Mailbag: Career Edition

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah hart Unger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. This is Laura. This is episode two hundred and seventy two. This is going to be our career Mailbag episode, which is airing October eighteenth, twenty twenty two. Those of you who heard our few episodes before this know that Tranquility by Tuesday has been out for a week now, So thank you very much for everyone who got a copy of that. Of people have been sending me pictures, which is great. I love seeing it out in the wild, so thank you for that. We get a lot of great questions at Best of Both Worlds. And you know, longtime listeners know we run one question a week as a segment, but you know, we get more than that, and we would love to do more of these mailbag episodes. So this one is going to be mostly career focused. Yes, we had enough of a build up and we realized that there is a theme to a lot of these questions. Maybe it's a timely thing because post twenty twenty and stuff, there's been a lot of flux, a lot of job openings, perhaps a lot of people reevaluating their priorities. So I'm excited for this episode. Yeah, well, so let's go ahead and dive right in. So we don't have a process for doing this. I guess we'll just sort of altern it out. Who reads them and so I can go ahead and read the first one. So this listener writes in that I used to be a working mom, but decided to stay home with my children last year. It's been over a year of this life change, and I'm thinking it's maybe not for me. My kids are now three eighteen months and a baby do in a couple of months. So my question is, have either of you ever wished you had been a stay at home mom? Was it ever a question or did you always know you wanted to continue working? Plus any advice for someone in my situation now that you are past the very small child phase. So a note. She told us a little bit more about her career. She had been in accounting, but she thinks she wants to change careers because she says, part of the reason I decided to come home was because I not only hated accounting, but she wasn't a big fan of her organization where she had been working either. So she's looking at getting back in the workforce, but is of course concerned about making enough to cover three kids in childcare, especially if she is switching careers. So, Sarah, any thoughts, Yeah, what an interesting question. I have to say that personally, I never had any wishes or plans to become a stay at home mom. I had had thoughts about being part time or doing the kind of hybrid I'm doing right now. That had been a fantasy for a really long time, even pre kids. But I never had fantasies of staying home for any extended period of time. And I don't know if that's because I chose a career in medicine, and most people don't, you know, go through all of that training, although some do, but most don't. Then and then opt out for a while. The other thing is, after having children, particularly when they were small, I had a zero desire to be a stay at home mom. I mean, I recognize that saying that runs counter sits to some of our culture. Yes, these days are precious. Yes, my children are beautiful. No, I did not want to be home with them all day. So you know, I'm giving you permission that if you feel similarly, then that is okay. And I don't think either of us are terrible people, and I love my children. The irony is well, not irony, that's the wrong use of the word. But my kids are older now and us being a quote unquote stay at home mom although they're in school for most of the day. So how much of that stay at home mommy is really mommy and how much of it is just me time is more debatable. Would be more appealing to me now, just because I enjoy spending time more with like school age than I do with toddlers. Again, I almost feel like there's something like, ugh, how could I admit such a thing, But there you go. Yeah, I find that fascinating that you're like, well, of course I love my children, but I didn't, you know, plan to stay home with it, Like I can't imagine a man ever saying that, like, of course I love my children, but I'm still working. Like people would be like, well, of course, like you're the man would say, of course I love my children and I'm still working. There would be no butt. Yes, there's no butt, I mean, And there's nothing about like you loving your kids less or more because you do one thing or another. I think that's just an absolutely ridiculous framing. But I was actually I enjoyed sort of reading where this question went as it kept going, because it was like, I think, what happens a lot with people opting out of the workforce. It is not so much the pull of home, although as we've said, kids are wonderful. I agree, but it's less that than it's that the push out of work. And for various reasons, people may wind up in careers they don't like, they may wind up in organizations that are not supportive in one way or another. And so it's not that, you know, it is that they inherently wanted to be home. It's just that women have a socially acceptable and in some cases rewarded, you know, choice when they don't like their career and they don't like their organization. They say like, oh, well it's going to be best for me to be home for a few years with my kids. It was like, well, it's great to be home with your kids. It was also that, you know, we had this issue on the career side, not so much one being a better choice than the other. And I feel like more men would do that if it was socially