← This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
From Mean Girls to Hype Women with Erin Gallagher | 353
00:51:57
In this episode, we go deep with Erin Gallagher on how to break free from mean girl culture and build a hype-women ecosystem—where we audit our circles, trust ourselves, transfer our capital, and celebrate each other out loud. It’s not just feel-good feminism; it’s a practical playbook for confident, collaborative, women-driven leadership.
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- [00:02]
Aaron Gallagher
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- [01:09]
Nicole Khalil
I am Nicole Khalil, your host of the this Is Woman's Work podcast where we're redefining what it means to be doing woman's work in the world today. And part of that redefinition is looking at how we as women treat, talk about and support one another professionally, personally, public, publicly, and yes, even behind closed doors with our colleagues and our friends, our competition, and even the women we love to hate. We can no longer tolerate, excuse or endorse women who hashtag women supporting women while they're whispering, criticizing and undermining. That's not support, that's sabotage. Women still at this time have a reputation for gossip and cattiness and I mean really gossiping about friends who we claim to love. That mean girl shit is out. There are a thousand ways to be a great friend, and gossiping behind someone's back isn't one of them me. I'm what you'd call a hide the body friend. I'll probably forget your birthday, but I will have your back. I will show up when it matters and I will assume the asshole or burying deserved it. And just to be clear, for the courtroom record, I have not actually buried any bodies. This is purely figurative. But I'm also working on being an even better front row friend because I can tell you from experience how absolutely incredible it is to have them. Front row friends are the ones who see possibilities, celebrate your wins, and cheer loud enough for the world to notice. They're not at all quiet or timid in their support, and they often are the ones who remind you who the fuck you are on the days when you forget front row friends. Cheerleaders hype women. I don't care what you call them, but I do care that you have them and that you become them. They are the opposite of mean girls because mean girls as teenagers, problematic but grown ass adults still acting like mean girls. Exhausting, definitely insecure, and frankly, just sad. And the antidote is Hype Women. They celebrate, amplify, and elevate. Like Caroline Adams Miller taught us back on episode 137, hype women practice ampleship. They're out there publicly celebrating each other out loud, unapologetically front row. Because that's what confident, powerful, and happy women do. So we're bringing all of this Hype Woman energy to this episode today with our guest, Aaron Gallagher, CEO and founder of Hype Women, author of Hype Women, Breaking Free from Mean Girls, Patriarchy and System, Silencing you, and host of the Hype Woman podcast. I think it's pretty clear that she's standing firm, firmly in the front row. Aaron started her career fighting for LGBTQ plus rights at Service Members Legal Defense Network and has since spent more than 20 years creating movements, advising the White House, and guiding leaders at some of the world's biggest companies. So, Aaron, I'm guessing you don't start a Hype Woman movement without a personal story, so I'd love to start by asking, what led you to this work?
- [04:11]
Aaron Gallagher
Okay, hold on. First, Nicole, like, girl, I'm g. I'm truly going to go back and listen to that intro and that setup on a daily basis once this goes live because it was so good. It encapsulates everything that. That we're going to talk about today. And I love your passion around it because, yes, there is excitement and energy when you think about the hype women in your life and the women you want to hype, but there is also frustration, anger, and just a don't have time for this shit anymore feeling when it comes to the mean girls. So. So again, just.
- [04:58]
Nicole Khalil
Just thank you. Really. I really have feelings about it. Right.
- [05:01]
Aaron Gallagher
Yes, yes, yes. Welcome to the club. Welcome to the club. Okay, so sorry. Your first question is my backstory.
- [05:08]
Nicole Khalil
Yeah.
- [05:08]
Aaron Gallagher
I mean, you talked about the first job that I had out of college, which was at Service Members Legal Defense Network, nonprofit Legal Aid Watchdog. Entire mission was to lift the ban on gays in the military, which we ultimately did. Mission driven work is so important, it is confusing to work inside of a mission driven organization because your ultimate goal is to cease to exist. You don't want to be needed. You don't want the thing you're fighting for to have to be fought any longer. So it takes a very special type of person to want to stand in the line of fire. And when you find those people who are working towards that common goal, you truly become the best version of yourself. So that was my first job out of college. And the reason why I was drawn to that work is because I have always been a justice warrior. I have always cared about fairness and wanting to stand up for those who don't have as much power and privilege as the next person. And as I grew up and as I became a woman and as I entered the workplace and then corporate America, it became very clear how much power and privilege I have as a straight, white, cisgendered woman. And so instead of using that and weaponizing it to my advantage, which is what mean girls do, right? They say, I'm gonna be in all of the places that I get to be in, and I'm gonna make sure that I always am looking out for myself first. I saw it as a responsibility to stand in front of, beside, and behind all the other women who didn't have that same power and privilege. Again, this is power and privilege that I didn't earn or deserve. It's because we live in a white supremacist patriarchy. So that has been kind of my vibe, my energy, my instinct since I was a kid. Like, playground vigilante. Truly. I was in fifth grade, I was called the Terminator because you didn't mess around with people who, you know, if someone was getting picked on, I stood in front of them. I mean, I truly physically put my body in front of lots of kids over the course of my elementary and middle school days. And then I have been doing that in other ways somewhat, you know, online in certain cases or in. In rooms where decisions are being made about other people's lives. So I just. I just want equity. Like, I really. That. That is what I believe is we are all owed and due. And when. When I see something inequitable happening, I cannot keep quiet about it.
