Women at Work - What It Takes to Make a Major Change

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

If you’re looking to upgrade your work life, know that it’s possible, manageable, and worth the effort. Two women reflect on the actions they took that ended up elevating not only their careers but also their all-around satisfaction.

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 womenatwork. Amy G, today's your first day back in the office since March 12, 2020. How's it going? Mostly good. It was a little terrifying walking in the door, but I got teary, I have to say. Teary? You know, this office was such a huge part of my pre-pandemic life, and I missed it, and I missed the people in it. So how does being here feel different than it used to for you?

I mean, I feel different. You know, the life I was leading in March 2020 was incredibly hectic. I was on a plane three, four times a month. I was coming up here to the office, which is an hour commute for me, you know, twice a week, sometimes more. And it felt unsustainable. And then when the pandemic hit, you know, I just stayed home. It was just such a different way of being. And I really thought all that time at home, I thought, I'm going to make some big changes. That life I was leading was totally unsustainable. I got to rethink it. And yet here I am, I really haven't actually made a single change. It's been more a thought experiment than an actual shift.

You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Emily Caulfield, I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Emily Caulfield. I'm Amy Gallo. So how do I act on this window of opportunity and change my work life for the better? Well, as it happens, Amy, we published an article on that by Herminia Ibarra. I know that. The three phases of making a major life change. I've actually read it several times, wishing and hoping that the words would somehow just force me to make the change. Okay, so tell us about the framework. What's phase one?

Arminia calls phase one separation. That's where we're disconnected from all our old routines and habits. And we tend to be more malleable in this stage because we're separated from the people and places that bring up our old habits and remind us of our old selves. Yeah, I think we've all definitely been in that place over the last 18 months. Okay, so what about phase two? So phase two is called liminality, where the normal rules that dictate our professional life are temporarily lifted. And we have the opportunity to experiment without actually committing necessarily to anything, but it's a time to reflect on what we're learning and what we like and what we don't like. Did I do any of that? No, I'm still in phase one.

Phase two sounds nice, doesn't it? Yeah. What about phase three? That's called reintegration. This is the opportunity to produce lasting change. And Erminia says this is about striking while the iron is hot. You've done these experiments, you've reflected on what you like and what you don't, and now you need to be intentional about making change. So you need to set goals, be motivated, really trying to seize the opportunity to make the shifts that you envision. And so in Herminia's framework, Amy G, which phase do you feel like you're in? Oh, I am also still deep in the separation phase. I have certainly dipped my toe a little bit into the liminal phase and thought really about

experimenting. And, you know, I keep thinking, what are the questions I need to ask myself? So when this all ends, if it ever ends, I'm ready to lead a different life. But I really haven't executed on any of that, which is why I really wanted to do this episode, because I'm quite jealous of women who've made some of these shifts. And I want wanted to do this episode, because I'm quite jealous of women who've made some of these shifts. And I want to be inspired by them, especially the ones who are further along in this process. So Amy, the two women you interviewed who we're all about to listen to are fonts of insight and inspiration. They really are. Shilpa Bandekar is the CEO of the tech venture arm of a global law firm. She and her team build software for the firm's clients to use.

And Bridget O'Brien is the director of marketing for the Department of Surgery at a large health system in New York City. Here's my conversation with them. Shilpa, let's start with you. What was your pre-pandemic life like? And how happy or satisfied were you with the pace and how things were going? So pre-pandemic, I describe it like a holding pattern. I had a wonderful job in a great organization, loved the people I was working with, enjoyed

everything, had a lovely husband, loved the people I was working with, enjoyed everything, had a lovely husband, lovely children. Everything was good. But I generally felt like one foot has been on the brake for a while. Second gear, I just described it to my husband as being for anyone who's old enough to have driven stick shifts regularly. It's like being in second gear, which is just not the fun gear to be in. And I think the frustrating thing in retrospect is it wasn't visible to anyone, but me, or maybe my closest friends. So everything good, but always that feeling that it could be so much better, bigger, faster. And immediately before the pandemic, I took on another role that I was doing in parallel to this role. So I think in the few months before the start of the pandemic, I was probably drowning in work and not so happy. Yeah. Bridget, how about you? How happy were you with the pace of your life