acceptable for them to say I want to come home because they hate their job and they can just expect that their spouse will you know, pick it up to support them financially, and that everyone will say, oh, that's so great that you're doing it. Like I think a ton more men would do it if that was, you know, remotely socially acceptable. I mean, we have stay at home dads who listen to this, we have people who listen to this, who have stay at home partners. It's just they're still going against the grain to do it, and so they're making a very sort of different choice. And I find that whole thing fascinating anyway. So in my case, I mean, I love what I do. What I do is very flexible, so I don't feel like I've ever been having to make particularly harsh trade off. So yes, it's not something I've ever considered either. As for the advice for her situation, since she was in accounting, she has a couple of choices here. I mean, one is that after she has the baby, if she wants to get a job a couple months after that as an accountant somewhere, there are a lot of places that need accountants, and she could totally find a job immediately with her level of experience and her skills in another organization that hopefully is much better. Right, So if she can identify that it was the organization that she really didn't like, she can walk into a job as soon as she wants. And then if you know, she could pivot within that organization to something else. I'm sure they'd be happy to, you know, promote her into general management or whatever in a year or two. So that's one option. If she wants to change careers entirely, I think you might want to give yourself more of a like twelve to eighteen month time frame after you would be going back to work, So figure you know, your baby is somewhere three to six months old. From that point, give yourself twelve to eighteen months to kind of get back into it of figuring out what you're going to be doing, to launching that, to doing your job search. And you know, it's not a huge amount of time. She's only been home full time for a year, so we're talking, you know, she's going to have like two and a half three years out of the workforce. It's really not that much, and especially somebody with ten years of experience and having these specialized skills. But I think that would be more realistic. I don't think it's going to be a problem for her to be able to cover the cost again if she goes into accounting. If she does not, then that's something you're going to have to sort of consider, like maybe doing part time childcare until you get to that twelve to eighteen month time. But we'll see. I wish her a lot of luck, and I think it's great that she's realized that she wants to do something different. We are all about, you know, choosing what goes well. I was just thinking about accounting, and while I'm certainly not an expert in that field, I can imagine that sort of like medicine, there's a lot of opportunity to go lateral and still be an accountant, but do things very differently work for different types of organizations. Maybe you end up training other like I think that she's selling herself short by being like, well, that didn't work, so I hated it, and that is a dead end. So hopefully a little career crafting might go a long way as well. All right? Can I read the next one? Because I like your answer? All right? Question two? How do you say no to opportunities that may be good for your career but don't feel doable in your current life stage or just aren't objectively possible? So I have to admit that the phrasing of this question made be a little bit wary. So the question, of course is how do you say no to opportunities? And I'm like, let's back up a little bit before we get to the how to say no part? Why are we saying no? Right? If the opportunity excites you like and make me like, ooh, I wonder that would be interesting, I think we should explore it a little bit more before just saying it is not doable in my life stage. Because I think again, women in particular tell ourselves a lot of stories, such as if I have a family, I can't move, right, that's a big one. If I have a family, I can't be in management because it will require longer hours, or I won't be able to work from home as often. Maybe that's one. If I take this promotion, that would be a problem because I plan to get pregnant in the next year. Like, that's another one. Right, There's all sorts of stories we tell ourselves, and I'm not sure any of those are actually true. What I've seen is often if men are given an opportunity that seems like a stretch that it will require something, they are often asking for more resources. So whether that means, you know, what would make it more doable on the workfront? Do you need more team members? Right? Do you need a bigger budget? Is that something you could negotiate on the home front? What would make it more doable? Is it additional childcare? Have you talked to your partner about this, because you know, you don't know for sure what this person thinks. Maybe they want you to step it up so that they can step it down. Maybe they're not enjoying their career, Like going back to our first questions, So we just don't know until we have hashed it out. Now, all that's saying like, if it's absolutely you're not excited about the opportunity, then by all means a gracious no, the best way to do this is to recommend somebody else, because that way you have not only solved your organization's problem like ideally found somebody who is excited about it, you've also