This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 140 / Succeed At Work & Life with Sohee Jun

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

I value the intention behind Work/Life Balance, which is that work isn’t supposed to consume our entire lives. But the “balance” part is confusing for many, and it always hits me funny that it implies that we leave our lives when we go to work. As someone who loves their career, I’d say my work is very much a part of my LIFE.  I’ve invited our guest, Dr. Sohee Jun, to join me to talk about how to succeed, as women, at LIFE, which of course, includes our work. As a top leadership coach, keynote speaker, leadership development expert and Amazon best-selling author, Dr.Jun works with emerging leaders and executives to unleash their untapped power. She worked over 20 years in the corporate world and is here today to talk about how we can build trust with and for ourselves so we create the Work/Life we truly want. Maybe it’s less about balance and more about CHOICE. Knowing there’s power in our NO, value in our YES, and impact in our “not nows” or “not yets”. Maybe you already know the answer of how to succeed at work and in your life… you just need to be brave enough to listen. All I know for certain is, this is the life you get to live and it's my greatest desire that you live it with intention. To learn more about Sohee you can visit her website at www.soheejunphd.com or follow her on IG @soheejun_phd and LinkedIn @Sohee Jun  To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com. 

I'm Nicole Kalil. And if you are a regular listener of the, this is woman's work podcast, you've probably figured out that I really believe messaging matters. And that I also have a lot of pet peeves, discomfort, annoyance, and sometimes distaste when important ideas or concepts are framed or messaged in a way that waters down, misrepresents, or sends false messages about that idea or concept. but I'm always paying attention if something both speaks to me and is inclusive of other people. If it's messaged as a one-size-fits-all or a right or wrong versus a perspective or one way of seeing something. I'm frankly turned off by anything that's my way or the highway or that makes us feel bad if it doesn't work or resonate with us. Because of that, I find myself constantly searching for the message about an idea or concept that lands for me and that I believe will land for other women. An example of that and our topic for today is the idea or concept of work-life balance.

I value the intention of the message, which is that work isn't supposed to consume our entire lives. But the balance part is confusing for many, and it always sort of hit me funny in that it implies that we leave our lives when we go to work. And as somebody who loves their career, I'd say my work is very much a part of my life. There's also work-life blend, which I think speaks more to extroverts and can become an excuse to just bring your kids to all the work events and has us a lot of times just doing more less strategically. And for the record, I'm not against either of these concepts. It's just that neither of them feel like the right fit for me and for many women that I talk to.

So I'm doing what I like to do in situations like this. I'm remaining open to different perspectives and being mindful and reflective about what speaks to me and what doesn't. I'm leaning into curiosity by asking other people about it. And I'm testing out some things until I find out what does fit, what feels right, empowering, and productive for me. So it's in that spirit that I invite our guest, Dr. Sohee Jun, to join me today to talk about how to succeed as women at life,

which of course includes our work. As a top leadership coach, keynote speaker, leadership development expert, and Amazon bestselling author, Dr. Jun works with emerging leaders and executives to unleash their untapped power for themselves and their teams. She's worked over 20 years in the corporate world and is here today to talk about how we can build trust with and for ourselves so we can create the work life whatever you want to call it that we want thank you so much for joining and i'm just curious your reactions to my introduction your thoughts about work-life balance or work-life blend or any other approaches, what speaks to you, what doesn't? Oh my gosh, Nicole, I was like biting my tongue trying to

be like, I just, first of all, thank you for having me. And what I hear you say is that first and foremost, you're really curious about learning more about different aspects of this. And as you were talking about this work-life balance concept, for me, I have an allergic reaction to that word. I really, really do. And that's both from a lived experience of trying to balance it all as a very high achieving woman. I want to do all the things, I have high aspirations. And what I have come to is a different perspective. And I'd love to share it with you, which is this concept called work-life integration. And why that is different is that it's rooted based on values. And so when I work with my clients, especially the high achieving women

that inevitably want to know how do we balance it, right? Especially if we have kids and all of these other competing priorities and we want to do all of them. I say, look, first and foremost, where has balance tried? Where has that gotten you? Probably like most women to burnout or really inauthentic ways of living or trying to people please or doing things out of shoulds, all of these things that we may or may not knowingly be living out on a day-to-day basis in service of balance. And so when I say, okay, well, let's unpack that. If that hasn't really gotten you very far in terms of living an authentic life that is meaningful for you.

