Latest / All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting / 93. Redefining success as a mother (and human!) with Sara Demizio

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93. Redefining success as a mother (and human!) with Sara Demizio · 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. Thank you for joining me again
• 0:04
  this week. Today's episode is it's such a
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  good one. It is just on the nose.
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  It's going to hit home for so many of you if you are a working
• 0:15
  parent, which I know many of you who are listening are.
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  And it's especially going to hit home if you've ever found
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  yourself just kind of tiptoeing around your needs in general,
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  your needs at work, and how you kind of just relook at who you
• 0:29
  are now that you are the working parent.
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  And I had the lovely Sarah DiMaggio on the podcast.
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  She's the founder of Human Hood. And it's a learning company
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  that's reshaping how we support people at work, especially
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  parents. She spent over a decade at
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  Lululemon. She had twins in March of 2020.
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  So a bit of a precarious time. And she returned to work in the
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  thick of the pandemic, working remote and parenting and all the
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  things. And she's using all that
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  experience now to support a working parents, working people,
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  to be more well at work. And so we get all into the work
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  that she's doing, her career story, the twists and turns that
• 1:08
  took place. And we talked about a three-part
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  framework, if you will, of how to just rethink who you are at
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  work. We talk about how to have a
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  tough conversation with a manager, how to rebuild and
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  relook at trust with said manager.
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  We talk about self-awareness and we talk about just what it means
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  to be a working parent right now.
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  This is such a fun episode. I have a little marker button
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  that I can click on my recording software to like mark moments in
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  the episode. And I was just marking things
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  up. So you are going to love this
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  one. Please enjoy and go find Sarah
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  to book her for some sort of lunch and learn.
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  Go get her course that she's got online.
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  She's amazing and I cannot wait to hear what you think.
• 1:58
  You're listening to the All Figured Out podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrea Barr. I'm a career coach for parents,
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  mom of two, and a self-proclaimed expert at
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  winging it. After 10 years in the corporate
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  world, two major career pivots, and navigating life with kids,
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  I've learned one thing. No parent has it all figured
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  out, and that's OK. Here, we're all about growing
• 2:22
  personally and professionally while keeping family time
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  sacred. You'll get practical tips,
• 2:27
  career strategies and musings on life, plus guest experts to help
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  us fill in the gaps. So grab a coffee or hide in your
• 2:34
  car for some the time. We're about to figure out this
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  work, life and parenting stuff out together.
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  Sarah Damasio, thank you so much for joining me on the All
• 2:45
  Figured Out podcast. Thank you for having me.
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  I'm so excited to be here. I've been looking forward to
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  this all day, all month. I don't know.
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  So sweet. I also felt like the five second
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  countdown felt very long. We were just gazing at each
• 2:57
  other's eyes. 7 It's all right. What is it called eye gaze?
• 3:04
  Isn't it called eye gazing? Yeah, I think so.
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  Yeah, psych thing you can do. I read that as like a tip.
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  It's like every day you should do some eye gazing with someone
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  like whoa, every day. We have to do that every day
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  now, in addition to meditating and drinking water.
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  Also, like as an entrepreneur, you're like who?
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  Who was the person I will choose for this task?
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  Yes, because if I'm looking at the camera here, I'm not looking
• 3:29
  at you. So really I'm just green light
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  gazing into my little camera's eyes.
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  I don't know. I'm so excited to talk to you.
• 3:38
  We had an intro call. We were put in touch from our
• 3:41
  mutual friend Sydney and we could have we afterwards we were
• 3:45
  emailing being like, we could have talked forever.
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  So like so many people I meet, I'm so happy that we can
• 3:51
  actually hit record so other people can hear the conversation
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  and the incredible experience and life that you've lived.
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  So I want to take it back. You are the founder of Human
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  Hood, but you weren't always a founder and you were on a huge
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  career trajectory. So you know, in the best way
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  possible. Let's start with what was the
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  what was the moment in which you were like, OK, I think I'm going
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  to do do my own thing. And how does that tie into your
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  parenthood journey and all that? Yeah.
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  Oh my gosh, that's a good question.
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  And just one that I feel in my body, you know, like it's like
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  one of those things. I think my first sort of like
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  reaction to the question is like I felt it in my body and I
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  really felt it in all parts, like mind, body and soul that I
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  was ready. But I guess to give a little
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  context, I spent almost 15 years with Lulu Lemon.
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  I, I know you're from Vancouver, so I'm sure a lot of people who
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  know you or have met you been connected to that sort of
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  Vancouver based brand. But I, I just had this moment
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  later on in my career where I could really start to look
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  forward. And I think the kind of
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  connection point to having kids. I was maybe 2 years back from my
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  maternity leave by the time that I decided to step into this
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  entrepreneurial human hood journey.
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  And I really knew that it was like a new me setting career
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  goals for myself, if that makes sense.
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  And that was kind of the like the the moment that it started
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  like trickling into like something I could, I could see
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  and I could identify and I could start to strategize with.
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  It had like shifted from being like a gut feeling to being
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  something that maybe I was being pulled away from things or
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  towards new things. And then started to be able to
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  say like, oh, I actually can, I can actually start to see this.
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  I can strategize around this. And then once it was like in all
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  parts, it was like, OK, this is all systems go.
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  There's absolutely nothing holding me back but time so.
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  Yeah. And like so you said that you
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  were a new you and you would create a New Girl, you know, new
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  career goals in this new version of yourself.
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  Did your old self ever envision leaving Little Lemon or maybe
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  leaving the company short at one point, but like, foraging on
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  this type of path? Like, are you one of those
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  people who had the entrepreneurialism in your
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  blood, in your bones? Such a good question.
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  I always would identify for myself like long, long term
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  goals, like I wanna be running my own culture and brand
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  company. I wanna be connected with like
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  minded people, like mostly women and like have this like really
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  clear female leadership company firm.
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  Like I I never could really identify how I would get there.
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  And I really was like, this is it.
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  And I think I had a bit of a forgetting for a bit and that's
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  what I like remembered that I wanted.
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  Does that make sense? And I think part of.
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  Yeah, right. Like, because I feel like
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  there's such a tendency. And I felt this personally too.
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  When you're in your career and you're like advancing, you're
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  doing great things, you're building your resume, your, you
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  know, having all these new and incredible experiences,
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  experiences and making connections.
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  Like you're going deeper and deeper and deeper into a, a
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  lane, an industry, A-Team even or a company.
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  And there's so much time spent like, like getting deeper in
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  that. And I think the further you sort
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  of sink into that part of the culture, the easier it is to
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  sort of forget the rest of what makes you you.
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  And I actually was just listening to one of your
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  episodes where you talked about like, kind of like the pH, like
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  you're like the water of the culture at a company.
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  And that really resonates for me as like, there's something about
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  like you just jump in so wholeheartedly, or I did
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  personally in a way that allowed me to succeed and see all these
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  great sort of like wins and things I could feel really proud
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  of. And at the same time, was that
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  my goal, or was that the goal that made sense for the
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  trajectory that I found myself on?
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  If you hadn't had kids, where would you be now?
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  Ah, what a great question. If I hadn't had kids, where
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  would I be now? Not that you could know for
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  sure. Not that I can know for sure,
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  but I think I can attribute A boldness and a clarity from
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  becoming a parent that I think allowed me to be able to say
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  like, no, I'm ready to bet on myself.
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  Or like I'm ready to put my weight behind the things that I
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  believe and the things that I believe that I'm capable of and
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  the things that I believe can be created for the world.
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  And, and at the same time, you know, a, a bit of a, an
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  intuition and like a knowing, an inner knowing that I think
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  becomes clear for a lot of people when they become
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  apparent, they're like, oh, actually I'm a boss now of a new
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  team and I am the decision maker.
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  And a lot of these values, these decisions have to be made all of
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  a sudden when you become a parent, so.
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  Yeah, the hospital or not the 104 temperature like is this
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  hospital, is this not 811 will always tell you or in Canada
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  811. Always.
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  Tell you to go to the hospital and you're like, OK, is this
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  hospital? Is this not always constantly
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  like the highest risk situations versus you and I both have
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  worked in apparel and I totally resonate with what you said
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  about being so in the culture and ingrained and then coming up
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  for air every so often and be like, we're just making clothes.