February 2020? Yeah. So I was pretty drained at that point. I had just moved. I'd relocated to be with my partner outside of Manhattan. So I had a four hour commute every day, two hours in and two hours out if things ran like clockwork. I felt like there was no time for my life. Things that you want to do, you want to go to the gym, you want to cook healthy dinners for yourself, which take time. And I didn't have that. All I had time for was work. It's funny because I don't feel like I remember feeling drained, but now that I've had time to look back, I was like, oh my gosh, that was unsustainable. I would go to bed already thinking about the last thing you do before you go to bed is set your alarm for that super early commute. And you're already worried about making that train

and what you have to do the next day and just keeping your head down and just go, go, go. So I was pretty drained with everything. Yeah, yeah. So take us now to the start of the pandemic, spring 2020, or even any time over the last year. What changed for you? Shilpa, you want to start? So a few things. I've been thinking about this a lot, actually, over the last five or six months in this new sort of steady state. In the first bit of the pandemic, there was almost less childcare for me because my children are a particular age, like, so they were eight and 11. So old enough

where I'm not changing diapers. But I had none of the invisible childcare that no one sees. So the dropping off the uniforms, the extracurriculars the birthday parties the birthday presents all of that gone um then all of the invisible work that is done in the home was suddenly very visible to both husband and children right so suddenly now when the house is a mess it's not there you know guess what guys there is no magic fairy that cleans up the house and gets stuff done like there's a person that makes all of this happen. But the one bit that actually really helped us as a couple, there was an HBR article actually on dual career couples that we found relatively early on. And we actually plowed our way through it as very good professionals. And I think that was it. We came up with a new deal

because we had a blank sheet of paper. And now we do it every few months. And that's been the biggest change where we say, okay, for this quarter, what are our parenting goals, whose careers taking precedence and all of those conversations. We've never ever talked about careers in that way. And I think those things really helped and I think also just you just had to focus there was no time to focus on anything other than work and family and you had to prioritize what you meant by good family time yeah did you really care if they did their math homework or did you care if you played sort of Lego with them or something for their emotional development or like to keep them safe and, you know, make them feel like we were all going to get through it. So I think priorities changed,

visibility changed, felt more equal. The one thing for us is we have two daughters. So the other thing, when I said everything became visible, for me, it was wonderful to see because my husband, I think, was then very conscious that we had fallen into these quite gendered roles at home. So it was a very conscious decision to take groceries and food planning and kitchen stuff. I don't know how else to describe it. In his male, in a very male role, like him doing that. And me, we talked about me talking about work more at home so that the children knew I have big spreadsheets and I deal with numbers and I present to the executive committee of our company and things like that. So we made conscious decisions around

that as well, because we were quite aware that our children were in the house watching us all the time for months. And we were giving them messages without necessarily meaning to or wanting to. So we had to take a little bit more control of the narrative. You know, I have read a lot of those articles. We've talked about them on the show. And yet I know so few people who actually have the conversation that you're talking about, the quarterly conversation where they sit down with their partner and hash out all the tasks and who's going to do what. What about the pandemic made

that more possible for you? Because we weren't optimizing what we currently had. I feel like even with the career, it was always like when things get better, I can step, take a step forward. This was, we have no clue how to deal with the next few months. So who is going to do grocery shopping when you can't do grocery shopping online in five minutes, because the grocery stores have run out of stuff, and someone's going to have to spend three hours in line? Who is in charge of exercise? Who is in charge of laundry? None of how we were used to living applied anymore. But also, it was quite insular. So it had to be just us figuring it out. There was no one else. It was also, like I said, because I was slightly drowning in a new role

before the start of the pandemic. It was also the first time where we had to genuinely have the am I going to quit? Or am I going to continue? Right? I've never been in roles where it's so, so all consuming, where we've had to say, actually, we can't make this work as a dual working family. We've had lots of conversations about what my husband needs to do to be supportive. And I think you say all the right things. But this was sort of where the rubber hit the road. It was like, what are you going to do now to enable me to continue working? Yeah. There were lots of changes that were then made, right? So grocery

shopping got taken off my list, like lots of stuff just got taken off my list and it felt more shared. Yeah. Bridget, I'm thinking about you setting that alarm and like mid-March 2020, what were you setting your alarm for at that point? Yeah, I mean, once the pandemic actually hit, you know, the alarm went away eventually. And so that was a complete life change. It was like, what do I do with all of that time back? And what did you change? Like, how did you make use of that time? Yeah, so I think, you know, I was feeling drained and I was dealing with that commute and I really felt like a hamster on a wheel. You know, that cliche was me.

