Latest / All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting / 117. Meet your needs as a working parent without burning out - Lieke ten Brummelhuis

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117. Meet your needs as a working parent without burning out - Lieke ten Brummelhuis · All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the All Figured Out podcast.
• 0:02
  My name is Andrea Barr. I am your host.
• 0:04
  Thank you so much for joining me again this week.
• 0:07
  Today we're talking about, you probably guessed it from the
• 0:11
  title, work family and the myth that we can and should do it
• 0:16
  all. My amazing guest Mika is a
• 0:18
  professor of management at Simon Fraser University here in
• 0:21
  Vancouver where she researches employee well-being so very
• 0:26
  topical, especially for this audience.
• 0:28
  She's also the author of Work Life Strategy, which is a book
• 0:31
  that shows you how to find happiness while juggling
• 0:35
  multiple roles, which is something I know that all of you
• 0:38
  are doing. And she also regularly
• 0:40
  contributes to Forbes. And her research has also been
• 0:43
  featured in places like Yamit Nella of Harvard Business
• 0:47
  Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The Globe and Mail.
• 0:51
  In this particular episode, we talk about why she believes
• 0:55
  balance framed as time management keeps us stuck in how
• 0:58
  shifting the question to what actually makes you happy.
• 1:01
  So things like autonomy, competence, belonging, why that
• 1:06
  changes everything and how we explore recovering from
• 1:11
  workaholism when you become a parent, how the power of just
• 1:15
  finishing tiny projects like making banana bread can be
• 1:18
  actually really good for you. How we help at work and at home
• 1:22
  and what that can do. So like that helping mentality,
• 1:25
  that feeling of being a helper, quote UN quote, especially for
• 1:27
  moms and what that can do to you and just simple ways to
• 1:30
  communicate with your partner without letting resentment pile
• 1:33
  up. We had a really good discussion
• 1:35
  on that one. So if you've ever looked at your
• 1:36
  calendar and thought to what end, you know, like, is this
• 1:40
  actually making me happy? Am I happy?
• 1:43
  This conversation is really going to help you Just redraw
• 1:47
  the map. So without further ado, let's
• 1:49
  get into it. I bring you Leica, Leica 10
• 1:54
  Brummell House. Thank you so much for joining me
• 1:57
  on the All Figured Out podcast. Thank you for having me, I'm so
• 2:00
  excited to be here. As always, I just find people's
• 2:03
  names so fascinating, Dale Carnegie says.
• 2:05
  You know, the sweetest sound in the in the person's language is
• 2:09
  the sound of their own name. And when I was asking to how to
• 2:11
  pronounce your last name, you said it means the BlackBerry
• 2:14
  house, the House of blackberries.
• 2:16
  I'm the BlackBerry house like it's old fashioned Dutch.
• 2:18
  But yes, that's what it what it means.
• 2:20
  So can you? Can you actually say the
• 2:22
  pronunciation of your name like properly?
• 2:24
  Inducted 10 Hummel has yeah. You don't have that sound in
• 2:29
  English so I typically just tell people just make it house at the
• 2:32
  end and it's fine. I love that What does the what
• 2:35
  does 10? 10 is from the.
• 2:38
  OK, OK, OK. Yeah, cool.
• 2:41
  We learned something new every day.
• 2:42
  Beautiful. Thank you so much for coming on
• 2:45
  again. I can't wait to have this
• 2:47
  conversation with you. We were put in touch by mutual
• 2:49
  friend. And gosh, I love when people
• 2:52
  just seem to get it. You know, they put you in touch
• 2:55
  with somebody and they're like, he really should have this
• 2:57
  person on the podcast. And I've now just succumbed to
• 3:00
  the fact that like my network just seems to have the best
• 3:03
  recommendations. When we chatted in a little pre
• 3:06
  call, I was like, oh, this could not be more related the work
• 3:10
  that we do. So take me back.
• 3:12
  Lika, did you grow up knowing that you would write a book one
• 3:15
  day called Work Life Strategy? Were you 4 years old?
• 3:19
  Not at all. So I actually you're going to
• 3:22
  laugh at this answer, but I actually always have wanted to
• 3:25
  write a book when I was younger. So let's say this is 810 years
• 3:30
  old. I was already, like, writing
• 3:33
  short stories, but these were all, like, fictional, right?
• 3:37
  I had never expected to write a book that is about work life
• 3:42
  balance, that. That's for sure.
• 3:44
  But writing, per se, yeah. I love writing, always have
• 3:47
  love. Writing And what were those
• 3:48
  stories about? You going to have to take me
• 3:51
  back to Lakes 5th grade or something.
• 3:55
  Um, I would write them together with my best girlfriends.
• 3:58
  Um, I don't know, they were about adventures that Jasper
• 4:03
  would go on and and like I had these names that I really love,
• 4:07
  George and Jasper, and they would go on all these adventures
• 4:09
  together. So yeah, I wrote about camping.
• 4:12
  I wrote about what I'm doing, my life.
• 4:14
  Yeah. So these were like children
• 4:15
  topics. Right.
• 4:16
  And did you name your children just?
• 4:20
  No. No.
• 4:23
  No, like I think I've forgotten a bit little bit about that.
• 4:25
  But they're also not very English names, not necessarily.
• 4:28
  OK, so. Yeah.
• 4:30
  OK, so how on earth did you get into the work that you were
• 4:34
  doing? You are a professor or you work
• 4:37
  at Simon Fraser University. You wrote a book called Work
• 4:40
  Life Strategy. We're going to talk about why
• 4:43
  you believe you can't have it all.
• 4:45
  Like how on earth did you get into this super niche?
• 4:48
  Really cool, you know, niche for lack of a better.
• 4:52
  Word Yeah. So it was kind of a coincidence.
• 4:55
  I graduated when I was really relatively young.
• 4:59
  I think I was like 23 at a time. And I wanted to take a gap year
• 5:04
  after my studies. Usually people do that border
• 5:06
  studies and study Italian in Italy.
• 5:11
  And then I ran into a couple of teas.
• 5:13
  I was also teaching at the time and they had they were applying
• 5:18
  for PhD positions and they were like, this is a great fit for
• 5:22
  you. And so in the Netherlands, it
• 5:24
  worked at the time was that there was a theme or a topic
• 5:26
  ready and you would apply for it and then you would go be put on
• 5:29
  that research. So that's kind of what happened
• 5:31
  for me. I was hired for research on how
• 5:35
  family lies effects how you form at work or any work outcomes.