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  It's yeah, like, yeah. Even though there is there is a
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  spirit and ethos about these companies and it's important
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  what you it is important to, you know, be in a culture and love
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  what you do, whatever it is. But like, at the end of the day
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  when you're splitting hairs and people are crying in the
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  bathroom, you're not that. That's what happens with those
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  companies all the time. But in general, in the corporate
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  world, anywhere like, it can hit you so hard and you're just
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  like, wait, we're just making clothes.
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  Yeah, and and I think with it's funny.
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  Yeah, it is funny and it is, it is.
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  I think, you know, it kind of steers me towards the idea of
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  like just awareness and self-awareness because like I, I
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  found like, I again, like, I am so grateful.
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  I like feel like I grew up in this incredible organization.
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  And at the same time, if all, if you look for yourself somewhere
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  else, you'll never find it because you're not there.
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  You are where you're looking from.
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  And so there's part of it too, that like I, you know, some of
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  the roles that I was in towards the end, like I was originating
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  roles like I was like making up the job title and writing the
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  description for myself. Like, because I had been there
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  so long and was able to like bring this entrepreneurialism,
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  this like futuristic, I could like build into the future,
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  which I think, you know, was the early humidor goodness of my
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  personality and my my skill set. But part of it also is like I
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  was in a role where I was doing social impact work, which was so
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  meaningful to me. And I think that was also the
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  moment where I'm like, oh, I'm doing such important work, but
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  it's still isn't it still isn't right on to what I believe I'm
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  capable of. So I think there's something
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  there of like no matter even if you're even if you're not
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  working in a, you know, a company where it's like can be
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  stressful or can be like, OK, is this really life or death in
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  this moment? But like, even if you are in
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  some of those roles or types of works, like you have a moment
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  where you're like, is this form for me?
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  Is this right? And is this right right now?
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  And all of that is just. Is this right and.
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  This right right now. That's so good.
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  It's so true. What was like, what was, what
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  would you say? No, there was 15 years of
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  evolving roles within the organization, but like when you
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  left, it sounded like it was as close as it could get.
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  What was the role that you were working in social impact
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  related? Oh my gosh, the best role ever.
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  Like truly, I was the program manager for innovation basically
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  within our social impact world and engagement.
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  So like it, it was essentially pulling our tenured employees to
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  connect them with some of the incredible organizations we were
• 12:40
  working with within our social impact centre and initiatives.
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  So how do we give back and connect our tenured employees to
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  be able to contribute on like basically a paid sabbatical
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  program for this? Like how yeah, it was like so
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  fun, like leadership development and impact and, you know,
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  connecting and recognizing employees and this incredible
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  work across North America. And it was piloting.
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  So it was a lot of like doing what I believed and putting, you
• 13:12
  know, trying new things. And all of that was like the
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  best job ever. You know, it was, it was the
• 13:18
  best. And I said goodbye at the same
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  time. And and so you said that you
• 13:23
  knew in your bones it was time to say goodbye.
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  What about it was the subject matter of what you were doing,
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  the nature of the work, working for somebody else versus
• 13:31
  parenthood? Like, tell me about like, what
• 13:33
  was really going on, if you're willing to peel back the onion a
• 13:36
  bit. Yeah, You know, I a lot of it
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  for me, um, like we were speaking about a little bit
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  earlier when I sort of started taking stock at like what's
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  ahead. And I think what became really
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  clear for me was that when I wanted to throw it ahead, I
• 14:01
  wasn't able to do that. I was a remote employee from
• 14:03
  Toronto. So like there was a part of
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  that, but like I had a bit of a ceiling on how I could grow.
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  And I think a lot of people, especially because like when you
• 14:11
  become a parent, it can happen at a time when your career is
• 14:15
  really strong. You're like, I know what I'm
• 14:18
  doing now. I know my value, I know what I
• 14:20
  can contribute and where I can take this.
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  And so it was a bit of a moment where I was like, OK, I'm back.
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  And I've been back long enough that I know where I want to take
• 14:29
  this. And I, and I couldn't anymore in
• 14:31
  the same way that I thought I once wanted to.
• 14:35
  And I, and I think part of that is like acknowledging the
• 14:41
  constraints that are real in a good way, like good that, you
• 14:46
  know, a company has a head office and people work there in
• 14:50
  person. That's actually great.
• 14:52
  And so like, if I am choosing a different reality where like I
• 14:55
  don't live in that city and I'm within a remote capacity, like
• 15:00
  remote is awesome and remote is different and it's a choice.
• 15:04
  And it's a bit of a like merriment of like, OK, does this
• 15:07
  fit? It's an integration within my
• 15:10
  plans and their plans. And so at a certain point, I,
• 15:13
  when I wanted to reach new career goals after I had like
• 15:17
  hit that career milestone of like having kids and I was, you
• 15:21
  know, complete in that regard and then could sort of look
• 15:24
  ahead. I'm like, I can't do what I want
• 15:27
  to do anymore. And the ceiling is, is in this
• 15:30
  building and I and I, I felt really clear that I couldn't
• 15:36
  like have that sort of laneway and like runway.
• 15:40
  Guess the world is a better word, like full runway that I
• 15:43
  wanted. And once I saw that, I'm like, I
• 15:45
  can't Unsee that anymore. This is my time.
• 15:49
  Did you ever consider the move to Vancouver?
• 15:53
  You know, in previous years, Yeah, it certainly was for a
• 15:56
  long time, a long time ago. And I, you know, I think I'm
• 16:03
  just an East Coast gal. Love.
• 16:06
  That yeah, yeah, it just worked out.
• 16:09
  And that's just like the way it's like shifted and worked for
• 16:11
  our family. Like we tried it.
• 16:12
  We lived in San Francisco for a year and that was amazing.
• 16:16
  And also not not where we wanted to like root, you know?
• 16:20
  So that and you had twins in 2020, March of 2020.
• 16:27
  Yeah. I mean, this could be it's a
• 16:29
  whole other episode of podcast episode.
• 16:32
  But how how was that experience? How were you then?
• 16:37
  Yeah, You know, how was I? Yeah, that's a whole, that's a
• 16:43
  whole entire episode. But I, you know, they were born
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  March 30th. My first day of maternity leave
• 16:50
  was the Monday the 16th or whatever day that was of March.
• 16:54
  And I, you know, what it was for me that I think is like an
• 16:59
  interesting thing to note within this sort of audience.
• 17:03
  And just this conversation is like what it did for me is that
• 17:08
  I think I, I needed something so strong to like knock me into my
• 17:20
  present and like my self-awareness or my like own
• 17:26
  situation a little bit when it comes to career.
• 17:29
  Because I think that I, you know, I was determined like, OK,
• 17:34
  and again, insane privilege to be able to take a long amount of
• 17:39
  time off from work. And I, but I, you know, was
• 17:43
  like, OK, I'll take 11 months or 12 months, but definitely by 12
• 17:46
  months, I'm going to be back. I'm going to be back at it.
• 17:47
  I'm going to be ready for the next thing.
• 17:49
  I'm like, I'm still like, I'm in build mode till like the second
• 17:52
  that I sign off and I took 18 months off and I, I just kept
• 17:57
  extending and I was like, you know what, don't even don't even
• 18:00
  care. Like there's like not even a bit
• 18:03
  of me that felt like logging in or like being connected.
• 18:08
  And I, and I think that twins and pandemic piled together was
• 18:12
  like the a strong enough combination for me who was quite
• 18:18
  connected to like make sure that I did not let myself stay
• 18:25
  tethered to something throughout that experience.
• 18:28
  And I think by the time I was done and going back, I was like,
• 18:32
  oh, I can take the parts that I want back and I can leave my bad
• 18:40
  habits or my, you know, my just like knee jerk reactions to how
• 18:45
  things are done or how I show up in meetings or how I show up for
• 18:49
  the work or the type of leader or person or teammate I am.
• 18:52
  I can, I can be in so much more choice now because I'm like very
• 18:57
  new and fresh. I'm like a newbie, you know.
• 19:00
  So I think that part really was that was the journey I needed to
• 19:05
  be on. Wow, what's an example of what
• 19:07
  you left behind? Oh my gosh.
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  I mean a very like tangible is just like meetings in the
• 19:16
  evenings when like I'm working on Eastern and people are
• 19:19
  working in PST, like of course I'll be on everything.
• 19:22
  But like like day one, I was like, I will not set a recurring
• 19:26
  meeting during that time. If it is like urgent with the
• 19:29
  CEO, I will make it. I will make myself available but
• 19:32
  like no recurring and that's OK. I will make myself available
• 19:36
  for. You I will certainly priority
• 19:41
  you're not scenario, but like, you know, for the most part,
• 19:44
  it's so easy to like I I feel like it's like those recurring
• 19:48
  pieces that like when you lock yourself into something and then
• 19:51
  suddenly you're like, oh, I've committed to all these things
• 19:53
  that aren't like 1 offs. They're all like suddenly the
• 19:56
  foundation of my everyday or my every week.