- [08:13]
Nicole Khalil
Right. What I'm hearing is same friend. Like, we would have been fast friends on the playground. It would have been my mouth that would have gotten us in trouble. And then you would have had us stand in front of me. But yet we get. You know, we would have been on the same page, same team. Yes, but what I'm hearing is there's an element of hype women. You know, I was going the direction of celebrating each other opposite of mean girls and all. But there is a fairness, equity, justice component of this. There is a hyping on behalf of the people who aren't in the position to hype as loud or as effectively or as clearly as maybe some of us can and are Is that fair?
- [08:51]
Aaron Gallagher
Yes. Because you can't wait for someone to succeed to hype them.
- [08:58]
Nicole Khalil
Right. If. Right.
- [09:00]
Aaron Gallagher
That's, that's sort of. There is a passivity to that. Even though hype is an action and a verb. If you're waiting for someone to be successful and then you're like, then I got your back, then I will show up. When you're shiny, I will be right there to, to make sure that shine goes further. No, no, no, no. We need to acknowledge the barriers that are in place and we need to be people who are removing those barriers. We need to give access. What I have always found, and this has been the conversation that I've had inside of Fortune 500 companies, inside of the White House and other places. When we see the lack of women and people of color, and in particular women of color in positions of power and influence, the reason why we see so few is not because they lack ambition, ability, or aspiration. It's because they don't have access. That is why. Right. And so that's what we need to pay attention to and identify. And once you remove the barriers and you create the access, oh my gosh, all of a sudden we have all of this diversity. And when diversity is present in these positions of power and influence, success is greater. So, so that to me is like this. The hyping of women begins far, far earlier than the moment when they have something to be celebrated and you celebrate it as if it's your own success. You need to be a part of the journey. The unfun, behind the scenes, dark days, getting pushback, getting no's. It's those women that you are in the, the trenches with. Like, as you just said, you and I would have been on that, on that playground together.
- [10:43]
Nicole Khalil
It's.
- [10:44]
Aaron Gallagher
It's those women that you know are going to have your back the whole way.
- [10:48]
Nicole Khalil
Right. You really poked at something for me. I have a little bit of a pet peeve around. I think we all have a tendency to align ourselves behind certain women who are very successful, very established, because there's no risk in it. And they're so far away from us that it's, you know, I think of, you know, the Mel Robbins or the Michelle Obama. There is this thing where we sort of use their names a lot. And it's not that they don't deserve their names to be spoken or that they aren't doing great work. They are. It's this thing about standing for someone before all of the social proof has caught up the risk that is involved in Caring enough about someone else to put their name out in rooms that they're not in to share their work when not everybody already knows about it. There's something about that that feels really important in this to me. Okay, so I want to talk about some of these mean girl behaviors that we should not be doing or accepting in this year, 2025. Like, I can't even believe we're still having some of these conversations. But what is still happening, consciously or unconsciously, that we need to be mindful of, that we need to stop participating or contributing to? Like, where does this just need to stop?
