Women at Work - Family Management: Everyday Joys

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

Everyday joys can boost our energy and productivity, so long as we’re able to notice and appreciate them. Kevin reflects on the presence of joy in his life and what keeps him from feeling it. Then, leadership development coach Amy Jen Su gives advice for getting into a mindset that primes us to experience joy and function better all around.

Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. What? Just listening to you sing. women at work. Before I had kids, I knew that becoming a parent would be the hardest thing I would ever do. But I was okay with that. Why? Because I thought I'd feel far more joy than anguish. Sadly, that wasn't the case. To be honest, I rarely felt joy my first two years as a parent. My daughter Maisie suffered from colic, an acid reflux, and had a general bad attitude about sleep.

She hated sleep. On good days, she was extremely irritable. On bad days, she was downright inconsolable. One time, on a six-hour car ride, she screamed the entire time. And this wasn't an anomaly. This was our life. I couldn't believe it. Everyone had told me that this would be the most joyful period of my life.

Instead, it felt like the worst. I was exhausted, rattled, depressed. At home, I felt like a five-alarm fire. At work, I felt like a zombie. I don't remember much from that time. The birthdays, the first steps, the first words. There you go. She's all crouched in the corner.

But I do remember my little girl, her face as red as a boiled Maine lobster, screaming for my help. Everything else is hazy. That's why, when my son Willie was born at the end of 2019, I vowed to cherish every sound, every smile, and every gesture. I wanted to reclaim what I had lost. I've had my moments. Sometimes, I've been able to be totally present, pausing and savoring the little things. I love how Willie bursts out laughing whenever he makes a mistake, like falling or getting his arm stuck in his shirt.

I try to do the same with Maisie, paying particular attention when she speaks. Who are you playing with? My camper. The girl has watched so much Peppa Pig, she sounds like she grew up in London. They're on a road trip. They have luggages in their boots. up in London. As much as I miss having time to myself and going on dates with my wife, I try to focus on what I've gained. Like the spontaneous celebrations after Maisie, well, take a listen for yourself. When I'm in this hyper-aware mode, when I'm trying to cultivate joy,

I'm more playful and present and thankful. I'm much happier. Young lady, my name is Jerome, not Daddy. I'm Jerome the Ghost. But it's not easy to sustain. During the pandemic, and especially of late, I've been slipping back into a general state of unawareness, at work and at home.

Some days I feel like an AI, programmed to perform my jobs with as little feeling as possible. The thing is, I know I experience joy. I have receipts. I have hours of audio of me playing and loving on my kids. But sometimes the joy doesn't compute. I experience it, but I don't feel it. Probably because I'm tired. I'm tired from working so much, but feeling so little satisfaction for my accomplishments. I'm tired of navigating the blurred lines between home and work. And I'm tired of working alone without much social contact. It's all taken a toll. Yeah, I need to go on up.

I don't feel better. Maybe you're right. That's good advice, Maisie. My kids have taught me that joy is a job. That it's up to me to find it and savor it. I've been trying. I've been trying really hard. I owe it to them and I owe it to myself. But it's up to me to find it and savor it. I've been trying. I've been trying really hard. I owe it to them and I owe it to myself. But it's a struggle. Obviously, I could use some help.

So I spoke with leadership development coach Amy Jen Su, who helps clients step up their endurance and effectiveness at work. Amy and I spoke at a tricky time. First thing on a Monday morning. Even as Mondays go, this one was especially challenging, filled with early wake-ups, tantrums, and crying. The kids cried too. I wasn't feeling like my best self.

And I was ready to hear ideas for how to be more present and mindful in everyday life. I want to be able to appreciate the good times and not let the bad ones get me down or hold me back. So Amy, I don't know if you know this or not, but you are our first official guest on the Family Management Podcast. Oh my gosh, I did not know that, but super fun and cool. I'm really excited to talk to you for a lot of reasons.