I wasn't able to kind of pick my head up and think clearly about not just my work and my role in the company, but my value to the company. So I think when we were tasked with all working from home, there were a lot of conversations with my leadership. And I know that was being reported up to higher leadership about productivity. That was the keyword, be productive. How are we measuring productivity? What are you doing? Show us what you're doing all the time, every day. And I had been working that way. I was on that wheel for a long time. I was that hamster. And I think the recaptured time allowed

me to refocus and actually take the priority of productivity away and kind of shift it to value. So what can I do? What can I work on? What projects can I accept that are actually going to be valuable to the company and be valuable to me in my career and make me feel like my time is being used wisely. Because I am at a higher level role, but I think I'm actually kind of in a different boat than Shilpa that I've been at the same company for many, many, many years, my whole career pretty much. So I think I was a little bit comfortable in the wheel too, of just keeping my head down and getting the work done, even though it was, you know, at a crazy pace and not really seeing myself at the elevated role that I climbed to. And I needed to elevate my thinking, you know, thinking about other more valuable

projects, budget optimization, personnel satisfaction, you know, those types of kind of bigger leadership questions. Yeah. 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. 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? Then you should listen to TED Business, hosted by Columbia Business School professor Madhupe Akinnola. The show features TED Talks

about everything from setting smart goals to the latest on DEI in business, followed up with a mini lesson from Madhupe on how to apply these lessons in your own life. Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. You know, it's one thing to have that realization of this is what I'm done with. It's another to actually make the change. When you first had that realization that you were going to change something, what did you think it was going to take? And did you think you had the resources you needed or the time or space to actually make that change? The honest answer is no. It was a, this could break me.

There were definitely moments in 2020 where I'm like, this is too hard. Yeah. But I think it's this is too hard. Yeah. But I think it's that constant re-evaluation. So what will it take to get through this phase, these six weeks or these couple of months where one of us has an earnings report to put out or one of us has a big presentation or whatever it is. I think we did very much view it though

as a series of sprints. Right. We weren't running a marathon. We were just trying to get through this quarter. This was that HBR article I keep coming back to. It was like, let's get through this quarter and then reevaluate. And we might have to change something. And then let's get through the next one.

Right. And then by the time you're done, like it's been a year and you've got a completely new way of working. Yeah. So it wasn't like you had a five-year vision. It was just, how are we going to get through this time period? And everything has to shift to even just get through this time period. Yeah. And at the end of this time period, suddenly we were both having a lot of fun at work. I landed up getting a much bigger role. I allowed myself to actually apply for a much bigger role that I wouldn't have in a million years thought of doing pre-pandemic because I would have done the math about work-life balance and whether it would work

with all the other factors and I said no it's too hard and something about the pandemic gave me the confidence that skills wise I definitely could I had the support of the people I worked with I had the support at home and we would figure it out it was about the 11th or 12th month of the people I worked with, I had the support at home, and we would figure it out. It was about the 11th or 12th month of the pandemic. So it was well into changing how we were operating. Right. But no, we had no, we still have no five year plan. We're still in the let's make it through because it keeps changing. Right. So we're like, we'll make it through this quarter. And then we'll, yeah, we're having fun along the way. That's important. That's really important. Bridget, how about you? Did you know what needed to change or how to change it? Did you feel like you had the resources? It was a bit serendipitous in that our surgeon in chief gave me quite a big budget and there

was a big new project that needed a big market launch. It was a great time for me to justify my mind shift that, okay, this is the type of work I need to be working on and focused on. And with that comes a lot of other things, right? Like trusting your team, not being a helicopter boss, just designating projects and changing the way that I worked so that I'm not really doing a lot of the other projects, but I'm able to pass those on to my team, follow up with them, project monitor, so that I can clear some of my headspace and some of my plate to focus on these bigger initiatives. So I had to delegate. If I wanted to kind of move into this new role, I needed to get really comfortable with saying, okay, here's your assignments for the week, or here's the help

I need with these for the week. So maybe it wasn't delegating the entire project, but it definitely was delegating some of the lower level work that I had moved on from and I needed to move on from. I think that's probably been one of my biggest learnings over the pandemic is how to delegate at home and at work because you can't do everything. There weren't enough hours in the day to do everything. And for someone who's always been quite controlling about like the work product, it took quite something to actually delegate at home and at work simultaneously. But that's the only thing that then allows you to bring it all together to add the value that Bridget was talking about before. It's funny, I feel like I kind of, throughout this, have given myself a promotion in my own mind. That's what I feel like. And there was no extra money or title change or anything.