- [12:09]
Aaron Gallagher
Yeah, I like to see it as a sitting down with yourself and doing a bit of an audit. First, do the audit of your. Your sphere of influence. You know, the people who you spend the most time with, whether these are your family members, your friends, women that are in your social circles because of your children or because of your community or because of interests that you have and your colleagues, the people you work with, the women who are, you know, in. In leadership roles that you're interfacing with in a professional setting. So we do an audit and sit there for a second and ask yourself, how do these women make me feel? Because I have found that you can quite quickly answer that question if you trust your instinct and you don't make excuses and rationalize and do all these other things. But when you really do sit down and say, when this woman's name pops up in my phone, when I see this woman get a headline when she's in my social feed, what do I feel? And if that first feeling is angst, distress, you need to investigate that further. Because more often than not, those are the mean girls that have done you wrong, done your friends wrong, whatever it. Whatever it is that's in your current situation or your past. And we do continue to allow many of them to have access to us because they're out there pretending to be something that they're not. And we want to stay in their good graces because they are fooling a lot of people. So when you first do that audit and you say, okay, on a scale of mean girls to hype women, where do all of these women fall? The next thing I want you to do is I want you to start adjusting your spend, how you spend your time, your energy and your money. Pull it back from those mean girls who are stealing your spirit and shift it and transfer it and invest more of it in the women who have your back. So that's the external audit, but also, Nicole, we have to do an internal audit. Yeah. Because I do believe that there is a mean girl inside of all of us. It is not our fault. It is our conditioning. We have been told our entire lives that women are our competition, that they are threats to us, that their success detracts from ours, that a light shining on her casts a shadow on you. This is not our fault, but it is our responsibility and our greatest opportunity to make a different choice. And so this. This is the shift. This is why I think the original post that I wrote back in 2023 caught fire the way that it did. It's why it grew into a movement and it's continued. It's because hype women, women who actually do want to see other women succeed, they are so tired of this, right? They are tired of being a part of it. They're tired of having it happen to them. They're also tired of thinking it. So the next time you see a woman's success in front of you and you have that first inclination of really her, is she really that good? Does she deserve that? What about me? I want you to say to yourself, hold on. Of course I'm feeling this way. I have been conditioned my entire life to feel this way. And I am going to now make a different choice. And then what you're going to do is you're going to hype her. And hype is an immediate ability to shift your neural pathways. You are going to transfer the cortisol that's pumping into your brain into. Into endorphins. And. And granted, Nicole, I'm talking about hyping hype women. When mean girls do that shit, you block, delete, move on. Thank you.
- [16:12]
Nicole Khalil
Right, Right.
- [16:13]
Aaron Gallagher
Walk away. Because. Because, like, I'm also not here to hype all women. That's something that is confusing to some people. They're like, how can you call her out? How can you? Because not all women deserve hype. Not all women are here for other women. There are a lot of women who are foot soldiers to the patriarchy who are doing. Doing the dirty work to keep us down. So. But I'm talking about the hype women. So when you have that moment where you think that thing, investigate it, I guarantee what you will find when you're having those feelings, it's usually what's underneath a little bit of that jealousy or that envy. It's desire.
- [16:45]
Nicole Khalil
Yes.
- [16:46]
Aaron Gallagher
It's something you want, right? It's something. And so that's okay. That's a signal. It's a sign. But you're not gonna try to take her down or think negative thoughts about her, or talk shit behind her back because you want it. You're going to celebrate the fact that she's doing it, and then you're going to work on it for yourself. So you're going to hype her. You're going to transfer your human capital, your social capital, your financial capital, and your political capital to her. And when you do that, now we start to change things. And next time it will be easier. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fixed the problem, so why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast and even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply Adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained, one who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist. The new fragrance by Miu Miu defined.
- [18:14]
Nicole Khalil
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- [20:39]
Aaron Gallagher
Absolutely. And I would even say it creates an opening to reach out and say, how'd you do it? Yeah. Because that's the other thing we don't do enough as women is to ask for help, to ask for guidance, to. To reach out about the, the dream that we have. We often don't do it because, one, we don't want to look like we don't know what we're doing. We feel like asking for help or asking for, for. For some mentoring or guidance makes us look weaker. That is not true. So we have to get over that feeling. But it also, we can't do this alone. And so when we aren't asking for help, we're just working against ourselves. There's no merit or glory in the woman who does it all by herself. She's gonna be real fucking tired, burnt out, right? And by the time she achieves the success, she's gone for. She's so fucking resentful of everyone that didn't help her because she didn't ask that. She doesn't get to enjoy it. And so we have to stop with this scarcity mindset that again, I do not blame us for. I understand why women have a scarcity mindset. We do not see ourselves in every position of power and influence in the world. Men do straight white cisgendered men know that they will always have a place because they see themselves everywhere. When we only see one or two of us in certain places, the message is, if one of you gets it, no one else will.
- [22:11]
Nicole Khalil
Right.
- [22:11]
Aaron Gallagher
Okay.
