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August 18, 2022 / Mom &… Podcast Episode 84 / Guest: Julie Cole Subscribe and Review Wherever You Listen to Podcasts Show Summary: This week’s guest, Julie Cole, was a successful lawyer who left the law behind to start a business. A lot of people in her life thought she was crazy, but she and her co-founders (who also happen to be family members) knew that they had something special. If you’ve ever labeled a water bottle, school supply, or everything in a camp trunk, you probably know Mabel’s Labels. We talked about making that career shift, even when everyone around her expressed doubt. Julie shared how she approaches conflict, why core values matter, and how she manages her time. One of our favorite things she says is, “Don’t let anything live rent-free in your head!” More About Julie Cole: Julie Cole is a recovered lawyer, mom of six and co-founder of Mabel’s Labels. She is an award-winning entrepreneur, best-selling author, and sought after speaker and emcee. Julie is no stranger to the media, having appeared on NBC’s The Today Show, HLN’s Raising America, Breakfast Television, The Marilyn Denis Show, CP24, among many others. Her articles have appeared in The Huffington Post, Today’s Parent, The Globe and Mail, Profit Magazine, Working Mother Magazine, and numerous websites. When she’s not juggling her busy family and professional life, Julie is an engaged community member serving on boards and volunteering. She is passionate about women’s issues, mentoring young entrepreneurs, and social justice. Topics From This Episode Missy is still complaining about the heatMabel’s LabelsCareer pivotsCareer choices defined by motherhoodTransitioning out of rolesAdjusting to new rolesIdentityNetworkingManaging relationships, especially when they’re not working anymoreCore ValuesAdvocating for yourselfConflictTime managementStarting a businessMisery by Stephen King (see Look, Listen, Learn below)Susanne’s blackberry compote incident (see Look, Listen, Learn about Erin Pepler) Connect with Julie: Buy the book! – Like a Mother: Birthing Businesses, Babies, and a Life Beyond LabelsWebsiteInstagram Look, Listen, Learn Missy The Creepy Book Club (found via Ashley’s TikTok)Jouer Blush & Bloom Cheek + Lip Duo Julie Breaking BadErin Pepler – Send Me Into the Woods AloneBig Gorgeous Goals, by Julie Ellis Susanne Roomba (nobody tell Susanne how much they cost!) Connect With the Mom &… Podcast Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love?Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes.Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things!Follow our Facebook PageJoin our private Facebook Group (All you have to do is ask to join, and then be nice once you’re in. So easy!)Follow us on InstagramBecome a patron – check us out on Patreon! Watch This Episode On Our YouTube Channel Musical Notes Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock. Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors. [00:00:00] Missy: Welcome to the mom and dot.dot podcast. I’m Missy Stevens, mom and dot.dot writer, foster child advocate. And this week, I’m just learning to accept that some of my plans aren’t making it through this summer. Are you tired of me complaining about the heat yet? [00:00:41] Susanne: I, there’s a theme. There’s a theme. [00:00:43] Missy: Yeah, there’s the theme. [00:00:44] Susanne: And I’m Susanne Kerns, mom and dot.dot writer, LGBTQ and sex ed advocate. And today closet cleaner. I was really inspired by our interview with Judith gaan and I am diving in today. . Our guest is Julie Cole, mom of six and dot.dot recovered lawyer. Co-founder of Mabel’s labels and award-winning entrepreneur also a bestselling author of like a mother and a sought after speaker and MC. Her articles have appeared in The Huffington post today’s parent. The globe and mail, profit magazine, working mother magazine and numerous websites when she’s not juggling her busy family and professional life. Julie is an engaged community member serving on boards and volunteering. She is passionate about women’s issues, mentoring young entrepreneurs and social justice. Ooh, those are all the things we like too. Missy. I love it. [00:01:35] Missy: Yes. And you know, we love a reformed lawyer. Those are some of [00:01:38] Susanne: Oh, my gosh. Yes. It just had one of those on the, well we interviewed yesterday, but it was probably last week’s episode with Judith. Kaan welcome. We are so happy to have you here. [00:01:49] Julie: I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. [00:01:52] Missy: We are glad, glad you’re here. [00:01:54] Susanne: And I’ve got to meet you at mom 2.0, which was just so exciting because it was the last night. I didn’t have anything to do. Missy had left me and I did just one of these hail Mary, just like, Hey, is anybody, you know, to the mom two group, [00:02:10] Julie: And [00:02:11] Missy: wanna eat? [00:02:13] Julie: a blast that night was so good. Like it was only a few of us left. We were flying up the next day and, uh, yeah, we had a great time. That was, [00:02:22] Missy: I [00:02:23] Julie: yeah, that was a hoot. [00:02:24] Susanne: I need a picture of our tall boy, Coors lights we had in front of the