母親としての野心とマインドセット
This is Reinamoto's podcast, The Creative Mindset.
Hi everyone. Welcome to The Creative Mindset, a podcast about what the future holds at the
intersection of creativity and technology. I'm Reinamoto, the founding partner of I&CO,
a global innovation firm based in New York, Tokyo, and Singapore.
One of the most difficult challenges that we all face, especially working in high-intensity
industries like the creative industry, is balancing work and life. Personally,
it's something that I've failed miserably throughout my career, and I feel like I'm
still working on it. A few years ago, I met Merlee Jamie, one of the very few creative
leaders from Asia recognized on the global stage at an event in Croatia.
She started her career as a copywriter in the Philippines, and in 2005 she started her own
agency, Jamie Sifu. She assigned herself the title of Chairmom because she saw her agency
as the other family she was building. In her first family, she was a mother of four. Along
with her partner, she raised four children while building her agency at the same time.
So I wanted to find out from Merlee what the secret to balancing work and life was.
Chairmomの位置づけ
So let's get started. So the first topic that I'd like to talk about is your positioning,
and this is the role of the Chairmom. That's the brand that you created for yourself.
So could you perhaps talk about why you branded yourself this way?
Okay. When I put up my agency, we were assigning ourselves our positions, our titles amongst
ourselves, and they said I would be the chair, and that would be Chairmom, right? I would be
the chair. Before I accept any positions, Ray, I really want to understand what positions are.
What does it entail? What do I need to do? What is that role? Before I take on big titles,
I don't like big titles when I don't understand. They told me it gives a vision. It says it
inspires people. You have to make sure people are motivated and everything as a chair.
So when I coined Chairmom, maybe I know that the role was that to lead the way I want to lead.
But at the same time, I want myself to be reminded of what I am, what kind of leadership I want to
instill in the agency. I wanted my own kind of leadership, the kind with the values I want to
promote, for example, the type of the relationships I want to foster. In fact, I put up, I called the
agency a family and the kind of culture I want to nurture. So I came up with the title Chairmom
because for me, the title was a combination of strength, of authority, a visionary, and a
nurturer. At the same time, in the Philippines, the Philippines is a very matriarchal society,
meaning we look up to our mothers and actually fear our mothers. Even the men. That's why in
the Philippines, there is no problem of women leaders. Because we look up to them like our
moms, we fear them, we let them lead. So we call it ilaw ng tahanan in our language, but it's the
light of the home. The light of the home. I'm a mom at home, a mom of four at home. But at the same
time, I'm a mom at work. So it doesn't really differ much of what I am, how I do leadership, but
I want to instill the kind of values I grew up with from my own mom and inspired other moms as
well into our everyday work. Women leading at home or even in society, you said that's a very common
thing in the Philippines. Yes. Actually, this Chairmom resonates more outside the Philippines.
Interesting. When I was taking on global roles, Asia Pacific roles, I could see the problem of
women leaders in other countries more than the Philippines. Even the men, you're the leader,
you're okay. Because of this kind of society we have. But we have two women presidents. So it's
not as if it's impossible, which is impossible in other nations. So I feel Chairmom first is a kind
of leadership that I wanted. At the same time, it reminds me also of my responsibility in the agency.
母親としての挑戦
So that's why I want to put it out there every time I see that position. You know that saying
the title is not really a position, it's really the action needed to do. So you gave yourself this
title when you started your own agency. And at that time, you already had your daughters. Yes.
And in your book, you talk about the balance between what you call mommyhood and career
ambition. And especially when you started, I mean, it's a lot of work. And like you said,
starting an agency is having a family, basically. And you have to take care of the family members.
And the number of members that you'd have in a company is much more than family that you have
on your personal side. And I would imagine, especially you having multiple daughters,
and this might be a very stereotypical way of looking at it. But having that balance,
especially at the early stages of starting a company would have been quite stressful and
challenging. But can you talk about some of the challenges that you had when you were starting,
balancing at the early side, but also later in career?
