Law Clarified
Law Clarified
Ep 1: Women In Business - Renee Shae
Hi listeners!
This is the first episode of our very special Women in Business Series!
Mardee believes that as a small business owner, it is incredibly important to surround yourself with a supportive and passionate network of people with different skills and ideas. In this series, Mardee talks to amazing women in business to share stories, business tips and thoughts about life, owning a business and everything in-between.
In this episode, Mardee sits down with Renee Shae. Renee is a personal brand coach, trainer and photographer.
Mardee and Renee talk about the importance of discovering your personal and business values as a way of guiding decision-making, expanding your business and building a brand.
You can connect with Renee through her website (www.reneeshea.com.au) or Instagram (@reneeshae_au).
Got some thoughts on today’s episode? Join our conversation on our Instagram page @hearthstonelegal.bne
Check out our website: www.hearthstonelegal.com.au
Send us an email: law@hearthstonelegal.com.au
Thanks so much for listening!
**DISCLAIMER: Please note, topics discussed in this podcast episode are for general information and entertainment purposes only and do not constitute or seek to replace legal advice and should not be applied to your individual circumstances. Please seek qualified legal advice**
Hi, listeners. This is a bonus series of some podcasting for you. Just a little bit of a passion project for me. As most of you know, half Stone Legal is my, my business, my second baby. And one thing that I've become really aware of and really passionate about since starting my own business is the importance of having amazing, creative, supportive business people, but specifically women in your corner. You know, a, a a group of women and network of women who can bring skills and ideas and creativity to the, to the table for me, for example, that I don't necessarily have. So I'm not really an overly creative person. So having someone in my corner who can do that stuff with me is really exciting and important. So I wanted to do a little bonus series highlighting some of the amazing women that I have worked with or that I know through my connections, um, and give them the opportunity to come to the forefront a little bit and, and tell us why they're so amazing and why I really enjoy working with them.
Speaker 2:Half Stone Legal presents a real talk of the good, the bad, and everything in between for all things business and construction law, whether it's navigating a dispute, the q bcc or guidance on a contract. We give you a rundown of some of the dos and the don'ts. These are digestible chats on topics that you might hear in our office of an afternoon. Daunting, Not anymore. Here's law clarified.
Speaker 1:So our very first guest in this bonus series is the amazingly creative Renee Shay.
Speaker 3:Hey. Hi.
Speaker 1:Hi. So Renee is a, um, brand photographer and a coach. I definitely cannot explain with any great level of detail what Renee does, except I know that she is, um, the reason why we have great photos on our website. So thank you. So Renee, how about you actually tell us about the amazing things that you do. Thank
Speaker 3:You. I, so yes, I am a brand photographer and a personal brand coach. My work generally centers around women in business, uh, or women who are trying to build their career based on their knowledge sets. So that's why the personal brand, um, is a really important part of that. I work one on one mostly with women to really understand who they are, uh, what their values are, what their skills are, what it is that drives them to do the work that they do, and then help them with a lot of, uh, mindset stuff, skills, and then of course techniques and tools such as photos to be able to take that personal brand and share it with the world so that they can spread their message. That's the core of what I do. Um, there's a whole lot of bits and pieces that come in with that, but the, the idea is that, um, we want to skill or I want to skill as many women as possible with the mindset and the tools to share their excellence.