• 5:40
  So that's how I got into it. It wasn't necessarily my own
• 5:43
  decision, but when I read the proposals, I'm like, yeah, hey,
• 5:46
  this is cool. I really interested in that.
• 5:49
  And that's how I continued to be involved in research related to
• 5:54
  how work and family interact. I expanded that a little bit by
• 5:58
  doing research on stress and workaholism, but I've always
• 6:02
  really stayed close to how people juggle their roles and
• 6:06
  how they can find happiness and how they are happy at work.
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  That's like a common thread throughout my research for sure.
• 6:13
  That's so cool. And there's really something to
• 6:15
  be said about about getting to react to something.
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  I often say to people who I'm coaching, if they're like, oh, I
• 6:21
  don't know what to do next. And instead of trying to just
• 6:23
  come up with the idea, you put a bunch of ideas in front of
• 6:26
  Google it as chatty butt like do a personality assessment and not
• 6:30
  for the purpose of it telling you your direction in life, but
• 6:32
  so that you can have a reaction to it.
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  Like you were reading a bunch of proposals and you're like, oh,
• 6:36
  there's something about your intuition or whatever it is.
• 6:38
  You're like, oh, that's interesting.
• 6:40
  That's cool. I'm going to follow this little
• 6:41
  thread and here you are. Yeah, no, absolutely.
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  And The funny thing at the time was that I was, well, I was
• 6:47
  young, right? I was 2223 when I started this.
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  I didn't have a partner at the time.
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  I didn't have children. So the professors I was working
• 6:56
  with were dual women who had children and they were almost
• 7:00
  telling me like, Oh, it's great to have you on board because we
• 7:03
  need like this neutral perspective so that we're not
• 7:05
  too biased. And then now I am basically
• 7:09
  where they were at at the time. I have a family, I have
• 7:12
  children. So sometimes I don't have a
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  completely different perspective.
• 7:16
  Oh, this is how it works if you have children.
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  And I, I love trying to be as objectively as possible And, and
• 7:23
  I, but I had the same time, really enjoy like gaining more
• 7:27
  insights because you're going through certain lyases as well
• 7:30
  and becoming apparent is one of those.
• 7:33
  I have to ask in that initial research that you were doing on
• 7:36
  how does your work, no, what was it?
• 7:39
  How does your family life affect your work?
• 7:41
  What were some of the biggest takeaways or findings that you
• 7:43
  that came out of that research? Yeah.
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  So this is where the objectivity and being neutral comes in,
• 7:50
  because the biggest finding was that people with children under
• 7:53
  six years old weren't helping as much as were, which is very
• 7:57
  understandable because they were just so like thin stressed so
• 8:02
  thinly that they they had to be at home, but they couldn't step
• 8:05
  it up and and work as well. But my advisors at the time were
• 8:09
  like, we can't publish this. This is going to basically say
• 8:12
  that people have kids are not super helpful at work and life.
• 8:15
  Well, no, it just means that we need to provide those people
• 8:18
  with more support, right? Like this is a signal, This is a
• 8:20
  clear message that they can do it all.
• 8:23
  And so I think that's where it already started that I started
• 8:28
  realizing, like, we want so much.
• 8:30
  If you have a family and you and you have an interesting job, we
• 8:33
  want it all. But the reality is that
• 8:35
  oftentimes something's gotta give.
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  And it started at a very early in my career that I started to
• 8:41
  realize that. How did that impact then when
• 8:43
  you became apparent, was it did you have where you going into it
• 8:48
  jaded with fear being like I know too much like the doctors
• 8:51
  going in and becoming parents or what was your mindset going into
• 8:54
  parenthood? Well, I probably know I'm one of
• 8:57
  those people. They say that doctors shouldn't
• 9:00
  treat their own children because they they just ignore what's
• 9:03
  happening. I think that's what happened.
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  Me too. I was, I was a single mom when I
• 9:07
  first became a mom and I was a workaholic.
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  So no, I, I did not have a good balance and I regret a lot of
• 9:15
  these things that happen at the same time.
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  That's just how it was at the moment.
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  At that moment, no, I went in not connecting the dots between
• 9:27
  what I knew and my research and what I was doing in my life.
• 9:30
  But that has definitely changed now currently I am within a
• 9:36
  spouse and we have together we have three children, so we have
• 9:40
  a mother and combined family. And I, I think ironically, like
• 9:44
  being together with my spouse also used to be a work politic.
• 9:47
  And he's kind of, he was already recovered when we met.
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  I started to realize, OK, there is more than working every
• 9:55
  holiday than working every leg. There was this study day coming
• 9:59
  up for for school and I was already like paranoid where am I
• 10:02
  going to find a sitter because I have to work.
• 10:05
  And now, unfortunately, like recovered from that feeling that
• 10:09
  I always have to work. How we've got it, I've got to
• 10:12
  ask that question because this is a podcast, as you know, like
• 10:15
  a this is a podcast of working professionals are have been,
• 10:21
  were high performers really take pride in their craft, have
• 10:24
  always been probably academically inclined or just
• 10:27
  really good at what they do. I'm looking at somebody who I
• 10:30
  know is the same and they have the home parents and they are
• 10:33
  trying to find who they are. Now, you know, they've always
• 10:36
  been praised for great work ethic and working hard in all of
• 10:40
  this. How does one recover?
• 10:43
  How does one recognize and then how does one recover from this?
• 10:45
  Yeah, that's a really good question.
• 10:47
  And I think that is what led me to write the book because I at
• 10:51
  some point started to struggle and I couldn't do it all.
• 10:54
  And I started to struggle with, for instance, when I, when we
• 10:59
  had our daughter, like she has had asthma, she kind of grew out
• 11:04
  of that, but she was homesick a lot.
• 11:07
  And we made the decision as exempt as a, as a couple, like
• 11:12
  we're gonna just take care of her with two of us.
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  We split the day and half and we each take half that we're with
• 11:18
  her. Obviously you can make other
• 11:21
  decisions that are fine too, but we we made that decision to to
• 11:24
  do that. Together.
• 11:25
  She was sick, you mean. When she was sick, yes, sorry.
