S1E2: OVERTHINKING WITH STEPH // WENDY DAVIDSON
STEPH INTRO: [00:00:00] Do you have trouble turning off your brain meat at night? I invite you to take a break from your thoughts and listen to ours for awhile. This is overthinking with Steph.
NTRO SONG: “Quit overthinkin’ alone… overthinking with Steph is better. We’re overthinkin’ together!” Steph: “That was stupid. Let’s come up with a whole new intro.” Mallory: “ughhhh Steph!!!”
STEPH + WENDY SINGING: "Islands in the stream. That is what we are..."
STEPH: I don't even know the words. can you smell the breath upon the mesh? Sorry.
WENDY: [00:00:31] I think someone had bad breath when they used these.
STEPH: [00:00:33] We're going to go ahead and blame a Cassie or Kailey.
WENDY: [00:00:36] All right, well, we're going to have to send them a message.
STEPH: [00:00:38] We smell grandmother breath on them.
WENDY: [00:00:40] Hey, this is like a SNL Schweddy balls. Juicy.
STEPH: [00:00:43] We like juicy, moist ew... Moist. It's the worst word, isn't it? I try never to say the word moist. You know the other word?
WENDY: [00:00:52] What?
STEPH: [00:00:53] Panties.
WENDY: [00:00:55] LOUD LAUGHTER And never those two together.
STEPH: [00:00:57] I have Wendy Davidson in studio today. I'm very, very excited to sit down and have a very quick conversation with her while she's on a layover, basically to where are you going?
WENDY: [00:01:08] New Orleans.
STEPH: [00:01:09] New Orleans. For what?
WENDY: [00:01:11] A board meeting.
STEPH: [00:01:12] That sounds way more exciting than being with me.
WENDY: [00:01:15] No, it's not. Not at all.
STEPH: [00:01:16] Do I have to pay you to say that? So, what did we do today?
WENDY: [00:01:22] We went to lunch with my son. For his birthday.
STEPH: [00:01:26] Good ol’ 21.
WENDY: [00:01:28] We ate, literally meat on a slab. In butcher paper.
STEPH: [00:01:35] They didn't even have plates for us. It was just, we'll take a half pound of chicken and they just gave it to us, wrapped up and threw in a half of a loaf of bread with it.
WENDY: [00:01:44] I'm pretty sure it's how the cavemen used to eat.
STEPH: [00:01:46] I think Anders liked it though. Then we did a little headshot session, some white boarding. And had some life talks. I know we have a lot of things we can talk about because we've known each other for how long…I kind of want to give a little backstory of how we know each other. Is it coming up on four years?
WENDY: [00:02:03] Yeah. I'm "new, old. We don't know." We don't know what we are.
STEPH: [00:02:07] We're good friends.
WENDY: [00:02:08] We're family.
STEPH: [00:02:10] Family, yeah. The thing is, right when I met Wendy... it was through Women's Foodservice Forum. But we really didn't connect until I did your media shots in 2016 and you literally were stuck with me for a full day. We were in Lyfts, we were in Chicago and I had to find a couple of places to shoot.
WENDY: [00:02:29] February in Chicago.February. So beautiful, warm February in Chicago.
STEPH: [00:02:30] It was freezing. We spent the entire day talking, hanging out, of course, getting photos, but I remember one moment specifically. Where we were sitting in the back of an Uber and I was telling you about my family's story and a little bit of backstory on what my upbringing was. And I don't typically tell people that right off the bat, especially...well, you were client back then.
And so to open up and to feel completely comfortable with you right from the start is so rare. And I remember you just listening to me. And in that moment, I felt like there was a connection made that I'm not used to. I think it was a year after that you were like, come over, come over to my house with my family and we're going to have Christmas together and you're going to have new traditions.
I was used to kind of spending it either on a solo adventure. I would go to a Aruba by myself over the holidays, or I would just spend it in my loft with my puppy. And so to get that invite shortly after meeting you, it, it shifted my view on being accepted, not being tolerated, and really supported and having that family dynamic.