• 19:59
  And like those are the pieces that I'm like, oh man, I can't,
• 20:03
  I can't do that. I can't do that to myself.
• 20:05
  I got to have a little bit more like check and balance for
• 20:08
  myself to actually say yes to each thing that happens that
• 20:11
  like. Sort of goes over my my
• 20:14
  boundary. Like, I want to create a
• 20:16
  scenario that like I can actually be in a conversation
• 20:20
  each time rather than just like have said yes to a slew of six
• 20:25
  months or a year of like team check-ins at 7:00 PM for me or
• 20:28
  something when I'm trying to say goodnight to my kids.
• 20:30
  That's such a good point. The recurring, it's such a
• 20:33
  tangible example, but like it has a bigger, there's like a
• 20:37
  bigger story to it where there's these recurring things that
• 20:40
  you're saying yes to and it doesn't have to just be a leave
• 20:44
  that allows you to reevaluate everything.
• 20:46
  Actually, it was just working with a client.
• 20:48
  If you Oh my gosh, a few months ago now and we had a she was
• 20:53
  gifted a free session. You wanna session that I was
• 20:55
  giving away and we had 45 minutes and it was one of those
• 20:58
  moments where I was like, God, hey, This is why I love what I
• 21:01
  do. But but B was such a fun
• 21:04
  experiment of OK, she had been back to work after maternity
• 21:08
  leave for a while and she was like things are not working like
• 21:12
  I am at dance class with my daughter.
• 21:14
  I have my laptop open. She wants me to watch or dance
• 21:17
  class didn't happen. She didn't want to go in boom
• 21:19
  that hour I was supposed to be working didn't have it.
• 21:21
  Blah. When we got really, we were like
• 21:24
  peeling back talk about onion layers, Like we're peeling back
• 21:27
  the onion layers. And as it turned out, she had
• 21:29
  all these recurring meetings scattered throughout the week
• 21:32
  because it was just like, oh, this team says come join this
• 21:34
  one. This team says join this one.
• 21:36
  OK, we need to make another one. And you arbitrarily create these
• 21:39
  recurring meetings or it could be recurring patterns, habits.
• 21:43
  Like you talked about habits. And all of a sudden she was
• 21:46
  like, I'm in meetings all day, every day.
• 21:48
  I have no time to do the work. So now I'm doing the work
• 21:50
  outside of hours and I have a daughter and a son.
• 21:53
  And it was so cool because by the end of it, she was like, we
• 21:56
  basically came up with a solution.
• 21:58
  She came up with a solution, of course.
• 22:00
  And she was like, OK, I'm going to talk to my dad partner and
• 22:03
  I'm going to talk to her about having a no meetings day.
• 22:05
  The two of us, we are going to set that boundary.
• 22:07
  We're going to communicate it, explain the why.
• 22:10
  And she did it. She did it.
• 22:11
  The next we talked, she messaged me the next week, she did it.
• 22:14
  She said her dad partner was so pumped about it.
• 22:16
  She wasn't sure how she would respond.
• 22:18
  And she was like, this has just given me my evenings, my
• 22:21
  mornings. And it's like such a great
• 22:23
  example of stepping back for a SEC and being like, huh, is this
• 22:28
  the way we should be doing this? Is this the way that I should be
• 22:30
  or have to be working? And most of the time, this
• 22:34
  happens all the time with clients.
• 22:35
  Most of the time, nobody cares. The people were like, it kind of
• 22:38
  gave me the vibe of like, the people on her team were like,
• 22:40
  yeah, cool, whatever we'd like. Great.
• 22:43
  Totally. Oh my gosh.
• 22:47
  I'm 100 percent, 100%. We we make things mean a lot
• 22:50
  more often, or I know I do, where I'm like, oh, it's going
• 22:53
  to be such a big deal if I say this or do you know, and you're
• 22:57
  like, actually no one cares. Yeah, that's fine.
• 23:00
  Yeah, going to be fine. We have so much we're going to
• 23:03
  cover. We I really want to get into
• 23:05
  some of the tips you have around kind of reevaluating things or
• 23:07
  just like even being at work and how do you make work work when
• 23:11
  you've got kids all that. But I also want to know, like
• 23:14
  giving you were you were at Lululemon with twins at home for
• 23:18
  a good Well, you said two years. Yeah, like a good amount of
• 23:21
  time. How did you personally, like,
• 23:23
  tell me what that experience was like?
• 23:25
  What is it like? What was it like to go back and
• 23:27
  to be a mum with two little ones at home a year and a half still
• 23:32
  so little? How did you, Oh my God, how do
• 23:34
  you even? How did you do it for two years?
• 23:39
  It's a great question. You know, I think a couple
• 23:43
  things come up for me. I think I am a person who is
• 23:49
  very logistics oriented and you know, like I kind of live and
• 23:55
  die by my calendar in some ways. And so I'm kind of the person
• 23:59
  that's like, OK, if I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I'm
• 24:03
  going to spend 6 hours sharpening the axe to do that.
• 24:06
  Like I'm that's like my. I'm just hacking.
• 24:13
  I'm hacking it. It's not working.
• 24:15
  I'm still love that. I love that.
• 24:17
  Back Oh my God, no. And that is so good because you
• 24:20
  know, it's kind of like one of those things where you're like,
• 24:22
  I could do it one way I could do it another way I could do it
• 24:24
  another way. And I like like to be like, OK,
• 24:26
  wait, there's a formula for this or like there's a way that I can
• 24:29
  like set myself up. And so I think I, you know, for
• 24:35
  me, I like naturally created a few systems for myself or same
• 24:39
  with that idea of like no recurring meetings or, you know,
• 24:43
  starting to choose like, OK, I'm going to create meals that have
• 24:46
  leftovers or like plan this day where I'm going to do whatever
• 24:50
  like of the like before or after school sort of pieces.
• 24:53
  And I was working remote. So it allowed me for a little
• 24:56
  bit of like, you know, the second that I'm done work, I'm
• 24:59
  not like walking through an office.
• 25:00
  I'm like, OK, I'm open for grab the leg and I go to pick up or
• 25:03
  whatnot. But I think more broadly, like
• 25:07
  returning to work, I, I had sort of two big pieces that were
• 25:12
  really coming up for me that I hadn't experienced before as a
• 25:15
  bit of like a paradigm shift, I guess.
• 25:17
  And one of them was that I, I, I had suddenly this like new part
• 25:26
  of my life and this new thing to think about and I in my work
• 25:31
  now. And like, I, it took me awhile
• 25:33
  to be able to like, really label it like this or like describe it
• 25:36
  like this. But it's not necessarily that
• 25:39
  becoming a working parent is more work than other people in
• 25:43
  the room, right? Like, it's not about that.
• 25:45
  It's that I had more than I had before.
• 25:49
  And like that distinction of like, I, my job on paper was the
• 25:54
  same and I had my circumstances change and that's what made it
• 26:00
  hard for me, you know. And so like, that was like a bit
• 26:04
  of a paradigm shift where like I was like, this is hard for me to
• 26:08
  balance it all. And I, and I could do it, you
• 26:11
  know, like I was able to like extend myself in ways that were
• 26:15
  hard or challenging and noticing a lot of those things about,
• 26:18
  about myself and how I would like, you know, where you're
• 26:21
  going to rush or where you're going to like panic about things
• 26:26
  or like what you're going to do when the sick call comes in And
• 26:28
  you have to like have the nap timed perfectly with the CEO
• 26:32
  call, right? Like all those pieces are like
• 26:34
  all new. And I think that experience for
• 26:39
  me, being someone who had been at this company and in this
• 26:42
  organization for so long, and I was like, this is hard,
• 26:46
  challenging and kind of like all happening behind the scenes for
• 26:50
  me. Like this is this is not, this
• 26:54
  is not going well for anybody else.
• 26:57
  And like not just within my organization, but like suddenly,
• 26:59
  like the conversations with my closest friends and with, you
• 27:02
  know, so many other people, it, you know, became so clear that
• 27:07
  like this is not just a me thing.
• 27:09
  This is not just like me finding it hard and parenthood being
• 27:13
  perfect. It's like, no, no, no, like this
• 27:15
  is a this is a work challenge. This is a logistics challenge.