- [22:12]
Nicole Khalil
You talked about not being a hype woman for a mean girl. Right. And I sometimes struggle with this too, where, you know, I don't think there is any situation that gives me permission to become a mean girl. I have other options though. I can call out bad behavior when I see it. I can stop following somebody. I can have a conversation behind closed doors. I can cut somebody out of my environment. There are lots of options. But help me understand, when we see someone being a mean girl, how do we not fall into the trap of lowering ourselves to their level? How do we address that in a way that still has us hold on to our values and, you know, show up in a way that we feel proud of?
- [22:57]
Aaron Gallagher
Yeah, I think that this situation gets misrepresented because when a mean girl is doing something inappropriate, attacking another woman, taking her down, working against women, and then we call them out on it, the foot soldiers surround her and say, you're being a mean girl for doing that. So I think first we have to say, no, that's not true. I'm not becoming a mean girl by acknowledging and addressing mean girl behavior. I am witnessing it and I am saying it's not acceptable. So, so I think some of it is just. It's not about changing the way we do it or the way we handle it or the way your instinct wants you to, to move forward. It's about not getting gaslit into staying silent. And, and that's, that's again, what ends up happening is like the messages from the mean girls when you start to pull back, when you, when you don't respond to them, when you don't engage. They are so threatened by that because everything about their existence relies on reaction and feeling like they have power over people. So, so when you don't allow them to have it, it drives them fucking insane. So they will come. They will come for you. They will attack you. It has happened to me countless times. It's happened to me in the past year from grown ass women who are out there in the world pretending to have women's backs. So here's, here's the shift that I've made and this isn't going to be the choice that every woman makes. I don't think that this is a one size fits all solution. I no longer am interested in teaching mean girls how to be Good people. So I actually don't spend any time on it anymore. When that, when that shit comes into my space, when that energy comes at me, I cut it off immediately and, and I move on. I don't spend any more time trying to convince them of their behavior. Trying to tell them why they need to change. Trying to tell them how they made me feel. They fucking know. They know they did it on purpose.
- [25:13]
Nicole Khalil
They wanted you to feel that way.
- [25:15]
Aaron Gallagher
Yeah, yeah, like again, like, like they are hoping that like there's a version of me that's five years ago where I'm like, well, I, I think I must have done something and maybe that's why. No, I'm like, nope, that was absolutely inappropriate behavior. New you no longer have access to me. It's really simple. And I just move on. So, so that is kind of, that's me, that's. That's my choice in, in this next decade of my life as a 43 year old woman. I am focusing on hype women. That is who I'm focused on. I'm actually not focused on mean girls.
- [25:46]
Nicole Khalil
So.
- [25:47]
Aaron Gallagher
So I'm not even out there trying to like tell mean girls like what I think of them. I'm trying to tell hype women that they don't deserve this and they can break free from them and this is how they're going to do it.
- [26:00]
Nicole Khalil
I love that. And it tees me up perfectly for my next question, which is because we have been socialized towards scarcity and mean girl and gossip and like all these things talk to us about ways that we can practice being and becoming a hype woman. What are some things that are easy lifts or, you know, that maybe might take a little more practice, but things that we can all be doing to make sure we end up on that side of the equation.
- [26:28]
Aaron Gallagher
Yeah, I would approach it the same way. I talked about kind of the mean girl audit. There is the external work and there's the internal work. So the internal work for becoming a hype woman, a better hype woman, a more embodied hype woman, is that you gotta take care of yourself. There are a lot of us who have spent the majority of our lives abandoning ourselves in service to others. That was my modus operandi for the first 40 years of my life, personally and professionally. If I wasn't in service to other people, what was the point? And so I abandoned myself in my physical health, mental health, joy, pleasure, all of it. I was so far down on the list, if I was even on the list that day. And so what I needed to do was I needed to take care of myself. And so I really do think that that is the most important first step is look at your daily habits and look at the places where you're putting your time and energy. Are they still working for you? Is that thing that you do every Tuesday? Because it's just, what, the way you've always done it, whether it's a lunch with a friend or a certain type of exercise or whatever it looks like, is that still working? Because if it's not, then it's time to start making different choices. So it doesn't have to mean that you upend your life, that you quit your job and you leave your spouse and you move to another country. And it could.
- [27:57]
Nicole Khalil
I was just saying. Could mean that.