And one of the reasons I have to admit is purely selfish on my part. The biggest problem that you explain really well in your book, The Leader You Want to Be, is a problem that I face and have been facing ever since I've become a working parent. And that problem is, I rarely feel like the person I want to be. I rarely feel like the worker I want to be. I rarely feel like the parent I want to be. And I know that you coach leaders all the time. And I know you hear that all the time. And as I was reading through your book, you know, I found a lot of kindred spirits. And on your very first page, you have this great contrast between leader A

and leader B. So could you describe that a little bit for me? Who's leader A, who's leader B, and how do they contrast with each other? Sure, Kevin. Leader A and leader B, in some ways, right, is all of us. I think that's the punchline of the book, that we all have a Leader A part of ourselves, that somehow, whatever the moment is, we're able to meet the moment with a little more openness, a wider, broader perspective. And somehow we're swimming with the current and we feel a little more ease and effectiveness. And conversely, we all have a

leader B response to life as well, where it's almost like you wake up and you know you're on the wrong side of the bed. Your view of life somehow feels more narrow. Everything feels like it's happening a little more personally. And we end up more reactive, more overwhelmed, more stressed. And so really the whole idea of Leader A and Leader B was one to say, hey, you're not in it alone. We all have these responses to life, A and B, and really created that heuristic and that language just to give you a chance to say, how do I notice this?

And how do I, with more compassion, bring myself gently back to A? Before I was a working parent, I felt like I was in A mode most of the time. And then I became a working parent and the stress levels were just off the charts. I had so much going on and it was hard because I had this beautiful little baby and it was really hard to feel joy in those moments. And at work, I felt like I was turbocharged. I was striving more so than I ever had before. Before I was very much into, you know, what was giving me purpose, what was giving me meaning. But then all of a sudden I had this baby and I felt this

urge to provide for her. And I think I overdid it and it was really looking for sort of external rewards. Like I need to get promoted. I need to keep moving up in my career. And I lost focus on what was really important. I do think when a life change, like having a child, which is truly one of the most, you know, wonderful things. I have a 15-year-old son. And that moment also brings with it, as you said, a complete change in our bandwidth and our

capacity. Suddenly, there really are not enough hours in the day. And things arise in us in terms of what's our internal barometer, and now what's our external barometer. And I think the shoulds in our mind just get louder and louder. And so suddenly becoming a parent, I think, brings the full paradox and wide range of human emotion where how is it this joyful, wonderful being in my life, which is also true, is equally true that I'm more stressed, more frantic, you know, more upset than I've ever been as well. And I can remember, you know, when I became a parent and even now as a parent, you know, trying to hold all of that and to realize that I'm not alone in holding that is so important. Yeah, I mean, it's so hard. I feel like as working parents,

you know, it's really difficult, and we're going to have B days. And that's why I love the dynamic between Leader A and Leader B, because Leader A is a state that we should strive for, but it's not something that we'll necessarily feel every minute of the day. And I found that was very helpful for me. I felt a lot of self-compassion reading your book. And so what are some of the challenges or what are some of the obstacles that get in our way from feeling like we're leader A most of the time? I think, Kevin, the obstacles that get in the way, one, you named one of them, just time. Right? We're trying to fit in both all the things we hope to do as a parent and as a professional. So time gets squeezed. I think just the number of people we now feel accountable to in some ways,

suddenly we're not only accountable and responsible in our jobs, but we feel this whole new weight of accountability as a parent in wanting to provide and in wanting to be there. And then the tension within ourselves, as you said, I think trying to be leader A 100% of the time is expecting ourselves to be superhuman. And that's not the intent at all. And in fact, when I've been out in the field talking to professionals, you know, pre-pandemic, the highest number I ever heard from anyone was 60-40 ratio. And post-working-from-home-in-pandemic, that ratio has shifted from 40 to 60. And so I think the question isn't, how do I be leader A all the time? It's really, what's my center of gravity, A or B? You's really what's my center of gravity, A or B?

You know, what's my response to life, A or B? And can I notice when I'm slipping into B mode? And can I bring myself back compassionately? Right. So that's one of the consequences that I feel is I do slip back and forth between the two modes, which is completely natural, as you're saying. But sometimes if I'm not careful, I tend to slip into B mode, and I don't even realize I'm in that mode. And it can last, you know, days, it could last weeks. And in some cases, it can last months. And I just don't even realize it. It's like I'm a fish in water. It's like this is water. It doesn't seem strange or abnormal to me. But that's not necessarily a good state to be in. I need sort of mental tricks and things to make sure that I don't actually fall into that trap.