And as much as I love my parents and my family, there had to be those boundaries established in order for me to not just survive, but to thrive. Throughout this healing process and self care... you and Thor and the kids have really helped me to heal. But not only personally... You've helped me, and been my mentor with business and growing that.
WENDY: [00:04:17] Now, two things I would say to that. One is that, as you know, I have an insane love of Christmas.
STEPH: [00:04:25] Seven Christmas trees.
WENDY: [00:04:26] Yep. Seven Christmas trees. I just love everything about the holiday. The smells, the music, it's sort of a magical time of year where you have this chance to sort of step back from everyday. Everything is just a little bit more sparkly and a little bit more special and a little bit unique during Christmas season. Something about it, and I have these great memories. Growing up where my mom made Christmas really special, we would bake cookies and we always got together as family. And I've been a big believer that that time of year is a time to just be with people. Those people don't always have to be family that you're born into, but it's the family that you choose. We actually do, as you know, we do a big Christmas cookie baking event every year, and we've done it probably for 15 years now.
Families come over, the kids' friends come over and we'd bake cookies and we make ornaments, and we just spend a day sort of just stepping away from the busy-ness of the holiday, just spend time with people. So I love Christmas and I'm more than happy to share Christmas with anybody. But there was something the day that you and I spent wandering the city. I love people and you know that, but there's something special about you Steph.
I've always described it as "you were my new/old, I don't know, friend" that just felt like we had known each other a long time, and yet we were just getting a chance to get to know each other. And you're really, really super special. And you've been a tremendous add to our family and a great person in my life.
STEPH: [00:06:10] That means a lot. I think that the reason this, this conversation is important too is because, I was telling the team the other day that there are a lot of shows and movies, and at the end of these movies where maybe the family isn't supportive in the beginning but at the end of it, they tied everything up in this nice bow where, you know, they're embracing and all loving.
WENDY: [00:06:36] Is this a Hallmark movie?
STEPH: [00:06:37] So it definitely was a Dolly Parton Netflix movie, but she's a huge supporter of the LGBT community. She's phenomenal. So there was one episode where at the end of it, the family embraced and they were accepting of the gay couple. And I was thinking, that doesn't always happen for a lot of us. And I feel like there needs to be a show or movie where it shows that maybe that might not happen and maybe you have to learn how to make traditions on your own over Christmas whatever that looks like.
Maybe being by yourself in a loft with your dog and baking cookies and turning on music and really enjoying that alone time too. Trying not to be hard on yourself that you don't have your family around. It's so hard, but I think a lot of people need encouragement if they haven't found their chosen family yet... to be okay with making traditions and memories on your own too.
WENDY: [00:07:39] You know, I, I think it's really important for people to take the Hallmark movie version out of their heads because it sets this unrealistic expectation for how life is going to be. Life's messy. Life's messy, and it doesn't always work out the way that you think it will.
There's the movie that you play in your head as a kid of what life's going to look like as a mom. There's the movie you play in your head of what your kids' lives will be like, and it's just messier than you think it will be. I would choose to go into it with “what am I looking for that will fill my cup?” and it's the people who will accept me for who I am.
Who will laugh with me and at me (with me), who will make memories with me and who accept me regardless of what I do for a living, where I live, what I look like, who I am. They just want to spend time together, right? So, that's what we've chosen is to, for our kids to view. Holidays or family are the people who really just enjoy each other, whether they're by blood or by marriage or just by choice.
There are people who truly just support and love each other and just want to enjoy, just want to live life and accept each other.
STEPH: [00:09:00] You are a huge ally for our community and what you're doing at Kellogg's with "K Pride and Allies". I know we talked about that through the Promote Love Movement video a couple of years ago.
You talked about what's on the inside of a candy bar... Do you remember saying that? And then you talked today about the Dr. Seuss book?
WENDY: [00:09:18] Yeah, so every January I speak at a college leadership summit with a group of college students, they take a class and they bring in faith leaders and business leaders and it's really helping them navigate their journey to purpose.
They ask each of the speakers to share our story. I've done it for four years. Over the last four years, my message has changed a little bit, but directionally, pretty much in the same vein. This year, I turned 50.
