Networking for busy professional women. Ep 10

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of two and soon to be three and a practicing physician. 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. We're on episode ten, which is working moms can do Happy hours networking for the professional woman. Favorite topic of both of ours. I like my happy hours. Sarah would like her happy hours if she weren't currently pregnant, but that always makes happy hours a bit less happy. Yes, it's a drag. Another thing that can be a drag is rainy weekends, which we had an unfortunate number of recently. Sarah especially had a couple of rainy weekends with end of Miami's like this right there, you get a rainy Sea's very seasonal. God, we have the most beautiful like December and January but right now we're in this sort of there are some nice days, but then a lot of days where it's just tropics. Tropics are here, yeah, and so what do you do when it's rainy on the weekends. You've got two kids cooped up in the house and yeah, So lately our big thing has been in the morning, letting the kids talk about a schedule. And when I say the kids, it's really mostly my five year old. The three year old will like interject his own commentary, but mostly it's my older one. And she's even been drawing out like a little comic book representation since her word vocabulary is very limited at this point. So last weekend it was terrible out and she drew like a little picture of them playing with magnetows, and then a little picture of going to the museum, and then a little picture of her late eight and it was really really cute. So we've been doing that. Cooking and baking projects are a really big hit for our kids on rainy days, so I usually try to have sort of the basic stuff to you know, because all you really need is like flour and some chocolate chips and eggs and sugar, and you can make a lot of variations of stuff. We also tend to I try. I'm not we've actually gone through the stash now, but when they have the birthday parties and they get eight million different things, I kind of hide like a little subset of them, and then I call them rainy Day toys, so that if it's reue, we're getting really desk. But I'll say, okay, let's break into our Rainy Day toys and then we can find like a science kid or some craft set or something they forgot they had. But unfortunately the birthdays were like April and February, so we're at there running low. Exactly what about you, guys, you have even more kids to everything. We have to get out of the house. I mean, the kids would love to just sit in the house and watch videos all day, but they can't just do this quietly. Like they start hitting each other, and it's really I mean, it's like we've got to get out of this house, like even just you know, for one activity or something like that. We are members of like every museum in Philadelphia, and apparently it's just about, you know, trying to be supportive of local institutions, but it tends to be a pretty good deal too, and it also reduces the like perceived cost of any visit, like, oh, but we have a membership there, so we can just go. I mean, so we have a great kids museum called the Police Touch Museum, which is probably less great for the ten year old at this point, but he can still go. He still doesn't mind playing like with his siblings, and you know, making a pretend restaurant meal and grocery shopping and this cute little pretend grocery store they have, and so we do that. We've got the Franklin Institute. We've been to a lot, is our gosh, I have so many fond memories of that place as a kid. Yeah, as you grew up around here. Yeah, no, that Giant Heart is still here. I mean, how many times did you walk through the Giant Heart? Money? I think I slept in the heart one heart girl Scouts sleepover for real. There is probably no person in the Philadelphia area who has not walked through that Heart at some point, through some whatever it is they have, because they have variously community days too. But yeah, you've gone through there at a number of times as a kid. So there's that. There's like a dinosaur museum here at American Museum of Natural History whatever it's called, not the American that's in New York, but although we're members of the one in New York too. My husband took a big kids in New York last week. I think they may have gone there, you know. But there's the thing about these museums, is it just if you ask for a membership for like a kid's birthday or something from a grandparent, because grandparents will be like, oh, what does your kid want from a birthday? And I'm assuming if listeners are somewhat like us. The toy front is not. Let's just say that the existence of toys is already far beyond what they will ever be able to play with in their lives, and there's just too many toys already, and so we're trying to get a few more experiential type gifts. That's a great idea membership, So ask for museum membership or zoo membership, and that the zoo doesn't help with the rainy day so much. I mean, you have to just do the indoor exhibits, but that can be a great way to have that work. And yeah, obviously playdates if your kids are old enough. The playdates are a good way for the kids to entertain each other, and then you don't have to entertain them. It's an amazing how you add one more kid and everything changes. Like that's partly what I love play dates. I don't even care if it's it's Cameron's friend, my three year olds friend, or my five year olds friend. Somehow, kids who are like lying around wandering about being bored all of a sudden fin all kinds of things to do when you add them more, well, it's the same thing like you know, adding another couple of you and your spouse go out for dinner, it's like all of a sudden, I mean, you've told each other your stories a million times already, new people to tell your stories too, and they don't know to be bored yet. So it's very exciting from that perspective. So yeah, that's what we've been doing. So coming to our main segment here, we're talking today about networking and what this was somewhat inspired by is we hear from a lot of working mothers that they can't do happy hour right