Speaker 1:That's phenomenal. And one of the things you said about photographs, I know when I was preparing to start my own business, as you would know, I talked to you about this, a lot of lawyers have very boring, stuffy, corporate patriarchal kind of photos. You know, that rich mahogany, that's not what I wanted. And we really loved working with you. It was so comfortable. You really just sort of got to know us. And I think, well, actually, I know that the photos you took certainly for us and our website really captured the spirit of who we are as people. You talked about, um, working with women to get them to figure out what drives them and, you know, really use that to their advantage. What drove you to this particular career path and
Speaker 3:Choice? Sure. I am one of those folks that have had a really windy path to get where they are.<laugh>. Um, I started out, or most of my career, I was spent in human resources in learning and development and in recruitment. Um, I went into photography as a hobby. Um, oh, and then it probably wasn't until my first child was born and I'm like in that phase, I wanted to take photos of everything that I, I really went ahead long into it and I, over a course of, you know, I'm very much narrowing this down, but over the course of years, I then started taking photos of families and so forth for friends. And that kind of evolved into a business. The, um, the big thing came for me is when I started just by chance photographing a woman who was, um, starting her own business and she had, she had coined the phrase personal brand. It was not something I was really aware of at that point. Um, and it kind of led me down that path. But the challenge was, as I was working with women and, um, talking to them about, I'm very much like you say, focused on who are you that are you bringing to these photographs? There's no point in having a headshot of somebody on a website if when you run into that person in the street you don't recognize them. Cause that kind of defeats the purpose. Yes. So who are you and what are you bringing to this business or to this brand? And what I found over and over again was that a lot of the women that I was working with were like, Oh, I don't know. Um, and there was this gap in they knew technically what they wanted to do work wise, but they didn't know or couldn't express Moore's the point, how they were different from the rest and why they wanted to do what they were doing. And that then meant that they fell into the trap of just copycatting anything else. Which is why, as you were referring to as say, a law firm and so forth, there's so many photos, uh, brands of law firms that are, uh, mahogany and navy suits and that kind of stuff. Because it's a matter of going, Okay, well that's seen as what you do if you're in the law firm. And I had that trap myself and I had a very, very soft brand. Lots of past colors and all of that kind of stuff. And then when people met me, they were like, She's not the person that I thought she was because I swear like a trooper. And, and I had lots of muddy jokes and all of this kind of stuff. And we
Speaker 1:Love it, we love it
Speaker 3:<laugh>. But it was a real discord to the position and how I was sharing myself online. And so it made me really realize then that I wasn't the only one doing this. There was definitely lots of women around, um, who went into business going, Well, that's a successful business. I'm gonna copy what they do. Yes. And it didn't actually bring any of themselves that then, um, layered on top of that, I was going through a big time in my life where I was divorcing a long-term husband. Um, and I had that process where I had to start re-finding who I was, um, outside of that dynamic. And that then gave me a whole range of other insight about, um, women, particularly women, cuz that's my focus of my audience and, and the, the phases of development that they go through, and particularly when they hit midlife, and this is where most of my clients are, they're at their mid career. They're starting a business on their own where they've been employed somewhere else for, you know, however long they've, um, like myself had had a major relationship change or they've, um, had a time when, you know, their kids have left home. So there's all of these other life things going on, and they feel very uncertain of who they are. And they then kind of go, But I need to do something different. Mm. And that drive to do something different then leads them into a change in their career or whatever is, but they still come from that position of not knowing really who they are because they're in this position of change in their life.