just like gotten somebody else to now be someone indebted to you because you've recommended them. So that's my answer there. That reminds me so much of our episode with Molly Beck, who actually went to a venture capitalist incubator program and I think she'd either just had her second baby or first. Anyway, it didn't sound doable if you were just going to kind of look at what people quote unquote normally do. But she absolutely made it work and it turned out to be a fantastic opportunity for herself, her company, and her family, which has now kind of grown around as her career has grown. So that, to me is just an example of one of those where maybe someone would have decided that that was objectively not quote you know, possible, but you know, maybe it's not typical, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's not possible. Just came to mind when we were talking about that. I don't have a lot of other things to add accept that. I feel like when you get opportunities like this, Noah's absolutely an okay answer, but it's worth the analysis. Like this is when you talk with your partner about life goals, you talk with your supervisor, you talk with a trusted colleague, you journal, you blog about it, and I'm just kidding, you know, you put out into the world like whether it would actually make sense, and then if the answer is no, I love Laura's idea of passing it on to a deserving colleague or somebody else, because you know, that's just a wonderful way to help others, and who knows things we'll come back to help you in the end as well. So love that. Excellent all right. The next question, how do you celebrate a win? So this listener says she's just had a work win of sorts and wanted to celebrate. But I really have no good ideas and nothing I am enthusiastic about. So I guess the champagne and nice meal or big purchase item isn't really doing it for her right now? She says, I'm in need of some fresh ideas as none of my fallbacks are doing the job. Ideally, I want something that will partially motivate me to keep up the momentum. But that might be asking too much, So Sarah, what do we do? This was just great timing because I literally was listening to a podcast episode from Michael Hyatt's podcast which I think was called Lead to Win, but they're changing it to Business Accelerator. I don't know, but the topic was and it was this morning, how to celebrate your win and why it's important, And I was like, oh, perfect. And what they said is, you know, sometimes celebrating can be just It doesn't have to be a tangible reward. It can be taking time to allow yourself to bask in those happy feelings and take stock of what you want to do next in a slow and thoughtful way, rather than the mistake which is like, oh, well now I have to do XYZ and jumping right into your next to do list and like what isn't done? Just really like having the mental space to like think about what you've achieved. My own personal way of doing this tends to be to celebrate with others. I know you mentioned like a meal, not being something you wanted to do necessarily, and it doesn't have to be a meal, but just like talking about it with Josh, like, oh, I'm so excited that, like I'm moving on to my next step of the career, and let's talk about what's fun about that, or maybe taking your team out to lunch or some kind of celebratory event in order to kind of celebrate the milestone and also reward those who have helped you along the way, because none of us do anything in a vacuum anyway, so there are probably others that have supported you and probably will celebrate you when the time comes as well. So those have been my ways. Oh and also to brag to my parents, because I mean, even when you're forty two, it could be really fun to tell your parents something cool that happened at work or that you know something's coming out there in the world with your name on it. Awesome. Yeah, I'm a big fan of taking many vacations during the work day, Like this is a way to both reward yourself. I mean not that you need to have done anything awesome to do this, Like feel free anyone, even if you haven't had any recent work wins to take many vacations during the day, especially if you have done you know, extra hours in another place at some other point. But this might be as she's looking for motivation. This can often be helpful because it's something that does help boost your energy level to do something that would be hard to do outside of the workday. So especially you know, as we're getting toward fall in many places, it's darker, you know, colder outside the hours. So maybe if you go for a long walk or a hike or a run in the middle of the day, that's something that's harder to do after work or you know, before work if you're getting kids off to school. But you know, taking noon to two to go hike somewhere beautiful could be a great way to reward yourself. You know, you could go visit a museum, right, take the hours of twelve to two to go visit a museum. That's hours or nine to four, so you would like never actually be able to go to it otherwise, So do that, you know, go visit a cool boutique, have a friend meet you for a walk or for coffee or something like that. But just anything that would be you know, a mini vacation during the work day, because that also, like it gives you a break and helps boost your motivation for the future, in addition to feeling celebratory. So let's take a quick ad break and then we will be back with more from our career mail bag. All right, we are back, and I am going to read question number