Women at Work - Forging Ahead — or Plowing Through

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

A satisfying career requires that we make thoughtful decisions, through self-reflection and strategic planning. But sometimes (like in 2021) plowing through our jobs day after day is the only thing that feels manageable. A reunion with three guests starts a conversation about the tension between wanting to fulfill our potential and needing to conserve what’s left of our energy.

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. For me, some of the most powerful moments of 2020 and 2021 have been when listeners were on here detailing the personal impact of mega large-scale changes. In one episode, we heard women who lost work reflect on the loss, not only of income, but also a sense of self. In another episode, women new to the workforce shared their struggles to gain a foothold. And in another, we heard women call out the fact that corporate promises to fight racism had had little positive impact on their experiences as Black employees. These reality checks and insights are an especially valued part of this show,

as are the problem-solving skills and resilience that come through in each woman's story. Listening helps me better appreciate different circumstances and perspectives, and it stirs up a lot of self-reflection. How did I end up managing that last big life hurdle? With another eventful year nearly over, the Amys and I are still processing the ups and downs and also considering how to forge ahead. To get us going, I reconnected with three past guests to hear where they're at, how they made it through 2021, and what they want to do next. But first, here's a recap of where they each were personally and professionally in 2020. So my name is Emily Louise Robinson.

I teach piano and voice, and I am a member of the Houston Grand Opera Chorus, as well as a freelance opera singer. What I love about singing opera, it is utterly and completely consuming. There's not room for any dialogue in your brain. Your brain just is full. It's full of the physical, it's full of the mental, it's full of, am I with the orchestra? It's all consuming. And I find that now there's very little that I do that is all consuming. And I think that's the greatest loss. The struggle is not about the job. The struggle is about meaning. Am I a singer if I'm not singing? What am I if I'm not doing this thing that I've been struggling and striving for for 15 years of my life? My name is Rekia.

I'm based out of the UK. And I'm currently working in the intelligent automation, so basically the tech industry. I have, since I started working about eight years ago, continuously been like, hey, there are some cultural issues here, casual racism, microaggressions. I definitely want to be working for myself in a couple of years, like looking wider at the tech industry. There just needs to be more diverse voices and more diverse voices with influence. My name is Nina Jones and I am a senior consultant in the employee experience team at Engine. And I feel like I'm just really starting out in my career. It's been interesting because I have been furloughed from my role.

And that means that for the last two months, I haven't been working. And that's been, I guess, an obstacle for me because in my plan of the year, this was the time that I was going to get really good at my job. I was going to get loads of client experience. And I was going to really try and build up my reputation at Enjin. So that was them in 2020. Let's hear how they're doing now. Rukaiya, Nina, Emily, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Could you each describe just big picture where you were when you spoke to us last in your career and in your head and where you're at

now. Rukai, we can start with you. Listening back to where I was, to a degree, I felt stuck in my career. I think I had made a couple of lateral moves. Now I've been able to become a manager for the first time, still at the same company, which is really, which has been interesting. But I also burnt out, like I only came back to work beginning of November after being off. I will also say, you know, in 2021, like personally, I'm also a full time carer for a member that is terminally ill. So my headspace is kind of figuring things out. Yeah. I want to hear more about that. Nina, why don't you tell us where you were then and where you are now? So we last spoke in June 2020, and I was about six months into a new job in a consultancy working in employee experience. but I was also on furlough because the pandemic had had a big impact on our work and I was doing a little bit of pro bono work but really just trying to think of how I could keep developing and hopefully get brought back

to work. I did come back to work but actually into a new role I was offered an opportunity to come back and try a different role in the company and subsequent to that I actually had changed into doing that role full-time partly also because my company decided to take the difficult decision actually to exit their employee experience research practice so I kind of had to but I was also enjoying the work that I'd come back to do anyway so it did make sense as a career move at the time. And yeah, I'm about 18 months now into my new role as a change and delivery consultant and I'm working on some big government projects in the UK. So it's been an interesting 18 months.

