Rocking a put-together look was important culturally and individually to Karen M. Smith DeBolt. If she looked the part she could eventually feel the part. So she lived the fabulous life, working hard, traveling hard and had no plans to change that. At some point, though, she was forced to make a change, at least temporarily. Find out how uncovering new aspects of you can be can lead to both growth and fulfillment.
Guest Karen M. Smith DeBolt always rocked a put-together look—an important expression of her cultural and individual motto “Dress well, test well.” As her Colombian mother had made clear, in looking the part you could eventually feel the part. This was key for Karen who didn’t really feel as though Dartmouth was the right choice for her until she met her tribe of women friends sophomore year who she knew had her back.
After graduation, she understandably expected to live a fabulous life in New York City, working for Chanel. When that didn’t materialize, she found her way into McKinsey and Company, first in recruiting and later—after a stint in organizational consulting at another firm—executive development. Despite the hectic always-on-call pace, it was a kind of high style and high flying that she loved. When she found her husband, they were happy as the couple that traveled everywhere with no strings tying them down. But even though motherhood was never something to which she aspired, it came for her. And despite her best early efforts to make sure it would change nothing of her fabulous, hard-charging existence, a forced leave made her reassess.
In this episode, find out from Karen how uncovering new aspects of yourself can lead to both growth and fulfillment…on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode's Guest
Karen M. Smith Debolt (not to be confused with our classmate Karen E. Smith) has found many ways to reinvent herself after years in organizational design consulting and executive development. She lives in Chicago with her husband and only-child son. She continues to make herself greater each year.
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Karen M. Smith DeBolt: It was probably less about feeling nurturing and more about realizing I couldn't deliver the same level of Karen that McKinsey had seen and do this baby thing at the same time, because I've always said if my job is to sharpen pencils every day I would go to bed worrying about the two pencils I didn't sharpen well.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: Rocking a put-together look was important, culturally and individually to Karen M. Smith DeBolt. If she looked apart, she could eventually feel the part. So she lived with the fabulous life, working hard, traveling hard and had no plans to change that. At some point, though, she was forced to make a change, at least temporarily. Find out how uncovering new aspects of you can lead to both growth and fulfillment, on today's Roads Taken with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley
Today, I'm here with my friend and yours Karen M. Smith DeBolt. And we're going to talk about getting acquainted with new versions of ourselves. So Karen, it is so delightful to see you again. Thanks for being here.
KD: Thanks for having me. It's great to see you.
LJR: So Karen, I'm going to just launch in and we ask the same two questions every time. So when we were in college, who are you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you were going to become?
KD: Oh my gosh. When I was in college, I think I had imposter syndrome for four years. Which I still have imposter syndrome. I think that's just a theme throughout my whole life. But, I at Dartmouth who was? I was just, I think I was a little lost. I think, I don't know if looking back, maybe it wasn't exactly the right fit for me. I mean, I made it work. I loved it. I found my tribe of friends, you know, but I think I was definitely kind of bumbling along, trying to figure out who I was. I, you know, my motto in college was “dress well, test well” and so I spent a lot of time getting ready for finals. I remember my roommates would be like, we got to go and I'd be ironing my outfit for the, you know, the psychology exam or whatever. But, that's still one of my mottos in life: “Dress well, test well.” You’ve got to feel good when you get out there; conquer the world.
I think I was really lost while I was at school. I, you know, I think I thought I wasn't, but looking back, I realize how young and naïve, clueless I was. And then when we graduated, I don't know if anybody else had this experience. I wanted somebody to hand me a list of directions for what was next. I remember saying that to people, like, I just wish somebody would give me a set of directions. Like what steps do I need to do now? What do I have to do next? And it made sense years later when I became a consultant in the whole organizational design space and we were all about Myers Briggs, I am an E S T J. So I love a plan and I like my lists and I like, I just like to know what's going to happen.
So now I can kind of see why that was such a, why I wanted a list of directions. When I graduated, who I thought I was going to be. I thought I was going to move to New York City and I was going to get a job working for Chanel in their corporate office. You know, that was like, that's what I want to do. I grew up in Tacoma, Washington on the west coast. I was like clearly on the other side of the country, like anyways, I, so I did that. I moved to New York almost. I almost did that. And then I remember I called, called the main line of Chanel. And introduced myself and the lady on the other end just said…I was kind of like, I'm here. When do I show up? You know, so naive and believing on the other end, because we're a really small company of only 200 people. Thank you for your interest. And just like, oh, well that, wasn't the plan. That's so funny. So, you know, and you have like 15 minutes to kind of have a breakdown and realize that that's not going to happen.