like, so you know, the people at their office go out for drinks or whatever, and there's this whole soft side of work that involves like nurturing relationships with other people. And the assumption is like, well, once you're a parent, you can't do that. You don't have time for that. And in fact, I have had people tell me that they consider themselves incredibly good at time management because they just barricade themselves in their offices the entire day, don't talk to any of their colleagues and just get the work done. I'm like, hmm, interesting that because like a if you ever want to get into management, like, it's not just about getting your work done, it's about having other people like you and trust you so they want to do their best work for you. And the only way that happens is if people get to know you. Often over this sort of relaxed situation, and even if you only want to be in an individual contributor role for the rest of your life, like other people have information that's helpful. You know, they know that that assignment from the other department is never really going to happen because they can see the writing on the wall that's happened last year and they want to warn you off it, or you know, they just this is how the information in companies has passed just through these informal channels, and cutting yourself off from it is just an incredibly short sighted thing. So I agree, and I think that even in a field, I mean people might think, well, medicine, you're just like seeing your patients, you're just cranking out widgets doing your job, that it's still incredibly important because number one, you learn things from other people all the time. Number Two, just what Laura said, if you have any aspirations toward any sort of leadership or even just any sort of specialized like maybe you want to run a certain clinic, you have to kind of get to know the right people, and that has to unfold a little bit organically. You can't just close to yourself away and not build connections with people and then expect them to kind of want to do things for you. So I think this is important even for our scientists, our engineers and people who feel like well, I'm just like think it's very straightforward knowledge worker. I don't think you can discount this sort of softer side. Yeah, not at all. I mean I would say even with with scientists and research, it comes into play and sort of obviously like who are you doing your research papers with, right, who are your co authors? Yes, that's true. I'd say in the science world they are actually expert like that. They most people know that sort of part of the deal, right, that you're having these weekly meetings and journal clubs and collaborations, and it's very The most successful institutions are very collegial institutions, and they usually brag about that too, So you're right, the scientists actually kind of got it going on there. Yeah, So how do you say, I mean, you do lunch sometimes with colleagues, right, that's one way to Oh yeah, I do lunch with almost every day, and that's you know, that's part colleagues and staff. So I want to work with. I want to have lunch with people who are above me and people who are you know, on my career level, and then you know, people who to some extent I supervise, and I think that all of those have have their own value. Plus you kind of got to eat anyway, So it's a great way to kind of know what's going on and in all sorts of realms. And I really do think that all three levels are very important. Yeah, So trying not to eat alone every day is a key one. I mean, obviously, if you are the sort of person who has to interact with people all day and you're pretty introverted, maybe your lunch break is when you do sort of recharge, but then you're interacting with people all day. That's sort of a different matter. But you know, also just not not having your default answer always be no, because then people stop asking. So like you don't have to go to happy hour every night. Like if you're in an office where most people are young or whatever and they go out with each other frequently, I bet people don't go every night, by the way, Like nobody goes every night. That would just be ridiculous, Like no one wants to hang out with their colleagues that much. But if you sometimes go, then then people get to know you and then they still ask. But if they know like, oh, she's the you know, one who's racing out every single day, like, then they don't ask because what's the point. And you know, I know people have like daycare pickups and whatever, but it's good to just sort of arrange a backup to that maybe once or twice a week, so you do have options either to work a little later or to go to the gym, or meet a friend or whatever, but then also maybe to do some some professional networking as well, really working on those relationships, because you know, one or two nights a week, like there's seven nights in a week, and so if you're out with your colleagues one night a week and there's six other nights, like, don't don't just look at that one night and be like, I'm not seeing my kids. You're seeing your kids every other night. Like, let's just you know, it's okay to have a sort of different split with that. It's not have to be an all or nothing kind of a thing. And if you do, you know, the nice thing is if you do make a point to say yes. Sometimes I think people, you know, when they know that you do have kids, they really kind of respond nicely to that. My team, we don't do things all that often, but when they do, I try to go because it isn't that often, and I feel like I get almost like extra credit because they know I have a babysitter. And it's not only just sort of important for building those relationships, but usually it's sexually an enjoyable little diversion too, So don't underestimate that it can be fun yeah, and then we also have to meet people who don't immediately work with us too, I mean, because you know, a I mean, nobody's job is permanent these days anyway, so we never know when we'll be looking elsewhere or might want to look elsewhere. So yeah, we want to meet people who aren't working with us immediately too, And so one of the ways you