Yeah. Emily, how about you? Well, when we last spoke, we were very much at home and not performing because performing was one of those last things to come back. And life is so normal now. We're performing again at the opera. We're in the shows. We've finished Carmen. We're starting up Dialogues of the Carmelites, and we're full back into it. And that's fantastic. what's changed or not changed for Black women at work. In 2021, what have you learned about the pace at which racial justice work is done inside companies, in particular inside your company? I don't think much has changed, quite frankly. I think, you know, there's more eyes on it, but I don't think that we're seeing the change that we maybe wanted to or need to. Right. You mentioned when you last were on the show that you were stepping away from the conversations around DEI for your own mental health. And I'm curious if you've stepped back

into those conversations or if you've continued to keep your distance? I tried to step back in just because there was a recent incident. But I also think that part of the reason that I burnt out is I was pushing for change that we weren't ready for. So being promoted into a managerial position was great. However, the system wasn't set up for someone like me to be a managerial position was great. However, the system wasn't set up for someone like me to be a manager. So what does that mean when I'm in these rooms and I'm hearing these things and I'm noticing the missing voices and I'm flagging things where I'm often one of two women, one of two people of color. I wasn't meant to be in this position. I was never meant to be in the

room. What was interesting in earlier in the year, we had worked with this company. They were a consulting company and I arguably was producing my best work. They were amazing and brilliant, and it was such a safe environment and they unlocked all this innovation. And they were so willing to listen and so willing to hear all of me and bring all of me into the room. And then they left as consultants do. And all of a sudden I found myself really struggling because you have to pull your guard back up. There's so much work in protecting yourself. And I think that other consultancy were ready for someone like me. We're ready for someone that looked like me and thought like me.

My company's not. So what was causing me to burn out was that I was not able to bring enough of myself to work. I had to be so guarded and so on that it just tired me and to a degree continues to tire me. So to be honest, I'm still kind of figuring out what does a healthy Rekia in a corporate world look like. Yeah. Nina, I want to ask you, last time we spoke, you talked a lot about what you were thinking about. I realised all of her advice is so helpful and actually I'd recommend anyone go back and listen to that episode because it's been a really good reminder.

She speaks about not sort of being passive and maybe setting on cruise control and how we kind of always need to be in touch with the concept of reimagining our careers. And I think potentially I a little bit fell into uh well this is my new career kind of head down off I go but I do think I need to spend a little bit of time now rethinking what my career looks like because I had joined this company sort of six months before I went on furlough with the idea of becoming an employee experience specialist

and it had been a mover to consulting and I was really excited and I thought that was where I wanted to be and I guess I didn't really make the decision to move across into change and delivery and these kind of this different kind of consulting and and while I am enjoying it I haven't really thought through what the long-term vision like. And that's definitely something that I probably keep putting off a little bit thinking that there'll be a better time to do it. But really, I think, even though I'm enjoying the day to day, there is that kind of feeling that I don't really know what this looks like as a specialism anymore. Which guess day to day you can kind of keep going because there's always something happening day to day lots to do right yeah there's loads to do but

kind of like Hannah said she said that some people kind of look up and realize they were climbing the wrong ladder so that's what I really want to make sure I want to take Hannah's advice and kind of actually sort of step back a bit and think about it. Yeah, we talked in another episode this season about the pause that the pandemic created for so many of us, you know, to think about is this really what I want to be doing? And yet also listening to you all about how much things sped up as well, right? It was this pause, but then things really, for lots of people, it was a time of just so much that they had to do personally and professionally. And it's hard to find that time

to lift up their head. And Emily Louise, you had described this period before March 2020, like the beginning of 2020 has been incredibly busy, the busiest time. And then for a performer like you, an opera singer, everything just halted. Describe a little bit where your career is right at this moment. Yeah, opera is somehow 100% back. And in many ways, it feels so normal. And I have to step back to realize how weird it actually is because it's not normal. We're getting COVID PCR tests once a week, twice a week, three times a week, depending on what part of the production we're in.

We're singing in masks literally until like the final dress rehearsal on stage. I had this shocking moment where we all took off our masks for the first time and you're in the lights and in the light, you can see certain things that you don't necessarily see without stage light. So it's very harsh light coming from the front and from the sides. And what you can really see is the spit flying out of people's mouths. And I had this moment where we had finally taken off our masks and there was spit flying i was like oh my god i scream and spit in other people's face as a living i cannot believe this is my job this is so dangerous like like there's so much in the air. And that's why the company has been so careful. But yeah, it's this weird balance of like, it's totally normal and it's totally weird.