• 11:29
  And then so she would be home from daycare because she was
• 11:32
  coughing and couldn't go. I was going on these walks with
• 11:36
  her in the rain, even like she loved walking and I was so
• 11:39
  grumpy and I was going on these walks thinking like, I could
• 11:42
  have done this at work and I'm falling behind and I'm nowhere
• 11:45
  near where I was a couple of years ago and like publishing
• 11:49
  and I need to like, I'm a go getter too, right?
• 11:52
  Like like buddy. And so I was like, I need to be
• 11:54
  there. I need to work more.
• 11:56
  And then suddenly it just dawned on me like, no, this is this is
• 12:00
  where I need to be right now. Like this silly questions that
• 12:03
  she would ask or like berries that she wanted to pick and she
• 12:08
  needed my help with and just realizing like what am I doing?
• 12:11
  Like all this work can wait and she needs me now she is only one
• 12:15
  years old or two years old ones in her life and I just need to
• 12:19
  do this well. So I, I think that realization
• 12:24
  of there's more in life than just work was really important
• 12:27
  for me. And also there is more in life
• 12:30
  that you feel you can be good at than just work.
• 12:33
  And, and I think that's the piece where that I really used
• 12:36
  in my book. What domains do you have that
• 12:39
  can make you feel like a competent person?
• 12:42
  And it doesn't always have to be work.
• 12:44
  And I think it's actually safer if you have different domains
• 12:48
  where you can feel good at so that they buffer each other.
• 12:52
  It depends a lot on what your work look like for, but for me
• 12:55
  personally, I sometimes am really stuck in my work that it
• 13:00
  can take months, years even before I publish something.
• 13:04
  And so you just don't get that affirmation that you're on the
• 13:07
  right track. So then it's really nice if you
• 13:10
  have other life domains that give you a little bit of a
• 13:13
  boost, like, OK, but you're a really good mom today, or you
• 13:17
  went for a run and that felt really good, right?
• 13:19
  Just to have those buffer assets to feel good in life and not
• 13:22
  have that relies solely on your work domain.
• 13:25
  What a great example or examples of really and that story of your
• 13:29
  daughter and Berry picking and just being present in that
• 13:32
  moment. That's so visceral.
• 13:33
  And we've so many of us have felt that moment and it's and we
• 13:37
  know it, but then we don't create that action around it.
• 13:41
  And you create this dissonance. But I love also what you were
• 13:44
  saying about how you you have to temper everything.
• 13:47
  There has to be buffers. And I'm even when it came to
• 13:49
  mind for me was I love, you know, creative outlets, having
• 13:53
  some sort of creative outlet. My mom would always say, you
• 13:55
  know, you're in your mind, like go like do a craft or go do
• 13:58
  something with your hands or whatever.
• 13:59
  And I realized, and I only realized in this conversation in
• 14:04
  the last one minute, that for me in this phase of parenthood and
• 14:07
  life, I have to do you say, say something with my hands, a, a
• 14:12
  craft or make something in the kitchen or something.
• 14:14
  But it has to be something that I can start and complete in one
• 14:19
  sitting because it's the, the hanging projects.
• 14:22
  There's too many hanging projects in my life.
• 14:24
  I have a business, I have a podcast, I have children like
• 14:26
  they're never complete. And so I need something that I
• 14:29
  can complete. So thank you for that because I
• 14:31
  never actually realized that that's something that I just do
• 14:35
  intuitively, but didn't really understand why.
• 14:38
  But it's because there's so many, you know, pieces of life,
• 14:41
  unfinished business, and I just need to buffer that.
• 14:45
  I think the other aspect to that, because I really can
• 14:48
  relate to that, honestly, if I'm baking banana bread, it means
• 14:52
  that I'm really stressed and I just need something that I have
• 14:54
  control over, right? So I really recognize what
• 14:57
  you're saying there. So I think the control part in
• 15:00
  it is really important too. So that's another thing that
• 15:05
  you've read in my book as well where and basically explaining
• 15:09
  that to feel happy, you need to feel that you are good at stuff.
• 15:13
  So you have that competence component, but also that you're
• 15:16
  in control over the things that you do.
• 15:19
  And I feel like a lot of parents who are juggling all these roles
• 15:22
  just feel completely out of control because there's so much
• 15:26
  that's coming their way and that's happening and that needs
• 15:28
  to be done. So to have that single
• 15:32
  manageable task that feels good that you complete it, but it
• 15:36
  also means that you have control over that these, which is so
• 15:40
  important. And so that's a healthy from
• 15:42
  your perspective and the research that is a healthy thing
• 15:45
  to do. That's not just I know there's
• 15:48
  other work that needs to be done, you know, maybe talk to
• 15:49
  your therapist or reflect and there's other stuff there.
• 15:52
  But as an output and that's a tactic, it seems healthy.
• 15:55
  But is that is this a good mechanism to kind of use?
• 16:00
  I do think it is a good mechanism for for a couple of
• 16:03
  reasons. Like it's also a way that you
• 16:06
  create me time. I think I'm guessing that a lot
• 16:10
  of moms are listening in and especially moms.
• 16:14
  Like I hate to pull the gender cart here, but it's just a
• 16:17
  reality that a lot of moms kind of forget about themselves and
• 16:20
  just say like all take this on as well.
• 16:22
  As long as the family is happy, as long as these people are
• 16:25
  happy. But like, on average, if I can
• 16:28
  make just an overgeneralization, women are more likely to be
• 16:31
  pleasers than men are. And so I think especially for
• 16:35
  women, it's so important to create that space for yourself.
• 16:39
  Like, I want to do this now. Even if it's like banana bread,
• 16:42
  cookies can be something completely different.
• 16:44
  But this is what I want to do right now.
• 16:47
  And I'm going to control that space.
• 16:49
  And I'm not doing it with anyone else.
• 16:50
  This is just my time. That's.
• 16:53
  Incredibly important. It's not an activity to be like,
• 16:56
  OK, you can mix in the chocolate, wait, wait, wait, no,
• 16:58
  not go. And then they put the whole bag
• 17:00
  in every time. Oh, that's so cool.
• 17:03
  Oh my gosh. Like, I need, I need to rid
• 17:05
  myself. I have to often rain myself in.
• 17:07
  But there's 10 million questions I could ask you.