do that, I mean you go to conferences, right, That's that's something you do. Yes, I love conferences. I'm actually I think I mentioned in our hurricane podcast that I wanted to make it to a conference. That was because it's our big pediatric anddo chronology conference and I had been looking forward to it all year. And actually, the sad punchline is that I did not end up going to said conference because we got back at three in the morning and my flight was canceled by the airlines the next day because of all the evacuees coming back, So I missed it. But I mean that makes me just want to go more like conferences. Number one, that's when for me, I get to do a lot of the outside networking, because it is a little hard to physically connect with other physicians when i'm you know, physically with them all day, you know, from outside institutions. But number two, I find that I really just get to focus on work and you know, looking at the most recent research and thinking of like ideas for my own research and all kinds of things, just because I'm not dealing with all of the the home and sort of life activities that I normally have. So I see them as very therapeutic, a lot of fun. And I know some people like to bring their families to conferences, and that may be something we consider in the future, but currently I really relish them as a time to dive in and use partly as me time and partly is just like work immersion time. And that's for me. That's not like work alone in my in my hotel room or something. I'm like working with others, learning from others, et cetera. So I am very pro conference and I'm very pro doing it on your own if that's what works for you. Yeah, I love conferences, although I I mean, I speak at a lot of conferences. That's kind of like my job, so I like a professional conference attender. It's kind of fun. I get to see different industries do different things or funded at different levels. I've learned some fields are a lot better than others, not in terms of how fancy their conferences are, but yeah, no, it's it's just a very convenient way to meet a lot of people and they're all there, like all the people that you have seen their names over the year and various things you get to meet in person or the fun thing for me is speaking at a lot of different places as I get to meet people in different fields, and that's kind of fun for me too. But yeah, I think you know, bringing your families is only going to work if you definitely know your spouse is going to be able to take like one hundred percent and it's not going to care if you go to a happy hour or something like that, because that's the whole point, right you want to have these these interactions with it. So the thing with me though, I mean, so when I'm not traveling, I work out in my home office. There's not a whole lot of like networking opportunities there in my home office. But especially if you just think about networking as you're trying to build up relationships with people who want to see you succeed and who you want to see succeed as well, then it opens up all sorts of possibilities. I mean, you know, your friends are in a way your network. You know, people you know from your past or your network, your spouse's colleagues or your network, and you can also build this up over time through just like electronic means. There's a book that's out I think this month or next. It's by Molly Beck. That's called reach Out, and it's a really simple concept. She started just reaching out to one person daily, like five times a week, sending them an email basically either you know, thanking a person for something, or introducing her herself because somebody else said she should get in touch with them, or that she met somebody somewhere and she's falling out to say hello, or you know, as random ones too. I mean, so she reached out to me one day in twenty thirteen to thank me for retweeting a link she had posted or something like that. But she's just been so disciplined about doing this, sending one a day for years that she has this huge network. Obviously, not everyone responds, but even if like twenty five percent of the people respond and of those maybe half become people you keep in touch with more frequently. Like, doing it every day means you're adding, you know, two dozen solid connections to your network every year, and that's that's pretty good. I mean, I think it's just like anything else that can be a discipline. I love incremental progress. Incremental because we always underestimate what can happen over time with a small step every day. So I think that's really cool. Yeah, and it's also helpful for people who maybe aren't as into the cocktail party thing or you know, are more introverted because you're still building your network. You're still doing solid stuff to advance your network, and yeah, you still do need to meet people in person, but this can be a great supplement to it as well. I mean, you're you're kind of an extroverted person. You like the events. I do like the events, and I although I say I would say like in the field that I'm in a daily kind of a thing, I don't know that they would. I can't picture doing that, And you're right, I kind of rather do in person things. So for me, I just try to like talk or meet. It could be on the phone, it could be in person with somebody every week. That's just not my media colleagues about something interesting. And if that is sending an email, fine, if it's a phone call during my commute, I love those that works as well. And you know, I've actually met a lot of people who I wouldn't have expected to have like sort of career implications through the blog and through social media as well. Now, yeah, no, that's a that's a cool extras. I've certainly somebody I you know, I used to talk about how horrible I was at networking or whatever, and somebody pointed out at one point that, like, I've been writing articles for what fifteen years and probably one a week at least for fifteen years, and that involves calling people up and talking to them about their lives and what they're interested in. And many of these people have been stayed in my life and stayed with me over the years, and then they do