only for advisors, but all of the women that are in other roles inside of our industry as well. So be it, you know, BDMS or paraplanners, or executives like I think we have to see this as an ecosystem. Often we just talk about advisors and what advisors need. And sure many financial advisors today a man but if we don’t have these sort of leading examples, then how on earth are we going to create a profession where more women want to join us?

Trish Gregory
Exactly. You may need to make it attractive to women, especially young women. And the reality is that women are the ones who have wounds. And the worms are the ones that make the babies need taxpayers to pay for future aged care responsibilities of our generation. Yeah,

Jess Brady
yeah. The the Medicare free campaign, I think it was called it was such a good one around all of the research from other countries around why, you know, child care in Australia needs a huge overhaul to try to help GDP but also more parents get back to work. And we probably should call out today we’re talking about ladies a lot. But we know from research that many, many young men whose partners are giving birth want to take time off. They want to work for an employer that doesn’t think that that weird, and they want to work for an employer that says hey, no worries. It’s not me. maternity leave policy, it’s a parental leave policy. And here’s what we’re going to do for you. I think that’s an important point to call out to

Trish Gregory
absolutely, especially considering that it’s the large majority, I imagine most people these days is two working parents, which means that and if the mother has a job like us, they will probably want to go back to work. But the baby may still be young. And so the dad may be the one or the other mother or the whatever, may be the one that actually wants to stay home for three or six months, or work two days a week to make sure that the child doesn’t go from zero to five days of childcare, because that’s also really hard on the whole family with the transition babies. Yeah, somebody do it really well. A lot of babies need time.

Jess Brady
Yeah. So again, if you’re listening to this podcast, and you’re like, oh, we need to I need a maternity leave policy, please do try to make it a parental leave policy. In fact, when I was at a big corporate, I won’t name it. But I was only part of a few. I went over and they beat corporate, they didn’t have a parental leave policy, they had a maternity leave policy. And I was working with one of the execs on a on a LGBTIQ plus sort of program. And one of the things that we call that to the board was, hey, the leader of this LGBTIQ plus group who’s an exec, wants to take paid leave, because her wife is going to return to work, and I have a small baby. But did you know that we do not have a policy for that. And it was just bringing the awareness and the visibility to the fact that this really impacts people and it’s really up to him, it’s up to us. If we run a business, it’s up to us to understand that. And, you know, it shouldn’t have to be that someone has to plead for a case of why this needs to exist. And we’ve got to make more young people join our profession. Otherwise, goodness me, in the next 20 years, there’s going to be no one left to give advice that really worries me.

Trish Gregory
Yeah, exactly. We need to make it much more attractive. And these things really need to be done before you need it. You don’t want to be thinking about a parental leave policy. When someone comes to you and says I’m pregnant, you’re Oh, right. Okay, we got to deal with that. You want to Yeah, do it early. I think having never been a business owner, I can I can preach to what I’d like to see the realities of actually running a business can be a bit different.

Jess Brady
I mean, that that, as I said before, like if you’ve gone through a recruitment drive, and if you’ve trained someone new, like there’s a huge cost to that, and we just wear it because you got to you’ve got no choice, I can’t see how this is different. Especially because like, as a gross generalization. But working parents are freaking awesome in terms of output. Like they get stuff done. They can get stuff done. And sure they might not work traditional nine to five all the time. But in terms of output, like you want something done, give it to a busy parent, they get it done. And sure they might have snotty nose, children every now and then that means I need to work from home. But we live in a world with that. Okay, now. Interesting. So, let’s go to now, let’s talk about your life. Now, let’s talk about how your family world works. And for the people that are struggling with the Juggle. What tips and tricks do you have having had three lovely babies and working and doing a masters?

Trish Gregory
Well, the first tip I would give is that this is a very hard period of your life. So understand nobody’s doing it. Well. Nobody that I’ve met anyway. Some people look like they’re doing well. Either they’re lying, or they have a lot of help. That’s my opinion. We are fortunate that Holly partner is the stay at home parent. So he is the one who does the school drop offs. He does the school pickups. Yeah, he is the one who cooks all of our meals, he does the food shopping. He is responsible for all of that. So that’s taken quite a few years for us to get to a point where we both agree on the standard of cleanliness in the house and the standard of what the kids need. And I can see with a big smile on your face.