STEPH: [00:09:45] "I'm 50, 50 years old!" * SNL quote
WENDY: [00:09:53] My joints ache but I turned 50, and so as I thought about what messages I would want to share with the kids, it was almost looking back when I was 20 “what would be the lessons that I wish I'd known when I was 20 that I know today?” and I think I picked six that I shared with them. The biggest part of it was around reshaping the people that you connect with.
Everybody comes into life with filters. You can't help it. Everyone has bias, and your bias is based on the experiences that you've had in your life. It shapes the way you think. So the only way to ensure that your experience is shaped, beliefs that really are a wide ranging, is to ensure that you connect with people who will enrich your life with multiple experiences so that you open this sort of aperture of, of people that you'd be affiliated with.
I grew up in a very small town in Iowa. I went to college and ran into people that I otherwise would have had no affiliation with. And then I studied abroad when I was in college, and that opened things up even further. And then when I went into the business world, I worked in Asia, I worked in Latin America, opened it up even further.
The more people came into my life, it added experiences that reshaped my beliefs about other people and about their motives and their backgrounds and who they were. And it made my life richer. So as a mom, but also as a business leader, I think it's really important that we give people experiences that help them to frame beliefs that will allow them to be as open and as accepting to people as possible.
There's a book that we read to our kids. My favorite Dr. Seuss book is “The Sneetches.” The premise of the book is they have these star bellied Sneetches and the star bellied Sneetches are a bit arrogant. You know, they have stars on their bellies and so they're a bit arrogant about the fact that they're special compared to those that don't. And then there's this man that comes to town and he's got this machine that will put stars on your belly. So all the non star bellied Sneetches get “stars upon thars”. And so then those that had stars on their bellies are like, no, we want to take them off. So he of course, has a machine that will take them off as well. And it ends up with this confusion of, well, who really had a star on their belly in the first place and who didn't? And it's sort of a funny way of saying, well, it really isn't about what's on the outward appearance that matters and tells the difference between us, because at our core we are more alike than we are different.
It's always been really important to me that my kids know that at the core, it really isn't about what we look like on the outside or who we are on the outside, it's the core of what we are in the middle.
I grew up Roman Catholic. I went to Baptist Bible study when I was in high school. I went to a Lutheran college. When we moved to Baltimore, our kids went to Episcopalian school and most of their friends were Jewish. We now raise our kids Lutheran. So we've sorta been all around the horn. What we've told our kids, is it isn't about the wrapper on the candy bar, it's about that soft nuggety middle that really matters.
And at the core, we're all a lot more like than we are different, right? Whether it's our faith, whether it's our beliefs, whether it's our cultures. My husband's family is Norwegian. Thor’s family is Norwegian, they have these great traditions of music and song and food and dance.
My family's Irish, so we have these great family traditions of song and food and dance and music. Well, at the core, those really aren't that different. It's just the type of music, the type of food, the type of dance might be different. But it's still the same thing, right? We all enjoy this sort of holistic sensory experience, and if we sought the things that make us more alike than the things that make us different, I think we would find that we would be a whole lot richer.
STEPH: [00:14:15] I think for some of us it's hard to see past the things that stand in our way and the things that make us different. And you know, life is short. There are times where I wish I could've told my family... come on, this is not important! These things keeping us apart are not important! There's so much more to me that you're missing out on.
I think that a lot of people that have followed my story, they might feel the same way. Where there's so much more to them, then just the focus being on, oh, well... They're gay.
WENDY: [00:14:47] Yeah. The funny part is no one really ever says to me, “oh, so you're straight?” That's not the first topic that we ever talk about. "Tell me about who you're married to." Which is always what I find interesting... when somebody talks about someone's “gay lifestyle.” No one refers to my marriage as “my lifestyle”.
STEPH: [00:15:08] Right. And it automatically puts this wall up and I'm like, there's so many other areas of my life. And we don't have a “gay agenda”. I mean, I have an agenda, but it's mostly to just be a good human being.
WENDY: [00:15:26] To be a good human, that's it. Imagine that.
STEPH: [00:15:29] That’s it! You know, it seems so basic and easy, right?