Another way to look at it is really integrating it based on your values. And why that's important is that the values ultimately make up your priorities. And so with my clients, I work really hard to get them to unpack shoulds, unpack people pleasing, unpack these things that we've been conditioned to do, mostly as women in service of balance and root on, okay, what are your values currently? And don't say like 10 values, but I take them through a really in-depth exercise in which we look at, okay, what are the top two to three things that are representative of your values in this season of your life? And that's very intentional because that can shift as our life takes different shapes and priorities and forms and milestones.

So if we look at that, let's say, for example, me, my value right now is freedom and family. So how I prioritize that is in having my own firm so that I can have freedom in the ways that I do my work and spend my time so that then I can get to my second value of integrating my family more into my life. So that's just the start of it, but yeah, it's about integrating based on values, which makes up the priorities and letting go of the rest. I'll pause there. Yeah. Ladies, I really hope you heard the two or three, because I think when we talk about values or what's important or priorities, you know, most of us are like 25 deep, right? And

that I'm in agreement with you where the balance or the blend or the, like all of this stuff becomes additive and we're stretched so wide and so thin. Okay. Out of curiosity, what do you think about, you know, can we have it all? Ooh, I, so that's changed for me. I think in my early career, I was like, yeah, I'm going to have it all. I mean, I'll have that corner office and I'll have a family life someday. And as I've experienced life, I do believe that you can have it all just not at the same time and not without significant costs to try to attain that. So yeah, I firmly believe on this side of, you know, I'm 20 plus years into my career and having gone through some things, I don't believe you can have it all at

once with deep satisfaction. It's funny. It's been a progression for me too. Like it evolved. Like I had the original reaction of like, of course we can have it all. And I still believe if we're thinking about it in comparison to men, I think we should be able to have what other genders can have too. If it all means successful professional life and an engaged and happy home life, then I do believe from that lens. What I really, really agree with you is we can't have it all all the time. And maybe what we kind of have is what matters most. Yeah. That's a really, that's a very nuanced and important distinction because then to me, that goes back to the values part. Because if we're just trying to have it all

for me, when I think of all, it's like, literally you're going to be the good friend, the good mom, the good sister, the good, whatever great worker, and also be put together and also, you know, kick ass in every aspect of your life, that's really high pressure, you know? And so if you think about it from like, what's the most important to what you said, that calls it down to, okay, let's, let's like get rid of the other things. What are those two to three things that are really important in this season? I love that. That is really speaking and resonating with me. I've heard the concept of integration before. For some reason, I put it in a category of like integrating work with life and family. But what I'm hearing is you mean integration of our values

with what matters most. So I know you've already explained that, but can you dive a little deeper into that? Because it feels like a different lens on something that's being sort of thrown out there. Yeah. I love that question because people ask me that all the time. What does it actually mean in practicality? So for me, I'll take me as an example. As I shared, freedom is one of allow me the freedom to work with clients that I really want to bring value to, or that I, you know, can help in the best way. So it's freedom in all those ways that I didn't have before when I was in the corporate world where you do, you just have to do the work, right? And you don't have much choice in that oftentimes. So I get to do that, you know, how I spend my time being on this podcast, I get to architect my time. And that is an integration of freedom for me,

which includes, oh, my kids are important. I have three kids, I'm a single mom. So that means then I get to, I want to be able to be there in the ways that matter most to them. Not all the time, not every day, not in any quote unquote perfect way, but in the ways that I can combine freedom and the family stuff that matters. So those are the two most important things right now for me in this season and how it plays out daily is like, I look at my schedule and, oh, you know, I really want to be there for my daughter's hockey game. Cause she's going to play in the championship game. I might've not gone to the other ones, but the freedom to choose the ones that are important to her and me, that's how it integrates