Yeah, I think that slippery slope between A and B for all of us, we're all vulnerable to it. And so as you mentioned, having cues, beginning to notice what are the cues when I'm shifting? I think I even mentioned in the book, and I'll tell you here, and this is very true, when I start reaching in the pantry a lot, and I find myself every hour sort of saying, I deserve a candy bar or a bag of chips, I am starting to slip into B-mode because I'm just trying to find a way to cope. So knowing your own cues is a really important piece of this. My wife and I have designed a cue with each other when we notice that we're in B mode.

A lot of that has to do with a lack of sleep. You know, one of us will just start ranting or, you know, we'll just get down that slippery slope of negativity and we'll just say to each other, like, we're just tired. Yes. And it's like a splash of water to the face. You just know you're like, oh, okay. Like I'm in B mode right now. It's like, what can I do to get out of that mode? A hundred percent. And I love the just naming what's actually going on, right? I'm tired. We're not getting enough sleep. And acknowledging that can often be that moment of wake-up call of, well, let's now have a dialogue around how do we take turns? Who gets to fill up their gas tank tonight?

And then I'll trade you the next night. Yeah, I think open conversations with your spouse is always the way to go. So what are the things that we can do to transition from B to A or to feel more grounded? I think that transition from B to A, the first step really is compassion and kindness towards ourself. It's sort of amazing to me if you think about the dialogue that goes in one's mind and what we say to ourselves versus what we would ever say to a good friend.

Right. And then more practically, I think you have to look at it in two buckets. So bucket one is, okay, in the external world of what I can control, part of when we feel overwhelmed is just a sense of there's no space in my life. And so how do we turn to process and look at the way we're managing our calendar? We might need to tighten up our yeses and nos for a couple of weeks in terms of getting some space back or really like reaching out to one's network of support. Who are the few people I have on speed dial when things get out of control and I need

a helpful ear or hand? So that's kind of the external world in terms of processing people. And then I think in the internal world, how do we find ways to get present to our emotions? How do we hold them gently and process them and work through them? I'll tell you a funny story. It's not funny, but it's real. You know, at the beginning of the pandemic, the first few months in, which was hard for all of us, I just had a week where I just felt like I can't do this anymore.

Between my son being online at school, work, back-to-back video meetings, feeling drained. I still have moments that feel that way. And so I went into our sunroom and said to the family, this rug is the sad rug. If you see me lying here, I have had absolutely enough. But it's a way for me to get present and to signal to my family, I need a break. And so that sad rugs end up becoming a joyful thing where there's been moments I'm laying there, my 15 year old will come lay down next to me. Sometimes we're just quiet together. Sometimes we've had our best conversations around, you know, what we're both upset about. Oh, I like that. I should implement that. I should get a sad rug.

Yeah. Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. Thank you. apply these lessons in your own life. Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. When I'm in B-mode, what I realize is it's really hard for me to be present, and it's really hard for me to feel joy, to recognize joy. I think there's joy around me, but I don't necessarily recognize it, and I don't spend the time to cultivate it because I'm too inside my head. One of the kindred spirits in your book is a guy by the name of Mark, who I really related to. It seemed like on paper, his life was going really

well. His kids or his, I don't know if he had two or one or two kids, but they're off at college. He just received a great promotion. He's just a really energetic, high spirited guy. We all know someone like Mark. But he had this quote to you, which I'm going to read it. I think it was really good. He says, I guess I always thought when I got to this stage of my career, to this point in life, that I'd have a sense of satisfaction, some kind of deeper feeling like all this was enough. And when I'm in B mode, it's really hard for me to feel like this is enough. And on paper, I should feel that way. I have a great spouse. I mean, like truly, I could not wish for a better spouse. I have two beautiful children. You know, I have a great job in publishing an industry that's really hard to break into. Yet, many times I don't feel like it's enough. And I think the sad part about this sometimes is, like I was mentioning, there is joy all around me. And sometimes it's just hard to see or to really absorb those things. Thank you, Kevin, for sharing that. And, you know, Mark was and is, will always be one of my favorite clients that I learned a great deal from just