But then I, ended up, you know, pounding the pavement and I got a job at McKinsey and Company, not as a consultant, I was doing international recruiting for them, which sounded super awesome, right? You're like international recruiting, you know, that sounds amazing. Pretty sure they don't even have that division anymore because it was before you can attach an email, a resume to an email. So, you know, our, our role was basically hosting. International offices that McKinsey had and, you know, trying to get candidates. It was a really great job, but it wasn't. Glamorous as it sounded. So anyway, that's who I thought I would be in. It ended up not in a bad place by any stretch. I had a great, got a great gig at McKinsey and that was kind of right.
LJR: Okay. But so much to dig into right now, because I will say we didn't know each other well in college, I always admired your lipstick. I was like, gosh, how does…I don't even own lipstick. How would I know what color to you? I mean, you had it altogether. And so “Dress well, test well.” You have this persona of who she is together. She's got it. And yet you're from Tacoma, Washington. It was the height of grunge. How did you not come like fully baked out in your flannel? Like how did that happen?
KD: Well, so I will put it this way. My mother is Colombia. And I don't know if you have seen many Colombian women, but they are no flannel. You're dressed to the nines. I mean, my mom's motto in life. We're all about mottos in my family. So her motto was, if your nails are done and you have a good handbag, you can get anywhere in life. Right. And she always gives us example of being stuck on the side of the road because her car broke down and, you know, a police officer came and saw her nails and her handbags.
So, you know, he took her, you like rescued her. So that's why I was not grungy. I wasn't really allowed to be it. Wasn't really part of my. Culture, I guess. So you always have to be pulled together and to this day, I mean, my mom is still impeccable. She's just like, it doesn't matter if you see her walking down the street in the neighborhood or at a party, she's always going to look fabulous. So I wasn’t allowed to be grungey.
LJR: Yes, fabulous you looked, but you also mentioned having found your tribe and I will say they were neither all handbags and nails nor grunge nor anything particular, you know. I think I would love to know how you found the tribe and what you were searching for and what you found to get you through.
KD: I guess I'll name my tribe and it wasn't really until sophomore year, I didn't go, didn't do a foreign study program, which is one of my big regrets, but I did do the UC San Diego exchange which was sophomore year. Because…
LJR: To get out of the cold.
KD: Yeah. To get out of the cold and that's where I met. Ann Kontos and Amy Duggan.
LJR: Because they had done it too.
KD: Well, they did it with me. [LJR: OH.] Well, I didn't really know them before there's serious, but that's where we really got to know each other. And then they, when we came back, I got the Kate Andrews connection, Jeanine DiBenedetto, Lauren Hennessy. So that was really my group. And I mean, I think Jeanine is probably the one who's more lipsticky of us all, right? Like me. But you know Kate and Amy were complete athletes. I mean, we're talking, Kate was captain to the soccer team and we talk about—we still get together; we call it the WAD. It's the Women After Dartmouth group and at the six of us get together every year—And we always talk about what is it that drew the six of us together. And, you know, I think a lot of it was, I think we were all insecure overachievers, who, we were all really good about giving each other, the reassurances we needed, we could be real around each other. Do you guys remember, you'd go to an exam. And I remember people would be like, oh, I didn't study at all. And I'm like, well, that's funny, ‘cause I’ve studied like for the last two hours that I'm like, and my clothes are really ironed, but I studied for the last 72 hours and I still feel like I'm not gonna do well on this. I feel like there was so much of that kind of posturing at school and looking back, obviously everybody was worried about how they were going to do. And, you know, I think it was just trying to be confident for some reason, this group, we, we could just literally be honest with each other. Like I'm really terrified about going in and taking this test or I have to, and there was just a real natural kind of feeling of, between us all, we could just be real with each other. And I think that was kind of the turning point for me at school. And that's when I felt like, okay, I can, I can make this work and really love Dartmouth. 'cause before that I was still kind of bumbling around like, oh, is this really the right place for me?
LJR: Right, right. And so when you got out, after making that awesome telephone call to Chanel, I love that story, you found your way and you were at McKinsey for quite a while.