Jess Brady
You’re being so lovely. Okay. So was there some lowering of expectations? Was there some things that you just had to realize? Like, it’s not? It’s not worth having all of these things, if this is what it’s going to mean?

Trish Gregory
Yeah, it’s very much like financial advice. You can do everything you just can’t get all of your goals at once. If you want to buy a car and a house and start an investment portfolio and have kids we really need to reassess your what you’re going to aim for. And it’s the same thing. So some of the things like you’ve got to clean up the car Because I don’t want to have to spend my time doing the bathroom when I could spend the very little time that I have with my children. So that was a big thing. We got very clear, with the help of a professional, around how we divide up the important bits of our life, and what we let go. So we have a board, which is the things that need to be done, we talk to each other about how were you feeling today, you are 100% energy, you’re at 60% energy. So we really dive into those sorts of things so that we can clearly communicate with each other, how we’re both doing, who needs to step up? And who needs more support? Not perfect. No, but

Jess Brady
this is revolutionary. I mean, I live alone. So I’d be like, Who here is taking this job off me? And then it would be silent. But um, so practically, you have a giant board, I presume it’s like a whiteboard or a blackboard. And so it’s cut into today’s you have an agenda? Like if people are like, Okay, tell me more, because I need this board in my life.

Trish Gregory
How does it work? No, it’s just a white board. And so we have three weeks set out usually just so that we can see. I mean, we also had our Google calendars, but we just need something really visual. We make sure everything’s on there, all the kids stuff is on there. And we update it as we go along. Then in addition to that, we have another whiteboard that might have the the two dues that we have to get done. And it’s really the next thing. So it’s not a gigantic list. What else have we done? Yeah, that’s what the board is. And then we sit down once a week, after the kids have gone to sleep, and we go through. Sometimes we go through spending, I’m much more excited about that than he is. Go through. Maybe he started doing menu planning, which helps. So he plans out a menu a week in advance, and then shops that and then we talk about what’s going ahead with the week, what do we need to think about who’s going to be here, if I’m going to be away? If I have, you know, work dues to go to. He knows that that’s for him. It’s just a constant iteration of trying to figure out what works right now, this works pretty well.

Jess Brady
I love this. It’s like a life board meeting, like we’re sitting down. And we need to figure this out. What would happen in your life if you didn’t have this board? And you didn’t have the weekly meeting? Oh, we’ve had that.

Trish Gregory
And it’s chaos. And we both resent each other for what, you know, I look at the house and I go, he could have just done this. Why didn’t he do that? And he gets cranky, because then I go to bed really early or I don’t help out with something or he feels judged, which is fair, I do judge when we don’t talk. So it doesn’t work very well, when we don’t sit down and plan because we have so many things going on. We’re renovating a house. I’m still studying about to finish my master’s with the CFP exam. We have three kids who go to school and childcare they have friends, they have parties we have, you know, people we like to say we found it’s just it’s a lot.

Jess Brady
It’s so easy and yet exactly like financial advice. Like we know that planning, and being strategic and having rigor and having accountability. Like that’s what we preach. I wonder how many people have the board, I proudly am remembering that actually, every Monday night, I have a coach who has a Google Sheets, which is the equivalent of that board. Basically, it’s every Monday night she’s like, Did you do the things and I will do the things and I have an I have a category for all of the things in my life that are very important. It’s definitely not going to be as robust and wild as yours would be with three children a renovation and a partridge in a pear tree. But I was sort of thinking I was like, Oh, maybe I need a board. And then it occurred to me Trish that I have a board. It’s just an eboard I’m here to say that that has helped me immensely that and putting stuff in my diary because I’m naturally an unorganized person. Which you are not and I’ve seen you in your level of organization, so I can imagine without the board you would be stressed. Okay, so I think that’s a really, really good tip for anyone juggling. I mean, I think about my parents juggling three kids. My mom did her master’s and they both work full time. And as the child in that example, it was literal chaos, and so much stress and so much yelling and so much grandparents then got my grandparents were close to me. But I don’t know how they survived. We survived actually that’s probably what we did. We survived we ordered survived and it made me very strong and independent because if I forgot shoes, then I didn’t Wear shoes, but I’m sure as sure as a parent, you want your child to wear shoes. I’m saying that because things like this really happened.

