The Perfect Mix: Embracing Self-Leadership for Leading Others - Featuring Dr. Helen Rothberg PITY PARTY OVER

Self-discovery is one of the most exciting and scary journeys, where we navigate through self-doubts and societal expectations to unveil the best in ourselves.
Our guest today is Dr. Helen Rothberg, a renowned Professor of Strategic Management and author of the book “The Perfect Mix,” in which she shares valuable lessons about management and leadership she learned while bartending.
Dr. Rothberg states that only after mastering the art of self-leadership can we authentically connect with and uplift those around us, fostering an environment of trust, growth, and collective success.
Join us in this episode of Pity Party Over to learn how leading ourselves is the first step toward leading others through change.
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TRANSCRIPT
 
Stephen Matini: You know, I'm curious to ask you something. Why did you get four different degrees? That's a lot!
 
Helen Rothberg: Oh, and nobody should do that. It's like a letter of salad. When I was coming up in the field of business, it was a time when there were really not many women at all in senior suite. There were almost no women in strategy at all. So there's two reasons. So I felt I needed more credibility than perhaps my male counterparts would need to prove that I was worthy of working at that upper echelon of management. 
 
I also found the whole education process patriarchal and very Darwinian. I went to all public institutions so they were kind of survival of the fittest. And most of my mentors were much older, cranky, older men. And I just didn't know if I'd be able to stomach it , you know? 
So if I couldn't finish, I at least wanted something along the way that I could use that would help me do what I wanted to do. But luckily, you know, Nietzsche says that which does not kill you makes you stronger. I got to the end of that rainbow and it's really been a golden career for me. So no complaints. But yeah, no one should ever get four graduate degrees. It's just, yeah.
 
Stephen Matini: So you did not have any female professors, just guys?
 
Helen Rothberg: In all of graduate school, I had one female professor. The majority of business faculty were men. Strategy wasn't even an area. That's one of my terminal degrees really until that time, you know. Michael Porter's book came out in 1980, “Competitive Strategy” and that became all their age. So I was kind of that first prop of strategy. PhDs. There was only one female, she didn't get tenure, so she left.
 
Stephen Matini: When did you decide what you wanna pursue professionally?
 
Helen Rothberg: That's a loaded question, right? So it sort of found me, but I kind of understood the kind of life I wanted to have when I was really young. Here's what I learned about myself. When it's 75 and sunny, I have to be outside. So I needed summers off. 
I also am the kind of person, I learned something pretty quickly and then I get bored and I need to learn something else. So when you put together what can you do that will give you freedom and the ability to always do new things? My two choices were consulting or academia and consulting had a lot more money attached to it. Really as a consultant, you make 10 x of what you make as a professor. But I realized two things about consulting. One, the consulting agency owns you, which means your clients own your time. Clients tend to believe everything is in emergency, so they don't care if it's at night or a weekend or a holiday.
I also wanted to do something bigger. I wanted to do something. I think it's important to help companies operate better. I've been a consultant and professor simultaneously for over thr