in his own introspection and reflection. And I think you're highlighting a really important point when we're in B-mode. It's that we lose access. Something shuts down, some window closes where the access to joy, the access to satisfaction, the access to recognizing what's enough somehow gets shut down. So number one, we just need to realize it's not gone. We haven't lost it. It's simply some door has gotten shut, and we need to come back to access it. And as you said, oftentimes when we're in B mode, we're in our head. We've lost track of our heart and our bodies. And so sometimes I'll ask clients, and even with Mark, we spent time practicing just even bringing your hand. You know, I'm just going to do this right now, even as we speak to our heart, or putting our hand to our belly and coming back to the solidity of oneself and the awareness of the wholeness of ourselves. Give us that access again. But I love what you're saying is that

bringing some greater intentionality to noticing the small things in life can make a really big difference. You talk about presence and pause a lot in your book. And I feel like those two things are really important to cultivate and feel joy, which I know is sometimes it's hard to achieve, especially as a working parent. And so do you have any advice on how to create more awareness and more pause in our lives? I think they go hand in hand. So one, just the awareness of the importance of it. I think second, rituals are so important in life. And rituals don't need to be 45 minutes of going to a yoga class or, you know, unrealistic, let's add more time to the day. It can be as simple as I know for me at the end of a long workday. The hardest thing is after being present in conversations all day, I get to

six o'clock, and then you open your inbox and you realize, wow, 30 emails came in while I was just in the last four hours of meetings. And so then the cortisol goes way up. And so I think we just need to have that moment of, okay, I'm about to transition from work to home. I need to give myself permission to close the laptop lid. And sometimes that's just taking five minutes to get re-centered, sitting in the chair, taking a breath. I'm a big fan of breathing techniques that are quick and fast. So, for example, even right now, everyone listening in today, if we all take a breath in for four counts and we hold that for seven and then we exhale for eight, it's amazing how just two rounds of breath work can bring our mind, heart, and body back together. No, that's great. I bought an Apple Watch for Christmas. And you know, there's a feature on it that it reminds me to breathe every hour for a minute. And like I set it up to do it for two minutes. It sounds so simple, but it is really effective. It has really helped me out.

Yeah. And I love that idea, Kevin, of setting, you know, on your Apple Watch a cue or it's the top of the hour. I think, again, that idea of ritual or that we build it into the flow makes it less of a should and more of just keeping the energy flowing and moving in our lives. Totally. Yeah. So we've been talking a lot about joy. And I feel like when we talk about joy, we tend to talk about it in the context of our personal lives. So how does joy fit into our everyday lives at work? And how does it in our work life. We spend so many of our waking hours in the creative expression of our work. And so in a similar vein, paying attention to two things. I think the first is, as you walk through your workday, notice the activities and projects and things you're doing that really add value. You know, when you think of the work you're doing, the impact it has, where you're having a ripple effect, where are you uniquely adding value?

And second, just notice the things that as you're engaging in them that bring you energy. We all know the drainers and the drainers come very salient. But to pause and notice what actually gave me energy today. Was it writing that email to a colleague, closing the loop on something? Was it finishing up that deliverable? And I did get a taste of satisfaction. So I think it's equally important throughout the workday to touch joy and to really think about it. One thing that I found is useful is at the end of each week, I have a journal where I have my to-do lists and everything. But at the end of each week, I try to

list some things that I really enjoyed or things that gave me joy because I used to try to work through my feelings, my negative feelings, things that happen at work. But I realized that that's not necessarily the most effective way to go about things. And just noticing the small joys is really helpful. It's really helpful. Yeah. And I think as colleagues, we can support each other. I know in this last year and just as a practice, I start every coaching meeting I have with the leaders that I work with. And I say, okay, before we jump into what's on your mind, I want to hear two victory laps from this last week. And I bet you can't even remember from last Monday. So

pull up your Outlook calendar, scan through and tell me two things you're really proud of. Right. And it's so easy to forget about those things because we're so busy. We're just going from meeting to meeting. We have childcare, especially during the pandemic with remote schooling. It's been overwhelming. It's really easy to forget about those small things. So we're talking about the end of the week right now, but we're actually talking on a Monday morning. And so a lot of people have Sunday scaries and it's hard to transition from the weekend into the weekday. So how can thinking about joy help us not dread the start of the work week? Monday morning, try to block the first half an hour, hour if you can, 15 minutes if you don't have it, but try not to start the week right away in a meeting or write

an email and give yourself a couple of moments to set the intention for the week. Take a look at the calendar, what is upcoming, and just that little act of doing a little planning, a little bit of a look ahead, what's to come, that can help. The other thing, as I mentioned, is a look ahead. Sometimes you can do that as a family on a Sunday. So I know Sunday morning is really important for our family where even since when my son was young till now, we always have done a look ahead.