four best practices on how to capitalize on a conference visit once it's over, for example, in the days after reaching out to people you wanted to talk to but couldn't pencil in time to relay, learning with those colleagues who couldn't go, or catching up with others later to maintain the network. Yeah, I mean, the first thing I have to say is, if you do anything, you will be ahead of about ninety percent of the people who go to any given conference. My general sense, and this is from speaking at you know, a vast number of conferences in many, many different industries, is a lot of people the conference serves sort of a different function, and it's exciting and they get fired up while they're there. But there's not necessarily a whole lot that always happens afterwards. And I really wish there were, because I think people who do it really well. Do in fact make time afterwards. And one of the best things they do is to actually schedule time, like when you're signing up for the conference, schedule time immediately afterward for the follow up, so like two hours on the workday you get back, where you can email all the people you met at the conference that you actually liked. Right. You can then also email the people who you didn't get to catch up with while they were there but you heard they were in attendance, be like, so sorry I missed you. Let's connect just using the occasion when you're right back to cement those ties. I would also if you have colleagues who didn't go, or even if you did, to set up some sort of like lunch and learn for like the friday after you get back, so you know, the colleagues who didn't go will join you for lunch and you will give a presentation on what you took away from the conference. And it's not so much that they're going to take anything from it. I mean, great if they do, but it's that it will cement the learning for you because you're forced to take notes on what you're doing while you're at the conference and thinking about how would I present this to someone else? And just by doing that, you will feel far more accountable for the information you are getting simply because you are presenting it. And you know, if you have colleagues who did go as well, like it's great to have a meeting a couple of days later, you know, have that Friday lunch and learn where you can all sit around and all share. You know, what was the best thing I learned? You know, what will I do different if we go to this conference again? You can all go around the table and have that, And that's just a great way to do that. As for network maintenance, I mean, this is just something everyone should be doing in general, like reaching out to people regularly, you know, every couple of months, anyone that you want to keep in your active network. So you know, just fold these new people you met into that that you email them a couple months later when you find something that's related to them, and then when the conference sign ups happen the next time, of course, that's an opportunity to reach out to and you know, all those people you met say hey, are you going again, we'd love to see you and so forth. I love it. I've definitely done that roundtable post conference before, especially because we can't as a team all go to the same conference because someone has to be back there taking call and seeing the patients, so we usually kind of split half in half. And for that reason, you know, those who go to Endocrine Society will teach us about what happened there, and those of us who go to Pediatric in Society a separate meeting, by the way, can teach the end of Society people what happened there. So you get double duty. And I know this wasn't in the question. You asked specifically what you can do, and Laura answered it beautifully, But I also just want to be I'm like the permission slip in this episode, it's okay to mostly just treat your conferences like fun and a break. I find that like when I go to conferences, I do learn things, like I get up to date in certain things, but the biggest takeaway is often just being like excited when I go back to work and like more energized and happy that I've gotten to connect with other people who face some of the same challenges that I do, and like it just makes me happy to go back to work. Not to mention the fact that I'm often rested because I got to sleep in my own room and nobody woke me up, and I got to decide my own schedule. And so I mean, if this is you, depending on what kind of career you have, you can also just appreciate the fact that the conference itself is going to have benefits, whether or not you, you you know, put any specific efforts into post conference activities. I know it helps me. I know I've greatly missed going to these kinds of conferences over the past couple of years, and I'm very excited to be back at them. Excellent, all right, the next question, I definitely want to hear Sarah's answer for this because I don't have a whole lot of experience on this one. Tips for managing shift work. So I suspect this person is in medicine and does twelve hour shifts three times a week, and she says that I am super tired on my first day off whatever she has after the shift. But of course, if you're doing twelve hour shifts three times a week, a lot of your time is the first day off after the shift. So I think this listener would like to have more of a life despite this shift work. So Sarah, I think, what do you recommend? I think, you know, I'm always proselytizing planning, but this is one of those instances we're planning is just going