• 17:10
  I have to ask you though, in your research have you come
• 17:14
  across differences based on gender or identified gender?
• 17:20
  So this is kind of going to be my next project because so far
• 17:23
  I've tried to stay clear of it, but then you can't have, kind of
• 17:27
  cannot avoid it because it's there and it's such a big topic.
• 17:31
  So a shorter answer to your question is yes, I have seen and
• 17:36
  have published on gender differences, a project of
• 17:40
  helping behavior. I, I basically studied, I
• 17:43
  followed people for a week and had them fill in daily
• 17:48
  questionnaire. So let's say 3 times, say you
• 17:50
  briefly fill in like how you're feeling, how much you're helping
• 17:54
  others, how much help you're receiving from others.
• 17:57
  OI did this with people who have a job and will have a family
• 18:02
  life. And I systematically found that
• 18:05
  women take on more of the helping like they, they help
• 18:10
  more at work and they help more at home.
• 18:13
  But was what was really interesting is they pass on
• 18:16
  whatever resources they have. So what I mean by that is let's
• 18:21
  say a female employee received a lot of support in the morning
• 18:25
  from her husband, then they will actually at work be more
• 18:28
  generous as well and help Co workers out and vice versa.
• 18:32
  That was true as well. Like if they had a really good
• 18:35
  day at work, they came home and they would be more available for
• 18:38
  others. And the irony of it is that
• 18:41
  husbands didn't necessarily do that as much.
• 18:44
  And on top of that is man had very demanding days.
• 18:49
  They would completely withdraw and not provide support.
• 18:52
  And women didn't do that. So basically the women were
• 18:56
  always trying to help and definitely help if they had the
• 18:59
  resources to do it. That is so interesting.
• 19:04
  Yeah. I can't believe I can't imagine
• 19:06
  what your your day and your career has looked like and all
• 19:09
  those testers 1 nugget. But like all these little
• 19:11
  Nuggets that you've probably learned.
• 19:13
  I just that is so that is so cool.
• 19:16
  Now I know that you believe you've told me this, that you
• 19:20
  can't have it all, especially in the context of being a working
• 19:23
  parent. We have 85% listeners who are
• 19:26
  identifying as female. We have a beautiful 15%
• 19:31
  population in this podcast who are who identify as male agent.
• 19:35
  But why? Why do you believe that?
• 19:37
  Why do you believe that we can't have it all?
• 19:39
  I think that there's always going to be a compromise to be
• 19:44
  made. I I think that if you just
• 19:47
  logically look at how in the time of madman like 40s to 50s,
• 19:54
  how life was run was very efficient, very specialized,
• 19:58
  where two people each specialize in a task they're really good
• 20:01
  at. That is again, like I overuse
• 20:06
  the word efficient here, but that's kind of what it means.
• 20:08
  Like you become really good at your task and you can do it
• 20:10
  quickly. I'm not going to say that that
• 20:13
  was ideal at all because it was very boring as well.
• 20:16
  And husband and wife just didn't understand each other often and
• 20:19
  wife just I know they floated away from each other.
• 20:23
  Now Fast forward to what we now have people like husband does
• 20:28
  both taking care of the children and working wife does both
• 20:32
  right? That's less efficient.
• 20:35
  And it also means that you can't do it all in the central like
• 20:39
  you can't be perfect in your work if you also have to do task
• 20:43
  at home. You can't be a perfect parent if
• 20:46
  you also need to attend certain meetings at work.
• 20:50
  And if you eat again, look back ads then madmen years.
• 20:54
  Those people couldn't do that either.
• 20:55
  They were only perfect in one role.
• 20:57
  So why do we expect of each other now that now we've taken
• 21:01
  all all these other roles that we need to be perfect in all of
• 21:04
  it? And so it's partially a time
• 21:08
  question and partially just like an efficiency, like how do you
• 21:13
  spend your time and how good can you realistically become at
• 21:16
  things, right? So what is that threshold?
• 21:20
  If you were to say, You know, people love throwing around like
• 21:22
  Pareto's Principle 8020 and they use that for everything, Is
• 21:27
  there a number? Is there a magic number where
• 21:29
  it's like you can operate at like 60 percent, 80%, and that
• 21:37
  could still, in the eyes of others, be perceived as
• 21:40
  excellent? No.
• 21:42
  So I actually think that we've been asking ourselves the wrong
• 21:45
  question with work life balance. Like if we're thinking about
• 21:49
  doing it all on work life balance, the focus is always on
• 21:52
  time management. Like if I want to be at my son's
• 21:56
  recital, I can't take this meat and work like it's always been
• 22:01
  around conflicting time demands and that we can't be everywhere
• 22:05
  at the same time. Very binary.
• 22:08
  Yeah. So I think work life balance is
• 22:10
  really gotten their bad reputation because that focus on
• 22:14
  time and and wanting to do everything.
• 22:16
  And I think we need to take a step back and think about what
• 22:20
  do we really need to become hay instead of what do we need to do
• 22:24
  to do it all? Because why would you want to do
• 22:26
  it all? Like maybe that's not even
• 22:28
  necessary. And I really would like to
• 22:31
  reshift, to focus to happiness instead of balance.
• 22:35
  Like what do I need in my life to feel fulfilled or to feel
• 22:40
  happy or feel that I am doing enough?
• 22:43
  And so the key to that is can be found in psychology theories on
• 22:49
  the needs that human beings have.
• 22:51
  And I touched on those briefly. I think one important one I
• 22:54
  missed so far. So human beings to be happy,
• 22:57
  they need to feel that they are in control over their lives,
• 23:01
  over their activities, over their behavior.
• 23:04
  They need to feel at least good at something that you have a
• 23:07
  feeling of competence and that you you matter.
• 23:10
  And they need to be connected. And that is such an important
• 23:13
  one that that we haven't touched on yet.
• 23:15
  Like that interconnection of inter human connection and
• 23:19
  sealing part of a group and feeling loved is incredibly
• 23:23
  important as well. So I think instead of.
• 23:26
  I think instead of, um, talking about balance and doing
• 23:30
  everything, you could use your role strategically to think
• 23:34
  about, OK, where do I find our competence in my life?
• 23:38
  Where do I find that relatedness and an interconnecting scene
• 23:42
  stealing part of a group in my life?