into my life. Okay. So out of curiosity, as you integrate the value of freedom. And it sounds like, and I love that you said that, that this may evolve and change. What either values or things did you have to set aside or sacrifice or let go of in favor of freedom? So I'll share one example in my life. I also made the choice to start my own business. And I know one of the things I sacrificed or gave up was the feeling of safety or security of the steady paycheck of this. And like, it was scary. I'm not saying it was an easy choice, but for me,

because I was clear on what I valued above safety and security, it was an obvious choice at the time. I feel like you and I are like, so like soul sisters, I don't know, but it's a similar example for me. I mean, growing up as an immigrant, I'm not first generation. I came to the States when I was six and my parents worked all sorts of odd jobs to make ends meet. So I tell that story because the safety, financially, job security, it was ingrained in me from the very beginning.

And being an Asian American, it was like, as you can go, you know, get the safe job, get a medical degree, you know, all of those things that we're told because the intention is good. And that safety value and security value was deeply something that I had too early on in my career. And I had to really like unpack that in service of the changing needs and the changing priorities that I wanted to integrate. So I had a very, what, you know, I would also say, Nicole, like, what's really safe and secure these days, right? I mean, the pandemic is not out the window.

So I put that in quotes, but early on in my career, I took what I thought were safe jobs, internal roles where, you know, with long established companies, because that meant safety and security, and I would have a paycheck every week or every two weeks. That's how that played out. And it started to bristle up against this freedom value that started to emerge more and more later on in my life, life and career. So that's how that morphed. And it does morph and it does change. And I think I get energized by this concept too, of honoring the change. A lot of us get stuck in that value or what it was and really can't make the transition or start integrating different values. I'll say that too, but yeah, safety and security is one that I really had to

shed in service of where I am now. Yeah. I think it's a really great example of we can have what matters, but we can't have it all. And I'm not saying that there isn't something that exists out there that doesn't include both freedom and safety and security, but it's few and far between. More often than not, you trade off one for the other. And as a side note, I don't think either of us are encouraging every woman to become entrepreneurs. We're encouraging you to think about that core two or three values, right, that you said, and then how do you integrate those into your choices, your life, your business, your work. I have another example around that because

I, you know, that is a critical point that, you know, I'm not advocating everyone just jump and make a leap and start your own business. If that's what you want to do, great. I have an example of which it's, it seems minor, but just as important in terms of how this person, a client of mine, integrated her value and need of creativity. So she, at the time when I was working with her as a lawyer, an internal, in-house lawyer for a company. And as we were working together, she surfaced this deep value of creativity that used to be in her life much more. And she wanted to bring it back and integrate it as she surfaced that value being important to her. And so we looked at different ways. Well, how do you define creativity? What does it look like for you? And

how do you envision it being in this part of your life and career? And does it look like for you? And how do you envision it being in this part of your life and career? And so she was like, you know what, I really want to start writing again. I want to write for journals. I want to, you know, paint, do these things that aren't, you know, giant leaps, but just a matter of intention and identifying what that value is and how it takes shape. So for her, it's like, look, I'm a lawyer by day. I actually really have this creative side that I need to fulfill because it's important to me. And I want to do it by way of writing and painting. So that's how we integrated it back into her life. And it's another example of how that can happen in a much more, what I call like smaller way, but just as impactful. Great example. My next question is a

little bit more about what you're seeing out there and the work that you do. There's a lot of us women who are out there communicating, interacting, coaching other women. And I'm always curious if what you're seeing is what I'm saying. What do you see as the currents and biggest challenges that are facing or that working women are facing today? Yeah. Two come to mind. I mean, the most recent thing, right? I mean, I'm just looking at the macro business lens right now, which is there's tons of layoffs happening everywhere in every sector, especially the tech sector. And so I think that's bringing up a lot of questions about what's next for me. Could I be hit? How do I plan