First and foremost, I was married at 25. That's pretty early. That's pretty early, okay? I remember
when Dave Droga was our regional creative director in Asia. He said, when he met me,
I was pretty young and I had already kids. And she goes, you're very productive, creative. Yes,
productive. I was forever pregnant. I was in the creative agency doing pitches,
eight months pregnant. I was coming home in the wee hours of the morning.
One thing about me is I didn't see it as a barrier to my ambition. I wanted both. I wanted to have
children and I wanted to have a family, but I also wanted to move on. Maybe today you'll have,
you know, when I would be in, can foresee it, be it. A lot of women would ask me,
how do you do what? How can you, probably I should get out of advertising if I want to
raise a family. Looking back, I never thought of that. It happens. Then you try to survive.
So I always said in the book I wrote, it's not the word balance that is humanly not possible.
It's more of integration. You have to integrate seamlessly, interwoven your life, your two lives,
your two worlds together. Integrating. This is an example, Ray. I've always loved telling this
story when I was in a boardroom and I was about to present a pitch, but it was in our office
and I know how we are. We introduce, we explain the idea and you know the nitty gritty details
of the creatives. So I was a part where I opened the presentation. I explained how we got into the
idea. When it was time for the nitty gritty details of creatives presenting, I excused myself
for a bathroom break. Actually, I went down the building. I had a driver waiting for me. I had
a bouquet of roses. I went straight to a ballet recital. My daughter was halfway through the
recital and I waited. When she finished, I went up the stage, gave the bouquet, had selfies
as proof. Then I went down, went back to the boardroom. Probably they would say it's
the longest bathroom break, but it was like 20 minutes maybe tops. Then I came back.
Creatives just finished. I went in. Do you have any questions? Just seamlessly trying to.
That short minute, few minutes for me, I was able to do both things. I was present in the pitch.
I was present into my daughter's ballet recital. Now, this is just one example of the many, many,
many times when I had to do that kind of integration. It wasn't easy at all, but I felt
inside me my rule was never to let any of the worlds miss me. In the presentation,
they didn't miss me. I did my part. In my ballet recital, my daughter, I was there present.
In the latter part of my agency, we moved nearer to my office. I would finish until five, go home,
have dinner with my children, put them to sleep, go back to the office and finish the work.
It's almost like having these two worlds living together side by side. You can't say it's
母親とクリエイティブの両立
balancing. It's actually integrated. When you started your career as a creative,
you were already married. You had your kids. By the time you started, did you already have
all of your four daughters? When I started, at least around two years, I was single. Then,
I got married early. I was still a copywriter. I wasn't an ACD or a CD then. I was still a
struggling copywriter. Then, I had two girls after each other. Then, I had a break. Maybe
that was the time I was moving careers, moving from one network to another. Then,
I had another two girls. I have four girls of two batches. What I liked about that is
I would bring them to work on a Saturday. I need to work on a weekend. I would bring them.
I would give them crayons to play with. I would have the creatives play with them.
We had imaginary Saturdays. I remember I told the creative departments,
my daughters will be here. Imagine they were invisible. All creatives would seem like
they couldn't see them. My kids would feel they were invisible for the day. I would even create
play dates like that. You know what happened now that they're all grown up? They're all in
advertising. They're all creatives. If they did not like that I was forever
working when they were growing up, probably they won't end up in the same job.
I feel they're all creatives now in different agencies. We're all competing. I guess they
were inspired by that kind of lifestyle. I think you get used to it. It doesn't leave you.
Even if you're older, even if your kids are older, they will always be there. The integration
part of being a chair mom tells you you're a mom and you're an ambitious one. I mean, being chair.
I feel it stays with you. Just yesterday, I was in a shoot while I was with a client,
a political client. Here comes my daughter calling me up. Mom, it's going to rain. I don't
have a tent for my party, etc. It doesn't stop. This is a 33-year-old daughter. I feel like
whether they're three-year-old or they're 33, they look at you the same way.
And you get used to it. You switch off your creative director in a shoot with a senator-to-be
politician kind of client and go to the phone, look for a supplier for a tent, have a tent
delivered at 4 p.m. and done. Go back to your shoot. I mean, it's quite a lifestyle, I guess,
that you sort of get used to. Yeah. You talk about this with a smile. You talk about this
such ease. You did say that it wasn't easy, but I would imagine that I have my own kids and I
don't know if I do a good job of balancing, quote-unquote, or even integrating that you mentioned.