• 27:18
  This is something that is just it's all figure out table.
• 27:22
  It is. And at the same time, a lot of
• 27:24
  things have to happen in order to be able to figure it out.
• 27:28
  So yeah, all of that was just, yeah, I don't know if that's how
• 27:33
  I made it through, but I think those are all like just
• 27:36
  learnings and like just Bahamas and like awareness shifts that
• 27:41
  allowed me to start to like uncover what that shift meant
• 27:45
  for me and sort of means more. Broadly, And I think you bring
• 27:49
  up a really good point about being in an organization where
• 27:51
  you had so much, what's the word, clout.
• 27:55
  Institutional. Knowledge, institutional
• 27:58
  respect, like you had built up a reputation for yourself.
• 28:02
  I'm sure you had just a network of people really cheering behind
• 28:05
  you and supporting you in any way that they possibly could.
• 28:08
  And you still found it challenging.
• 28:10
  And I really resonate with that When I went back to work myself
• 28:13
  and I had a wonderful team, a wonderful boss who I cried with
• 28:18
  when I resigned and I was like, I felt the same.
• 28:22
  I was like, and if this is how I felt and I love a spreadsheet
• 28:27
  and even though yes, I'm going to start hacking the account,
• 28:29
  but it it's great. It's, I don't know, it's just,
• 28:33
  it's unbelievable that the majority of people maybe even
• 28:37
  felt worse. And I didn't feel good and there
• 28:40
  was a lot of people who probably felt worse, which made my
• 28:44
  heartbreak. So how does that transition into
• 28:47
  human food? Tell us about human food,
• 28:49
  because then we can get into kind of the three areas that
• 28:51
  we're going to touch on today on like how you can make work work
• 28:54
  for you. Yeah, totally.
• 28:56
  So the other piece that started to sort of snowball once I
• 29:02
  returned to work that I had the opportunity to do internal
• 29:05
  coaching and then also some sort of parent specific coaching.
• 29:09
  So I think at the same time that I was experiencing, you know,
• 29:13
  these this new shift and then my friends are experiencing this
• 29:17
  new shift. And, you know, more broadly, I'm
• 29:19
  working towards, you know, impact work and like considering
• 29:23
  at a really macro level, like well-being at work and
• 29:27
  well-being during the pandemic and like remote and all these
• 29:30
  pieces that are all kind of happening at once.
• 29:32
  And then also having these, like incredible people that, you
• 29:36
  know, I was able to support through through coaching.
• 29:40
  And so I had like a lot of first hand or second hand experiences
• 29:45
  within this really particular point in time.
• 29:50
  And again, I had kind of always held this like, I'm an
• 29:53
  entrepreneur. I I love figuring out new
• 29:55
  things. I love trying new things.
• 29:56
  And I really want to design towards like what I dream, you
• 30:00
  know, like what, what, what could be and all of that, like
• 30:03
  really gets me going. So I yeah, it really started as
• 30:07
  like, OK, what could I, what could Ioffer like?
• 30:10
  Could I be a coach? Could I step into this lane of
• 30:13
  being a, a parent coach? Could I step into more like
• 30:18
  workshops and a Catholic kind of switching between like work that
• 30:21
  was individual and like 1:00 to 1:00 and then work that was more
• 30:27
  like changing the system, you know, and I and I think like I
• 30:30
  oscillate and have for the past few years, like really spent a
• 30:34
  lot of time considering because I think what makes this work and
• 30:37
  what has made it so like intriguing to me every day to
• 30:41
  like chip away at this sort of problem or like challenge of
• 30:46
  well-being and work at the same time.
• 30:49
  Is, is really that it's like it's, it's never ending, it's
• 30:54
  always changing and it's really, really important.
• 30:58
  And so, yeah, all of that kind of combined.
• 31:01
  And like, as I sort of figured out, like, oh, the last thing I
• 31:04
  was going to say about that was that it's, it's something that
• 31:06
  involves both sides. So like it is something that is
• 31:09
  an individual situation. Like we hold a lot of power and
• 31:14
  also the systems and the organizations hold a lot of
• 31:16
  power. So it, I always sort of knew
• 31:19
  that I wanted to be able to speak to both and hold both at
• 31:23
  the same time in the same breath and really integrate this
• 31:25
  approach because I certainly, you know, I'm a parent to twins
• 31:30
  and in a pandemic, I'm like, I don't have a normal experience
• 31:33
  to like, say like I'm a parent expert because I'm not a
• 31:37
  parenting guru and I don't aim to be.
• 31:40
  I don't have those answers. But what I do like, think about
• 31:43
  all day long is like how people relate together and how we
• 31:47
  approach and relate to work itself in order to like make
• 31:50
  that work. Because we work for a really
• 31:51
  long time, we work a. Lot we work a.
• 31:54
  Lot many years of our lives are spent working most of our days.
• 31:59
  So yeah, shifting into human head I I just had that ability
• 32:02
  to like go deep into the logistics of what I would plan
• 32:06
  this into and I and I really landed on creating courses as
• 32:11
  sort of a jumping off point and a lot of this work.
• 32:14
  I really felt like I, I needed to kind of get out like I
• 32:17
  sometimes call it like my magnum opus or whatever.
• 32:20
  Like, I really like had this like, OK, I actually have to
• 32:22
  just like write this down and write this script.
• 32:25
  And so I created a course called becoming a new working parent,
• 32:29
  filmed the video course like learned everything I would need
• 32:32
  to create this like 4 hour long modular sort of direct to
• 32:38
  consumer course. And then a second one called
• 32:41
  working well for parents, which I finally launched literally
• 32:45
  last week. And so it's thank you, thank
• 32:50
  you. And so now kind of shifting into
• 32:52
  like what the work does. It's all just centred around
• 32:56
  employee well-being, employee engagement and transforming the
• 33:01
  world of work and well-being in that same sentence.
• 33:04
  So I, I am shifting into a lot of like workshop design and
• 33:09
  pieces like that to just bring the conversation together in the
• 33:12
  workplace. And and yeah, I'm having a lot
• 33:15
  of fun doing it so. Yeah, so beautiful.
• 33:19
  When we chatted, you had this snazzy 3 part, I don't know,
• 33:24
  system, framework, whatever you call it.
• 33:26
  And I was so drawn to that. And I know people listening,
• 33:29
  they're doing dishes or they're buzzing about doing chores, what
• 33:33
  errands, whatever. And so it's really nice to like
• 33:35
  get a framework. And so you talked about
• 33:38
  self-awareness, coping with stress, and relational
• 33:42
  intelligence as being kind of three pinnacles that you believe
• 33:46
  are really important in this topic of work and working
• 33:48
  parents. Can you let's, let's get into
• 33:51
  it, Let's start #1 would you start with self-awareness?
• 33:55
  Is there an order to this? OK.
• 33:59
  Oh yeah, OK. Yeah, I mean, I would start with
• 34:01
  self-awareness, but even before that, I will say that something
• 34:06
  I always like to sort of name is, is the like pressure and
• 34:12
  sort of idea of like pressure and stress being something that
• 34:16
  is different in this time of life of like being working and
• 34:21
  parenting at the same time. Like I think if, you know,
• 34:24
  pressure isn't a bad thing. Pressure is just a thing, right?
• 34:27
  It's like a force pushing in on something else and like that can
• 34:31
  be challenging, it can be hard, it can be a lot of other things
• 34:34
  that it leads into and it can lead into stress.
• 34:37
  And I think that like particular type of pressure, which in this
• 34:41
  like working well, this second course we call working parent
• 34:44
  pressure. It's like a really particular
• 34:46
  thing where again, it's like a different pressure than I had
• 34:49
  experienced before and it has really high stakes.
• 34:53
  And so like when we sort of shift into this idea of like, So
• 34:56
  what do you do when you're in this pressure and you're
• 34:59
  experiencing it? How do you really equip yourself
• 35:03
  to get out of it? And I think when it comes down
• 35:05
  to these different pieces of building resilience so that you
• 35:09
  can, you can ride with it. You can like see the pressure,
• 35:12
  experience the pressure, go through the pressure and it's
• 35:14
  not going to carry you down. It's not going to stop you in
• 35:18
  your tracks. It's and every time we can build
• 35:20
  that sort of resilience muscle to say, OK, I've done this
• 35:24
  before. I actually know what I would do
• 35:26
  in this scenario or like, oh, I thought about this already or
• 35:29
  I've prepared myself. I'm not going to get stepped up
• 35:31
  and these are some sort of our three categories to be able to
• 35:36
  move forward powerfully and justice recognize what those
• 35:40
  those are so. I think that's really important
• 35:42
  to call out the type of the type of stress.