to pay off so much, not only planning what you'd like to do, because you're going to have a lot of free time. Honestly, yes, you're working very hard. Twelve hour shifts are no joke. I've done them. They are you come home and sometimes you just stagger home and there's just not much you can do. Plus, if you have you listen to this podcast, you may have, and so like you're then putting them to bed like it's a lot, But it also means there's probably large swaths of the week that you have some free time, and I understand the instinct to want to use that. Well, you mentioned in your questions down that you're super tired on your first day off. Well, I think in your planning and I think you should do some specific planning here about how you're going to use these days. You should make an entire day dedicated to low energy activities and restorative activities. And again I don't know how these shifts are laid out, but if you're working Monday Tuesday, Wednesday or Monday Tuesday Thursday, then maybe like that Wednesday in between is just like chillax day, and you are going to read like reading, you are going to make sure your partner helps you with bedtime, You're going to really think about ways that you can actively recover, and you're going to think about how you're going to use those other days when you are more energized because you have purposely taken time to rest to do the other things that you want to do. I mean, I think back to my residency, and it's a little difficult because I don't have the experience of being a resident with children, which, as I've mentioned in other episodes, is a whole other life ballgame. But I had some pretty crazy weeks, and what really helped me was having some fun, RESTful things to look forward to on my time off and thinking ahead about what I might do in stretches of time when I was not as tired and not working. So those are kind of my go tos. Yeah, I think, you know, it really does depend what these shifts are. I mean, if somebody works seven to seven, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, that's sort of a different ballgame from seven to seven Monday Wednesday Friday. Because if it's Monday Wednesday, Friday and she's saying that she's tired her first day off, like she's tired the whole week, and then that's a whole different issue. You know that you know, might need to be addressed in some way or another. But if she's working like some overnight shifts for instance, or she's working like you know, I don't know how her place does it. But if somebody was working like seven pm to seven am, or even like something worse five pm, I don't know. It's just however it's being done. And if it's alternating tool that could be really rough. And if it is alternating, I think you have to get us spread sheet of the entire one hundred and sixty eight hours, map in your work shifts, and then map in when you sleep, because if it's not, you know, you're not sleeping from eleven pm to seven am in a regular way like you forget, and so then you've got something ridiculous like you've worked seven pm to seven am, and then you've got something you don't actually care about scheduled for ten am the next morning. It's like don't do that to yourself, right, Like you need to block in where the sleep is if that is the case, if you've got these mixed shifts or mostly night shifts or something like that. And then just you know, echoing what Sarah said, plan in some things that you know you're going to look forward to. Plan in some energizing fun things so you don't feel like you are just working off the exhaustion. And you know, obviously twelve hours is a long time. But anything you can do to manage your energy during the shift. I think that that's you know, consciously using any breaks you might have for something rejuvenating. That's always good. Trying to eat health like if you can map out what you're eating during your shift so it's not all, you know, candy bars and coffee and leaving you feeling worse afterwards than before, even if it's tempting in the moment. So yeah, ideas for that, love it all right. Number six, number one tip for managing direct reports. Yeah, so I thought it was funny. It's like, you know, those clickbait headlines like there's this one weird trick for managing your director, Like, wouldn't it be awesome if there was something like, if you wear red on your employee's first day, everything will be great. Now say it, Laura, you've discovered it. That's it, nah, I mean, you know it's it's not rocket science and everyone knows this. It's just that you have to communicate a lot. And it seems so obvious, but people cannot read your mind. So if you want someone to do something, you need to tell them what to do, and if they do it, and then you want them to do it differently, you need to tell them that. And then if they are doing a good job on something or doing better on something, make sure to tell them that too. And you know that's basically it. You know, but it's so simple, but it honestly does matter a lot. Yes, well, I think, as Laura said, like, there's not one thing, and I think not letting things fester has been a big one for me. So when you notice something coming up, bringing it up and being proactive about it sooner rather than waiting to see if it, you know, fixes itself and then being really exasperated when it doesn't and then like being sad that you didn't address it earlier. I've learned from experience it's better to just, you know, go to somebody early and talk about what might be going on or what could be done