Speaker 1:Yes. It's so interesting. Um, you know, now that I'm in my early forties as well, I think as, as women, um, we have so many different hats that we wear, you know, mother, wife, girlfriend, partner, you know, then you have your business persona. Um, you have your home life. There's so many different phases and they change all the time. How difficult do you think it is to actually find that core of who you are, especially in circumstances where if you are, for example, a corporate woman, there is some pressure expectation that you're kind of gonna fit the mold that has been put there by well the patriarchy, but, but you know, you are the, the people who were there before you. How, how difficult is
Speaker 3:That? It's incredibly difficult. And that's why we get to the point in our career where we feel really unfulfilled or feel really uncertain about who we are and what we're doing. Um, and the challenge or the, or the, the, what do you call it, the stereotype of the midlife crisis exists for a reason. Right? And that's, that's both male and female. It's like the, you are various points in your life. You go up and down in what your roles are and whether you're a parent or whether you're a partner. Um, and in each of these phases, we either bring on more hats, if you wanna call it that. So more expectations of behaviors, um, or we, we lose'em because you know, what we were as a student, young, professional, we don't need those behaviors anymore. So we pick up some more over here and we take these ones. And it's not until we oftentimes get to a point of maturity, I guess,<laugh>, um, where we go, Hang on a minute, how much of this is actually me as a, as a person, as an individual, how much of this is me? Um, and unfortunately that tends to happen at a time when we then, and this is again why the stereotype of midlife crisis. We start to question everything. And so we throw out things yes. That we think are the cause of our problems. Um, and they're not necessarily the case. But, um, and I know again, I have to default back to women because that is my client base. So most of my research about the psychology on it has been based on that. But, um, we as, um, we are oftentimes conditioned, um, and we grow up in a, um, in a world where we are given or prescribed certain hats. Yes. So as a woman, you are, um, the default caregiver or the default parent. Do you know what I mean? And each of these roles that we take on have behaviors and expectations. And so not only do we have, uh, take on these as a result of, um, we think we should because, you know, I'm a mother now, I need to do this and this, but we also do it because, so society tells us that that is the expectation of us at that point. So there's many reasons why we haven't, and it's actually, it's sad to think, but it's one of the reasons why we need to very consciously stop and look at what our values are at who we are at our core. Um, but unfortunately doesn't happen. Most people find that that only happens once they hit a point of crisis. Um, whether they are, it's a marriage breakdown or, you know what I mean, a change in their living. It's significant change, significant change in their life. Yeah. And those two things don't have to coincide, it's just that that's what happens because we, we go with the flow. We we're in the zone of work life, work life kind of stuff, that it's not until there's that circuit breaker that we look at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then suddenly you wake up and think, How did I get here?
Speaker 3:And who the hell am I
Speaker 1:Here? Am I, what am I actually about? So that really leads into my next question. Um, our listeners who are listening to this podcast, um, might be interested in uncovering what their core values are and how their values can help them shape and support their business. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> or even, you know, their personal life or a passion project, something like that. How do you work with women in discovering what those values are?
Speaker 3:Yep. Look, there is a whole range of activities that you can do. One of the easiest is to, um, and a simple Google search will, will do this for you. There's so many lists of values online, right? And the one that I use, um, there's a list that I use very frequently with my clients. It's just like, I think it's like a hundred different words on a page. And what we do is we go through and we start to cross out the things that aren't as important. And it's simply then just a prioritizing process. Mm. That is the very starting point of it. Yes. It's certainly not the end. What we then do is another, um, way is to, I'm a very, um, big proponent of either journaling or some sort of reflective process, whether that is, you know, you have good conversation with somebody who, who is important to you and who you trust and start to talk about, you know, well, what does creativity mean to me? Mm. Um, how does it show up in my life? Is it something that I could, you know, move away from if I have to, um, am I doing enough of it in my life to keep me happy? Or is it something that I really need more of? So it goes really into that. Once you've got kind of shortlisted a selection of values, it's about really interrogating those and going, Well, how does this work for me? And how does it show up? And I think one of the other really, not simple ways, but one of the other really telling ways to identify what some of your core values are, is to think about times when you get really fricking off mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, because oftentimes if you get angry at something, it's an indication that a line has been crossed for you. Yes. Um, and you may not be aware of what that line is, and you may not have consciously thought about it before, but if you start going back and going, Okay, I really get, for some reason I get really angry when I see this on tv, um, or I get really angry when someone does this or says this. You can start to analyze those a bit, um, a bit and have a look at, is there any trends in there or any themes, because again, that when you get angry, it's a classic sign that's something's been crossed for you. Yes. Um, and it's a really good indicator to go in and dig in and have a look.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that can be a really great opportunity, I think for a, a growth area, something that you might need to learn, experience, discover, Um, what you said about the creativity thing just prompted. I listened to a really great podcast and it was about, we've been conditioned, as you were saying, to think that we're either a left brain person or a right brain person, and you either are creative or you are not. And those words, I think generally, for most people, certainly for me for a time, meant, well, if you are creative, you are Artie, you can draw or you can paint, or you can make things. And this podcast was sort of saying that's, that's complete garbage creativity can be, um, in a business sense, it can be in a process sense, it can be in all of these other sorts of ways, as you just said, it's, it's how you express that creativity and finding that thing that gives you some joy at the end of the day that as a mother, as a, you know, business owner, as all of these other things is something that is just for you. I think that's really important.