• 35:45
  And I think when people are like, oh, that's a funny, nice,
• 35:49
  you've got like career coaching for working parents.
• 35:51
  And I'm like, yes, it is funny. It is extremely niche.
• 35:55
  However, it is so important because it's a very particular
• 35:58
  that I've never actually put it that way, but it's a very
• 36:00
  particular type of pressure, stress, whatever you want to
• 36:03
  call it that a working parent is experiencing.
• 36:06
  And it requires a different level of empathy.
• 36:08
  Like I'm on TikTok sometimes and like I would say that the 22
• 36:12
  year old who's like giving Wellness advice doesn't relate
• 36:15
  to me because they're like, you really need 9 uninterrupted
• 36:19
  hours of sleep. And I'm like, yeah, and that
• 36:23
  might be the goal. Love that from you might not be
• 36:27
  a reality, right. So it's like.
• 36:28
  Vacation maybe? I don't.
• 36:31
  Know. Maybe it's getting easier now,
• 36:33
  but you know what I mean? It's like, I love that you're
• 36:35
  doing this week this type of because sure, working well at
• 36:38
  work or like being healthy and well at work in general is a
• 36:43
  beautiful concept and I wish that for everybody.
• 36:46
  However, there's a very particular type of pressure that
• 36:50
  a working parent faces. And to say to that, to say to
• 36:53
  that parent, remove the pressures and remove the stress
• 36:56
  because it's going to cause inflammation and chronic stress
• 36:57
  and it's going to kill you eventually.
• 36:59
  You're like, I'm not going to remove my children.
• 37:02
  So what else you got? And so I think it's so unreal
• 37:06
  what you're doing because you're going to meet the person, I
• 37:08
  assume. I haven't seen the back end of
• 37:10
  the course, but I assume you're meeting the person where they're
• 37:12
  at. And you're saying this pressure
• 37:14
  is, yes, creating it has the ability to create diamonds,
• 37:16
  which is like a beautiful family, beautiful life, if
• 37:18
  that's what you're wanting. But it also, yeah, like too much
• 37:22
  of anything's not great. And so how can you work with
• 37:25
  that? Like you're working with the
• 37:26
  pressure and I assume you're moving it around versus being
• 37:29
  like just eliminated all like, how do you do that?
• 37:33
  How do you do? How do you do that?
• 37:35
  And also like life, you can't stop it.
• 37:37
  Like we can't stop the moving train that we're on.
• 37:41
  So like no one is out here to live with a perfect undisturbed
• 37:46
  experience. It's like no, things are going
• 37:48
  to be go up and down. And the stronger we can be at
• 37:51
  responding to the challenges like, great, let's keep going,
• 37:55
  see where we can take this. Thing, OK, so if we're starting
• 37:58
  with coping with stress pressure, what's the question
• 38:02
  that one should be asking themselves or asking you?
• 38:07
  So I'll start back to self-awareness now.
• 38:10
  We're going to. Love this.
• 38:11
  We're going back to self, we're going to self-awareness because
• 38:14
  I think, you know, the main note within self-awareness is really
• 38:18
  what do I want this to look like or what do I want to be
• 38:22
  different? Because again, when you have
• 38:24
  this like response of having stress and being like everything
• 38:29
  that you just said, especially chronic stress where it's like
• 38:31
  it's, there's no end insight. Your kid is 2 or like you're,
• 38:34
  you're like, OK, it's going to be like this forever.
• 38:36
  And also your career is very long and it's especially for
• 38:40
  most of us in this like child, child, children years, like
• 38:45
  you're just having so much happened at once that of course
• 38:49
  you're going to have this moment of like, OK, this is a lot.
• 38:52
  And so that self-awareness is, is being able to say, what do I
• 38:56
  specifically want to be different so that we're not
• 38:59
  like, I'd say reacting with a bit of a like catastrophizing
• 39:08
  length of like, everything needs to change and everything is
• 39:12
  wrong or like, oh, let's let this black cloud come with me.
• 39:16
  And those are examples that are coming from me.
• 39:18
  Those are my experiences and my examples.
• 39:20
  I would not say that that's like everyone is having an experience
• 39:24
  that I'm having. But I think what I really saw in
• 39:27
  those like first few months and the first few years even is
• 39:30
  like, I wanted something to be different.
• 39:33
  And that is what I could say. It was like something is going
• 39:38
  is not right with this my well-being.
• 39:40
  Like I can't function well within my home life or my work
• 39:44
  life or I can't feel good because I can't, I'm stretched
• 39:49
  too thin. So like something needs to be
• 39:51
  different. And so when it comes to
• 39:52
  self-awareness, it's really being able to say like, OK, what
• 39:56
  is it that I need to be different?
• 39:58
  And it's a powerful step. Like it's really like one of
• 40:01
  those things. Like how much time we spend in
• 40:04
  sort of designing into our goals or designing into our career.
• 40:08
  But like being able to stop and say like, OK, specifically at
• 40:11
  this juncture or like at this next three months or six months,
• 40:15
  what is the thing that if that changed, I could regain that
• 40:19
  sense of well-being. So I could connect back into
• 40:23
  feeling good, I could function better.
• 40:25
  I could have that like even 1% improvement.
• 40:28
  So there is such a level of self-awareness required that a
• 40:32
  lot of like the pieces within the course or the pieces and
• 40:34
  like the, the work is really hones in on like, OK, So what
• 40:38
  are the tools and pieces that can allow us to be in inquiry
• 40:42
  with OK, what do I want? What would that look like?
• 40:44
  What do I want to be different? And I I kind of picture it like
• 40:48
  the tip of an iceberg. Is that kind of what you?
• 40:50
  Yeah. Is, is that kind of like how you
• 40:53
  coach people through that? Like you, you look at the
• 40:55
  symptom like if you're going to the doctor and you're like, I've
• 40:58
  got this rash, often it's not the rash is not just a rash,
• 41:02
  right? Like it could be a symptom of
• 41:03
  something else that's happening. And so is that, is that we're
• 41:06
  kind of where you go with it, where it's like, OK, like you
• 41:08
  get like 1 symptom. Like what I want to be different
• 41:10
  is I want to be less tired. And then you have to go down
• 41:14
  from there. Like what's below that and then
• 41:16
  what's below that and then what's below that?
• 41:18
  Like how do you how do you work through that?
• 41:21
  Yeah, so I mean, that's a really good example in metaphor.
• 41:24
  I don't have that specifically. I'm like, yes, that is a perfect
• 41:27
  one. But I think just that the the
• 41:28
  like broader like nature of the exercise of exercise of there's
• 41:32
  a million different ways that we can tap into self-awareness of
• 41:35
  like asking ourselves those questions of like, OK, what
• 41:37
  specifically would be different? Or how do I even like assess how
• 41:40
  would I rate these different parts of my life?
• 41:43
  Or what does it look like when things are off so that I can see
• 41:46
  is this off? You know, so like there's all
• 41:49
  sorts. I honestly, I think that there's
• 41:51
  like an A million different tools that could be used for
• 41:54
  this. And I think the most simple 1 is
• 41:55
  just like you said, it's like asking why five times, like
• 41:58
  asking the question, like, OK, what about this?
• 42:00
  What about this? And being able to say like, OK,
• 42:03
  and I'll give an example like we were kind of playing with before
• 42:06
  around the, you know, recurring meetings, right?
• 42:11
  Like if you're like, OK, what's stressing me out is that I
• 42:14
  always have meetings in the evenings and I don't want to
• 42:17
  have meetings conflict with bedtime.
• 42:19
  OK, Well, once you are able to identify like, OK, I don't want
• 42:23
  evening meetings or like maybe it even starts broader than
• 42:26
  that. I'd say for most people it's
• 42:27
  like my work schedule is too much, work is overwhelming.
• 42:30
  Right. And you're like, OK, work is
• 42:32
  overwhelming you. Then what?
• 42:34
  Like what part of your work is overwhelming you?
• 42:36
  Is it the type of work? Is it the like that your boss?
• 42:39
  Is it a person? Is it, is it a schedule piece to
• 42:42
  like being able to sort of tease apart any scenario?
• 42:46
  I think is like a really major skill that I think a lot of
• 42:49
  people, again, like all your clients, like it's so amazing to
• 42:52
  be able to work one-on-one with the coach.