target. I [00:02:30] Missy: have that. I think you sent me that somewhere. All right. Well, we did talk a little bit about your incredible bio and we wanna jump right into it and talk about how you got from where you started to where you are and the any major things that impacted your decisions along the way. [00:02:46] Julie: Right, right. Okay. So where I started. Okay. Well, I guess, you know, just regular old kid, I’ve got three siblings who I adore. I’ve really. I have really. Parents. I went away to university, then I, I was very involved in student politics. I thought I wanted to be a Dean of students or kind of be in that. So then I went to NYU and I did a master’s in education administration, and then I ended up in law school. and why I’m a recovery lawyer? right. Well, look, there’s a couple of reasons. I. Loved law. Um, I was doing family law. going after deadbeat dads. I did a lot of like restraining orders. I worked for a women’s legal service behind, Bulletproof glass, because those were the kinds of partners that our clients had. Um, but then, as motherhood happens to go, I had, um, Well, we started MAs labels and we started MAs labels for two reasons. And one was motherhood, at the time. I had a newly minted three year old and who he already had two younger siblings, but he received an autism diagnosis. And at that point I didn’t think the traditional workforce was gonna suit, suit me anymore. I wanted, you know, I wanted to be able to set up a program for him. I wanted to be able to advocate. And like I said, he already had two younger siblings. So it was kind of, you know, pretty, pretty busy times anyway. So that was kind of the first why behind MAs labels. Now the second, why behind MAs labels was that. There was a product missing from the market. You know, we were using masking tape and, and permanent marker and it didn’t work. We thought there must be something great out there and there wasn’t. So at that point, you know, Mac got his diagnosis and I said to my co-founders okay, you know, we’ve been talking I’m out this business, maybe now’s the time. And they’re like, let’s do this. And that was 20 years ago. [00:04:41] Susanne: oh my gosh. [00:04:42] Missy: I have, I almost brought them in here and I forgot cause I got frantic at the last minute, but I have still stacks of MAs labels. And we at one point just ordered some, my husband’s name is mark. And so we’re both M Stevens. And so we just ordered M Stevens. They’re still on everything we take to every swim meet. Like we are a MAs [00:05:01] Julie: Well, and you know what? [00:05:03] Missy: you did that. [00:05:03] Julie: That is the secret sauce, cuz people are like, you know, tell me why MAs labels is such such a success and there’s lots of reasons for it. But to your point, Missy, we do what we say we’re gonna do. They stay on, they’re durable, their microwave, safe, their dishwasher safe. The clothing tags will go through in, uh, industrial washer and dryer. So, you know, knowing our market is momed and we want products that actually do what they say they’re going to do. The secret sauce is. [00:05:32] Susanne: Oh [00:05:32] Julie: MAs does that. [00:05:33] Susanne: yeah. And you know, I gotta tell [00:05:35] Missy: still on, like, I give kids clothes away and I have to like, feel it off. Cause it’s still on those tags, [00:05:40] Susanne: cut it out. [00:05:42] Julie: So friends who like, and even my kids, they’re really into thrifting, like my big kids love thrifting and they’ll go thrift shops, like other people’s clothes. MAs labels. [00:05:51] Missy: Yes. I’m sure ours are out there cuz I know I’ve missed some when the peeling. Yeah. [00:05:56] Susanne: Well, I mean, originally I remember when I got my, someone gave ’em to me for bottles, like if you’re going to daycare or something, whatever. But now as my daughter’s getting ready to head off to college, I’m like, oh my gosh. I mean, the stuff that she’ll probably need for, you know, the communal shower or whatever your shampoo and like [00:06:14] Julie: For sure. And you know what I love that you say that because, Susanne, as our kids have grown, so have our styles, right? So like we had little kids the time then, you know, then I had tweens, so we’re like, oh, we need to have cooler tween labels. Let’s get some skateboards going. Let’s get some, you [00:06:30] Missy: had the skateboards. [00:06:31] Julie: Yeah, yeah. Right. And then now, you know, we have, I have three kids away at college and they still lose stuff and need stuff labeled. They do communal living. They live in residence, blah, blah, blah. And I mean, now, like this, this back to school season, we’ve got our stylish, uh, back to school combo and it’s like, it’s good for like me. You know, it’s, it’s beautiful. It’s the, the designs are so creative and artistic and mature. So, and also as we’ve aged, so of our parents, we’ve had a lot of our OG customers say I’m putting mom in, in a home and we don’t wanna lose. So now we’ve, we, you know, we, we, our original customers are now buying for their parents too. Now that we’re kidding that sandwich generation, right? [00:07:13] Susanne: Oh my gosh. Yes. I mean, they’re for everything. And they’re on the bottom of every like plate and