• 23:44
  And where do I feel control if that would help people much more
• 23:47
  than wanting to do it all? Like why would that even be a
• 23:50
  goal of ours? Yeah, for to what end?
• 23:53
  Like to what end? This is getting really
• 23:55
  existential. Really to what end is at the end
• 23:58
  of your life. OK, I did it all.
• 24:00
  But like, were you happy? There's a podcast is an
• 24:04
  Australian podcast, but I don't think it's running anymore.
• 24:08
  And the title of the podcast is but are you happy?
• 24:11
  And they would interview super successful people, celebrities
• 24:15
  and the question and the thesis was, but are you happy?
• 24:18
  And I think that's so that's so interesting.
• 24:21
  And so I love that you've brought you've pivoted from time
• 24:24
  management and like this binary zeros and ones to be like, OK,
• 24:27
  well, if I take the call, I can't do this to OK, let's step.
• 24:32
  It sounds like you're stepping back.
• 24:33
  Yeah. And you're saying across the
• 24:35
  board, where am I fulfilling these buckets?
• 24:37
  Because, and I talked about this a lot on the podcast with
• 24:40
  guests, like, do you have to fulfill all of the needs that
• 24:44
  you have in your life through your work?
• 24:46
  I don't think so. I don't believe that to be true.
• 24:50
  Just like I had someone on the podcast who was sharing that she
• 24:52
  doesn't believe that her partner should fulfill every role and be
• 24:56
  every person in her. She's like, no, I need to have
• 24:59
  girlfriends. I have my parents.
• 25:00
  I have this, you know, I have, I always talk about I have three
• 25:03
  sisters. I go to each sister for a
• 25:05
  different thing. Yeah, 100%.
• 25:07
  Like they can't. Nobody and no thing and no job
• 25:10
  can be everything. And So what do you believe is
• 25:17
  what is that first step for that person who is so stuck?
• 25:22
  I'm raising my hand and you still do this.
• 25:25
  And I'm a career coach for parents.
• 25:29
  Ah, you know, what is that first step to be to like recover from
• 25:32
  this obsession with time? This this.
• 25:37
  Yeah, I don't really. What moment?
• 25:39
  Time. Yeah.
• 25:39
  I don't know what moment is needed because I was very much
• 25:42
  always focused on time and getting things done.
• 25:45
  And I think it's almost. So I gave that example earlier
• 25:49
  on if my daughter who was just walking around and stopping at
• 25:53
  every flower and picking berries.
• 25:55
  I mean, for me, that moment worked, but it might not for
• 25:58
  someone else. It was just like this aha moment
• 26:01
  is the light bulb going on. Like, OK, what really matters?
• 26:04
  I can do all these projects at work.
• 26:06
  I can be the best in my field. I can be reading all these
• 26:12
  awards, but I love that. Are you happy?
• 26:15
  Question like is that what you want?
• 26:17
  Like, And I think these are reminders that deep down people
• 26:20
  already know, right? We always hear these advise of
• 26:23
  like at the end of your career, the only people that remember
• 26:26
  that you work late are your children and your spouse, not
• 26:30
  your work colleagues, right? So, so true.
• 26:34
  Yeah, yeah. So I I think that are you happy
• 26:37
  question, maybe we just need to remember and and have that
• 26:42
  somewhere printed out and and put it on your left though, and
• 26:45
  ask yourself, OK, I'm doing all this, but am I shaky?
• 26:48
  That's really important. Yes, I know that you speak on
• 26:54
  the topic and this was so interesting to me and and it's
• 26:57
  not a topic that I know enough about on how one could have
• 27:01
  their needs met in the different roles that you play as a working
• 27:05
  parent. And we also spoke about without
• 27:07
  burning out. So without adding more to this
• 27:09
  proverbial To Do List, how does one how can that working parent
• 27:13
  who's listening feel like they're getting their needs met?
• 27:16
  Yes, I I think this one starts with awareness.
• 27:19
  So what I do in my book is walk people through three very
• 27:23
  straightforward exercises where I'm asking them first came which
• 27:28
  live domains do you have and write down for each piece.
• 27:32
  I have these really nice figures developed for this.
• 27:35
  So caller in and each live domain, to what extent autonomy
• 27:39
  is meant, to what extent belonging is meant, to what
• 27:41
  extent competence is met. And then once you have that
• 27:45
  awareness, now I ask people to assign percentages to how
• 27:50
  important each of those live roles is to them.
• 27:52
  And that's a really tricky question because it comes across
• 27:57
  as a super easy question. How important is each live
• 28:00
  domain to you? Well, if you actually sit down
• 28:03
  and assign those percentages, it is relatively difficult to slice
• 28:08
  the pie. And so after having done that,
• 28:11
  so for instance saying, OK, I found my work almost as
• 28:14
  important as my family, so I'm giving it 40% and then I'll give
• 28:18
  like 50% to my family. I'll give 10% to exercise or
• 28:22
  something like that or to friends.
• 28:25
  And after that I'm walking them through.
• 28:29
  OK, now let's see if the most important life domains actually
• 28:33
  fulfill those 3 needs together. And I think that is these
• 28:38
  exercises together raise a lot of awareness and they also lead
• 28:42
  you to come up with strategies to make changes in case you
• 28:45
  discover, oh, wait a minute, I actually don't feel in control
• 28:48
  anywhere. Not at work, not in my family.
• 28:51
  That's what's been bugging me, right?
• 28:53
  That could be an insight that people might stumble upon.
• 28:57
  That is very cool. And then that with that
• 28:59
  awareness, I can only imagine being able to then go and say,
• 29:03
  OK, what is it? Is there a shift at work?
• 29:05
  Could I own a it's, I know it seems trivial, but like that can
• 29:08
  make a huge difference. I used to work in learning and
• 29:10
  development in the corporate world and it was incredible to
• 29:13
  just see the change and shift in people when you change one very
• 29:16
  small aspect of their role. Give them a bit more, give a
• 29:19
  coordinator a project to own themselves.
• 29:22
  Like that can really transform a person.
• 29:25
  Have them standing taller or feel a bit more sense of control
• 29:28
  at home, which of which we never really feel a lot of control.
• 29:31
  Yeah, from. But yeah, I'm going to raise my
• 29:33
  hand and say I got a robot vacuum recently.
• 29:36
  Alright. My husband would be laughing if
• 29:38
  he heard me talk about this. He's like, you're this is this
• 29:41
  is out of control. You're so obsessed.