- [28:00]
Aaron Gallagher
It could mean that. It could mean that. And it does mean that for some people, but it is as simple as looking at your calendar for the next day and saying, okay, when I see these different activities, whether they're personal or professional, are they still working for me? And I'm not. I'm not delusional in that. Like, we have to pick our kids up from school and take them to soccer practice and do some of those things that don't necessarily spark the most joy, but like, you do, you know, maybe they're. You're annoyed in the moment for some. For some of those, but you know why you're doing them. And there's. There's a reason. There's a value system in place. I'm talking about the stuff that we have just gotten in the habit of continuing that we have outgrown. So. So that's the first step, and then the external step with. With becoming a better hype woman. Becoming a hype woman that's fully embodied is to think about your capital in four ways. Different areas, human, social, financial, and political. So you could truly sit down and make a list. You could pull out a piece of paper and say, okay, what is my human capital? My human capital is what I know. So this is my experience, my expertise, my education, you know, the jobs that I've had. It's, It's. It's sort of like what I. What I am really good at, what I like to do. That's your human capital. Your social capital is who you know. This is your network. This is the. The relationships that you've built over the course of your life. This is the platforms that you have a name on, and people come to you for advice, counsel, direction. Then you have your political capital. This is who you are. This is your power and influence. It's what people know you as. And so you are able to, you know, use that in lots of ways to get what you want and get things for other people. And then the final one is the one that I think is the simplest to understand, the one that we get the most financial capital. It's cash money, it's investments. So when you make a list of, under each of those things about what your kind of bank account looks like inside of this hype women economy of these four different areas of capital, start transferring them, start making deposits into other women in each of these areas, and you will begin to see it come back to you. Because there's a karmic deposit and withdrawal system that we are creating. This is a new ecosystem that women are building. And we are recognizing that our capital cannot just be financial because we, we have a whole world working against us, making the money that we deserve, keeping the money that we've been, that we've earned, getting what we're due. We know this, right? We know that, first of all, we make less than men, but we also contribute $10.9 trillion of unpaid labor to the global economy every single year. So we are at a deficit when it comes to that system. This is a new ecosystem. And so if you think about it that way and you start hyping and you're making those choices every day, we are moving energy through each other.
- [31:15]
Nicole Khalil
I am so glad that you started by having us acknowledge something internal first, to, like, how we're taking care of ourselves, you know, managing like, our time and our energy and things like that internally. I think so often we as women are told to be others focused. We're told to do something to make an impact or make a difference and help others. And there is nothing wrong with any of those things. Those things are beautiful. But we're often doing it at the expense of ourselves. We're burnt out, we're exhausted. We have nothing left in the tank. And it's like when I am at my edge, it is really hard to make the hype woman choice when the default, when the easier choice feels to go to mean girl. When I, like, I'm burnt out and running on fumes. My. My reaction isn't my best one. And so I think it's so important that we do this internal work as, as part of this process, like take care of ourselves so that we can show up for other women.
- [32:13]
Aaron Gallagher
Nicole, we cannot stop lusting after and loathing other women's lives until we start loving our own. Yeah. And so that will be the cycle of self destruction is the. I want that, I don't want her to have that until we actually are good with what's happening inside of our own house, inside of our own bodies. And, and so, you know, what I have found over the course of my life, especially in the past few years, when I finally was able to kind of break free from, from so much that had been holding me back, is that intuition is women's strongest superpower. Our intuition is the most powerful thing on the planet, and it's why the world doesn't want us to know it. Because when we do, everything is ours. Everything is ours. And so you can't trust your intuition, though, if you don't trust yourself. And this again, is one of those scenarios where I'm not here to shame anyone about it because I don't believe that it is our fault that this has happened. Inside of my 15 years in corporate America, inside of my two and a half years inside of the first company that I co founded, everyone told me that my experience didn't happen, that I, that I was overreacting, I was too sensitive. That's not what they meant. I misunderstood. Why couldn't I just let it go, right? These were all the messages. And so when you hear that hundreds of times a year, maybe more, thousands of times, you start to say, oh, wow, I really don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, right?
- [34:02]
Nicole Khalil
There is something wrong with me. I'm so sensitive. I'm too much. I'm all the wrong.
- [34:06]
Aaron Gallagher
There is something wrong with me. I, I just don't get it. I am my, my perception of everything is off. So that's what happens. And then we stop trusting ourselves and we let everyone else tell us what we're supposed to do. When we get that back, when we get that trust back, when we get that intuition back, no one has power over us anymore. That is what, that is the work. And so until, until you get to that place where you say, okay, I've been told a shit ton of lies about myself that I have believed to be truths. And I have got to break free from that and understand that those were people who were threatened by me that saw how much power I had and didn't want me to know my own voice. As soon as you make the decision to kind of flip that switch, you get it all back. You get all the power back. Imagine fast hydration combined with balanced energy. Perfectly flavored with zero artificial sweeteners. Introducing Liquid Ivy's new energy multiplier Sugar free. Unlike other energy drinks. You know, the ones that make you feel like you're glitching. It's made with natural caffeine and electrolytes, so you get the boost without the burnout. Liquid IVs. New energy multiplier. Sugar free hydrating energy. Tap the banner to learn more at Capella University. Learning online doesn't mean learning alone. You'll get support from people who care.