Castro dish that I’ve ever taken to like a school event or anything. [00:07:22] Julie: wanna get that back, man? [00:07:23] Susanne: Yes. [00:07:24] Missy: That’s right. That’s right. I don’t lose my stuff cuz it is all labeled [00:07:28] Susanne: my gosh. And you know, we’re obviously talking a lot about labels cuz of MAs labels, but I loved how the first line of your book is as women. We wear a lot of labels because yes, you know, pun intended um, as far as We talk a lot here about the identity crisis that women have when they pause their career and this something that has been their label and their identity for so long. And like Missy said, we have a lot of guests that are former lawyers and go through a lot of identity crisis from losing that label. Did you feel that, did you get a lot of pushback in your life from people being like, oh, you know, what, what are you doing? Stop pausing that. [00:08:09] Julie: Oh, yeah. Look, I’ll tell you probably the thing was, so I started the business with my sister and my sister-in-law and, actually an aunt. I, I have a young uncle and she met him through me and they got married. So she’s like two years younger than me, but she’s my aunt, you know? So anyway, it was kind of a family, like a, you know, family business as well. And so when we started it, we, we had a financial planner. We had a teacher, we had me a lawyer and then we had a graphics, manager and everybody thought, I mean, What are you doing? You’ve been in school for so long. You guys are making good money. I remember my grandfather just being, you know, he’s like you girls, what are you doing? Um, so a lot of people thought we were nuts, right? Like here we are leaving great careers. I mean, it took us a while. Like a bunch of people stayed in their careers until we can make a go of things. You know what that is like, this was the side hustle for a while. but it was, it was pretty wild when eventually we were able to tell my grandpa that we were making more money from our. our little label business and we were in our careers and he was like, what? All of a sudden, then we weren’t so crazy. Then he was like, oh, my girls are amazing. [00:09:18] Missy: They’re so smart. [00:09:19] Julie: yeah. And then he owned it, but yeah, a lot of people, you know, when you leave your career and especially like you say, I don’t think. The identity crisis really came for us then because we quickly identified with being an entrepreneur. And we really loved what we were creating and we loved connecting to our community. What I will say, where the identity crisis often happens for entrepreneurs. And this would ha I would say this happened not so much for me, but five years ago, we sold the business. I’m still in the business full time. and it still runs exactly the same it’s MAs labels, which is why we agreed to sell it the, when we did also. But we can talk about that if you’d like, but that might be a whole other podcast about exiting your business. Um, but I did find some of my partners who were really involved operationally when they left, they had a harder transition because they identified as being the co-founder of Mabel’s labels. And they were, you know, on that shop floor and then they, you know, they left and they were like, now, who am I. Right. And I do think it’s difficult for entrepreneurs. And I think it’s difficult for mothers. I think it’s difficult for anybody who, when you transition out of that rule, I see this with moms who, if you’ve been like a full-time mom and then your kid’s like me, if I had had the three kids and they’re all off at college, then it’s like, whoa, where’s what do I do? Now? You have to reinvent yourself. You have to find, and it’s, it can be a real struggle. And it is. And I find it’s especially hard for those moms when, you know, I feel like women get less power as we get older. Cuz when our babies are young and our little ones are young, we’re making all the decisions. We’re running the household. We’re making the financial decisions in the household. Mostly we’re, you know, we’re running things. And then as our kids age, We have less power, but if you have a traditional relationship and a male spouse, as their careers are climbing, they’re having more power. So at, at their work. So there becomes this power imbalance. And I think a lot of, couples as their kids kind of fly out of the nest, you know, really, really struggle with that. Any transition is hard. Let’s [00:11:25] Susanne: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, that’s our whole goal of this podcast is to get women are running start. So when they hit that phase, whether it’s, launching, when your kids go off to kindergarten or it may be when your kids go off to college, it depends what your launching point is. But so that you’re ready for it. [00:11:42] Julie: And I think you can kind of get in front of it to your point. Like, I think for me it was, when we sold MAs labels, I mean, obviously I’m still, still there full time. So, you know, it’s, I, I still really identify with the company and I’m, you know, the spokesperson and do all the PR and, and things like that. but I think. Making sure you don’t identify wit…
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