• 29:43
  But I would come home. I would come downstairs in the
• 29:46
  morning and I'd be stepping on crumbs in my bare feet are my
• 29:49
  socks. And it felt so out of control
• 29:52
  because I am so not present at night.
• 29:54
  I need to go to bed very early. I'm not vacuuming, sweeping at
• 29:57
  in the evening. And so now I turn on this
• 30:00
  vacuum. It is the smallest thing Lika,
• 30:02
  but it brings me like you can see it in my face.
• 30:04
  It brings me so much joy and it brings me this feeling of like
• 30:09
  yes, like that is something that I don't care about.
• 30:12
  That doesn't bring me happiness. The crumbs really brought me
• 30:16
  down. It made me feel like a bad
• 30:18
  mother. What kind of mother has crumbs
• 30:20
  on the like it was out of control.
• 30:21
  This like the feelings around these crumbs and now I spent a
• 30:25
  couple 100 bucks on this robot vacuum probably too much, but it
• 30:29
  it it brings me control and it brings.
• 30:31
  Me joy that control and the competence like you're literally
• 30:34
  saying like it made me feel like a bad mom like them clearly like
• 30:38
  that is a good solution for sure.
• 30:40
  Yeah, OK, OK. And what about the
• 30:44
  communication? I don't know if you get into
• 30:45
  this in your work, in your book about communicating needs.
• 30:49
  I know that's a hard one, especially as parents, perhaps
• 30:52
  new mothers or coming back to work, juggling with the
• 30:56
  childcare, negotiating with a partner and whatever, and even
• 31:00
  as as just a a mother who's a couple years ahead.
• 31:03
  What advice do you have on that communication of the needs?
• 31:06
  Yeah, there is definitely a quite a bit of communication
• 31:11
  between partners that is highlighted in the book.
• 31:14
  O what I what I did also for the book is interview 5 people and
• 31:18
  Ilia deep dive into their life and how they combined our walls
• 31:22
  And I I made sure that these are people from very unique juggling
• 31:25
  situations that we in the media and in general don't really hear
• 31:29
  that much about. So there is, for instance, like
• 31:33
  a single parent, there is a family with children with
• 31:36
  Marshall needs. There is a woman who has like
• 31:40
  consciously decided to focus on on her career and in these
• 31:46
  interviews and then also in a survey that I send out among 274
• 31:51
  people, it really came back constantly.
• 31:54
  Like we, you need to have that open communication with your
• 31:57
  spouse of where each spouse is at.
• 31:59
  And sometimes it really comes down to reading each other.
• 32:02
  Like how much energy do you have left in the tank today?
• 32:06
  And are you going to take this on this to deal with this
• 32:08
  tantrum or I am I doing it and reading each other?
• 32:11
  That's just so, so important. And so I think partially based
• 32:17
  on my research, partially based on my own experience, it's
• 32:20
  really wanting the best for the other partner, but also taking
• 32:25
  the moment when you really need it.
• 32:27
  And and so if you're just seeing if you both have that same
• 32:31
  strategy, that works really well because she just know that you
• 32:35
  have each other's backs. I think that is such that is
• 32:37
  such great grounded. It seems very obvious advice,
• 32:41
  but I haven't heard it been put like that where you just have to
• 32:44
  kind of read the room. I find there's there's a bit of
• 32:48
  there's this. I had a woman on the podcast and
• 32:50
  we spoke about the fair play method.
• 32:52
  Have you come across that? No.
• 32:54
  Eve Brodsky I think is her name, who wrote a book and she's got
• 32:57
  this card deck. And the whole thing is like
• 32:59
  you've got this deck of cards, which is the the usual household
• 33:02
  tasks that to run a family or run a household.
• 33:05
  And the idea is you're going through this deck of cards and
• 33:08
  you're kind of splitting things up like, OK, I'll take care and
• 33:10
  own the entirety of garbage. That means buying the garbage
• 33:14
  bags. That means taking out the
• 33:15
  garbage, bringing it back in, that sort of thing.
• 33:17
  So you're dividing things up. And now the only thing that I
• 33:20
  would poke holes in is that you're creating the rule, but
• 33:24
  you're not really thinking about the exception of the rule on the
• 33:27
  day when the person is sick, the person doesn't have the energy,
• 33:30
  the person's just not like, especially as a woman with a
• 33:33
  cycle, I am very different throughout 27 days, right?
• 33:37
  And that's the only thing about that, that I'm like, what are
• 33:40
  your thoughts on something? Like that idea though I do love
• 33:43
  that idea. I So the The problem is dynamics
• 33:48
  between spouses is that patterns creep in even without you really
• 33:53
  consciously deciding that I'm gonna.
• 33:57
  I'm gonna hate to say this, but my husband takes out the garbage
• 34:00
  in our house. Not because I can't do it,
• 34:03
  because I will when he's travelling, but just that's his
• 34:06
  thing. He thinks about it and there's
• 34:08
  like a multitude of other things that are my tasks.
• 34:12
  Yes, I kind of love that idea of switching things up and just
• 34:18
  also for that to be a way to become more aware of what you're
• 34:22
  usually are doing today, this week, I'll do the recycling,
• 34:26
  right? And then he will deal.
• 34:29
  I'm blanking on what I typically do.
• 34:31
  I do an I don't. But yeah.
• 34:34
  We will put my screaming toddler to our screaming toddlers about
• 34:38
  something like that. Yeah, yeah, that's, you know, I
• 34:40
  was, I wasn't thinking normally it's kind of, I don't know, I
• 34:42
  think it's set and forget. But I think what the idea is is
• 34:45
  that it's like a physical card so that it really does feel like
• 34:48
  you're handing the baton. But the woman who was speaking
• 34:51
  on it and now I'm forgetting her name, of course, she was kind of
• 34:54
  talking about how you can come back and you should come back
• 34:57
  frequently to say, OK, is this working?
• 34:58
  Does this feel, does everybody in the partnership feel this is
• 35:01
  fair? And it's not that this that the
• 35:03
  deck, the cards are the same height.
• 35:05
  It's just like the perceive their perception of like, yeah,
• 35:08
  this is what I can handle. If someone has, you know, if, if
• 35:11
  it's a heterosexual relationship, if the mom has a
• 35:14
  really big job, she's a lawyer, She works really late, Then yes,
• 35:17
  his his card might be your deck might be quite, quite big.