Speaker 3:And I think, uh, if I put my hat on now from the HR organizational perspective, right? If you've got employees that are fulfilled in their work mm, they are much greater, uh, productivity wise, they are much more, um, you know, the absenteeism goes down, the whole employee, um, engagement staff goes through the roof. Mm. But the, the challenge is there is that your organization then needs to be very clear about what its organization's values are and actually live the talk. Um, and then the individual needs to understand what their values are and be able to find alignment between one and the other. The challenge is, values can be such a, a word that people throw around, um, especially when we're talking about organizational values and that they're actually there because they think they should have them there rather than they actually live and breathe that way of working. Um, and so that's where we can find really great alignment in, in how we, um, get out, build our careers, build our business, all of that kind of stuff. Because it is about then, um, really working to what matters to you. Um, and oftentimes I'll flip the words instead of using values to going, just finding out what matters. Yes. Um, and because that's, you know, when we take away all else, that's kind of at our core
Speaker 1:Mm. To have you had the opportunity in doing this work to actually go a bit bigger and work with an organization as opposed to an individual woman or, you know, perhaps a smaller group of women. Has that, have you had that
Speaker 3:Opportunity? Not in that, not in a big, big way, but it's absolutely something in, say for, for yourself, for example, where you are the leader of a small business. Mm. Um, and it is really important for you to have and create a business that is reflective not only of your, um, your values personally and what you wanna achieve, but also to bring in people that matter, um, and who are aligned with that. So definitely focusing, I I tend to focus on small business individual runs, uh, organizations. Um, and so definitely in that space, it's, it's about you being, you as in the owner or the leader of the business being a lighthouse. Yes. Um, and making, um, what you, that's where I go back to the you being very clear about what your values are and then living that. Yes. In, in everything that you do.
Speaker 1:It's<laugh> it's funny that you say that. Not long after I started, um, I ran into a old colleague at a function who said, Oh, you know, I've been following the growth of your business and you know, the startup and it's really cool and it's so authentically you. And to this day, I don't know whether that was a compliment or a or not. I, I actually don't care because at the end of the day, I thought, yes, it is authentically me and that's what I'm proud of most. And so, you know, I have a, a wonderful team, um, Kelly, who you know as well has just come on board and makes me do all of this crazy stuff on Instagram, which I feel very weird and uncomfortable about, but I'm not concerned with what PR professionals might think I'm concerned about. Am I being true to myself? Am I being true to how I want my business to run? And am I being true to the clients that I want to work with? And pretty much every day I'm able to say yes to all of those three things. And it's really empowering,
Speaker 3:It's really powerful. Yeah. I, um, recently had a client who is a, uh, marketing consultant and she was in and out of all sorts of different organizations, but she was finding a lot that she was getting jobs with, um, businesses that she, she struggled in because there was a really strong misalignment, um, between what her values were and how those organizations were being run. So by getting very clear on her values and understanding what it is that she, in the kind of environment that she wanted to work in, she was able to be, uh, much far, I guess or pickier about who her clients were going to be. And when we last caught up, which was a good number of months after our work together, she's like, It's really cool to just go, I'm working with some amazing people. Yes. My clients are awesome, and I don't have any of those that I don't like because she has been able to go, No, if they're doing this, this, and this, um, which are behaviors driven by values that don't align with her, she goes, I can easily just go, No, I'm not gonna do that because I know it's gonna end not well for one of us. Yes. Um, and it has made her work life and her business so much more successful because of it.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, uh, it's, I often wonder too whether some of that clarity, obviously it probably for most people, um, starts as some sort of confusion or questioning, How did I get here? Is this for me? But some of that clarity I think can only come with a little bit of age and life experience. But as a stepmother to two teenage girls, I think wouldn't it be amazing if they could get that really early and know that in their twenties and how that might as they get older, shape those early career decisions. Because I think it's safe to say, certainly for myself and probably for you as well, we've had jobs in the past where we don't sit well with the company, as you've just explained. Um, and you put up with that for a while because as you said, that's what's expected of you. Wouldn't it be great if people got that earlier, if young girls got that earlier?
