NAME: Gayle Pottle
LOCATION: Denver, Colorado
PROFESSION: Non-Profit Fundraising
COMPANY: Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) International
JOB TITLE: Director of Development
WIXII-ISM™ FROM Gayle:
“Let your yes’s be YES and your no’s be NO.”
GAYLE’S STORY:
Meet our featured Wixii™, Gayle Pottle. She is 50 and mother to 18-year-old daughter Lauren and 16-year-old son Nicholas. She studied Language Arts and Speech Communications at Oklahoma State University. She currently oversees global fundraising for Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) International as Director of Development. She is a passionate baseball mom who loves stealing insightful leadership lessons from the field, then translating them into leadership development applications for work and in public speaking (double-dipping!).
GAYLE’S CAREER PATH:
Upon college graduation, I taught high school English for just one year, then sold my car and fled to live my single-girl-in-the-city lifestyle in a high-rise in Boston’s Back Bay (Teaching is hard – I have a lifelong and profound respect for teachers!). There, I took a marketing class through Harvard’s extension program, and fell in love with business (who knew?). Fortune 50 sales and marketing were my career centerpieces for the next 12 years. I met my husband when he interviewed me for a sales management position. We passed on working together and opted for marriage instead. That was 22 years ago; today we still have a shared passion for each other’s work lives! The tech bust in the 2000s coincided with an opportunity as Executive Director of a United Way school for kids with learning disabilities, so I took the leap into nonprofit management. Today, I oversee global fundraising and sponsor relations for a mothering support nonprofit with 100,000 members in 34 countries. I love working in a culture full of purpose, changing the world together with amazing women across the globe.
GAYLE’S MINDSET AND WORK-LIFE MIX:
Today, my mindset is all about establishing boundaries, which buys me freedom. I’m the queen of saying NO – guilt free – in my work life and my personal life. Here’s what I say “yes” to: date nights; family time (minimum 3 family dinners at home on weeknights); meaningful work (rich friendships with colleagues and donors across the country); leadership (I’m Board Chair of Mile High Ministries, an inspiring nonprofit serving Denver’s urban poor). Here’s what I’ve said “no” to this year:
- Taking work home. I love having an office away from home. I’m very compartmentalized about my work-home mix and prefer keeping them separate as much as realistically possible. This makes it easier to leave work at work, and then start fresh the next morning.
- A mentoring program. I already invest in mentoring my staff.
- A girlfriends’ book group. My evenings are focused on baseball, so my sweet girlfriends are patiently “holding” my place in the group for a few years until my son graduates and evenings are freer. I love them for this!
- Leadership opportunities that can wait until next year … or the next. If my plate is already full, I either move something off my schedule to replace it with a new, preferred opportunity, or I wait a year to see if I’m still interested. These opportunities are likely available next year too.
Family: how do you build meaningful relationships with the people who matter most in your life?
I am in an especially challenging time in life with my husband’s recent Parkinson’s diagnosis (he’s 58). With a child in college and another one entering soon, we’re exploring career options and considering alternatives. While Parkinson’s is progressive – not fatal — we are keenly aware that life is precious with surprise twists and turns. I’m so fortunate that we have delineated roles to fit our natural gifts – a beautiful outcome after years of trying to be someone I’m not. For example, he grocery shops & cooks (fabulously!). I do the dishes and keep our house uber-organized. In this stage, we are laser focused on deep authenticity in our family. Life is busy, so we get creative and multi-task together. Sometimes our teenage son shares a TED Talk of his choosing on the iPad during dinner, which always leads to lively, passionate discussion. Or, we replay an NPR segment that touched our hearts that day. We play Goods, Bads & Funnies (everyone gets a turn telling stories from their day). We clear the dinner dishes and play a quick board game. Yes, sometimes it’s cheesy. But, often these small segments provide an easy on-ramp to unearthing a deep layer of buried emotions in family life. It works with teenagers, and surprisingly their friends have a blast and come back for more (it’s my husband’s gourmet cooking!).
How does your current mindset/attitude empower and/or frustrate your ability to thrive in your work-life mix? How has your mindset/attitude toward life changed over time?
I love my work life, and I love my home life. I would naturally work until 8:00 at night every day (which I used to do) if I didn’t set healthy boundaries. I used to set an alarm on my computer to remind me to stop working and go home. Today, I know I can only do so much. I’m in touch with my limitations as a super-engaged woman. Most things can wait. And, I can be my own worst critic. Laughing at (or with) myself rather than beating myself up is my best self-empowerment. I no longer people-please. I’ve abandoned the comparisons trap for authentic friendships. I exercise inconsistently but wholeheartedly, and I’ve decided that’s great!
What specific actions, choices, steps and/or decisions have you made (or would you like to make) to better manage your work-life mix?
Being an ice cream fanatic, I’ve developed a technique I call “double-dipping,” which describes tools for maximizing value & time in my work-life mix. I immerse myself in my son’s world by watching ESPN 30-for-30’s (biographies) together for sports analogies to life lessons. We relax together, and he doesn’t realize I’m teaching him wisdom. Then, I tag these same lessons for leadership development sessions at work and in the community. Our 18-year-old daughter grew up being a part of my work life in a variety of settings over the years. At 15 she started a jewelry business to raise funds to accompany me on a work-related trip to Kenya/London (I worked for a Kenyan orphanage then). At MOPS, she extended her work by designing the 40th Anniversary jewelry collection for our national conference and worked as a marketing intern. I proactively seek opportunities to engage my kids (and their friends!) as volunteers in my work, which blurs the lines for them between my at-home identity and my at-work identity. They see me as a whole person. It’s my “double-dipping” method of blending my mix.
What advice would you give an earlier version of yourself?
When I first became a mom, my self-talk screamed, “I used to feel I was making A’s in every area of my life. Now I’m making F’s in everywhere I go. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I do this?” My advice: Change the Grading Curve by abandoning perfection.