things with me. Now, I mean some of these people become sources or they have their own like podcasts or media empires or whatever they want to they want to mention me and their stuff. And so it was networking. It just didn't seem like it to me because I had this image of like, well, you got to be at the cock party conference, say you know that's that's the networking. It wasn't just you know, people that I met and found interesting and found me interesting and we continue to look out for each other. But it can be that too. I think that if you are sort of nervous about the in person meetings, what were you saying that go early that I think I got this Actually I think this was from Gretchen Rubin, either her podcast or her one of her books. But I totally agree with this, and I've I've tried to get my it's harder if you're trying to go with somebody else. So my husband's not not one of those early kind of people, although he is an introvert, and I have sort of pointed out if you go to a party and you're there first, then it's actually a lot less intimidating compared to if you're walking into everyone having a grand old time and seeing like they know each other already. So I think for introverts, even though it might not be like they may want to put off going and kind of show up late and hide in a corner, they're better off going early because then they can sort of start having an intimate conversation with whoever shows up at the beginning, and they already feel like they're part of the event as it unfolds around them, rather than walking into this bustling situation, which could be intimidating. I think also lowering your expectations for any given event can be helpful, because you know, most of the time you're not going to meet, like, you know, the perfectly great person that you're going to have a wonderful, close professional relationship with forever. I mean, just like you know any given event, you wouldn't meet your spouse either. You know, it's it's all just kind of not going to happen like that. But if you even just go in with like I would like to at the end of the night meet two people I'd like to follow up with, or I mean, heck, it could just be like I want to hit a couple of great book recommendations out of this, and that's something you can then talk about in a kind of relaxed way. I mean, because everyone could talk about a book recommendation or a restaurant recommendation or TV show recommendation or something, and it gives you something to talk about and you know you'll get something useful, and then it's a lot less pressure than trying to, you know, sell yourself or something. And interestingly, even if you feel like an event has been a fail, like oh you learn some you know, important tidbook, you never know because somebody may have sort of met you that you didn't even register that that later ends up turning out to be really fruitful for both of you. So you kind of can't judge the outcome of event ever really because you just don't know how things are gonna unfold. Yeah, if you don't know, you don't know. And then they never cumulative too, I mean they like you said I would, just they add up over time and next thing you know, you're like, hey, I have a network. You got to try and keep in touch with people too. I mean that's that's key, because people will forget that you exist if you don't do that. That's why I send annoying emails out to my newsletter list to remind people that I exist. So we're going to our love of the week. Now, what is your love of the week? Sarah, Well, I'm at this point in pregnancy where I'm like this happens every time, where I'm fantasizing about shopping for clothing when I'm not pregnant, because I'm so bored with what I'm wearing all the time. My love of the week right now is lounge way. And actually this is a little bit of an aspirational level of the week because I don't feel like I have the perfect collection of loungewear. But one of my greatest pleasures is coming home from work and then putting on something that's like not frumpy but really comfortable and just sort of spending the rest of the night in that outfit. And so I'm just going to give a big shout out to loungdear, which I feel like is having a moment right now and maybe maybe it's a forever moment, I don't know, and to say that, after I don't have a giant bump to cover up, I am going to devote myself to making a really comfortable and nice set of lounge war outfits to hang out with at night because life is short, like sure as well be in comfort to Jama sorry exactly. So my love of the week is my my fall fund list. So if we have listeners who've also looked at my blog at Laura vandercam dot com, I post a couple of what I call like the seasonal fund lists. I had a summer fund list. This year, I did my Fall fund list for the first time. I often do a holiday fund list around Christmas. It's just the things I want to do during that particular season that will make me feel like I really experienced the season. So with summer, for instance, we had a couple of you know, beach trips. I wanted to do a certain restaurant. I wanted to eat lobster at and Cape May and you know, just things like that that I knew I wanted to do that would make me feel like I had a good summer. And so I got through that list that was great. And so I decided to do a fall list because I think fall is a great season too, especially up here in the Northeast. We get a lot of that. We get the changing leaves, the crisp weather. It's sort of like the spookiness of Halloween. So I've got a couple of things I'm trying to do. I'm actually taking the kids once we get done recording this, I'm taking my big kids on a hike up in the mountains around here to see if we can get some of the fall color there. I think it'll be a bit more change there than it is here. It's starting to change here, but we'll have more of that. So that's on the list. I'm making sure to do that. When they've got some days off from school. We're going to go to a professional football game here. My eight year old and I will be doing that together. I want to go on a hay ride, So that's now on the calendar. So this is apple picking, yet I feel like everyone does curiously