Yes. Right. I will say that what's changed is normally at this time of year, I would be flying to New York like every week for an audition, doing dozens of auditions. And I just sat out this round. And I don't know if part of that is like, I'm feeling my age and where I am in my career, and I'd rather sing at home. But very interestingly to what Nina was saying about climbing the wrong ladder, I had a moment where I was like, is this solo career freelance

singing the ladder I want to be climbing? Because it means you're away from home. It means you're making erratic money. I mean, this travel to audition, it's self-financed, right? So it's just a lot of and, and, and stacking. And I thought to myself, where can I audition? So my new goal is where can I audition to be a full-time chorister as like a career with a salary? Houston Grand Opera, I think is honestly one of the best opera choruses in the world, but it's contract by contract. And I'm doing a full season with them right now. But it's not a full time job. It's evening rehearsals. And I do need to teach and I do need my church job. And here I am in my 30s working three jobs, which is fine, but it's also a lot, you know? Yeah know yeah gosh i hear all three of you say

there have been important steps rukaya you became a manager nina you got this new job didn't stay on furlough emily you're back but also questioning is this really what i want to do and emily louise we we did an episode actually last week about freelancers and the challenges they face and in particular, the existential challenges. And I remember so clearly from the last time you were on our show is you said, Who am I if I'm not singing? Am I, am I a singer? And, and, you know, how has the way you see yourself and presented yourself in the world changed in 2021? You know, I think ultimately I have a deep seated knowledge that I am a singer and always will be a singer. And I think somehow that settled in because I do other things that define me as like the things that bring me joy

because I'm also an avid reader. Emily Louise, the avid reader. I'm also a mountain biker. Emily Louise, the mountain biker. But like at the core of this is that I sing and that I am very good at it. And being hired to do it doesn't make me good at it. I'm good at it regardless. You know, while we're talking about working for ourselves and being entrepreneurs, Rukai, I wanted to follow up because you had mentioned maybe someday an ultimate goal would be to work for yourself, to run your own business. Where is your thinking on being an employee versus being your own boss? I think it's definitely still a dream. Definitely still what I'm working towards. Definitely having this managerial position. What's been amazing and fascinating and wonderful is that you could really influence what like the team spirit is. You can be that safe space. Like you can truly try to create

what you want and what you want to see and what you want to feel. And I think just the ability to even do that kind of makes me know and makes me sure that I want to be able to do that and reach more people. Once again, because I'm also a carer for someone who's terminal, my legacy is something I'm thinking about. And you only have this life and it's so short and it's so precious that I want as many people to feel as safe as possible in as many spaces. 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. Hey listeners, if you want to hear from more leaders to help you answer questions like, should I talk about my anxiety at work? Or how do I claim my leadership power? Thank you. in Business, followed up with a mini lesson from Mudupe on how to apply these lessons in your own life. Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. Rukaiya, Nina, Emily, do you have any questions for each other as you've been listening to one another? Is there anything you want to ask? I've got a question. What do you think the biggest difference has been in the people you are now versus the people you were

pre the pandemic? Nina, do you want to go? You can go. Okay. So I actually, I was scrolling through my phone and saw a photo of myself. I had taken a selfie at the Ripley Greer Studio, which is one of the audition studios in New York City. I think it was 2018. And I looked at myself and I went, wow, I miss that girl. She was working so hard and she was so motivated and I miss that girl. But I also was so, so hard. And she was so motivated. And I miss that girl. But I also was so, so tired. So tired because auditioning, auditioning is brutal. You go, you walk into a room, you sing for five to 10 minutes, and then you may never hear from them again, right? And you physically have

to get yourself to the city. You physically have to, you have to pay for your flight, right? There's just so many ands, ands, ands, ands, ands, and being in New York City, I love New York City, but it's not like a relaxing experience, right? But the hustle, I respect the hustle of 2018 Emily Robbins, and she was motivated, and I am motivated in different ways now. I've read over 70 books this year. I'm so jealous. 2018 Emily didn't have time for that. I think I've mellowed out a little bit but I do more in my past self for sure yeah I think on reflection I guess the pandemic was the first big event that's happened to me in my career in terms of like an external force that's had an impact I think before