KD: So I was at McKinsey for quite a while. I took a hiatus. I did leave for about five years and I did consulting, change management consulting for another consulting firm. And that was great. It was a good experience. I did change management. I did organizational design, you know, I had status on all the airlines. You know, I was on a plane every Monday. And then, well, so I met my husband in 1999 and he was a Chicago boy and I was living in New York, but we met at a wedding on the west coast. So we were dating long distance. And so when we got married, I finally agreed to leave New York. I wasn't even, you know, that I remember the day after we got engaged, he's like, okay. So when are you moving to Chicago? I'm like, well, the day after we get married, of course, you know. So finally, we were finally together in the same city after we got married and then being on the road five days a week, just didn't it just was silly. It was like, well, this is like the 10th day of our honeymoon, I looked at him and I'm like, this is the longest amount of time we've ever spent together because we always decide each other on weekends. So we discussed it and I decided to leave consulting and that's when I returned to McKinsey. And then, you know, I did a little bit of recruiting and then I ended up really mainly doing professional development for them, which was basically, I looked at it as being an executive coach. So I would place all their consultants on their studies, really trying to develop them into McKinsey partners. It was actually a really good way to prepare for motherhood because talk about insecure overachievers. That's such a McKinsey term, cause that's exactly what everybody is there.
LJR: I was about to say that. You're definitely like helping people through their own imposter syndrome in that world.
KD: Totally. Totally. And we joked about that at McKinsey about, you know, the insecure overachiever, and everybody's going to, someone's going to tap your shoulder and say, oh, we made a mistake. You know? And so then I was at McKinsey for a long time. Then I think I was there for like eight years. Yeah. And then 2010, I left unexpectedly.
LJR: Unexpectedly. So when I asked, who did you think you would become, you had a vision of corporate Karen kind of the handbag nails off on the planes, all of that, which you lived into. How did motherhood feel to you as a 20-something or even an early-30 something? Like, what was the idea of motherhood like for you at that point?
KD: Oh, so well before I became one, you mean? Oh no, it was like everything I didn't ever want to be. I was going to be the working girl who had like the super handsome husband. (He is very handsome.) And we were going to travel the world and, you know, we were gonna be the couple that worked and traveled. And I was totally content with that. I didn't feel like I was missing a thing. I would see people who had children and I would, I had pity for them. I literally had pity for them. I thought, oh gosh, what a headache. And what a, you know, that just looks like a lot. It looks real. I remember I'd be like, people would ask me if we would want to have kids and I'd say, It just seems so disruptive. I don't want …
LJR: I say the same thing about pets. I love you say that about children.
KD: But that’s literally what made me stop…just really disruptive. So yeah, so motherhood, when I was in my late twenties, early thirties was just not on the horizon at all. Not at all.
LJR: But there's this strange thing about biology: It happens. So it happened to you.
KD: It did.
LJR: What was that like?
KD: You know, I, it's funny. Cause I kept telling myself, billions of people have gone through this before. It's going to be fine. You're going to be fine, right? It was such a, they always say, you know, mother is so natural, it’s so beautiful. No, it's not. It's like totally alien. It's completely disgusting. It's loud. It's messy. It's not in a clean, nice little box. And so I just, I was terrified. I was totally terrified when I found out I was going to have a baby. And I just kept saying, I'm going to have this baby, like…And I kept thinking in my head, okay, it's going to be like a procedure. I'll go to the hospital. This baby will arrive magically. And then I can just go back to my regular life. [LJR: Right.] That's what my vision of motherhood was because everybody else's what I was seeing wasn't going to fit with my world. So I thought this is fine. It's just a little, a little blip. And then I'll just do….I'll have the baby and then feed the baby and then I'll go, go back to, you know, traveling and working and being fabulous again, right?
LJR: Yeah. Yeah. Did that happen?
KD: No, not at all. I, so yeah, I ended up, so leading up to where I worked at McKinsey, they have, it's just an amazing place because like, at the time I fought it, but they make you leave like two or three weeks before your due date. Do you like how I said that they make you, they make you leave and then you have like, you know, like a three to six, it was just this really generous maternity leave, which was amazing. But I didn't want to leave. I called HR. Like the week before I was going to get kicked out. Right. I sent to, I have to take maternity leave. Can’t I just, can I just stay and then come back, you know what? The woman on the other end of the line was just, she was literally speechless. She could not believe somebody with asking this question. She kind of laughed and said, listen, just go. I think you're going to have a hard time balancing everything. Again, I literally didn't understand. So then I have this. You know, I, I remember leaving the hospital and I'm sure everybody feels like that. They like, they're like you wait, you're going to send me home now. Like, how are we supposed to go home?
LJR: Where are my classes?