• 35:21
  But I like the idea of like coming back and being like, OK,
• 35:23
  I feel a bit of like recycling fatigue.
• 35:26
  Let's switch that up and you switch cards around, because
• 35:29
  that could happen. It was nice because it also
• 35:31
  creates awareness. I think where it often goes
• 35:33
  wrong with couples is the resentment, right?
• 35:36
  Like if you don't speak out that you feel you're doing much more
• 35:40
  than you and you never have that conversation.
• 35:42
  You also can't check that reality because I only know 100%
• 35:46
  sure what I do, but there's a lot of things that my husband
• 35:49
  does that I actually not 100% sure of because I don't see
• 35:52
  everything that he does right. Yes.
• 35:54
  So if you don't have that conversation, then this
• 35:58
  resentment is just going to build up.
• 36:00
  So I think the deck of cards can really help with that to raise
• 36:04
  that awareness and to at least like start a conversation even
• 36:07
  if you don't actually switch to tasks that way.
• 36:10
  Because I will say this, I do think there is some logic to
• 36:16
  being having a strict division of, of labour at home, even
• 36:20
  though you separated between your you and your spouse, but at
• 36:23
  least you're becoming really good at that.
• 36:26
  Like it takes me forever to explain to my husband how to
• 36:30
  clean the cat litter box, right? Like it's just, I'll just do it
• 36:33
  right. It's just faster if I do it.
• 36:35
  So in a way, there is that efficiency again.
• 36:38
  That's I like that. I like that full circle moment
• 36:40
  of because when you were talking about the efficiency of getting
• 36:42
  really good at a task, I was also thinking about the old
• 36:44
  psychology textbooks beginning university Psych 101.
• 36:48
  And you're learning about the factory workers and how in the
• 36:52
  industrial revolution we went from, you know, they've gone
• 36:55
  through different phases. I guess I don't even know if
• 36:57
  there's factory workers anymore, if it's all robots.
• 36:59
  But you know, there'd be the person who would just do that
• 37:01
  one widget thing every single day.
• 37:03
  And they started noticing there was massive fatigue and then the
• 37:06
  person felt super disconnected. They have, they had no idea what
• 37:08
  they were building. So then they started doing that
• 37:10
  thing where the person would actually build the widget in its
• 37:14
  entirety and they saw the differences.
• 37:16
  So it's it is very interesting. It's also making me think about
• 37:20
  how many conversations I've had recently with girlfriends who
• 37:22
  have had a trip or they've gone away.
• 37:26
  And again, these are heterosexual relationships.
• 37:28
  Mom has gone away and the comment has been that I've
• 37:33
  heard. I'm so excited for them to know
• 37:36
  what it's like to be with the kids every day because these
• 37:39
  are, you know, maybe new parents and they're the mom is maybe
• 37:43
  been on maternity leave and has been with the the baby 24/7.
• 37:47
  And just that feeling of resentment that starts to
• 37:49
  clearly build up. Like you don't know what it's
• 37:52
  like to meet this child's needs for 24 hours in the day.
• 37:57
  Yeah, this is actually part of the the recommendation for
• 38:02
  people who aren't in more like stay at home relationship.
• 38:05
  One partner works and one partner stays at home.
• 38:08
  Like it's often difficult to really fully understand what
• 38:10
  it's like to do that job, right? Because I do find staying at
• 38:15
  home with a child a job as well. It's just not paid, but it's
• 38:18
  still like more than a full time job.
• 38:20
  And so switching that in a natural way, for instance when
• 38:25
  someone is traveling or during the weekends to make each other
• 38:31
  aware of what it's like. I think it's all about
• 38:33
  understanding each other in the end when it comes to
• 38:35
  relationships. I think that's really good
• 38:38
  advice. That's really cool.
• 38:39
  And maybe doing that before the resentment comes in to the point
• 38:42
  where exactly over and being like you don't understand what
• 38:45
  yeah, sure can happen too, but. It's so hard, it's so hard to
• 38:49
  say that because it's easier to just like, oh, let's forget
• 38:51
  about it and have a nice evening.
• 38:52
  But it's just so important to speak your mind and to have a
• 38:57
  partner who is open to to giving, to receiving that seed.
• 39:01
  Back right, Yes. But really important to
• 39:04
  immediately share what you're feeling instead of having it
• 39:08
  build up and then it's almost too late because the resentment
• 39:11
  has already made everything. Better, Yes, absolutely.
• 39:15
  I want to switch gears for a second and go back to the the
• 39:18
  notion of belonging. And we know this has gotten very
• 39:21
  popular in psychology and pop psych and Brene Browns talked
• 39:24
  about it and it's kind of fizzled a little bit from what
• 39:27
  I'm seeing. But I think it's such an
• 39:29
  important topic of the humans need for that connection and
• 39:34
  belonging. If someone's not getting that
• 39:37
  from work, for instance, is that from your professional personal
• 39:43
  opinion? Is that game over?
• 39:44
  Like do you have to have that sense or, or like we were
• 39:47
  talking about before, could that person be like, that's OK, I'm
• 39:51
  going to get that. Elsewhere, yeah, I think it's
• 39:53
  the letter. It's it's more and more common
• 39:57
  actually with the rise of remote work that people strategically
• 40:02
  choose. OK, I'm going to.
• 40:05
  Have fewer interpersonal connections or really good sun
• 40:09
  coworker connections. But that means that I'm getting
• 40:13
  all this time back because I'm working from home and can do
• 40:17
  other things more quicker or there's no commute anymore.
• 40:21
  But it does mean that you will need to compensate for those
• 40:24
  lost connections. Like it's definitely a risk if
• 40:28
  someone lives alone, doesn't have a lot of friends or family
• 40:31
  around. And if you don't have rich
• 40:34
  connections at work, then that's absolutely your risk.
• 40:36
  So it's all about awareness of the total sum of connections
• 40:40
  that you have in your life. If you know of yourself, OK,
• 40:43
  I've chosen for a job or it happened to have a job where I
• 40:45
  don't really talk to people regular or don't have like these
• 40:49
  really human connections where you check in on how each is
• 40:52
  doing. And then it's really super
• 40:55
  important to seek those connections actively in your
• 40:59
  either with hobbies, sports, family, friends, to make sure
• 41:03
  that you have those connections there.