better, or you know, what they're thinking about something, and making sure you hear their side as well, rather than just like deciding they're doing something wrong and they need to fix it and just treating everyone with respect. Actually, that would probably be my number one tip. Just because someone is below you on a corporate hierarchy doesn't make them low you as a human in any way, shape or form. So making a genuine effort to be just as warm and polite with your intern as you would with the CEO will take you a long way exactly. All right, So suggestions on good leadership and management books, please, Sarah. What have you enjoyed reading? I haven't read that many so, I mean I have read Crucial Conversations by Kerrie Patterson, and there were three other authors that were interesting. I already gave a shout out to Michael Hyatt. I guess this is his data shine. I enjoy his books as well, and there have been a number of them. Yeah, I guess you have more experience in this realm. I probably need to read more of these books. Well, I mean, the one issue is like they come out every couple days, so it'd be more frequently. I mean in the business press, like some random ceo like writes a book about you know, whatever they did, and there's not a ton of them that stand the test of time. I think two that are just sort of interesting that I've I've read over the years, and I want to do a shout out just because they are written by women. I really enjoyed Tara Moore's Playing Big, and it came out several years ago, and it's not so much about leadership per se, but it's sort of having a bigger mindset about what you can do and the different things and the impact you might have by kind of pushing yourself out there doing things that are a little bit more scary to you. And I think it had a lot of leadership implications, even if it's not you know, like those horrible like girl bossy type books that have been all over the place. In terms of just sheer practicality, I'd recommend Lindsay Pollocks Becoming the Boss. She's in the past written a lot for like millennial audiences, for instance, and so this book was aimed at sort of people who were taking their first management jobs, and it's a difficult transition to go from you know, only dealing with yourself to like actually managing a team. And so there's a lot of practical tips in that book, so you might want to check that out as well. Love it. I may put book of those on my reading list. So that's excellent, all right. Question number eight a fun one. What would be your dream job if you weren't doing what you're currently doing. Yeah, I don't think I would be particularly happy doing much else. I guess, you know, it's like, if I was doing something else as a job, I'd be trying to do this stuff that I'm doing now on the side and the rest of my time. And so that's kind of like, well, then I clearly this is what I should be doing full time with my time. I mean, there's obviously tweaks to nobody's career as perfect. I would probably want to expand my writing scope, like to do some more fiction. I do want to do that over time. For those who watch the Tranquility by Tuesday videos, the in real life Tranquility by Tuesday in real life videos that I've been rolling out that as this episode comes out, several of them will already be out. I really enjoy doing those videos as a project. And since I, you know, paid for the production, hired a production company and did, it's obviously something I could do more of. This is not reliant on anyone else to make it happen, and so I could do more of those, you know, pivot into some more video with that. But those are those are tweaks from my current job. They're not departures. So yeah, I can't really think of anything else i'd probably want to be doing. This was just such a fun one to think about, so thank you for submitting the question. I do feel like I've hit a sweet spot in what I'm currently doing, especially now I get to write, I get to speak, I get to see patients, I get to learn medicine, I get to work with colleagues. Like I love what I'm doing. But then I also reflected, and I was like, I bet I would love a lot of stuff. I mean, as long as it's something where I get to be creative, I get to work with people. I probably could find some silver lining. I always have been interested in psychology, and I could imagine having gone that route probably would have been really fun for me, especially maybe something in like child side, because I like kids and teens. I have this also fantasy. My grandfather was like an advertising executive who wrote slogans and commercials and stuff, and I've always been like, oh, the mad Men life, Like, how cool would that have been? Yeah, I guess it's not too late. Who knows. Yeah, So yeah, there's a lot of jobs that probably fit lots of people rather than like one magic fit. And I tell this to my residence because you know, it's like everything seems so high stakes when you're choosing, but the truth is, like, you know, you rule out what really doesn't fit you, which you know has plenty of stuff, but then there's probably a lot of things left over that are going to meet some of your needs, and then you can career craft and tweak and kind of get to your sweet spot. So really fun question. Thanks for letting us think about that. Excellent And then we wanted to end this episode with an update from a listener, Sarah, do you want to read this one? Sure? I wanted to send an update. Can't believe it's been a year and a half. I am happy to report that I am in a great new role that