then I'd been quite lucky to have had quite a smooth smooth as anything can be from university into a grad job into like the next grad job and it's made me a bit more appreciative of those kind of curveballs and this is a massive curveball that happened to everyone and I guess it's made me, a bit more appreciative of the things that can happen that you're not expecting. Like I feel a little bit, a tiny bit wiser, I guess, for the fact that those things can happen. But a little less of that sort of swagger that you might have a few years in just thinking, yep, the world's my oyster right now, kind a couple of years like on my career ladder and just thinking was this where I thought graduate Nina like with her big idea of where she'd be

would be probably not and so maybe I should try and get a little bit more of that like fire back to sort of get where I want to be. Rukaiya how about you what's the biggest difference i think like enjoying the small things you know for me weirdly the pandemic won't have been like the defining it will be like the loss of my family member so you know i think we've all had to appreciate the sanctity of life i think in a different way yeah enjoying the small things and enjoying the silences with people. Yeah. Rukai, I have to tell you that I lost a dear family member over the Thanksgiving holiday, which was about 10 that we, this pandemic has made everything sort of feel for me just closer to the surface in terms of emotions. And I just don't have as

much energy and time to do the things that 2018 Emily did or 2018 Amy did, right? Like, I just don't have that, that much energy. But I think the losses we've all had, or are going to have, have just made everything crystal clear in terms of what matters. And then it's a matter of actually taking the steps to focus on those things. Because that's harder, right? We can know what matters, but sometimes still we're running around with, you know, everything to do. And I just appreciate your candor about your caretaking responsibility and what it means and how it shaped your life because it's really resonating with me at this particular moment. Thank you. And sorry for your loss.

Thank you. Thank you. So this is our last episode of the season we're approaching the end of the year here you know we're starting to think about what next year is going to bring and I'm curious for you all what are you going to be focused on what are you hoping for in the coming year Nina you want to start yeah I can go so for me I'd really like to and I'm going to commit to it publicly on the podcast to really carve out that space to figure out. There's no more putting it off. I can't get my head, keep my head in the sand for much longer to really say, like, has this career change been a good move for me? Is this where I want to focus? And actually, how am I going to build that picture and that confidence back up in in that so then I can just for a minute like put

that decision to bed a bit and focus rather than having this sort of kind of recurring thing of being like ah did I make did I like didn't really make this decision where does this go what does this mean for me actually take that time over the Christmas break um and then yes I guess sort of see what that plan looks like and obviously sort of take into account all the things that we've I guess said we've learned which I really resonate with about kind of the important things as well because I think that kind of understanding and appreciation also kind of I guess where you place your job like it isn't the be all and end all sometimes so while I am going to say I'm going to commit to it I'm also also going to keep a perspective in mind of if yeah there are I think bigger things that matter so not too much

pressure but enough pressure so I actually do it we may all need to be back on this call in six months or so and just see where we all are Emily or Rikai who wants to go? Yeah. So for me, it's to make sure and reevaluate that I have not paused too much, that I have not allowed myself to become comfortable in the things that I'm doing to the degree that it means that I'm no longer pushing forward for something more. And I think it's okay to want more. And I want to allow myself to want more. But more is uncomfortable. Because in my case, more would mean moving cities, moving countries, completely changing the course of my life and that's scary and is the scary worth it so I think that's that's what I really need to take a hard look at and I don't know the best way to make that decision or evaluate that for myself but little by little I think perhaps I can get a clear idea about that.

Yeah. Is the scary worth it? That's a great, great thing to ponder. Yeah. I think for me, happiness. I think 2022 would definitely. And specifically in my work life. What does a happy Rekia in her work life? But I also want to be making a difference in the way that I want to. I want to be creating safety for people who are underrepresented, specifically in the tech industry, because that's the industry I work in and I feel like there's so much opportunity. Yeah. Well, I'm sincerely, deeply hoping that all of you and all of our listeners get happiness,

a chance to reflect, and the opportunity to try really scary things next year. So thank you all so much. I really can't tell you how much this conversation has meant to me at this particular moment. So thanks so much for your candor and for sharing your experiences. Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Amy. Thank you. 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. So I thought that Rukaiya, Emily, and Nina raised some really important questions ones I could relate to like that one about am I really on the right ladder yeah yeah yeah like just you know you're putting one step in front of the other right you're climbing each rung but you're sort of looking