KD: I don't want, I don't want to go home. I go home and I'm thinking, what do I do with this baby? Like, I was so unprepared for this that I remember, you know, you have to take these classes when you're pregnant. This is how so my takeaway from those classes was not, oh, this is how you do CPR. This is how you sleep train. But one question I did ask, which I think I basically announced myself as the stupidest person in the class—it was the sleep class—and I was like, this is great. And I'll, I understand the baby has to sleep, but what do you do with it when it's awake. I literally asked that question becuase I was like, I don't understand. So I'm sure all those people thought I was in remedial, everything when I in high school, when I asked that question, but I wanted those directions again. I wanted my directions.
So anyway, I take my maternity leave and I even have to back up like finding out when I was pregnant: Do you remember the Papa Don't Preach video with Madonna? Remember, when she’s in her little black leather jacket and her jeans and her pointy flats. And she has to tell her dad she's keeping her baby and she’s scared. Right, terrified. That's how I felt when I had to go tell my boss I was pregnant. I thought I was going to disappoint him to no end and God, the guy was just a, me, he gives me this, this bump, like this is going to be the best, like adventure of your life. And I'm thinking, I don't know about that, but he was right. So yeah, I motherhood, it was not, you know, he thought for sure, I'd come back. And then a week before I was supposed to return, I ended up quitting, which was like a mic drop. Nobody could believe it. I couldn't believe. My colleagues couldn't believe it.
LJR: Our listeners probably couldn't believe it. So where does that come from? What happened in those weeks?
KD: I think what happened was I had a realization. It was probably less about feeling nurturing and more about realizing. I couldn't deliver the same level of Karen that McKinsey had seen and do this baby thing at the same time, because I've always said if my job was to sharpen pencils. Every day I would go to bed worrying about the two pencils I didn't sharpen well enough. And I was working around the clock, taking calls. You know, my job was literally dealing with the consultants and the partners. And so I would get calls at all hours of the night. I’d go on vacation and everybody would call and they wanted five minutes. So I was just, I realized there was no way I could, I could deliver the same level of performance that I had and I'm sure work would have been understanding, and it would have been an adjustment. But I was so overwhelmed at the time. And my husband was so, you know, he, I think he was relieved when I did end up quitting. He was always so supportive of my career and how much I was working. But I think to him, he saw it as, okay, she's going to take a breath and like try something new. And I have to say like, it's not easy being around a little baby. Some people love it, but I didn't even babysit growing up. Like. I, you know, I would play with Barbies when I was a little girl, but I wouldn't play with, I would get the Barbie ready for the party. And then like, start over again. Like, no, I didn't play with baby dolls. It was hard those first couple of months for sure. Definitely. But you know, you kind of slog through them. Everybody does. I kept telling myself, billions of women have been through this before. So, you know, you're not the first one.
LJR: Right. But then billions of women also decide at some point later, okay. There are other people that can take care of the daily kid thing, and I'm going to balance and juggle. And you still decided, Nope, I don't want to have to bifurcate. Tell me more.
KD: I was fortunate enough to be in the position to be able to make that choice. Right. I mean, I think if that hadn't been an option then yeah, of course I would have gone back. I think I, you know, I also realized I'm too much of a control freak, you know, I wanted to make sure I kind of saw what was going on and, you know, could be the person to take care of this little baby. And I almost, so my son was born in 2010. But I look back to that decade between 2000 and 2010, which is, I think when most of us, just again, given when we graduated, really starting to bring them in that oil, right? I cannot, it is a blur that whole decades of blur, nevermind, the fact that. there weren't printed pictures at that point, and we didn't have iPhones then. So it's like all our pictures from that decade are stuck on a camera somewhere in the basement on some like SD drive, right? Like whole decades gone in more ways than just my memory. I almost was like, I woke up, it was almost like I was born again in which sounds so dramatic, but I really, it was, it was good to be able to kind of see the world through a new lens.
It was also interesting because for so much of my life, it was the first thing you say, when you meet somebody is, you know, I, this is my name and oh, and this is what I do. What do you do? What do you do? Yeah, for the first time I was like, gosh, how am I going to answer that question? And that kind of stressed me out for a bit and you know, and I still laugh about it.
I mean, listen, when you, when you reached out to me to do this, I was like, it's like the real Housewives of Dartmouth. Is Andy Cohen going to join me because I don't know how to answer that question still.
LJR: The fact that we're still asking it, I think, is part of the problem of, you know, I think you, you have a persona that's big enough to just stop at Hi, I'm Karen M and I'm…get to know me more than what I do in the hours that you would never see me. Who cares?