I tried to do sort of similar things that you said, you know, spend some time with the kids
for dinner time and then go back to work, that sort of thing. But you talked about the society
in which you grew up and you built your career and women having leadership roles. That wasn't
a rare thing. Do you think society had some other context or were there other things that you
had or you did as an individual other than integrating that made it successful for you?
There were a lot of things that contributed to that. I mean, society may be acceptable
in the way that you see women leaders, but you also get judged if you weren't a good mom.
Yeah, sure. These are two separate things, but you know, it happens when they see a mom absent,
for example, because they're working or traveling for work and whatever. Of course, you'll hear
things. But for me, I wanted early on to prove that you can keep your ambitions alive
and nothing can stop you from that. Just try to make things happen. But when I said it's
difficult, because of course it will take its toll on your marriage, it happens. There's several
mistakes I've done. Maybe I tried to do what's humanly possible, but there are times when I fail.
For example, I failed to wake up on time to bring them to school because I had a long night. I came
家族の協力と役割分担
in probably at 3 a.m. and I promised everyone I'll bring them to school at 7 and I did not wake up.
There are things when I try to be a superwoman when I am not. But the best help for me is one,
your husband, your partner. What helps is that he was from Saatchi when we met. He knows
advertising. He was a suit, but he knows the long hours of creatives. He knows how it goes. But of
course, there's also a limitation to that. We did come up with some rules. When one is traveling,
one has to stay home. Things like that. Take turns. Because he was also a regional guy when
he moved to client side. Or the other one would be we have assignments. Enrolling the children,
doing PTAs is mine. Otherwise, other things is assigned to him. So we did have some assignments,
clear-cut assignments. The other one is truly, truly big help and I'm so thankful because we
are Asians, are my parents. The biggest really is when we were starting out, we were living
with my parents. So when I'm out, I know they're in safe hands. I know they would grow up to be
good young ladies because my parents are there. My mom is there. So it always helps that you have
a support system for the children because when you're trying to run after your dreams,
it's hard not to let go of your children just like that. You have to have the support
that you know they're in good hands. Yeah. What does the male counterpart need to be
aware of and why? I feel even if you are sharing the load amongst your married partner,
there is really a stereotypical role where the women takes more. At some point, look,
in the olden times, the men goes to work and they earn for the family and the women takes care of
the home. But today, we're both working. We're both taking care of the kids. We're both taking
care of the home. However, I feel I had more roles. I have to take on more things.
And the thing about me, since my job is creative, we have longer hours. We don't finish at five.
Unlike when you're a client, you end at five. So there was this long discussions during our
marriage where you have to take on more. But it wasn't an easy discussion as you probably would
imagine. You told your husband that he has to take on more. Yes. It is the reality.
Mm hmm. I come home so tired. I see that I still need to check the homework. I still need to make
sure the materials for their artwork is in their bags. I have to imagine I come home at two. I have
to do that. Mm hmm. There was a moment, Ray, when it was really bad when I came home from a pitch
work. I came home at 3 a.m. and then I forced myself to wake up at six to bring my kids to
school. Apparently, I was not so put together. I'm not very alert. I was driving my kids to school.
I had the nanny with me. After I went and brought them to school, coming home, I didn't notice a car
was following us. Okay. When we reached the gate of the house, when the nanny went down to open the
gate, it was actually a carjacker. What? I just saw myself, someone entering the passenger side
with a gun pointed at me saying, I need the car. What? But with not my alert moment, I said,
you will have the car. I will just get out of this car. It's yours. This is like, I'm so calm.