- [35:36]
Nicole Khalil
About your success, like your enrollment specialist, who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve. You'll also get a designated academic coach.
- [35:46]
Aaron Gallagher
Who'S with you throughout your entire program. Plus, career coaches are available to help.
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Nicole Khalil
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- [35:53]
Aaron Gallagher
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- [35:56]
Nicole Khalil
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- [35:59]
Aaron Gallagher
Eduardo.
- [36:02]
Nicole Khalil
Yeah, I mean, that is the work, isn't it? Right? You talked about trusting ourselves. And I define confidence as firm and bold. Trust in self. There are lots of ways that people tell us to look or be confident, but at the end of the day, it's the trust we have with and for ourselves. And I have found that this trusting of myself, letting go of other people's thoughts and opinions, not totally, but over time, this lean towards being a hype woman has become more and more important and maybe easier the older I get. Have you found that to be true, too? And why do you think that is?
- [36:42]
Aaron Gallagher
Oh, baby, when I turned 40, like, it was just like, yeah, I'm not doing this shit anymore. There is something that happened to me at 40. Um, I have to imagine that there is a significant part of it that is truly, like, microbiologically. We just get to a point where we. We look around and we say, is this all there is? Is this what I really wanted? I think at that point, for a lot of women, especially women who have careers outside of the home, you have likely achieved or gotten close to the thing that you've been trying to do for the past 20 years.
- [37:24]
Nicole Khalil
Mm.
- [37:25]
Aaron Gallagher
But what we were never told is that when we got there, we would be a very different person than we were when we were 20. So while we may have achieved it, it may not actually be the thing we want anymore. That's what happened to me inside of corporate America. I said, wait a minute. This is it. This is all there is. So I think there is such a important step in the re. Meeting of ourselves. Every time we go through these life stages, we go through these metamorphosis, we. We have a life event that shifts our goals and plans and worldview. We have to sit Back down with ourselves and with the people who we are building a life with and say, I'd like to renegotiate the terms. This isn't what I signed up for. So that's what happened with me inside of my first company. I said, oh, you can say that I'm opting out, but I never signed up for this. I've had that conversation with my husband. I'm like, I am not the woman you married. I'm a very different person now. I'm now a mother of nine and seven year olds. I'm a two time founder. A lot has happened. I'm in perimenopause. Like we need to renegotiate sort of like my expectations and what I want in life and what brings me joy and what doesn't. And I think a lot of relationships end because we don't have that conversation. Some relationships end because that's the time for them to be done. We don't grow with everyone. Sometimes we outgrow people.
- [39:07]
Nicole Khalil
But.
- [39:09]
Aaron Gallagher
I couldn't believe that. I got to say, this isn't working for me anymore. About my job, about my friendships, about aspects of my marriage. I didn't know I had that option. I didn't, I didn't give myself the permission before I turned 40. And then I said, no, no, yeah, this isn't working for me anymore. So here's what needs to happen. And if that doesn't happen, then different choices will be made.
- [39:39]
Nicole Khalil
This is, I think, so important because we do, we change and evolve and grow and life throws us curve balls and this idea of re meeting ourselves at different stages across our life and then renegotiating and reconnecting what a relationship or an opportunity or a career looks like because of that. Like my husband and I have had this a few times where it's like our relationship isn't the same because the people who are in this relationship are not the same. And we have to talk about how I've changed, how you've changed, how we've changed, how what we want has changed. And ask ourselves, are we able, willing, capable to show up for each other and for this new version of ourselves in each other. I feel like I'm taking us down a rabbit hole of woman. But no, no, no.
- [40:28]
Aaron Gallagher
So, so, Nicole, no, no. This, this is it. This is, this is the conversation, this is the work. Because again, you cannot hype women, other women, until you can hype yourself. And you can't be in your body loving what's going on until you have these conversations with People about why you've changed. You know, Brian and I.
- [40:53]
Nicole Khalil
I used.