Anyway, you're an amazing parent. I love your kids so much!
WENDY: [00:15:34] I don't know if they'd say I'm an amazing parent.
STEPH: [00:15:38] I've talked to them separately. They do.
WENDY: I’m going to need that in triplicate!
STEPH: Do you have a message for parents out there? if they were listening, whether that's my parents or other parents who really are a little bit more close minded. Maybe it's not outright hatred, but close minded and have pushed their kids away and have been missing out?
WENDY: [00:16:03] You know, I have a hard time with this because the mom in me says that when I look at my kids, no matter what they went through or would go through in their lives there is nothing that would separate me from them. At the end of the day, I choose them, no matter what.
So there's a part of me that is just angry at parents that wouldn't choose to have their children in their life. I don't understand that. But you mentioned earlier that I'm a strong, out ally.
So I grew up in a really tiny town in Iowa, and I grew up in a, a pretty conservative background. I've had family members and friends who distanced themselves from us, not because of anything we'd ever said, but I think it was sort of the visual of our life. You know, married, two kids, two dogs, and a cat. I think it was sort of this view of, well, the nature of that must mean that we were fairly conservative in our beliefs.
And what I have realized is that it's really important for me to be openly supportive because my voice will carry more because I don't have anything to gain from being an out ally. So my voice matters. And I need to be openly supportive. Just like as a woman, it means more when male executives support women in leadership because they have nothing to gain from the argument.
I have the same responsibility to support. I've been fairly vocal, we have since had friends and family members come back into our lives, who have said, “well, I never really thought you'd be supportive.” And I realized, well, it's as important for me to be openly out as an ally, as it is for them to be supported and being openly out to be authentically who they are.
So I would say to parents, choose your family. No matter what. At the end of the day... you only have one life and you only have one family, and I can't imagine not wanting to know what my kids are up to and what's going on in their lives. I would also say for the families that don't choose that, then.... you're welcome at our house for Christmas.
STEPH: [00:18:40] You might have a lot of followers now that show up at your house for cookie baking, Wendy!
So my podcast is called Overthinking with Steph. I always try to close with one thing. I know you are nonstop. I know I go a lot, but you juggle a lot of things and you do it in a way that seems effortless, but that can't always be the case.
WENDY: [00:19:03] I'm a hot mess.
STEPH: [00:19:08] We all are. That's the best part. How do you keep it together? Where do you go to find peace? Where do you find that space in your life? Where do you make that space to breathe for a second? Do you have a routine or anything?
That's not what we're going to close with, but that's a question that I'm dying to know the answer to.
WENDY: [00:19:35] When the weather is nice in Chicago... It's usually outside. It is walking or running because it's time when I can't be on my phone and I can't be on technology.
So I can only be in my head, and all I can really ever hear is either the music in my headphones or the pounding of my feet, and that allows me to be able to escape.
STEPH: [00:19:57] Sometimes I just hear the voices in my head. What do we do about that? They sometimes sing.
WENDY: [00:20:01] Well, as long as I can hum along with the voices in my head, then we're all good. It's just when they disagree with me, I have a problem.
STEPH: [00:20:09] What keeps you up at night? What's the one thing? If you wake up in the middle of the night maybe in a panic... what do you worry about?
WENDY: [00:20:22] "Is this all there is?"
STEPH: [00:20:24] Do you want to elaborate on that? That's really good.
WENDY: [00:20:28] There are moments where I will list off in my head in the middle of the night... all of the things that I haven't done, and I wonder, “is this all there's going to be? And is it enough?”
The year I turned 40, it was the year I was on my sabbatical, I made a list of all the things I ever wished I'd had time to do. So I did this crazy bucket list of adventures. Then this past year. I did my "50 by 50" so it was a list of things that I wanted to do or experience before I turned 50... of which you are a part of some of those. They were ways that I stretched myself that I hadn't really thought about. But when I look at those, those sometimes feel like I'm checking the box on things that I just want to do, but at the end of my life, is this really all it's going to be?
In the last couple of years I've been thinking, if I really wanted to make an impact in this world, am I making the impact where I think I should be making an impact? And if not, then what? I don't have the answer to the question.