But what I did was I held on the tip of the gun and put it away because I know what if he
becomes so nervous and something happens. I put the gun away. What? And I stood up. I got out
of the car. But what made me melt was there was another guy outside the car who was supposed to
take on my driver's seat with another gun. I go like, it's yours. I could see the nanny by the
gate crying and shrieking. I go like, I will get out of the car. What? You know, if you look at
moments like that, I was on alert. I was not because I forced myself to wake up. You know,
there are moments when it happens like that. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So you're telling this
背後に潜む危険
just like a regular and totally normal story. But this is like one of the craziest stories that I've
heard. So you drove back from dropping your daughters off at school and then you were caught
at? Yes. So apparently there was a warning already in school that sometimes there was this
cars, you know, targeting moms, driving alone. Oh, right. Now in my moment, because I wasn't
really so alert that morning, I was really sleepy. I just forced myself to see that the kids can see
me driving them to school, even if I wasn't so observant that this car has been tailing me for
some time. So when we got to the gate, when my nanny, of course, did not lock the door because
she got out and to open the gate, an old man enters and sits down beside me. This is where
suddenly I wake up. What the hell? He puts out a gun, points at me and says, get out of the car.
The car is ours. But you know, I didn't panic. I just held on the tip of the gun and slowly,
calmly, I said, I will get out. Oh, my God. Yeah. So pretty scary. But, you know, I just realized I
was so calm. Yeah. He was an old guy. It's almost like he was just assigned to do this thing. So I
just held on away from me. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. So imagine the way my husband, when I tried to
call him, I know the blame is on me and things like that. So safety, is it? Yeah, yeah. When I
said about being eight months pregnant and I was coming home late, I remember we had a fight and
he would tell me the safety of the baby comes first. Priorities, really priorities. Right,
right, right. You know how we creatives are. We just don't want to leave unfinished work, right?
We want to perfect, perfect, perfect. We forget little things like your priorities, it sucks.
So these are the times when my husband needs to remind me that. Yeah. But, you know, the difficulties
also is like he told me communication is also hard. We are in a business of communication. But
as creatives, I may be looking at you and listening to you, but my mind is elsewhere.
Probably writing something or doing or imagining something. Yeah. And he knows that. Yeah. He talks
to me some serious stuff and he goes like, you're looking at me and not a single word is
in your brain. Actually, my wife says the same thing. Yeah, right. Yeah, that happens. Yeah.
Happens. Like you're in your world. You're looking at them and not them. Yeah. But
they know, they could tell you are somewhere thinking of something else. Yeah. And yeah,
so patience, I guess. Patience, patience. Yeah. Is there anything else that makes that partnership
work? Respect because he truly respects what I do. Respect. Okay. So he's a cheerleader because
he respects what I do. When I put up a new venture, for example, I may have people not having faith
in me that I can do it. He's the first one who tells me, go ahead, do it. I know you can do it.
So I feel respect is very big in a marriage because if they belittle you, if they belittle
what you do or they don't really look at you in that big way, they will not support you in anything
you do. So in this sense, I feel respect and support goes hand in hand and it's very important
in a marriage. What were the elements and conditions that you think worked for you?
Well, one is a characteristics you have as a woman and a mom. If you can juggle so many things
every day to make sure your moment with your kids and you have moments at work,
you can do a lot of things at work with clients, with the load. When I had my agency, we were
pitching every day. We were trying to get hold of the best clients we could. Second is the woman's
instinct. I feel that instinct that I think I learned from early on growing up. I could feel
which way to go and just say so. I would tell my office partner, I go like, no, we will not pitch
for this. Believe me, they will run after us and they will want us to be their agency without
母親としての挑戦
pitching. And then my partner would just look at me like that. And then two days after that happens,
sometimes you have this sort of strong instinct. And it's the same thing as a mom. You know when
your child is not doing well in school and probably being bullied. A lot of stories where I helped my
daughter from bullies. She came home, she was crying because we moved home. So we moved schools
and that's not easy on children. So they picked on her saying that you have to catch for science,
they have to catch cockroaches and put them in a jar. As an experiment for a team, they have to be
five of them doing that. But no, Isabella, you do it alone and you have to do it for us. So when she
came home, she was like, you know, crying and whatever. I go like, oh, no, no, no, no, it's not
the way. We will prove to them that we can get 50 cockroaches just on your own. But mom, I can't do
that. Whatever. Whatever it is, we will do it. So I called my mom, I called people to catch.