What's coming up this week? When do you have practice? When is mom gonna be, when I was traveling for work? When am I out of town? It just kind of grounded all of us in the week ahead is coming. Who's going to be where? Who's going to potentially need more support than not? And so that family look ahead can also be a great way to enter the week.

I love that. This has been such a wonderful conversation. Do you have any parting advice for someone like me who feels like they're in leader B mode more than leader A mode? I would just say, Kevin, I feel great comfort that I'm right there with you. You know, I've been coaching for a long time and certainly don't have all the answers. And a lot of the book was actually my sorting out and trying to come to peace with the fact that A and B is probably just a life condition. I'm going to be moving in and out of both those states. But to just be a little kinder to ourselves, I really appreciate that HBR and you are doing this podcast and putting out there what we all secretly feel and just having a chance to talk about it

with others. I really appreciate it. What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. So many things Amy mentioned resonated with me so much. And the part I think that really

struck me too was when she said that you have so many shoulds in our minds and they keep getting louder and louder. Yep. You know, so many times I catch myself even like my internal monologue saying, oh, I should be getting downstairs to help with dinner or I should be spending more time or being more excited to play the same game, the same game of trains over and over again. I do the same thing. I feel like I have this perfectionist mentality when it comes to

work and parenting. And there's just so much going on. It's impossible to do everything really well. Yes, yes, yes. Have you after that interview used any of the advice that she gave? Because I found myself like I'm really thinking about Monday morning. And I want to tell myself to set an intention, you know, like, what do I want to accomplish next week? I'm going to try that one for sure. Yeah, the intention one is really good. What I'm really looking forward to, and I started to do this a little bit before I actually talked to her,

is at the end of each week to pick out two victories that you had that week. Yes. Because what happens with me is we're just so busy that everything's a blur and one week bleeds into the next, into the next, into the next. And I just lose track of what I'm doing.

And I do a lot of good things during the week, even though it doesn't feel like it. So it's good to look back and to pick out one or two things and say, hey, like I had a really good week. I accomplished two really great things this week. Yes, it's so hard to feel that we have any momentum right now.

I know. I know. What I loved about Amy's advice is that it was grounded in self-compassion. You know, this leader A versus leader B dynamic, we switch and we toggle back and forth between the two. And I love how she put a percentage on it that usually it's 60-40, which is really surprising to me. I thought it'd be higher.

And then she said during the pandemic, it was 40, 60 with all our clients. And so that actually made me feel really good because I'm probably at 30, 70, but it's relishing that 30%. So I'm trying to get to 40, 60, but it's okay that it's only 40, 60, because we just have so much on our plates that it's hard to feel that joy and be present all the time. But the more that we do feel those things, then, you know, we can up our percentage. Absolutely. Absolutely. I thought that was fascinating, too, just how collectively everybody's feeling. And having those two groups, you know, leader A, leader B, and kind of being aware of which way you're feeling in this moment, really, really helpful because it almost puts a label on it, right? You can be like, I'm a leader B today.

What can I do to try to feel more like leader A tomorrow? Yeah, no, I totally agree. Next time on the show, we get inside the head of a woman days away from motherhood, our colleague Eleni Mata. She's so in position, so I'm just like nervous. Any sort of pain or movement I feel, I'm like thinking in my head, like, is this it? Is this what's happening? Is she deciding now that this is when she's coming?

And it's like, am I prepared? Eleni shares with me her worries, hopes, and questions about how having a baby will change her career. And I do my best to offer practical advice for managing a new identity and new work family demands. So as more and more people get vaccinated against COVID-19, Eric and I are keeping an eye out for what post-pandemic working parenthood might be like. Thanks to the editorial and production team who help us make this show. They are Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoke, Tina Topi-Mack, Adam Buchholz, and Rob Eckhart. Email us at familymanagement at hbr.org. I'm Erica Truxler. And I'm Kevin Evers. Thanks for listening.