I hope my boss doesn't listen to this and think, oh, that's all she needs to do is just have some time to think. And she feels like, but I do. I feel like I promoted myself because I kind of kicked my own butt into high gear and shifted my mindset to match my career level. And so with that, things had to change. The pace of our work, the projects that we choose to prioritize, how I communicate to people.

I do feel very comfortable saying that we're a more productive and valuable team now because of the shift in the way that we work, which is great to see because I feel like it's not just a selfish goal, that it wasn't just for me to kind of elevate myself to the next level, but it really has helped bring value to the company. Yeah. I love how you said you gave yourself a promotion. It would be so interesting if we all just gave ourselves promotions. And I wonder if it would mean promotions would follow too, right? If we just started acting like, no, I have a bigger job now.

I got to step up. It resonates so much because I think I did that without calling it that. So I gave myself the promotion. I think you'll end up behaving in a certain way. And I think you also take your team and your organization forward without even meaning to in some ways, because that's now the path you've put yourself on. And actually, I guess for me, a month ago, I got the promotion without necessarily applying for it.

It just to me is it is really interesting because if you give it to yourself and you behave in a certain way, then you deliver that value. Once you deliver the value, you are seen to be delivering the value. And then I think in organizations that hopefully are meritocratic and value their people, then the promotion comes, the title comes, all of the rest comes. Sometimes I think we order it in exactly the reverse way, or maybe that's what I did before the pandemic. But I like this way so much more. Rather than waiting for the promotion, give it to yourself and then it'll come. First of all, congratulations, Shobha. I love that you're buried the lead here around you getting the promotion. Tell us, how did it come to be? Within the organization, there's a group of senior directors, like that's the group of management. And I guess I was one level below

that and I have been. And I just said, I'm going to behave like a director and I am going to go out and do xyz in the way that our directors do in the way that our partners do and no yeah well I am one now it's just one of those things where when they started evaluating who should be in that group which management does regularly my name is now in that group. Right. Well, congratulations. I wouldn't have ever in a million years thought that would happen pre-pandemic. I wouldn't have even wanted it. I think that was the other thing. That for me is the big reset.

It would have been not too scary in the content of it. It would have been too scary for me in what it could have possibly done to the family to have two people with very big jobs. What would that do to the children? What would that do to my husband's career? What would that do to the state of the house? So I don't think I've ever doubted that I had the potential to do that. And maybe that for me is the great reset. I wouldn't have doubted I had the potential, but I would have never allowed myself to dream of it or go for it because I didn't think it was really possible without something else breaking. And everything that could break is quite precious, right? It's your children.

It's your family. It's all the people you love. And you think that you're the glue holding that unit together. And it turns out I'm not. We're all quite self-sufficient and together we can actually make this work so far. Right. You know, listening to you both, my takeaway is that this sort of shift requires a lot of work. It's not something that comes easy, but being able to say you're a productive and more valuable team seems like a great payoff. Shobha, what for you has been the

payoff of all this work you've put into rethinking and reshaping the way you approach your work? Oh, I'm just so much happier. There's just a level of happiness and fulfillment. Fulfillment is probably the better word. It's hard to describe, but once you feel it, it's going to be very hard to let go of. I'm definitely more productive at work. I think I add a lot more value. In some ways, that's the very obvious stuff. I'm definitely more productive at work. I think I add a lot more value.

In some ways, that's the very obvious stuff. But I think that what is not so obvious is that level of satisfaction that this was what I wanted, that I was so afraid to give myself. And it feels as good as I thought it would feel. You know, it is really wonderful to actually, and this sounds awful, but to actually say to my husband, I totally messed up. I put the, you know, the doctor's appointment in for the Monday and I have a big meeting. Can you take that one? And the answer is, yeah, sure. I'll move stuff around and I'll get that one. And my husband's now actually in his company on their diversity and inclusion

committee, which I'm not sure, I just don't know if you would have ever been on it before, but he's now become such an advocate for women at work. My children are so much more independent, but these are only things that are visible to me and they give me great joy on a daily basis. So for me, all of those sleepless nights through the pandemic and all the pain of it and all the what were difficult conversations for me, because I think I was definitely a segmenter. I've always separated work and life in that sense. And I've really had to integrate all of it in the pandemic, like allowing people to see my children or having those difficult conversations. But with that, I think has also come freedom.