for plan B, whatever that is. So even if they aren't being impacted in that way, there's a sense of like, I really want to relook at my career and is this right for me? What do I do next? So that's a big thing that's coming up recently. And then I think the overall trend of my clients as high achieving and as C-suite as they are or wherever they are in the leadership pipeline, they are still grappling with inner critic and it shows up in different ways. And so inevitably, even if it's like a, Hey, I'm coming to you because I want to know how to have executive presence, or I want to find what it means to be an authentic leader and my style on that. There is this brush up against the inner critic that happens 99% of the time in

terms of like surfacing that and what is blocking them from being the most authentic leader or showing up in the way that they want to, or asking for that big role or promotion or the corner office or whatever that is. So that's a consistent theme for the women that I work with, no matter, you know, what level they're at, because they're making big bets. So anytime they're, you know, going for big stuff or, you know, something that feels risky to them, they're going to brush up against that inner critic that we all have. Yes. I call the inner critic head trash because I want it to sound as dirty and disgusting as it actually is. And I, I experienced it. I can't, I have not interacted with a woman who doesn't experience it, but it's interesting. Something that you said,

I want to hone in on, you talked about executive presence, and then you that keeps popping up and popping up. And I am not by any means anti-executive presence, but it's really interesting to me, the order and interpretation that sometimes comes from it. What I hear when people ask about it is how do I look confident versus how do I be or become confident? Or how do I look like a leader versus how do I show up authentically as a leader? How do I embrace and bring to the table my leadership traits? So you said both, but I'm curious if you think it's a chicken or the egg, we're not sure which one comes first. Do you think if you focus on being authentic and developing your leadership style that you can create executive presence from that?

So I love that question. That's so such a good one. And it's very nuanced. And here's the thing. I think, first of all, there was a recent article and I can't remember the publisher or the source of the article, but the essence of it is around this concept of executive presence that they're challenging. Does it really mean be like Bob in the corporate world? And you may have seen that too, Nicole. And so, so I think there's, especially for the

women that I work with and it's really about, okay, my belief as a coach is that when we work from our strengths and build from that, that's what authenticity is, right? And not to say that we couldn't incorporate a little bit of Bob's whatever, you know, to exude confidence or to amplify certain things that are warranted or rewarded in certain cultures. That's, we can talk about that too, but it is, what are your strengths? How do we play to that and amplify you in the way that, in a way that makes you feel authentic? So an example is, you know, I worked with a, an executive, she's a female executive in a male dominated industry, it's a gaming industry. And she came to me with this question of like, I want to, you know, I really want to lean into this leadership and

provide mentorship and give back. And I actually don't know what authentic leadership looks like for me. And so we really dove into, well, what do you naturally want to do and how do you want to lead? And that's not a bad thing. How do we amplify that? And then also help you command presence in the rooms that you're in so that you get the accolades and the, and that you're heard in the way that you want to. And so that may take a little bit of finessing, but in essence, it's looking at, okay, where are your strengths and how do we play that? Does that answer your question? It does. And I think it's an important point that you made. I see myself in it, but this idea that we, especially in male dominated industries, but even in more often than not, we're seeing more men as we go higher up in

the leadership ranks. A lot of times, whether it's conscious or unconscious, we're learning about what it looks like, what it means, how we act as a leader from that male perspective. And so I loved the authentic leadership as about looking inward and finding out about your natural abilities, your unique traits, your talents, and we can learn some things from other people and be open to that. But how we maybe too often default to, if I'm going to be a leader, I need to look like that person, I need to act like that person. Yeah. And that's how, that's how the challenge usually presents itself, right? It's like, oh, I want to look like so-and-so. It's like, all right, do you resonate with that? So,