• 42:53
  And I think what's sort of shifted into the human food side
• 42:56
  is that like, it's more of a like, what's the like workshop
• 43:01
  to like lead you through thinking so that you have like
• 43:04
  sort of private time and space to work through that on your
• 43:07
  own? Because for me, I think one of
• 43:09
  the pieces that really resonated was like, I didn't have a lot of
• 43:12
  time. And I also found like, even to
• 43:14
  like find time to fit in a therapist or something.
• 43:17
  I'm like that scheduling is like, throw another one on the
• 43:21
  list. Like I got another piece I need
• 43:23
  to work through now I need to schedule that thing added to my
• 43:26
  mental load list or my laundry list of home things.
• 43:28
  So like, I feel like there's something in, you know, the most
• 43:32
  simple but meaningful adjustments or assessments or
• 43:37
  reflections or tools that allow us to say like, OK, what are 5
• 43:40
  tools that can allow me to assess and see myself and my
• 43:45
  scenario clearly for what it is? And that's sort of
• 43:49
  self-awareness. Yes, I love that one.
• 43:52
  OK, Coping with stress. So we're aware and we're making
• 43:57
  the small changes like we're making like I would call that
• 43:59
  the low hanging fruit it kind of sounds like, but there's still
• 44:03
  stressors coming in that you're kind of like batting away
• 44:07
  constantly. Like you brought up the example
• 44:09
  of the kid gets sent home sick, it's going to happen.
• 44:14
  So what's gonna happen? Parents are especially
• 44:16
  vulnerable to this What? How do you how do you move
• 44:19
  through that? You know, there's, I would say
• 44:23
  when it comes to coping with stress, a lot of it is like
• 44:26
  having as much as you can like sort of broad strokes of like,
• 44:31
  what are the things that send me into stress?
• 44:35
  Because like once you know, like, OK, some there is stress,
• 44:38
  something is stressful to me or like what part of it do I need
• 44:40
  to solve for? But like things are still going
• 44:43
  to come up. So like having that like bit of
• 44:45
  a like lay of the land of like, OK, I am equipped to cope with
• 44:49
  this thing because I can kind of say like the stressor is coming
• 44:53
  from something and also being able to recognize for yourself,
• 44:56
  like when stress happens, what am I going to, what do I, what
• 45:00
  do I am going to do about that? Like, because again, I, you
• 45:03
  know, when it comes to resilience more broadly, like
• 45:05
  things go wrong, wrong, right or wrong, whatever.
• 45:09
  But like things go off the rails, things challenges come.
• 45:13
  Like you're always going to be experiencing some sort of
• 45:17
  working parent pressure iteration, right?
• 45:20
  And so being able to have those tools in your pocket of like,
• 45:24
  OK, as an example, like doing like a self check in of like OK,
• 45:28
  hand or head heart hand and help as an example.
• 45:32
  So there's like that moment of like, OK, I know if I'm feeling
• 45:35
  overwhelmed and stressed and I actually have no idea what I
• 45:38
  want to do and I'm kind of freaking out about work, OK, So
• 45:41
  what's the ability to say, OK, head, Like what?
• 45:44
  What am I thinking right now? Like where's my head at?
• 45:47
  Like how am I? And then checking in with your
• 45:49
  heart, like, OK, what am I really feeling right now?
• 45:52
  And and heart, hand and heart. Hand one.
• 45:59
  Going to be hand, hand is like, what action do you need to take?
• 46:03
  Like what do I need to do next? And then help.
• 46:05
  Who do I need to go to for help? Who can I ask for help?
• 46:08
  Where can I find help? And like a very simple like 4H
• 46:12
  like that allows you to say, like, OK, I can process the
• 46:17
  moment that I'm in or the stress that is being experienced or the
• 46:21
  pressure I'm feeling right now so that I can change what I need
• 46:25
  to change and move forward with how I need to move forward.
• 46:28
  So again, that like coping with stress is really like resilience
• 46:31
  building. It's really ties in deeply with
• 46:35
  awareness and then also allows you to say like, OK, before I
• 46:39
  can even say this is what I need differently.
• 46:42
  Like we, we kind of need to process at a certain point of
• 46:46
  like how do I prepare myself for even getting into the next the
• 46:50
  third, which is relation, relational intelligence, which
• 46:53
  starts to step into the other, which I'll get into a SEC.
• 46:55
  But like it being able to like take it from self and then like
• 46:59
  get yourself ready, I think involves a lot of like
• 47:04
  resilience. It's a beat.
• 47:05
  It's a moment to say like, OK, I've actually sort of triaged
• 47:10
  and then I can go from there. I think that's beautiful and
• 47:14
  you're kind of making me think of my own.
• 47:16
  Obviously, I'm relating this to my myself, my own experiences.
• 47:20
  I would say 80% of the shit that I'm thinking and stressing about
• 47:24
  is not new. Yeah.
• 47:28
  My stressor. 100% my. Triggers, whatever the hell you
• 47:32
  want to call it. Yeah, they are the same things
• 47:35
  that I have been working on since I was younger and now and
• 47:39
  I think, you know, into like mid 30s, officially almost mid mid
• 47:43
  mid 30s. I'm like, why do some things
• 47:46
  feel easier now? And I'm like, Oh yeah, I have
• 47:48
  the tools and have strategies when I know that thing comes up
• 47:52
  and I know that one trigger, that one stressor comes up for
• 47:55
  me. This is how I navigate it now.
• 47:57
  And you don't feel so blindsided.
• 47:59
  And yeah, when you don't even look internally and be like,
• 48:02
  huh, that's interesting. That's something that comes up
• 48:04
  for me a lot. And when you're not doing that
• 48:06
  reflection, it keeps coming up and you continue to be
• 48:08
  blindsided. Like, that's when it's like, OK,
• 48:11
  this is something's got to change.
• 48:12
  And sometimes it could be a partner that calls it out and
• 48:15
  then you just want to smack him in the face because it's never
• 48:18
  fun to have somebody else or you don't know and you're like.
• 48:23
  Yeah. How did I miss that one?
• 48:26
  Now on the partner front. Yeah.
• 48:28
  What tips do you have just from your own experience here from
• 48:31
  this work that you do with like managing stressors when it comes
• 48:35
  to parenting and working, but also having a partner in the mix
• 48:39
  like and managing, managing stressors with one another and
• 48:44
  for one another. You know, like how does that,
• 48:46
  how does a partner come into the mix in this?
• 48:48
  Oh my gosh. I mean, OK, a couple of just two
• 48:56
  initial thoughts. 1 is that I have an exercise in the first
• 49:02
  course, but this is just making me think of where a lot I'd say.
• 49:07
  And again, this is comes from this lens of being like very
• 49:11
  logistical and being like sort of methodical in my thinking.
• 49:15
  And there there's a bit of a like, I think intentionality
• 49:20
  required of how you work together with your partner that
• 49:24
  might not have been required before.
• 49:27
  Again, like you beforehand, you can just kind of coast, you can
• 49:31
  kind of like live your your life and be too independent people or
• 49:35
  be two people that shift together or like make
• 49:38
  concessions. And then suddenly again, the
• 49:41
  pressures have changed. And so you're working with a new
• 49:45
  relationship than you were before.
• 49:47
  And so there's something I'd say important for me that is about
• 49:54
  like actually clarifying sort of what are the things that I am
• 50:00
  thinking of or holding or that are new to me.
• 50:02
  Because, you know, I think when I hold this like idea of
• 50:06
  becoming a working parent as like this is a new role.
• 50:09
  This is a new role in the same way that like getting a new job
• 50:12
  and a new role at work is. And you'd never, like start a
• 50:16
  new job without like looking at the job description and taking a
• 50:20
  beat to be like, what am I responsible for?
• 50:23
  And so like that same sort of lens of like, what am I
• 50:26
  responsible for? I, I think it requires a bit of
• 50:30
  like, you know, what am I responsible for?
• 50:33
  What are you responsible for? For sure.
• 50:35
  But I think it also requires like listing out what
• 50:38
  responsibilities there are because like there's part of it
• 50:41
  that's like, you know, starting. And I think that's like the way
• 50:44
  that I approach like leadership and business strategy in a lot
• 50:47
  of ways is like, OK, what, what's the big, what are we
• 50:50
  working towards? What are the big goals?
• 50:51
  Like what are the priorities and what are our resources?