Speaker 3:Yep. And there's an organization that I do a lot of work with, um, and they run, um, lots of leadership and, and career development, career pathway work with young women from refugee and migrant backgrounds. Um, and working with those, um, young women in that space has been incredibly, um, eye opening for me, but also amazing to see that once we do actually have a chance to sit down and talk about things like what it is that matters to you, what is the, because one of the questions that I often ask is, you know, what, how, what's the change that you wanna make in the world? What's the change that you wanna see? Yep. We can get really clear. Um, and the, the energy and the um, uh, passion, I guess, for lack of a better word, that is turned on in these young women because they can see clearly where they're at and where they want to go. Um, and, you know, I'm very much convinced that they are the people who are gonna be changing the world. Yes. And my job as, as a mid forties woman, is to be the bridge to guide them to go learn from what I know doesn't work, um, and take over and make the world a better place because there's a lot to be done. Yes. And they are the people to do it. Um, and I'm so excited that they have a position or can be the kind of, kind of change we need to see.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's amazing, isn't it? It's, I'm really excited to see what those young people can do in the future. Now, odd question, but a question that we are gonna be asking all of our lovely
Speaker 3:Guests.
Speaker 1:What's some of the biggest misconceptions people have about your field of expertise?
Speaker 3:Um, that photographers are cool. Um, that we, Well, you are
Speaker 1:Cool,
Speaker 3:Renee, that we all wear like really fancy clothes, um, and are very fashionable. I would, I would argue that one of the biggest misconceptions, and I'm gonna go away from my career and just into general, um, is that, um, plus size women are less competent. Really? Yeah. It's a huge one. And I don't wanna open up a new conversation, but you asked the question. Um, and there's lots of research to back me up on that is that there's a whole, a whole space about how competence and, um, body image is and shows up at work. Oh my God. So that's like I say,
Speaker 1:Unbelievable, but, and we can do a whole nother podcast on this. I would assume that that same misconception or discussion doesn't surround men.
Speaker 3:It is still there. Absolutely. Just not to the same degree.
Speaker 1:Right? Yes. Wow. That's really disappointing. Although it shouldn't be surprising because as a woman who practices in construction law, that is primarily a male field, um, people assume that because I'm a woman, I mustn't know anything about building or the technical aspects of it and boxes and labels such be good to just get rid of them, wouldn't it? It's
Speaker 3:A different big conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Wow. Well, maybe we'll have to have your back, Renee. We
Speaker 3:Can talk about labels,
Speaker 1:<laugh> now. We'll put all of your details in our show notes, but if anyone wants to get in touch with you for some brand photography, some coaching, just to figure out where they're at or how they're gonna launch their new business mm-hmm.<affirmative>, how can they do
Speaker 3:That? So my website is, uh, renee she.com au, which is r e n e s h e A. Um, and my, uh, Instagram account is probably where I'm at most of the time, which is at renee shee underscore au.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Excellent. Well, we are loving all of the photos that you're taking for us. Thank you so much. We've enjoyed working with you. Um, and just, yeah, I think it's a really important space that you are in and I'm really excited to give other people the opportunity to hear what you do and possibly work with you. So thank you so much for joining us. Good
Speaker 3:Fun. Thank
Speaker 1:You.