around going do I really want to be here is this what I, that for me defined a lot of what 2021 was about. It was like I was putting one foot in front of the other. I was moving forward, but I wasn't so sure about the goal anymore. Speaking of questions that resonate, that question of like, is the scary worth it? Yeah, that really stuck out. I mean, that is if we're reflecting on this year and wondering, are we moving toward the right goal? And we realize we're not, which I think Emily Louise realized,

the amount of effort and risk you have to take to get on the path you want, it's just the stakes feel high right now. Can, like, you handle the rejection that could come up or could you handle the new challenges that a new job could bring? Like the scary doesn't always feel worth it when life is harder. It makes me grateful I've not been a career coach or a therapist this year because I just feel like my advice to people would be like, just do what's easiest. Like, don't take any risks.

Like, don't make it any more complicated than it needs to be. And yet, I mean, all three of these women and many of the people in our lives are taking risks, are making big changes, are finding ways to forge ahead, even if it's so terribly uncomfortable and I like that Rukaiya reflected on what does a healthy happy Rukaiya look like in a corporate job it made me think about what I need I wonder if you guys had a similar thought when you heard her say that yeah when I heard her say that like I was like oh I I so want to see a healthy happy happy Rukaiya. Like, I want that to be realized. And I also, it gave me a little bit of like, I don't know, the shivers because I was like, oh, do I know what a happy, healthy Amy looks like? That's a big question. That's a really big question.

And one that I don't think we stopped to ponder. Who has had the time in the last two years to reflect on that question? First of all, it's such a brilliantly framed question, right? Yeah. Emily, do you feel like you have the space to reflect either on whether you're on the right ladder or what happy, healthy Emily looks like? Currently, I don't. Like hearing from all of these women, I'm like, I have external factors in my life that I feel like are taking up so much space that make it hard for me to really give a lot of attention to thinking about my career trajectory. And so I'm just like going

to do the things I need to do today and do the things I need to do tomorrow. And hopefully that will add up to a career that is happy and healthy. What about you? I feel like I have no, I mean, I feel like I barely have space to get the things done today. I also, I think there's part of it, the reflection I think will be painful because I do think the past two years have been full of grief and loss and to ask myself what I want next what does the future look like what do I want out of life I think requires processing that grief and loss in a way that I'm not quite ready for. Although, so you guys know I recently lost my mom. And I will tell you, it does force you to do the reflection we've been talking about. What's important to me?

I mean, first of all, you get a very strong sense that life isn't forever and you don't want your career to happen to you. You want to drive your own career, right? But also this idea that on one lane is family, friends, romantic life, and in the other lane is work, and they run parallel forever. That's nonsense. They intersect parallel forever. That's nonsense. They intersect like crazy. And you better figure out how to prioritize one and then the other or how they blend together. But the separation I realized over the last two weeks is totally artificial. Right.

Well, I think the clarity that comes with a loss like you've been through that. What matter? I mean, I think, you know, I can imagine opening your email. focus on it, not today and not tomorrow and not a week from tomorrow, but I would be able to focus on it and I would want to focus on it. Just putting it in abeyance for a moment and just, I've never done this before, but I had to stop working for the better part of two weeks. And in my 40 years of working, I've never done that before. Wow. I felt like I had no choice there. Right. I just couldn't handle it otherwise. And thank goodness we work in a place where that is absolutely okay. Yes.

And there's a lot of support. But it's helped me think very clearly about setting priorities, about saying no to stuff. You know, you cannot push on every single aspect of your life with 110% determination. Some stuff has to be more important than other stuff. You cannot go full throttle all the time. You have to figure out how to make your life not just sustainable, but somehow gratifying to you. Because you only get one of these lives. And it's not a work life or a home life. It's one life. Right. Yeah. So, Amy, after losing your mom, how did you stop working? How did you take that