It feels lighter. Conversations feel more honest and open. I feel more like me at work and I feel more like me at home. Yeah, I love that. 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 womenatwork. That's netsuite.com slash womenatwork. I also, Bridget and Chopra, want to ask about the phases of this transition. Herminia Barr talks in her article about three phases, the separation, where we're separated from our current routines or our current way of working, this liminality, this sort of in-between stage where we're not doing what we used to do, but we haven't actually fully embraced this new identity. And then the third piece, which is the integration, where we actually take these ideas about who we can be or how we do want to live our life or pursue our career and make them actionable,

make them part of what we do. In those three phases, where would you say you are now? And what's for you the sort of next frontier of living into this new pace of life? So I think I'm definitely, I suspect at the reintegration phase is that, yeah, but haven't quite worked out how we're going to make it permanent. Yeah. What are your thoughts on how you're going to do that? Some of the things that worked in the pandemic, I think I'm going to try and continue. So the open conversations, the asking for the help that I need, I don't think that was something I've ever done before, professionally or personally. So at home now, I can say like, there's a really big presentation and I just need a week where I don't have to think about anything else.

Can you pick up the slack for me? And the answer is lovely because it's always a yes. And it's just having that conversation, which we've been married 17 years. It is sad that it took a pandemic to get to this point. But even at work,

they're all actually male partners who in that sense don't have that much child caring responsibilities but actually saying this is the week i need to help because my husband has an earnings report or whatever it is coming out i need to have the flexibility to do some affair or whatever it is and being confident enough to say it because they know actually I will deliver and I'm an integral part of the team. That has got me through the pandemic and helped hugely. And I think that's a habit I would like to continue. Open, honest conversations, which I think are actually more me anyway. I just never brought that to work earlier.

Right. So it's not just with your husband, but with the people you work with and work for. Yeah. Yeah. Bridget, how about you? Where do you see yourself in these three phases? And how are you thinking about making things stick? I think I'm squarely in the actionable phase. And so something I've seen work really well for me is open communication, upwards and downwards. I've learned this from having previous wonderful bosses and leaderships, that they would always keep me in the loop and things were transparent. And even if it wasn't a project that I was working on or anything that I would be near touching in my earlier days in my career, they still kept me in the loop.

And I've always appreciated that because it teaches you so much about leadership mindset and what your boss is working on. So I try to do that with my team. These are the projects I'm working on. Tell me what you're working on. It keeps our roles defined instead of me going back to that pace of like, okay, I'll help you with that project or let's work on this in tandem to just get it out the door. So being mindful of how I'm communicating this new role that I've put myself in or this new way I think about my role is one way I'm trying to keep on track. And what if the commute comes back? How are you going to survive that? That's an interesting question. Luckily, I do think my work will be flexible, but I haven't allowed myself to really think a ton about that because I feel like we're

working so well in this space. So I probably should think about it, but God forbid they do ask me to come back five days a week. I might need to reassess where I'm at and kind of take the skills that I've learned and maybe use them elsewhere, but we'll see. But it's interesting, just off on a separate little tangent, when we're thinking about the commute, Shilpa said something great about your daughter seeing you giving these huge presentations to executives. And mommy has work timelines and deliverables that you're responsible for. And I'm actually expecting my first baby in a few months. And so that's one of my parenting goals that I've written down. We know she's a girl. And so I want her to see mommy in the business suit, in the power suit, trekking into the city and giving that presentation and then, you know,

cheersing it at the end of the night because what they see is so important to how they're shaped. So if the commute comes back, you know, it does get me into the city a few times a week too. So I would love that. So it wouldn't be all bad. A little bit of a break, but four hours is a long time. And one of the things about making these changes stick is thinking about when we have new stressors or we have the return of the old stressors, how do we keep our head above water and keep our eye on the prize about what we want to achieve? That's a great question. It's a question for all of us, I think. I was just going to ask Bridget a question. I don't know if that's a great question it's a question for all of us I think I was just gonna ask Bridget a question I don't know if that's yes please so I guess now everything that you know and with a

little one on the way like if you did have to commute or if you chose to commute a couple of days a week how would you use your commute differently or would you use it differently now? Yeah, that's a good question, which I actually have been trying to think about. And my instinct is always to go, well, I would get a jumpstart on my day and I would use those two hours to work. But I remember saying that two years ago or whatever it was, and it's just not feasible because there's transfers and I'm on a train and then a subway and then a bus. So that answer is out. So I have to keep reminding myself of that, that even though that's aspirational, it's not functional. I don't have an answer for how I would use those two hours, but I have an answer for how I would better use time. So we were talking about family meal