STEPH: [00:21:46] Right. That’s what keeps you up at night. Now, what if you weren't spending your time doing what you're doing. You're on several boards, you're running a major company... oh my gosh, Kellogg's! I mean, everyone has Kellogg's in their home. I have since I was a child!
WENDY: [00:22:00] I hope they do. I do.
STEPH: [00:22:00] Right now, I have Cheez-Its, I've got Eggos I've got a whole smattering of Kelloggs.
If you weren't doing what you are doing right now in life... what other life would you be living? Let's say your family, your kids are all still there, but what would you spend your time doing if money were no object?
WENDY: [00:22:22] I got asked in a leadership assessment once "if money was no object, would I want to work in a circus?" And I remember having to leave the room to go ask the facilitator questions. I needed clarification. Now, would I be in the circus? Or would I be running the circus? Because if money were no object, I might want to run a circus, that seemed kind of interesting. She told me I was overthinking it.
So if I could do anything, I probably would want to be an author.
STEPH: [00:22:55] Wow. I didn't know that. Really! What would you start writing about? What would be your first topic you would tackle?
WENDY: [00:23:05] They would be novels. Just stories really. When the kids were little, I used to put them to sleep by making up stories. So they would say, mom, tell me a story. And we would either continue on a story that I had told or I would have them pick just a random topic.
Then I would make up characters and a storyline attached to those. And sometimes it would go on for 30 or 45 minutes. But I loved the idea of creating something that didn't exist before and telling the story. I always tried to wrap those stories up with some sort of purpose or message or some sort of lesson tied to it that was relatable to them.
So I think if I were to do anything, it would be to just sort of take what was in my head and put it down on paper. I don't know if anybody would ever buy it.
STEPH: [00:23:55] I would. Do you think your kids remember any of the stories?
WENDY: [00:24:02] I know Brenna does. She remembers that there's a Caterpillar story that she remembers that we talk about.
STEPH: [00:24:08] Did you ever record any of them or write them down after?
WENDY: [00:24:10] No.
STEPH: [00:24:10] So they really just lived in that moment between the three of you. I love that.
WENDY: [00:24:16] Yeah. There was a princess that lived inside a candy bar castle. There was a Caterpillar that turned into a butterfly, but lost his friends along the way because he turned into something that they didn't recognize. And so it was this idea of change.
STEPH: [00:24:31] Those would be good children's books too.
WENDY: [00:24:35] I might be the only one that would read them.
STEPH: [00:24:39] I didn't know that about being an author. I really love that. There's still time.
WENDY: [00:24:43] Hmm. You never know. That's right. Cause I have 50 more years...50 plus!
STEPH: [00:24:49] Thank you for being here with me. Thank you. Thank you for existing and being in my life. You're wonderful.
WENDY: [00:24:55] I love you, my friend.
STEPH: [00:24:56] Love you too. Alrighty, we're signing off... Overthinking with Steph!
SINGING: Deee deee doooooo!
I've never ended a show like that.
OUTRO: Well, Hey, thanks for listening to Overthinking With Steph. Can't wait to hear from you on the social. So make your way over to @Stephspodcast on Twitter. And tell me your thoughts. Catch The Breakdown on Patreon where we get into the nitty gritty and overthink the conversations in this episode.
Till next time, keep creating scenarios that will never actually happen and LIVE YOUR ONE DAMN LIFE!
OUTRO SONG: “Don’t you hate it when you wake up first thing in the morning? Mind is stirring. It’s a wreck. Overthinkin’ with Steph! Cool your jets. Go to bed. Get out of your head!”
WENDY: [00:25:54] OUTTAKES: Schweddy Balls
STEPH: [00:25:59] Tender.
WENDY: [00:26:01] Nothing worse than dry balls.
STEPH: [00:26:02] Dry itchy balls.
WENDY: [00:26:04] You know the best word to say out loud? Booger. You can't say booger without laughing.
STEPH: [00:26:11] Booger. Booger. How do you get a handkerchief to dance? You put a little boogie in it. That was a dad joke for sure. For sure. I hope this is even recording.