time for yourself? So it wasn't an act of will. She died. I went down to New York where she was and, you know, I sort of threw myself into the logistics, which is a heck of a lot easier than dealing with your emotions. And then I told folks at work, yeah, I'll be back. She died on Sunday. I'm down in New York on Monday from Boston. I was driving back Tuesday and I had planned to be back at work on Wednesday. I woke up on Wednesday and it felt like a tsunami of sadness had just grabbed me. I just felt I was washed out to sea. And I realized I was good for nothing. And so I just texted with my boss, with Adi, and said, I'm not coming back. I need to do this thing. He was totally supportive. I threw myself into writing her death notice,

which turned out to be a really wonderful exercise because it reminded me of what she was like when she was in her full glory. And I just, I couldn't work. I couldn't focus. I felt unmoored. And I'm not sure I'm moored again, but I feel a lot steadier. Some of it is that I gave myself the time and that would be my best advice. Take the time you need and don't try to anticipate how much time you need. You don't know. You go through this once, losing your mother. So, Amy G., you also lost someone dear to you. Can you tell us about that? We spent all our holidays with him, all our family vacations. And, you know, he was relatively young, just in his 60s, and it was pretty sudden. And, you know, I feel like I have a lot of the same feelings of it's very clarifying and it's all consuming. And I also had, you know, just a week where i was like nope can't work can't think about it and partly that was taken up with logistics of planning the funeral and doing all that paperwork and all that stuff but part of it was just like i can't think about anything else right now. So what did you take away from all that? I mean I

think I took that we need to give one another that space and I feel the same deep gratitude to colleagues here who stepped in and helped and I think one of the other things I really learned especially because it's it wasn't um someone who was easily explainable in my life is that I I had to be a little more open about how deeply I was affected than I think I my first instincts would have told me to be and I had to do that because I had to I needed the people who around me to understand how deep that grief was. And it's been so helpful to talk to people. Yeah. And to make sense of it that way, right? Yeah. And I've actually, a couple colleagues I've just, who've reached out on Slack or have sent emails, I've just said,

I hope you don't mind, can I send you a picture of him? And can I tell you a story about him? And they've all been so wonderful about it and that's another lesson is like I knew I couldn't work and yet I didn't fully separate myself from work and my colleagues because I needed when I knew I was going back I needed the shared experience of like

I've been through something intense can you please see that so that when I hop onto this Webex call and I look a little teary, you get it. Right. You know? Yeah. Like even you shared your mom's a bit with the team.

And it just, you know, my instinct was to share it with more people, like people who don't even know you. Just because I was like, look at this amazing woman. Like it just I think there is there has to be connection in these intense emotions and and otherwise you're just feeling them by yourself alone like that's just not I don't think that's healthy what I keep hearing you say Amy or I keep repeating in my head is you have to give yourself time to feel the feelings you're feeling. I mean, this was actually a friend who lost her mother last year just said, when you need to grieve, grieve. Don't stop yourself from doing it.

It will just make it worse. It will come out eventually. Yes. And I think that's true for any intense emotion. We do, especially in work cultures, there's this sense of like, pull it together, people. Like, I think we're rewarded professionally for doing that, for plowing through. But I think personally, it just takes a huge toll on us. And a lasting toll. Yeah. I mean, you get to the point of real burnout, and it'll take you a very long time to get past that.

That's scary. Yeah. Well, and I think what actually really ends up getting harmed, not only obviously your own mental health, but your relationships. When we don't give ourselves room to grieve, to have the feelings we have, and we're keeping it together at work, it's our friendships, our loved ones, like they're the ones who bear the brunt of that. I think that damage is lasting, as you say, Amy B. And I would extend that to any time in your life when you haven't done the self-reflection you need to do,

when you haven't asked yourself, am I on the right right ladder is this really what I feel like when I'm happy in my work because it does it wears on you yeah and it does express itself in that you know you could become short with your friends and you don't focus on the relationships that matter to you and finally you become so exhausted physically and emotionally that you just can't handle your life, right? Yeah. Although I will say, okay, I do want to say. Don't say that to me. I know. I was like, wait, does that mean I'm going to have to do self-reflection? And I'm like, no, no. Like, I want to put a plug in for the, like, recognizing. I think what Nina did very well was saying, i know i'm not asking these

questions right now and and i i just want to say i think it's okay if you're aware i'm not asking totally agree with you you're yes thank you for making that point well and i think there's there's like well the time's not right now and there's a difference between like i'm putting all those emotions down and everything's fine and i'm just pretending and it's okay and I'm just going to plow ahead. There's a difference between that and the like, I don't have the time and space right now, but I will soon. And I'll keep asking the questions. So Amy G, at the beginning you mentioned that you were questioning whether or not you're on the right ladder or questioning your goals. Is this the approach that you're taking, kind of putting things aside for later?