planning or delegating family tasks in the house to others. I think I would need to do a better job of that so that I can make the most of the time when I am at home. Then I don't feel so resentful about losing those hours during the week to the commute. So I think I would find ways for me not to be resentful of that time because I can't work. I can use it for listening to podcasts or reading books or getting some of my personal time back, which would be a goal as well. Yeah. You know, there's one way you can listen to this conversation and think about this has been an opportunity for the two of you to step up, to do more, to be more ambitious. But in a way, both of your stories are about reprioritizing. So not necessarily being busier or be more ambitious, but just to use your

word, she'll be more fulfilled and happier with the way that you're working. And I have to say, I'm so grateful to both of you for sharing your story because my selfish hope that this would feel inspiring to me personally has come true. I'm feeling a little like Chopra and Bridget Brasher to rethink how I'm doing things here because there's a better way and you can find it. So thank you both for being so candid and for sharing your stories. Thank you for having us. Yes, it's been great. Thank you. Amy, so I loved your interview with Shilpa and Bridget, but the idea of resetting, which is something that I totally want to do, got me thinking about the fact that we're going back to the office really soon.

And if I do reset, if I do come up with new habits and new boundaries, how am I actually going to be able to enforce those things for myself once we're playing by the same old rules that we once were? Yeah. We're basically going pre the separation phase, right? Back to all our old triggers and old habits. And I think the expectations of the people around us. Exactly. And I think that's the part that keeps me out of that second phase of starting to experiment is like all those difficult conversations. Yeah.

I'm worried that everything's going to fall apart once we're back to that pre-separation phase like you were saying. Don't you think that because we've all gone through this, if not together, at least simultaneously, that we're all sort of thinking about the same thing. So setting the rules for yourself, articulating them, and sticking to them, I think get a little bit easier because others want to do it too. So for example, one of the things I had to learn to do during the pandemic was to set a really clear boundary between work and home life. And for me, it was about shutting the door to the third bedroom of the house, which was my office, but also shutting

off the sound on my computer so I wouldn't hear the ding of email landing. And also, I stopped doing everything when I walked out of the office. Right. When I was not in my office at home, I was not working, and I really stuck to it. Yeah. And I'm going to, I am definitely going to carry that over. Yeah. I hope. Can we hold you to that?

Well, I hope you will hold me to it. But I also think that when one of us does it, it gives permission for others of us to do it. Yeah. But like you, Emily, I'm scared now that we're getting back into the office. You know, we're starting this season. I'm starting to do some in-person speaking stuff. I'm like, oh, am I just headed right back there? And how do I guard against that?

Especially when you haven't reached the reintegration or integration phase. Yes. I'm right there with you where I'm like, I haven't integrated anything new yet. And we're going to go back. This together can be helpful in helping us be accountable to our needs as we integrate. I mean, it's a physical reintegration coming into the office a couple of days a week and making sure that, you know, for me, it's like, am I going to start getting in earlier and earlier and leaving later and later and then finishing up what I wasn't able

to finish by seven o'clock at home after dinner? Because that kind of Yes. Yeah, no, I am not doing that. Yeah. One of the things that really hit me about Shilpa and Bridget was their equanimity, the calm, the sense that, you know, they've been through it, they've been thoughtful about their lives, they've made changes that they didn't even realize they needed, but they so needed. And they've come out the other side with a tremendous amount of, I think, satisfaction.

Right? There's a contentment that I heard, particularly in Shilpa's voice. Completely. Right? But she's taken on more. Bridget gave herself a promotion. Shilpa was promoted. Yes.

They both elevated their careers. And it wasn't about elevating their careers at the expense of their lives, which I really loved. I think lots of times we'd hesitate because, oh, that's going to hurt my work-life balance. That's going to mean these tough conversations at home. That's going to mean less time with my children. But they figured out how to do it so it didn't have those negative impacts. And you really heard it in Bridget's conversation and her thinking around that two-hour commute. I mean, what a nightmare. And she said that you asked her, if your employer demands that you come back to the office, how are you going to feel about that? And she thought for a moment and said,

you know, I might need to think about whether I really want to go back. And, you know, good for her. Good for her. And I think lots of women are considering that, right? If I'm not able to sustain these changes that I've made, this lifestyle that I've gotten used to, that I enjoy, that has all these upsides for me, just may not be the right job for me.

Right. I think our sense of what we have to endure to get what we want has shifted pretty dramatically. Yeah. That's a great way to put it. That's our show. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Amy Gallo. And I'm Emily Caulfield.

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