is allowing me to work from home permanently and is a step up from where I was before. It is a hard I think we should back up exactly what was the original? Was the original? We answered this question on the podcast. Sorry, I thought I was just re I'm in the reading questions mode right now. We had a question on the podcast about somebody who wasn't super happy. I think her particular organization was really not allowing to her to be flexible, and we encouraged her to think outside the box and value herself and look for other options, including a place that would let her, you know, work from home if that was something that she was interested in. And then we got this happy update. Okay, I won't read all that again, but she writes, I am happy to report I'm in a great new role that is allowing me to work from home permanently and is a step up from where I was before. It is a whole new challenge in a great way and has really invigorated my attitude and career. Your advice to simply make some phone calls and explore is exactly what I did, and I ended up getting my new role through one of those phone calls, taking the pressure off and taking my time with some low key phone calls was very educational and it was great to reconnect with old friends and colleagues. I also wanted to mention that I worked with a therapist to help me get unstuck, and that was incredibly helpful to help me let go of my limiting beliefs. For example, I can't have an interesting job and care for my kids at the same time, among many others. That was a key piece in being really ready for a new challenge. I also think that limiting Beliefs could be a great podcast episode. While we did kind of touch on those early in this episode, so maybe we'll have to go even deeper. So, oh my gosh, this made me so happy. She said our podcast was inspirational, and she offered us to share share in our episode, which we're doing right now. And this is what makes this podcast so much fun. I love hearing these stories. It is it's so true, and honestly, I think she just needed to hear from people that it's like, you are allowed to make phone calls. Like, you know, if you're not happy in your job, there is nothing that says that you need to stick with it. You don't have to like there's a million jobs out there, and yes, there may be bad issues in everyone, but if you are genuinely unhappy with something or there's something that's not challenging, you can just see what's out there. There's no commitment or anything. You were just having conversations with people, So call people, you know, you know, reach out, have some more coffees, and you know, lots of people are trying to hire these days, so it's not surprising that these conversations led to some opportunities that, once she investigated, seemed a lot better than what she was currently doing. So I'm really excited about that too, And if anyone else is finding them in the situations or themselves in this situation, like you know, I'm feeling stuck or like, yes, I hate my job and whatever, X, Y and Z, but at least I can you know, see my kids in the afternoon. Well guess what, there are other jobs where you'll be able to see your kids in the afternoon too, And they might pay better, they might have more flexibility, they might be more exciting, you might like the people more. Like you know, most people don't wind up absolutely optimizing their jobs, like they're not in the you know the absolute perfect thing. I mean, Sarah and I just said, we really like our jobs right now, but there's lots of things that can be improved, and so sometimes that can happen within your job, and sometimes it means trying somewhere else. Since absolutely fine to do. So than glad to hear that. So if anyone else has you know something a move they've made after hearing some advice on this podcast, we would absolutely love to hear that, So please let us know. So our love of the week, I was going to do home office related stuff. I love being able to use my printer as a copier. I mean, I know that sounds like, of course, like why wouldn't it be able to do that, but I mean they didn't, you know, for a while. And my phone as a scanner, which is another thing, like not having to deal with USB sticks, like going back and forth between like a scanner and then putting it on my computer. I'm just being able to scan with your phone. I mean, how brilliant like this is. Home office tech is just so much better than it used to be. And I mean I was we applied for two of the kids passports recently and you had to make copies of everything and just being able to do it right there at my desk was so easy. Love it. Well, I will just piggyback on your love and say that I love using Apple Notes to store scans that I might need to use multiple times. For example, my kids' medical forms. When I get that, I scan that straight in there because I know I'm gonna need to send it to camp and to school into this, into that, And like having it in one easy place where I don't have to search in my Gmail or in my scanning app is amazing. So love Apple Notes for a filing cabinet to dump pdapps and other graphics where you can find them easily. Yeah, that's a great tip right there, by the way, just to save the medical form somewhere that they can easily be uploaded and not have to go track them down every single time. All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds. This has been our career Mailbag episode. We will be back next week with more on making work in life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together out of