And I told her, we will bring this jar together, but put a cover to it because I want it in the
middle of the classroom. Put the jar and show that you can actually do it. I have several stories
like that. I want them to feel like nothing is impossible. And you can do it and prove to whoever's
bullying you that you can do it. Of course, it's not easy, but I've done several things behind her
back, like there's a concert in school and there's cool guys in the band. But what she doesn't know
is I know this cool band and I would tell this cool band to mention her name while singing on
stage and she would become a popular girl by doing that. You know, I would do things. And I feel on the
home front, you can imagine what I can do on this work front. Like how can we make sure that we stand
out among the agency's pitching? How can we make sure that the people in the... You know, when I
had the M9, I was able to bring 50, the whole agency, to London as a fun trip. Most of the
people in the agency have not even traveled. So I brought them to London, we brought them to
everywhere in London. It was a first trip for 50 of us in one plane. It was so much fun. I mean,
that's where I feel the chair mom works. The way that you love people, the way you
make sure people feel good about your place, about your agency, about your home.
時間の重要性
You just make sure everybody feels the strength, the confidence, the level of creativity.
I just want that in both places. Knowing what you know now, having done this for such a long time,
is there anything that you would do differently? Probably, I would have spent more with the girls.
Because at some point, they're very close to my parents because understandably, they were
there during those crucial years when they were growing up. So I'm almost like running after
time now. I try to, well, I'm doing it now. I'm trying to spend more time with them,
understanding. That's why probably now I make sure when they tell me, mom, this new song,
this cool song, this cool movie. Okay, let's watch. I'll be there. I'm trying to,
on hindsight, I'm trying to be the person that they want. It's funny because now I have a third
daughter in advertising and she would call me in the middle of the day and it makes me
so happy that she would call, mom, I'm in social's team, social media team. Yes,
what is a product middle? What is a product demo? What's that? So I go, okay, listen up. I was in
probably the grocery when I got this call. Listen up. You know an ad, right? When you have the
beginning of an ad and you show the characters in the middle, when the product is being explained,
let's say an ingredient of a shampoo and whatever, whatever. And then in the end,
you have the benefit shot. Oh, okay, thanks, mom. Okay, look, when I get calls like that today,
I feel the love and I feel, oh, thank God, they're still calling me for these things.
母親としての野心
So I don't mind being the chat GPT in advertising for my daughters today for as long as I know that
they feel like they could go up to me and ask me for my advice. Because I think there was a gap
before. They don't know if they could approach me that way. But now that they are there in my
shoes, they're in the same job that I started, they would call me, what do you do? And whatever.
So I feel like that gives me now the happiness. You upload your family photos relatively often
with your daughters, with your husband. Often, actually very often with your family,
your entire family. Whenever I see those photos from you, A, it warms my heart. I look up to you,
I just want to tell you that I looked up to you as my goal, life goal, in terms of both your work,
but also because it's not common for people to be uploading their family photos, you know,
sort of equally. Yeah, but I just wanted to tell you, both professionally and personally,
I see you as the light of the home that you mentioned, but the light in terms of the way
you lead. The advice for, let's say, first and foremost, for single women, do not put your
ambitions on hold just for fears of, because I heard this in CIDBID, just for the fear of not
becoming a good wife or a good mom. I always answer, you're not yet there anyway. You're not
at a mom, you're not at a wife. What are you afraid of? Hit first, what do you want to be?
What is your ambition? And try to achieve that. Things will fall into place, and I believe that.
Don't stop yourself, because that's your growth, that's your personal growth, and nothing should
stop you so early. I always tell that to my daughters, because my daughters, on the other
hand, are very career women. But I tell them, you're young, you have a long way ahead of you,
dream big, because that's the only way to achieve big. That's one. Well, it would be the same for
moms, and it would be just a little harder, because there's a lot of obstacles along your way.
But when you become a mother, you become naturally good with dodging obstacles,
solving problems, big or small, with your family. You will find yourself going through the hurdles
and going through the marathon and the race. Looking back, you went through so many things,
but you still are on the way to the finish line. So never stop, because
I made all my stories earlier, Ray. For example, I was saying,
it's not easy. I had a lot of fights with my husband. It wasn't easy at all.