- [40:53]
Aaron Gallagher
To think like, hey, man, not every marriage is gonna work. My parents got divorced when I was really little. I grew up around a lot of divorce. It. To me, it was just like, it could happen. And so I always. When we would disagree, I was like, well, this is just another sign we're on our way, you know? And Brian's like, okay, sorry, I'll take the garbage out. I don't think we need to get a divorce. Right? So. So, right. So, like, listen, lots of therapy. I have a lot to work on. I am aware of that. This is. This is my job. But why I know that's not the case now and why I do believe that Brian and I are in this forever is because we have had these incredibly difficult conversations about the changes that I was never shown, he was never shown. We are, like, teaching ourselves how to do this while we're doing it, and we're really honest. Like, hey, I don't know what. I don't know how to do this. I know I'm fucking it up. But one of the really important, critical conversations that shifted things for us happened a few months ago. And it was, you know, Brian married a really good girl who was climbing the ladder in corporate America at the pace she was told she could do it. And that looked incredibly safe. And he wrapped his head around that. And Brian is a feminist, and he wants me to do anything and everything, but he also, like, really understood that world, and that's the world he's always been in. He has always been inside of tech companies in corporate America. So when I left to start my own company, that disrupted our marriage so deeply because we were entering an uncharted territory. And he saw both so much that I learned and how I grew, but also how much pain I was in and what I lost in that first company. And so all of his concerns that I felt were judgment, right? That's how I was feeling it, because I was self conscious about the fact that it didn't work, that it was hard, that things went sideways. But underneath it, again, it's that same thing. Like, wait, am I feeling jealousy or am I feeling envy? No, I'm feeling desire. What he was expressing was concern and care. And so I had to be able to see it that way.
- [43:19]
Nicole Khalil
But.
- [43:20]
Aaron Gallagher
But again, when I left that first company, Brian sat me down and said, please don't start another company. And Nicole, I was like, yeah, I don't. I don't have an llc, Right. I didn't I didn't already buy a ui, right? I haven't. I'm not. I'm not waking up between midnight and three and building a deck, which I was.
- [43:40]
Nicole Khalil
Right.
- [43:41]
Aaron Gallagher
So those four months in between, I said to him, I. I can't go back. I can't go back to corporate America. I actually don't think that me exiting this company was a sign I couldn't cut it. I think I am built for this. I just don't think these were the right people to do it with. And so this has been a challenge. You know, I'm now three years into the company that I solo founded and Brian continued to come back to me and say, when is it going to be routine and established? It's all over the place. I can't handle this. And. And so there was this constant tension between us. And I did. I tried to go back. I like started interviewing and having conversations a year ago before I started writing the book with. With. With consultancies about like going back inside. And none of it worked because universe was like, don't fucking do it. And so I finally, I was sitting in this exact spot when I had this conversation with Brian six months ago. I said to him, here's the deal. I am not going to be on the receiving end of your inability to accept that I am no longer a corporate good girl. I'm an entrepreneur. I own my own company. This is who I am now. So you have to either accept that or we have to make a different choice about how we're moving forward. Because I can't keep being asked and shamed into going back to something that I am not anymore.
- [45:09]
Nicole Khalil
Right?
- [45:10]
Aaron Gallagher
And Nicole, that conversation changed everything. And he fully shifted and turned towards me in a way because he. His response back to me was like, this is not your shit. This is mine. And I said, yeah, no fucking shit. I've been trying. I've been trying to say this for five years, but welcome to the party, right? We don't always come things right. Like, we don't always come to the same conclusion at the same time. And sometimes the other person does come to the conclusion too late. That's possible. Where it's like, dude, ship has sailed. But we got to have that conversation. He got to say, okay, I get it. I get it now. And I'm like, great, yes, this is going to be a little bit clunky. And it's not going to be a check in the mail every two weeks like a corporate job. But by the way, corporate jobs aren't safe. You get fired every single day from a corporate job. So let's look at what's possible and let's start building it. And Brian kind of became a hype man to me in a very new way. And so those are the conversations that we have to have. Like, it's not always about the macro and changing the world out there. It's about changing the micro. What's happening inside of your own family and life and system that is gonna have the biggest impact.
- [46:26]
Nicole Khalil
I feel like that's the crux of all of it. It's this awareness and this releasing and evolving. The judgment and expectations. Those are the words that keep popping into my head. When we go into the mean girl side, it's usually the worst of our judgment and expectations of ourselves and of other people. When we go into the hype woman side, it's more of an exploration. It's more of a being strong but holding these things loosely, these expectations and judgments of ourselves and others so that we can evolve, so that we can support, so that we can hype. I don't know if I'm saying that very well, but there's something in my head that's like, pinging around this idea of the shadow side of judgment and expectation versus the using it for growth of ourselves and for other people.