• 50:53
  And then being able to like break it down a bit more like a
• 50:56
  like a like a business decision in that say that isn't the same
• 51:00
  as saying like, OK, I'm going to take this, you're going to take
• 51:02
  that. It's like, what's going on here?
• 51:04
  Like what do we got going on as like a team?
• 51:07
  And I think that that, you know, that and also like couples
• 51:11
  therapy as required. But like, you know, like that,
• 51:15
  that I think is like a stepping stone for me to be able to say
• 51:19
  like, OK, when I'm considering my like group of working parents
• 51:25
  or like my this community or this like work within human food
• 51:28
  is like people who are working and they're also trying to be
• 51:30
  well at the same time. Like it requires a bit of like,
• 51:33
  OK, let's like strategize that and, and do that in a way that
• 51:38
  like feels right but also gets us where we're where we want to
• 51:41
  go. Yeah.
• 51:43
  I think that's awesome. And there's such a unique,
• 51:46
  there's a uniqueness in being the birthing parent.
• 51:49
  And I have so much love for the people I work with does that I
• 51:54
  work with or the father figures. You know, it's like there's
• 51:57
  because I think there's what I was kind of hearing that too is
• 51:59
  like a respect for the fact that you're both taking on new roles.
• 52:03
  Absolutely. And two different roles, not
• 52:07
  really based on gender. I mean the gender that's a whole
• 52:10
  other conversation, but it's like it's more just you're two
• 52:13
  different people. A partnership doesn't matter if
• 52:16
  my mom, dad, dad, whatever mom, dad, it's like 2 humans bringing
• 52:19
  two different experiences, 2 personalities, 2 work contexts.
• 52:23
  You, I know you and your husband have different work contexts and
• 52:27
  bringing that to the table and then you put each putting on
• 52:29
  this new hat and your parent. It's just, it's so interesting
• 52:33
  in the very, it creates additional variables and it's
• 52:35
  like. It really.
• 52:37
  It's what to the power of like 4 because there's like now you
• 52:40
  have two kids, there's two of you.
• 52:41
  So it's like, whoa, totally so many.
• 52:44
  Let's see like the branches and like that old math class.
• 52:46
  So it's a lot. It's a lot.
• 52:48
  So this actually maybe has a good segue into relational
• 52:51
  intelligence. First of all, what does that
• 52:53
  mean? What does?
• 52:53
  That mean? OK, I'd say most simply
• 52:56
  relational intelligence is just like seeing how you work and
• 53:00
  relate with others and like how you connect with other people,
• 53:04
  how you like, work with and relate to them.
• 53:06
  It can be with other things, like with work culture more
• 53:10
  broadly, I'd say. Like how we relate to work
• 53:12
  culture is like a whole interesting other podcasts work.
• 53:16
  Culture change. You know, but I think when it
• 53:19
  comes to this work, it's really like I, I invite people, new
• 53:25
  parents, any person, honestly, any person that is an employee
• 53:29
  and has a person that they are, they're, you know, accountable
• 53:33
  for the work within with that person.
• 53:35
  Like we'll call them a manager, but it's not always like your
• 53:37
  direct manager could be different seats or whatever.
• 53:40
  But like you and your manager, like there's a difference
• 53:42
  between, you know, your manager sitting on one side of the table
• 53:46
  and you sitting on the other side across and you're kind of
• 53:49
  presenting you that your side and they're presenting their
• 53:51
  side. There's like a combativeness,
• 53:53
  there's like a push and Paul, it's a me versus you.
• 53:57
  It's like a, you're holding like a bit of a like you're holding
• 54:00
  your cards close to you. There's like a privacy of like,
• 54:03
  OK, I got to like in in secret, prepare my this to to you.
• 54:08
  And there's like that like back and forth, like power,
• 54:11
  inequality, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah can go on forever.
• 54:13
  And I think what I my like broadest goal within like
• 54:17
  transforming while being at work is is to really encourage and,
• 54:22
  and identify and name that. Like if you're sitting across
• 54:26
  from someone that is, that's, that's not it.
• 54:29
  It's sitting next to each other and looking together at the same
• 54:33
  thing. You're different people in
• 54:35
  different roles with different resources, with different
• 54:38
  priorities. There's a lot the same, but
• 54:40
  there's also a lot different. We're all different humans and
• 54:42
  people. And if we can sit together
• 54:44
  dynamics, there's so much that starts to come into play that
• 54:47
  like you'll and I would get sucked into without the ability
• 54:53
  to say, OK, I can actually consider what I want to shift
• 54:59
  and how I would want to, you know, make those requests or
• 55:03
  work in collaboration in a different way to ask for what I
• 55:06
  need for this period of time. I like that a lot and getting I
• 55:09
  think there's there's a lot of power in getting getting the
• 55:13
  process started before heading to that conversation like that's
• 55:15
  getting this is getting super tactical.
• 55:17
  But I do believe that there's, there's a lot to that instead of
• 55:20
  coming just it's cliche, but don't just come with the
• 55:23
  problem. Yeah, think, think it through a
• 55:26
  bit. But I think the thinking is we
• 55:28
  we say that, but then people are like about how, how do I come
• 55:30
  forward with the solution without coming up with the full
• 55:32
  solution? It's like you're not coming to
• 55:34
  the table with the solution. You're coming together to the
• 55:36
  table with self-awareness. Like be really clear about what
• 55:40
  you're desiring, what's going on, how it relates to the
• 55:44
  business and always thinking about the person across from
• 55:46
  you. OK, How does this relate to
• 55:47
  them? Is this in conflict with their
• 55:49
  objectives of what they're trying to achieve on this team
• 55:52
  of the well-being of their job security, Right?
• 55:54
  So it's like, you can't be coming with and saying like, I
• 55:57
  need this and the person's like, I can't give you that.
• 56:00
  Like you're going to, you're going to hit a stalemate, right?
• 56:03
  But what I want to ask you is the thing that comes up all the
• 56:06
  time, whether you're at a cocktail party, you're in a
• 56:10
  coaching session, it's when there's no trust, when the trust
• 56:14
  has dissolved, whatever was there is broken between said
• 56:18
  manager, authority figure and the employee.
• 56:21
  And we're speaking to the podcast listeners right now who
• 56:24
  are like, I'm not and I want to flip the table because of this
• 56:28
  one person. What have you got for us?
• 56:32
  What can that person do with regards to relational
• 56:35
  intelligence in this situation? And OK, here's the here's the
• 56:39
  example. They love their job, they love
• 56:41
  the company, they love their team.
• 56:43
  They cannot stand this person and they don't feel safe.
• 56:47
  Go. Oh my gosh, OK, this is a great.
• 56:52
  I mean, this is so real. And I think that's like the most
• 56:54
  important part about this is that it is so real.
• 56:56
  And I think, you know, I named this this work, this company
• 57:00
  human hood for a reason, because it always really comes down to
• 57:04
  the humanity within each person, right?
• 57:06
  Like we are just a person and another person on our journey
• 57:10
  trying to get where we're going, right?
• 57:12
  So I think the one sort of like something like a quote or like a
• 57:17
  tagline, but like this idea that authenticity begets
• 57:21
  authenticity. So like when you are authentic,
• 57:25
  you will get authenticity back. And that doesn't mean that
• 57:28
  you're going to like get what you always like the same level.
• 57:32
  You're not necessarily going to like be in a perfect
• 57:36
  conversation just because you, you kind of made your, you know,
• 57:42
  most honest request. But I think that there is a way
• 57:45
  to design relationships with intention and it starts with
• 57:51
  authenticity. And so I think that there's I'd
• 57:54
  say the like two or three sort of notes on this is that number
• 57:58
  one, it's being able to say like this, this relationship requires
• 58:03
  designed trust. It's not already there.
• 58:06
  Like it's not like an underlying thing that exists right now.
• 58:09
  So like, if you want there to be trust there, you actually have
• 58:12
  to put it there, like you have to design it and, and make it
• 58:16
  occur. And so I think that that like
• 58:19
  level of intentionality around it is like, oh, OK, now I
• 58:24
  actually have a role that I can play in this.
• 58:26
  Because if you don't, if you, you know, I'd say within a work
• 58:29
  context, like like you said, like you love your tea, you love
• 58:33
  your work and you have like a blockage with a really specific
• 58:36
  person. Like there is a moment of being
• 58:39
  able to say like, OK, I actually need something to change with
• 58:42
  the relationship. And I think it's a, a different,
• 58:45
  you know, part of the conversation is like, um, what
• 58:49
  do you need from them is like a sort of a follow up to all of
• 58:52
  this would be like, you need the relationship to be different.