But looking back now, everything's good. Everyone's happy. I could say I've achieved
the goals I wanted when I was younger. And I was thankful that I didn't stop myself.
And no one also did. So that's the only way. Just move forward. You can have both worlds.
It's just navigating the two together and integrating them. That would be a little bit
of a task, but it's doable. It's possible. Thanks for providing that inspiration.
仕事と生活の統合
So that was part one of my conversation with Merle Jamie, an internationally recognized
creative leader from the Philippines. The main takeaway from my conversation with her
is that the secret to balancing work and life is actually not balancing. Instead, you should
integrate. This was the first question that I asked Merle at the beginning of the conversation,
and immediately it was a learning experience. As I mentioned in the opening,
balancing work and life is something that everybody tries to do and something that I've
failed quite miserably throughout the career. In my 30s, as I was starting a family,
I started to gain traction in my career and was given a leadership position. At the time,
I was based in New York, moved to San Francisco, and I started to travel between New York and San
Francisco pretty frequently, which then eventually became international travels to Europe, to South
America, to Asia. I would travel every two to three weeks to different cities and different
countries, and that obviously took me away from home, spending less time with my family and then
less time with my kids. In the back of my mind, I always had a sense of guilt because I never felt
like I was spending enough time at home, enough time with my family, and enough time with my kids.
So, you know, this is a little late because my kids are in their teenage years and they don't
need my attention as much as they needed 10 years ago. But I still wanted to find out from somebody
like Merle who built her career while she was building her family at the same time. Not to
make a stereotypical comment, but me being a male in the family versus Merle being a female
in her family, that I was extra curious how she was able to balance her career and her family,
especially in her case. She was raising four girls at the same time. She started her company
and the title that she gave herself was chairman. She said that the role that she would play when
she was starting her own agency is to be the mother of this family that she was about to build,
which is a company, versus the role that she was playing at home, which is being a mother for
four girls. And to me, and it took me more than 10 years, if not close to 20 years to realize,
but the secret is to stop trying to balance the two because the reality is that you can never
really balance the two perfectly. Instead, integrate your life and work, your personal family
and your professional family, integrate different aspects of the two sides of your work and life
so that you're not having to balance one over the other. Rather, one weaves seamlessly into the other
aspects of your life. She shared an episode with me and I thought it was so striking that she did
this 20 years ago. Now, the life after COVID where the line between work and life may be more blurry
than it used to be, but in her case, she was doing this years ago. The episode that she shared was
that she was in a presentation one day and she was in a boardroom giving a presentation, but at the
same time, one of her girls was having a recital. So, she had a car waiting outside the building.
She gave a presentation. In the middle of that meeting, she left the meeting because she wanted
to go or she did go to, she said, to the bathroom, but instead she took a car to go see her daughter's
recital, attended for 20 minutes, and then came back to the meeting as if nothing had happened.
She was in the bathroom for a long time. She was, you know, she said that jokingly, but I think that
was the excuse that she used. But that was an example of how she integrated work and life
seamlessly so that she was not sacrificing one over the other. Even in 2025, a scene like that
where a parent might leave a presentation to go watch their child give a recital might be rare,
but I thought it was so telling that she was doing this 20 years ago and that may be the secret
for her success as a chairman for being such a recognized figure from Asia, which by the way,
you know, there aren't that many recognized creative leaders on the global stage, but the integration
of work and life is what got her to that point. The takeaway from this conversation with Merle
is such a simple mind shift. Instead of trying to balance work and life, all you have to do is to
try to integrate the two. If you try to balance, you know, one thing over the other, inevitably
you are sacrificing one over the other and you will be trapped in this guilt that, oh, you know
what, you're not succeeding because you are failing on the other side. But if you got rid of that
mindset and try to integrate the two seamlessly, then you have a win-win situation and you can be
successful in integrating life and work as opposed to balancing the two. If you like our podcast,
please leave us a five-star rating and if you're listening to this on Spotify, there's a Q&A field,
so please do send us your questions and comments. We'll be so grateful. In the next episode, Merle
shares with us the power of misfits, so stay tuned. I'm Reina Moro and this is The Creative Mindset.
See you next time.