• 41:05
  That is really, that's very fascinating.
• 41:07
  OK, that's great news. So it's kind of a choose your
• 41:10
  own adventure. You just have to continue to
• 41:11
  audit your setup and and what's happening now.
• 41:15
  I have to ask you, I wanted to ask you at the beginning, but I
• 41:17
  knew it would be a can of worms. What are your thoughts on remote
• 41:20
  work? I am.
• 41:21
  A lot of my clients are being called back into the office.
• 41:24
  Yeah, like really strict 100% of the time now.
• 41:28
  Like it's just done this 180. I don't know if it's happening
• 41:31
  down South. I don't know what's going on.
• 41:32
  What are your thoughts? My thoughts are that there needs
• 41:37
  to be disbalance between giving employees control and having the
• 41:42
  connection that is really necessary for organization.
• 41:45
  So organizations should really think about, OK, for the work
• 41:49
  quality, what how often do people need to be in the office
• 41:53
  for coordination for like impromptu meetings where people
• 41:56
  have like sudden like really good ideas.
• 41:59
  And so research shows that about two or three days per week you
• 42:05
  can run a company. Most companies, of course, it's
• 42:08
  going to depend on what exactly you do could be run efficiently
• 42:11
  enough to get that quality of work and get those innovations
• 42:16
  and get those collaboration and coordination.
• 42:18
  And then on the other two to three days, you give employees
• 42:21
  the control to be in their pajama bottoms in front of a
• 42:26
  Zoom call or whatever, right? Like you, they're just much
• 42:29
  quicker in terms of scheduling when they can work, not having
• 42:33
  to sit in traffic, like giving that control back to employees
• 42:37
  and giving them that trust. And that's the key really.
• 42:40
  Like trusting someone you are going to do that job as well at
• 42:43
  home as when you were in the office.
• 42:46
  I think that is so important. But then with the side note that
• 42:49
  there are some jobs that you just can't do remotely.
• 42:52
  But I don't think that's the job that you're talking about
• 42:54
  because you're saying, yeah, these people were remote and
• 42:58
  they now have just back into the office mandate the so clearly
• 43:02
  which does jobs can be done from the home domain.
• 43:06
  Yes, yes, I mean, speaking from my unprofessional opinion, I
• 43:10
  think it's a bit of lazy leadership in some cases in the
• 43:13
  fact that we've seen that businesses soared during COVID
• 43:17
  when people, but that was, I know understand it was a bit
• 43:20
  different. Everybody in the world was
• 43:21
  remote at one point in those types of jobs that are able to
• 43:24
  be, but there's a lot of situations where something can
• 43:28
  be done remotely. But there's this this sense of
• 43:31
  like, oh, but it's not my leadership style.
• 43:35
  It's, it must be the fact that they're working, they're working
• 43:38
  remote. Well, that's, that's on the
• 43:40
  leader. Like I believe in servant
• 43:41
  leadership. I believe a leader should be
• 43:43
  taking full responsibility for how the team is operating.
• 43:48
  I I do think that hyper at work, you would have to best of both
• 43:52
  worlds like you do give that trust and that control to Anne,
• 43:55
  please for a few days a week. But you also have the
• 43:59
  connections at work and also the isolation that you prevent,
• 44:02
  right? Like if there are a lot of
• 44:05
  people who don't have families back at home or who don't have a
• 44:08
  lot of friends if they're remote, 5 days of work, the
• 44:11
  question is if that's desirable at all.
• 44:13
  Yeah, that's wow. You've given me a lot to think
• 44:15
  about. That's really, really
• 44:16
  interesting. Now, Leica, I know you do things
• 44:19
  like workshops, like I just think this topic is so potent
• 44:23
  and you have, you are the perfect person to speak on this
• 44:26
  everywhere to anybody. So if you were to run, say a
• 44:30
  workshop, if someone was listening, they're like, how can
• 44:32
  we get you in our office? Like explain kind of some of the
• 44:34
  work that you do outside of your academic world.
• 44:37
  For sure. Yeah.
• 44:38
  So I and the book that I wrote I give workshops on and that's
• 44:43
  basically to increase awareness and look at work life balance
• 44:46
  from a different angle. And that angle is like we
• 44:49
  discussed today, like let's forget about time for a little
• 44:52
  bit and look more into what makes you happy.
• 44:54
  What needs do you need to fulfill to make you happy.
• 44:58
  So for organizations I present, I do I do keynotes and workshops
• 45:03
  and for individuals I also do work life balance workshops and
• 45:08
  you can find me on We Rail your-life.com.
• 45:13
  Beautiful. Thank you.
• 45:14
  And I asked this to everybody. Lika, before we wrap, what is
• 45:17
  something I don't, I say this all the time, but truly I feel
• 45:20
  like you're somebody who's really, given the fact that
• 45:23
  you've got all the research behind you, you seems like such
• 45:25
  a grounded human. I don't know what you're going
• 45:28
  to say to this, but what is something that you're still
• 45:29
  trying to figure out? But it's still trying to figure
• 45:34
  out I think is doing well funding that more me time.
• 45:40
  Like I I do find a lot of me time because I I often exercise
• 45:44
  during the work day. But what my family often does
• 45:48
  everything together. And sometimes that can be great.
• 45:52
  For instance, yesterday we all went to the river through trove
• 45:55
  stocks as rocks and sticks and it was super fun.
• 45:59
  But then there's other times where my husband and I both are
• 46:02
  there when our three-year old is climbing in a playground and
• 46:05
  there's other people around him. Why are we both here?
• 46:07
  Just that's it's like real. Inefficient.
• 46:10
  And so anything, finding those moments where you give each
• 46:14
  other a turn to just do whatever the other person wants to do,
• 46:18
  that's what we're still figuring out.
• 46:19
  But I'm pretty sure we'll get there.
• 46:21
  I love that. Thank you so much.
• 46:24
  You've been so generous with your time and just sharing all
• 46:27
  the research and your wisdom and this has been really eye opening
• 46:30
  and I've personally taken a lot of it.
• 46:32
  I know the audience will as well.
• 46:33
  So thank you so much. Well, thank you, Andrea, for
• 46:36
  having me. It was really fun to be here
• 46:38
  today.