It’s a good idea, generally, especially general advice, certainly here, of course over podcasts today. Any other tips for people who are thinking maybe they’re not in the weeds yet of having children and all the birthday parties, but what if they’re thinking about starting a family, anything that you would want them to know being in financial services?

Trish Gregory
Definitely. So the first thing is to look at your current employers, parental leave policy, and that will give you a really clear indication of how they value retention of women of a certain age. And if you think that it’s like last star, and you think that it’s not that you, the company you’re working for, is not going to change that, bring it up with them, even if it’s a really small employer that have to start somewhere. So that would definitely be the first thing. Remember, the second thing is remember that as a financial advisor, and as a woman, you’re kind of a bit of a rare breed. So take that into consideration when you talk to your employer, and you say, hey, we need to talk about parental leave, because we want to retain women. I want to stay here, we need to do something more as a company, what, what can we do? How can we do this better? That goes for men as well. The people who are oppressed should not be the ones that push against the presses. And so that means we need men to look at parental leave policies, because it does also in fact, then I’m not having any more children. And yet, I you know, employers when I find out that and have a great parental leave policy, he just makes me go on. Yeah, they’re no good. Let me help. Let me help you get out of this company.

Jess Brady
Is that what you that’s what you say to like young people that you mentor? Yeah.

Trish Gregory
Like try to get out, you know, go to somewhere that’s going to show you that they value women with their actions, not just with their words, you know, just an international women said, there’s a lot of people posting a lot of stuff on social media, about how they support International Women’s Day. But if companies don’t constantly assess to make sure that they’re paying women the same, that they’re trying to bring up some equity, so that women can be equal considering our biological differences. It’s all just for show.

Jess Brady
I’m so over. I don’t know if I can say bullshit, but I’m going to bullshit International Women’s Day, cupcake morning tears, grandstanding, we believe in women, we love women, may we grow them and be them and have them and all the things. And yet, particularly bigger businesses, highly profitable businesses, businesses that might be public, and that give dividends or distributions to their shareholders still having an active wage gap. Yeah, God, like throw your cupcakes out the window, I couldn’t give a crap about them, but like, have have paid parity and have benchmarking, like financial services, I think is the second worst industry for the pay gap only second to construction, if I remember correctly. We have to care about it. And I know we’re talking a lot about advisers today. But there are plenty of women who leave inside financial advice businesses that are not advisors, we mustn’t forget them in this conversation as well.

Trish Gregory
Absolutely. And it’s important to be aware that men tend to rise up through the ranks quicker than women. And that, again, comes to unconscious bias and systemic issues that nobody notices. Nobody is intentionally going, haha, I’m gonna let this woman take longer. But it’s there. It’s 100 of

Jess Brady
the research on this. And we’ve talked a little bit about this and ladies talk money is that sometimes often after a beautiful baby is born, what happens if the employer subconsciously subliminally says the female won’t want to do that extra project or won’t want that promotion or probably isn’t ready for that next step? Because you know, they’ve just had a baby and they’ve got lots of stuff going on. And what they say subconsciously and subliminally for the man if there is a man in that example is, oh, well, they just had a baby. So like, he needs that promotion. He needs that bonus. We call that the fatherhood bonus and the motherhood penalty, and it’s been very well documented and it is real. And it lives subconsciously in our biases, and that is obviously the theme for this year. But Financial Services is not immune to that.

Trish Gregory
Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s very true. It’s important that employers have unconscious bias away. and training, I think, from everything from their job ads, to the language on their website to all the way through all policies, because you will probably be surprised how much unconscious bias is keeping women out of some employers, business businesses,

Jess Brady
one of the things that we haven’t done well, because I often think I sometimes come here, and I’m like, Well, we have this and we have this, we don’t have it all, let me promise you, one of the things we haven’t done well is D, identifying resumes. So we’ve agreed that next round of hires, I don’t want to say their name, I don’t want to know what their name is, I don’t want to know what their gender is, their resume at the very beginning, particularly if it’s filtered through a recruiter should be D identifying. And that’s something that I am disappointed, we haven’t done to date. But I’m very proud that we’ve agreed to do that for next round. Like that’s an easy one. But that gets rid of so much unconscious bias from the very get go, you really just look at what someone’s skills, what someone’s qualifications, and you you then either decide to put them into the next round or not based off that

Trish Gregory
there is still a bit of unconscious bias in that though, because if a woman has taken time out to have a baby, there will be gaps in her resume, probably easier these days. Gaps in resumes are much more accepted than previous years. But even that, like there’s still bias in that that’s fantastic to de identify, and there’s no problems with it.