so that's what it usually comes back to. And. Or even, is that even a possibility for you? So I can think of a lot of leaders that I experienced early in my career that I would put in the category of charismatic leader. I have gifts and abilities and talents, but charisma is not really one of them. I'm introverted. And so I made up, I could never be a good leader because I couldn't do it that way. And wow, figure that out that that was just one style. Yeah. You know, one of the things I do with my clients is I take them through a visioning exercise, which is, you know, think back to a time in your career in which you remember very distinctly a leader that was very memorable, powerful, charismatic, you

know, all of the descriptor words and, you know, what was it about them that made you feel seen, valued and heard in the workplace?. Because at the end of the day, good leaders do that, right? We feel valued, we feel heard and seen. And so when they think of that example, it's not because they were the best speaker in the room. It's not because they were great at setting strategy. That's a part of it. But what people remember is that they felt a certain way being around somebody. That is what charisma is. We have this certain definition of charisma that is much more extroverted, outlandish, like the typical well-spoken and high energy. And that's a

very flat way of looking at charisma. It's really about how did that leader make you feel and how do you tap into that? And one of the things that I posted recently, Nicole, is I put this on LinkedIn that empathy is a human leadership trait. It is no longer a genderized, hey, women can do well because, you know, and leader because they can show empathy. It's how do we as leaders, whether you're male or female, demonstrate empathy? Because guess what? In this crazy, volatile world that we're in,

that is one of the most important things a leader can have. Um, so I'm very passionate about that. I hear you. Okay. I want to ask a final, but big question from your perspective, how can women succeed at work and life? And is there anything we need to unlearn in order to do that? Yes, I talk about unlearning a lot. In fact, one of my coaching circles that I hosted, it was about unlearning habits. So what I say is, all right, as much as you can, step one is to unpack the shoulds that we carry around. What are the things that we think we should do and identify those things? And then figure out if that aligns with your values, right? I'm very passionate about going

back to your values because that's where most, where people feel the most integrated and authentic. So if a should that you have is, gosh, I got to maintain a certain physique and body perfection at all costs. Is that a should that you think because of something that was conditioned to you? Or is it a value of yours to be fit in service of something else, right? Check yourself on those things and start narrowing that down. Really get crystal clear on the top two to three values.

So, hey, this went by so fast. Thank you for your wisdom and for your perspective and a new lens. I love conversations like this, especially about something that just hasn't felt right to me yet. So if you're listening and this is feeling right to you, you can find Sohee on her website. It's SoheeJunPhD.com. We'll put that and her LinkedIn and Instagram in show notes. So you can find and follow her. I know

you have a book coming out here in October. Can you tell us a little bit about that? So our listeners can find it and you. Yes. So thank you, Nicole. I have this book is going to be a culmination of all of the women that I've had the honor of coaching and their wisdom about how to succeed at work and life and this exact topic that we're talking about, it's all the nuggets that people want to ask, but don't, or they want, they only share in their closest circles. And it's in a book and it's data driven and around the biggest challenges. And so it's going to drop in October and I can't wait for people to read it because it's for me, I know, very helpful to know that others have gone through similar challenges and to know how they navigated it is just gold. A hundred percent. So we'll send people to your website so they can find the book and everything else that you're offering. Thank you for your time and wisdom today.

Thank you for your time and wisdom today. Thank you for having me. Okay, friends, the best lesson I'm taking away from our conversation today is to trust ourselves. And I know that sounds not at all shocking that I'd hear that above everything else, given my obsession with confidence and trusting ourselves. But what I want to say is if success looks like balance or a blend or a tornado or a beach in Bali, you are first and foremost the decider of how you want to integrate work and life, as well as how you define success. Start with your values. What if we started there and asked ourselves what we really want, what really matters, and where we really want to be investing our time, energy,

passion, and talents. And from that place, what if we believed it was all possible, that we could have and create, that we could commit to the most important thing. And maybe it's less about blend and balance and more about choice, knowing there's power in our no, value in our yes, and impact in our not nows, our not yets, or our yes ands. Maybe you already know the answer. You just need to be brave enough to listen. All I know for certain is this is the life we have to live. And it's my greatest desire that we live it with intention.

Doing it all is old news. Doing what matters. Now that's woman's work.