Yeah. I mean, basically, like I can remember in the beginning of 2020, I did this like goal setting session with a friend of mine where we like got together. We like drew out these, we had like diagrams about our goals and whatever. And I think about doing that right now. And I literally feel like I'm choking. Yeah, you can't do it. And I can't do it.

And I think, okay, at some point I will. I know these questions need to be asked. I just can't answer them right now. Like I will start shaking if I have to do it. So I'm going to put it off, but I'm not telling myself, I'm not feeling the emotions. I'm not telling myself, I'm not feeling the emotions. I'm not telling myself,

I'm not questioning. I'm not saying there aren't big choices to be made and goals to be set. I just can't do it right now. I can't do it right now because I just don't have the clarity. And I think most of my mental energy is being taken up,

you know, processing the past two years. And not processing like looking forward, like actually processing like, am I okay? Is my family okay? Are my friends okay? Like I'm just consumed with more immediate concerns than my career goals for 2020. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know there's some of that smaller stuff that I feel like I can put aside, too, for a while. But then in another way, I'm like, I can't afford to put these questions off. I can't afford to not think about this stuff right now. I can't afford to. I'm sorry. I'm talking about working out again.

I can't afford to continue to not work out because I know that if I fixed that or made that part of my life a little bit better, it would make the other parts of my life easier. So like turning the attention to what would make me feel happy and healthy, like Rukaiya is thinking about are things that I need to do but at the same time it's like such a vicious cycle I don't have the energy to do it and it definitely takes energy yeah so for people who are interested in goal setting yeah what did yours look like when you did it well I mean it was someone who I both have a professional and personal relationship with, which was great. So someone I felt safe with. And then we just sort

of chatted. We started by just chatting like, what was great about the last year? What do you want to see different this year? Like if you got to December of 2020, what would make you feel most satisfied? And it was started a lot around emotion and like how we wanted to feel and like the impact we wanted to have. And then we started to get more tactical. How do we actually want to get there? We drew this diagram of concentric circles about like the impact our work has on like one person. It was like the inner circle, right?

And then a team and then an organization and then like broad like this podcast would be in the biggest circle because we're reaching many people at a time and I think about that a lot of like where am I focusing my energy right now like what is the impact is it that very inner circle is it like the middle circle or is it like this big outer circle and that does help me make choices about where to dedicate my limited energy at the moment. So will you try to go broader to a larger audience or will you turn more inward to a smaller audience because that might be easier? I don't know if it is easier. I can't answer that question right now, Emily. That's a question I can't ponder right now. Give her some space.

I'm so sorry. No, but that is the kind of question I do want to ask myself. And I actually, if I take a deep breath and I do think about 2022, like I have a book coming out, like I do think I'm probably going to be focusing on that broader circle of trying to reach more people with the things I care about, the things I'm passionate about. But it's just even hard for me to think about that question right now. That makes me think of Alice Boyce. In one of our earlier episodes, she was like, what is the most important work you could be doing right now? What is the most important work you can be doing now? I think that that is clarifying. Like even if you don't have the opportunity or the space to ponder these

bigger questions, it's like, well, what do I want to do right now? Yeah. And right now could be like spending time thinking about your mom or just feeling your feelings. Yeah. And that is like the most important work. Yeah. I have to say, Amy B., I have loved hearing about your mom on this show over the years. And I look forward to more stories about her. She's the most amazing career woman I've ever read about. And she made Amy B. I know. She made another amazing career woman.

No, stop. That's our show and our season. I'm Amy Gallo. I'm Amy Bernstein. And I'm Emily Caulfield. Our editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoke, Rob Eckhart, Erica Truxler, Tina Tobey-Mack, and Eleni Mata. Rob and Maura composed this theme music. If you like our podcasts, the best way to support us and to support HBR generally is to subscribe.

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