KD: Right and I think it's shifted the way I meet people. And now I love, I love getting to know people in a much more kind of—it’s such an overused term, but—organic way. Like I have friends that I've had for years. And when I learned something new about them, I'm like, that's amazing. Like, how was this not the first thing you told me? You know? And, but now I really try not to ask people what they, what they do now or what they did before or where they went to school. I mean, it's just like, I feel like I've been able to really kind of. Get to know people on a new level and it's not all about your laurels or your accomplishments. And it's just about who people really are and connecting with people. So that's been really nice. Yeah.
LJR: Yeah. Very nice. Yeah. And you have the one?
KD: I had the one, I was a one and done. I have to say having one child is very civilized. It's like, we can go out to dinner, we can travel. And we still do a couple of travels. Like we drag that kid all over the place. He's been all over the world and he's a jam. I got the, I was so lucky. My son Grayson is like, so going. He has great hair. I mean, he's just..you know I'm so lucky, but we just have the one and he's 11 and he's in sixth grade. It is funny though, because like when he went to first grade, all of a sudden I did have a lot more time. Right? So that was 2016. And I decided, okay, I need to figure out what's going to be next. And for, this sounds again, the life of the house frau: For me, new year's is not January 1st, it's literally the first day of school. That's when I can do my, okay, What are my resolutions for the year? And I remember that was the year that of course was the big Trump election year. Right? Which I just, and the whole Make America great again. So I was like…
LJR: Make Karen Great Again!
KD: That's exactly what I did. So that was my…I would go out with my charging, my charging cry. I remember telling my friends, I’m “Making Karen Great Again.” I even had a hat made, which my husband was like, you cannot leave the house. You can’t leave the house wearing that. And all my friends were like, you're right. This is so…then it was like, Make Tasha Great. Make Elizabeth Great. Make Krissy Great Again. We had all these make everybody great again. And that year was kind of fun for a bunch of my friends in my, my situation, of being a stay-at-home mom, but we all really kind of set goals and like, it was a really fun year.
And I remember it happened to coincide with my 25th or was it…high school reunion. And, I just remember I was having so much fun making Karen great again, that when a classmate of mine was like, so Karen what are you doing? I was like, I was actually so excited to like, answer the question. And I was, you know, I was working out, I was, you know, joining a breast cancer board. I was researching things I hadn't done before, but it was kind of like an odd wakening that I hadn't anticipated. And now that's kind of every year I really try to focus on, okay, what am I going to do this year to keep myself engaged and interesting. That was a kind of like the turning point was first grade for me, because that's when I had a little bit more time and could kind of focus on me again, which has been really fun.
LJR: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love that idea of annual re-invention, particularly at the stage in our life where we have achieved the things that answer that question in the work way. And now I love that the answer could be, what are you doing Karen? I'm making myself great again. I love that.
KD: Again, maybe there are more out there like me. I don't know.
LJR: You know what, Karen, I think there are people out there that wonder what if I had made that bold choice, because it is a struggle to, to decide at that moment, who am I going to be kind of in respect to this person that I'm bringing into the world and the person I used to be and the people I don't even know I can become. I think it's a bold choice. And unexpected for you, but it seems to have worked. And honestly, Karen, like you're the person in our moments when you know, grass is always greener, we're like, oh my God, what would it be like to be just myself right now?
KD: Well and I feel bad saying this, but it's amazing. It's so liberating. And I wake up every day just so happy that I can. Be where I am right now. And, you know, I realized how lucky I am. So yeah, I try not to take any, any minute for granted.
LJR: Well, in addition to the lipstick, I also remember your laughter and I am so glad that that hasn't changed and all of these reinventions and that you are embracing every step of this. And I am certain that the next chapters, plural, of Karen are going to be amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all of this.
KD: Well, thanks for having me. I've been good. I'm having a wonderful time. And, you know, I just have nothing but excitement for kind of what's next.
LJR: That was Karen M. Smith DeBolt was found many ways to reinvent herself after years and organizational design consulting and executive coaching. She lives in Chicago with her husband and only-child son. If you're on the re-invention path yourself, I'd say you've found, in the Roads Taken podcast, a great temporary destination for inspiration. Each of my guests has not only a tale to tell, but some wisdom to share. Please share the word of the show with your favorite people by pointing them to Rhodes, taken show.com or telling them they can subscribe and follow wherever they find their podcasts, where they can find me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, in more episodes of roads taken.