Jess Brady
And also, there’s research that says that what university someone went to holds a lot of sort of clout in terms of whether someone wants to take them on. So if they went to one of the most prestigious universities and got their finance degree, or God forbid, they went to one that is, you know, in a low socio economic area, but got the same degree with the same qualifications and honors or whatever it was high distinction average, there is an inherent bias in that but you’re right, this is an imperfect, an imperfect model, and maybe licensees and practice development managers need to help busy time for business owners learn more about this and understand how can we do it like there is so much complexity, but also so much good research. Like we talk about practice development and business development. Why does none of this get helped with

Trish Gregory
There we go, all the mediums listening. Let’s start some some unconscious bias braking, training.

Jess Brady
Love it, love it, love it. Um, before I ask you your rapid fire questions, which I ended with every time I want to say a huge thank you. And a huge thank you to everyone that’s been listening, because this is a conversation that I don’t think is happening at all really apart from you and your pander attacks that were on the ifl. But we need more of it. We need more stories to be shared. And we need more opportunities to collaborate on how to make this beautiful world of ours better. But are there any sort of other pieces of insights or information that we haven’t talked about yet that you wanted to share with our lovely XY community,

Trish Gregory
there’s probably a million things I could continue to talk about this. But the main thing is that I want to stress that this is a systemic problem. This is largely unconscious, which means that if you’re feeling really bad from listening to our conversation, know that there’s work to do, and that you can move forward and make our business better, and make it better for all the employees. If you’re feeling great, I would say have a look because you’ve probably got a bunch of stuff you can fix as well. And if you’re if you’re saying well, we’re fantastic. You may be living in Fantasyland because nobody is doing this right. I would argue that absolutely no one is doing this right. But for the women out there financial advice is such a wonderful profession, especially because you’re on work can work from home these days. Which means that you can drop the kids off and pick the kids up and and work different hours. Which can work fantastically well. Agree. Agree agree. Okay. Sorry. And get a mentor is a huge tip. I think get a mentor to help you if you’re growing through financial advice or you want support on how to help a business

Jess Brady
and often associations have programs specific for that, don’t they? Yes, they do. Great point. Great point. Okay. rapid fire questions for you. My dear today has been great. What do you do to look after your mental health?

Trish Gregory
take medication? Good. Good. Get out and sit with the bees in a suit. Just sit next to the bees hurt you unless you hurt them

Jess Brady
a piece of advice He would give to your younger self.

Trish Gregory
Ah, go harder. No me so me. Probably

Jess Brady
think a lot of people need to hear that today. What is one big thing that’s yet to be ticked off your bucket list?

Trish Gregory
Oh, bungee jumping. I have to get to that before I’m too old. I did skydiving when I was quite when I was 21. And I never managed to do bungee jumping. Okay. Nobody can do her face. She’s looking at me like why would you want to do that?

Jess Brady
I nearly cry every time I go in an aeroplane the idea that someone would willingly pay to throw themselves off something just blows my mind. But anyway, you do you have a fake book club? Would you have a book that I should be putting on my fake book club list?

Trish Gregory
One 100% I can it is called. Or am I going to learn invisible women? I think the tagline is exposing data bias in a world designed for men, and it’s by Caroline or Karolina Perez. And even It’s incredible because it tells you all about how the world is designed for men including all the drugs you take car seat belts and safety features, all designed for men.

Jess Brady
So if you are a man, or if you know a man, you should read the book to see what what’s been designed for them. Fascinating and terrifying. Trish, yes, you’re a busy lady. So I want to say a huge thank you for carving out time to chat with me today. Thank you so

Trish Gregory
much for having me. It was wonderful to talk with you on the podcast. I’m very excited. So everyone can reach out to me on LinkedIn if you’d like. I do try to post some more controversial things about women in

Jess Brady
advice there. No panda mail will be accepted. No panda hate mail.

Trish Gregory
No, no hate now. I mean, you can send it I’ll just hit back or blocky

Jess Brady
or just laugh or just laugh at it. Fantastic. Trish Gregory on LinkedIn. Thank you so much for joining us.

Trish Gregory
Thanks, Jess. Have a wonderful rest of the day. Bye bye