- [47:23]
Aaron Gallagher
We can't expand into the light. Right. The best version of ourselves until we meet the shadow.
- [47:31]
Nicole Khalil
Right.
- [47:31]
Aaron Gallagher
Until we acknowledge and address, hey, this is what's underneath all of this. These are the stories that I'm hearing in my head. These are the naysayers. We have to meet those and say, hey, I'm not gonna make myself feel bad that I have these thoughts or that I've felt these things. I'm going to try to understand why, and then I'm going to decide what I want to do with it. Like, that's. That's what I think is this difference between the mean girl and the hype woman. The mean girl doesn't investigate.
- [48:08]
Nicole Khalil
Right, Right.
- [48:09]
Aaron Gallagher
The mean girl just feels a negative thing and then wants other women to feel the same thing. And. But the hype woman feels the negative thing and investigates it and says, what is this really about? And because I know it's not about her, I'm not going to participate in that. So. So the way that you said it is actually quite beautiful.
- [48:30]
Nicole Khalil
No, you. The way like that is exactly what I was trying. Thank you for putting it into words because that is the crux of what we're talking about here.
- [48:39]
Aaron Gallagher
Yep.
- [48:39]
Nicole Khalil
Aaron, I could clearly talk to you all day long. And I'm so grateful for you doing the work that you do and also coming here to encourage us to do it in ways that I wasn't even expecting. So again, super appreciative of that. I want to make sure our listeners know where to find and follow you. So the book again is hypewoman. You can go to hypewomen.com she has a podcast, Hype Women. Aaron, we're going to put everything in show notes, of course. But Aaron, thank you again for being our guest today and for being the ultimate hype woman.
- [49:12]
Aaron Gallagher
Nicole, it's been, this has been a really beautiful conversation. I think that the unexpected turns that these types of conversations make because we've created this space to have them, those are the lasting imprints that really do get into our subconscious and start to shift our purview. So you are a beautiful host.
- [49:39]
Nicole Khalil
Thank you.
- [49:40]
Aaron Gallagher
And really took us there. And so I'm so grateful that you've created this space and invited me to be a part of it.
- [49:46]
Nicole Khalil
The pleasure was absolutely all mine. So I'm going to close this out with this. Here's the truth. Mean girls aren't going away on their own, but they don't stand a chance if more of us decide to be hype women. So how do we get into action? Start by noticing where you might be tearing down instead of building up, even in the small, sneaky ways. And flip it. Send the text, make the introduction clap. Let's louder. Post the compliment. Show up in the front row. Because hype women don't whisper their support, they broadcast it. So go find your front row friends and take your seat in theirs. Cheer louder. Celebrate bigger. Hype harder. The more we choose to hype each other, the less space there is for mean girl energy to exist. And that is how we change the game. And it is also how we do woman's work.
- [50:37]
Aaron Gallagher
Foreign this episode is brought to you by LifeLock. It's Cybersecurity Awareness Month and Lifelock has tips to protect your identity. Use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication, report phishing and update the software on your devices. And for comprehensive identity protection, let Lifelock alert you to suspicious uses of your personal information. Lifelock also fixes identity theft, guaranteed or your money back. Stay smart, safe and protected with a 30 day free trial at lifelock.com podcast terms apply.
- [51:09]
Nicole Khalil
Bibliophage noun one who devours books. A bookworm, an avid reader. Every good writer is probably a better reader. And Bibliophage is the podcast that proves it. New York Times best selling author Gwenna Laland invites authors from every genre and walk of life to discuss the thing they love the most, books and the stories they contain. From independent authors to bookstore blockbusters, the Bibliophage Podcast is the podcast where we devour books one author at a time. Check out Bibliophage, an Airwave Media podcast available everywhere you find your favorite podcasts. Parenting is hard. We're out here trying to childproof everything.
- [51:45]
Aaron Gallagher
Corners at tables, electrical sockets, pet water bowls. Our own emotional overwhelm.
- [51:51]
Nicole Khalil
It's easy to get overwhelmed by tiny humans you're somehow responsible for, not messing up. It's nice to know you're not alone, though.
- [51:57]
Aaron Gallagher
We've been there.
- [51:58]
Nicole Khalil
I'm Tori Phantom and Gwenna Laland and we host Childproof.
- [52:02]
Aaron Gallagher
We cover the good, the great, the hard, the feels impossible on Childproof, an Airwave Media podcast available everywhere you find your favorite podcasts.