• 58:54
  But also like then specifically as you get into it, like, OK, So
• 58:57
  what do you need from that person on an ongoing basis or in
• 59:00
  that moment to unlock more productivity or unlock being
• 59:04
  able to work together. But I think in designing trust,
• 59:07
  specifically going in with authenticity and within that,
• 59:11
  with that framework in mind of like, I want something to be
• 59:15
  different in how we work together.
• 59:17
  And being able to like, say, that is, I'd say like light
• 59:22
  years different than the norm of like the default of what will
• 59:26
  occur with a relationship. And being able to actually like
• 59:29
  create a moment with someone where you can kind of like drain
• 59:35
  the water. If we're like all in water, like
• 59:37
  we were talking about before, like being able to like actually
• 59:40
  like, just like eliminate the like elephant in the room to be
• 59:44
  able to say like something has to be different.
• 59:47
  And I want to get there with you.
• 59:49
  And I think another part of this really specific to sort of this
• 59:52
  like working parent pressure and this unique side of pressure is
• 59:56
  being able to say a lot has changed in my life in a X period
• 1:00:02
  of time because I think often within this.
• 1:00:05
  Context and probably within your clients context is like we're
• 1:00:08
  dealing with this within we are in the aftershocks of, you know,
• 1:00:13
  parent early parenthood of, of having a new kid and having a
• 1:00:16
  new baby. And like, you know, my kids are
• 1:00:18
  5. So like I'm in the aftershocks
• 1:00:20
  still, but like, you know, and being able to say like, OK, like
• 1:00:24
  if there if this is a pressure that's occurring and I think it
• 1:00:28
  can be within whatever time frame makes sense.
• 1:00:31
  And again, like this is all relevant for any person, which I
• 1:00:34
  think always just comes up. All of this work is like
• 1:00:37
  anything relatable to this moment is like also a tool that
• 1:00:40
  can be used for anybody at any point in time who's balancing
• 1:00:43
  while being at work. But like being able to then say,
• 1:00:47
  like some, a lot has changed for me.
• 1:00:49
  I, I want to share that with you.
• 1:00:51
  And then being able to also say, OK, like turn the tables, like
• 1:00:56
  what's going on for you or like, how is this occurring for you?
• 1:00:59
  Because like there's the ability to actually like name the thing
• 1:01:03
  and then sort of share your side and also really be committed to
• 1:01:07
  listening and taking in their side is like, again, none of
• 1:01:12
  that is rocket science. None of that is like new.
• 1:01:15
  But like energetically there is a relational intelligence
• 1:01:18
  involved that's like, can you notice when it's time to design
• 1:01:23
  trust? Can you notice when trust is
• 1:01:25
  missing? Can you notice or identify or
• 1:01:27
  clarify? Like, oh, this is the impact of
• 1:01:31
  trust being non existent or being really stretched thin or
• 1:01:35
  being like not consistent enough that I can work with it.
• 1:01:39
  And then being able to say like, OK, the solution is how we work
• 1:01:41
  together. And so there's so much there
• 1:01:44
  that, you know, I could go on all day.
• 1:01:46
  But like, I think when it comes to relational intelligence, it's
• 1:01:48
  like the awareness of like we are working together on
• 1:01:52
  something. And how do we, how do we create
• 1:01:55
  a moment or a meeting or a like really as simple as like a
• 1:01:58
  moment in time as part of our days that we actually just look
• 1:02:02
  at this together, this being not like the latest deliverable or
• 1:02:06
  like the violin or like the thing we're working on.
• 1:02:08
  Like let's look at this deck like no, no, the thing we're
• 1:02:10
  looking at right now is how we work.
• 1:02:12
  And let's just talk about that for a short amount of time,
• 1:02:15
  right? And like, if that can really
• 1:02:17
  unlock how we work, then the like impact is massive.
• 1:02:22
  So I think especially within this time frame of being a new
• 1:02:25
  working parent or being someone who's, you know, holding and
• 1:02:27
  integrating both parts of their lives, your career minded,
• 1:02:30
  you're also a parent. Like it's just a time where that
• 1:02:33
  pressure can lead to more things than you had before to then say
• 1:02:38
  to someone else, like, I am holding a lot of things that I,
• 1:02:41
  I wasn't before. I'm changed, I'm a little bit
• 1:02:43
  different and that's why it's not working anymore.
• 1:02:46
  So like, let's, let's get into that.
• 1:02:47
  What's changed for you in that amount of time?
• 1:02:50
  What's what's different here? So anyway.
• 1:02:53
  It's a great opportunity. Again, it's like the we get kind
• 1:02:57
  of wrapped up in talking about the negative side and the
• 1:03:01
  pressures that are added. And I don't think that's what
• 1:03:03
  we're doing in this conversation, but we're talking
• 1:03:05
  about the realities of the pressures that are added.
• 1:03:07
  But what I think we've also explored in this conversation is
• 1:03:10
  the beautiful moments of pause that this gives.
• 1:03:13
  And it's almost like an excuse to recalibrate everything.
• 1:03:16
  It's an excuse to look at your recurring meetings.
• 1:03:18
  It's a great excuse to come back to the manager who you never
• 1:03:21
  liked, who was always a Dick to. You and say 100%.
• 1:03:25
  Hey, I'm different even though you're like, this is the same
• 1:03:28
  thing. Like we've always had these
• 1:03:29
  issues, but it's like, hey, I'm feeling different.
• 1:03:31
  I'm really excited to like reinvigorate how we work to get
• 1:03:36
  like it can be a positive thing. Always talk about that like you
• 1:03:38
  can say two things the exact same words in two different
• 1:03:42
  ways, just with the way and the presence that you're bringing
• 1:03:45
  and the energy and the tone of voice even.
• 1:03:48
  And so I think I, I love that and I love the just visual of
• 1:03:51
  sitting on the on the same side of the table and looking at this
• 1:03:54
  as like outside of each of you so that it doesn't feel like
• 1:03:58
  this attack. It's like a little an
• 1:04:00
  opportunity that you're both working on together, which I
• 1:04:02
  think is such a nice, such a nice visual, such a nice way of
• 1:04:06
  putting it. Yeah.
• 1:04:08
  OK. Sarah, what is something that
• 1:04:09
  you personally are still trying to figure out?
• 1:04:11
  I asked this to all my guests in the moment right now.
• 1:04:15
  What, what comes to my gosh, Oh my God, in this moment right
• 1:04:20
  now, I'm really, I, I'd say the one thing I'm really trying to
• 1:04:24
  figure out is bringing this work to light and sort of marketing
• 1:04:30
  it and explaining it because it is deep.
• 1:04:34
  And that I think is so motivating and fun and
• 1:04:38
  interesting and also challenging.
• 1:04:39
  So I'm trying to figure out how to how do you like change the
• 1:04:44
  world and explain how this work changes the world.
• 1:04:50
  So beautiful. Well, it truly is.
• 1:04:52
  It is so it is so cool. It's been so fun to just dive in
• 1:04:56
  with tangible examples into some of the stuff that we hear about
• 1:04:58
  or you hear the words relational intelligence and we've learned
• 1:05:02
  about it maybe before you were a parent.
• 1:05:03
  And then it's like, what does this mean for me now and what
• 1:05:06
  does that look like? So thank you so much for for
• 1:05:09
  everything, for sharing your heart and your knowledge.
• 1:05:12
  Where can everyone find you? I know people don't want to
• 1:05:14
  reach out. Oh my gosh, on Instagram at
• 1:05:17
  hello human hood spelled like you think human hood and yeah,
• 1:05:23
  www.hellohumanoid.com site LinkedIn I'm everywhere.
• 1:05:27
  Yay Booker for lunch and. Learn they're gonna be.
• 1:05:31
  Yes. And get the.
• 1:05:33
  Course we will put all the details as always in the show
• 1:05:36
  notes and we could talk forever. This was so much fun, thank you
• 1:05:41
  so much for coming. Up.
• 1:05:43
  Thank you so much for having me. You're the best.
• 1:05:45
  Thank you. Back at you, back at ya.
• 1:05:50
  Thank you so much for listening. And since you made it this far,
• 1:05:53
  please share this episode with a fellow parent who you love,
• 1:05:56
  respect, and want to support. And while you're at it, hit me
• 1:06:00
  up on Instagram at All Figured Out.
• 1:06:02
  Andrea, I would love to meet you and hear what you are trying to
• 1:06:05
  figure out these days.