enough. I put it on my fall list, but it's actually more of a summer activity. It turns out that the apple harvest season is more August September than it is like October. I mean, people think of it as a fall activity, but it's a really really early fall activity. So we would always be past peak for like the species, the varieties of apples that I like, And so this year I looked at it and I was like, oh, the galas and the you know, honeycresps actually peak in late August, so we went in late August. So yes, it was on my fall fu list, but we did it in late August, so that's that's fine. So but I love doing this It makes me feel like I'm taking advantage of these seasons. It gives me ideas of things to do on weekends. If you know we're planning the weekends, like what should we do? Well? If I know that we want to do the hay Ride at some point, then that gets a privileged spot on a weekend as opposed to be I don't know, do you want to do well? What do you want to do? And so I think just that list making in general helps helps with that. I agree. I love your list. I remember the like reading about your list of one hundred dreams way back in the day and making one, and I the lists are fun. They like add a little bit of a quest aspect to life, which I've never really been disappointed by. So ye, yes for fall, fun lists fall here, but okay, it kind of helps us have an actual fall. You'd be like, yes, my rainy tropic season fun list just doesn't have really gross I'm waiting for December. So our listener question this week one question we got a lot of after people would listen to our first few episodes and said, wow, it sounds like your kids do a lot of activities. Do you think that's the case? And how do you decide what's too much? Decide what's too much or too little. Okay, so my first answer to that is, yes, I think it's the case. My kids do a lot of activities. I'm going to admit that right off the bat. I'm not saying that's right or wrong. But they're three and they're five, and they're in like a lot of different things. For us, it has to do with availability and convenience and their interest. And we happen to live in an area where it's really not like we're not having to trek miles to do this, Like it's not like we're bending over backwards. Many of them are offered at the school after school, so it's not even they literally just stay an extra hour. Now I have found out that our public school kindergarten curriculum no longer includes art or music because they're too busy doing spelling words in math and whatever. So, because it's really important to me that, you know, they do get exposed to those things, and I am at work for a lot of the day, I'm really happy to put them in like after school art class and drama class and other things so that so that they they get them So the other thing, aside from the convenience, is that thus far, they seem to really enjoy them, Like when I say, oh, it's gymnastics day, like, I'm not really getting pushed back. And if I start to notice that they're getting more tired or that homework has become more of a burden, I mean, right now it's like one it takes like ten minutes total because it's just kindergarten, then maybe we'll change things. But right now it's like a fun way for them to spend their time. And I am for open time too, but I think they're still able to get some of that with you know, one to usually one activity each day too, on like one day a week. So I guess I think it works for us. What about you guys. That's totally about what works for your family. The issue of having four kids is that there's going to be a lot of activities. I mean, even if each kid was only in one, like you'd have four, which would be if one kid had four activities, you might think that kid was over scheduled, but it's it's the same volume of stuff. It's just when you have more kids, it adds up quicker, you know, I try to only do stuff that the kids are interested in that we probably have a bias towards doing sports physical activities that are going to be helpful to them. I think that we have them swimming. The older two boys, and the ten year old and the five year old are doing karate. They chose that they wanted to do the karate, and so I support their interests. We asked them about sort of I want them to do music, but I'm willing to listen to their ideas on what instrument. And so the ten year old had been taking piano, but then his school he learned viola. Last year they had group music lessons and he learned the viola. He played in his little fourth grade orchestra last year and enjoyed it, and he said, I would actually prefer to focus on the viola versus piano, and so I said, okay, well that's fine. I would be willing to support that. That's your choice. I would think if kids choose stuff, they are far more into it than if they are not. So that was that was one thing that we took on. My daughter loves to do gymnastics and dance, so I'm trying to support that and you look for a place that was going to do real gymnastics, so we had to find a gym that would would do that. You know, I think it's not a bad thing to have activities. You do have to be small art about it in the sense of we try not to have each kid have more than one thing a day. There's only one day that we have. You know, the seven year old and the five year old have swim and gymnastics, and then they both have a piano lesson the night, but the piano comes to them to let the teacher comes to them, So I feel like it's not a huge deal. It's not like they have to go somewhere. And I also just sort of remember from school grow I liked activities too, and I've thought it was often one of the more challenging things I did, and sometimes school itself is not one hundred percent challenging. We're getting better with that with you know, the ten year old is starting to be getting more challenging math and reading and things like that. But you know, you don't always necessarily have as much challenge as you might like. But activities can be more oriented toward your exact level, and that can be a really cool thing for that. That's so interesting because you know what, when I look back to elementary school, I don't remember really anything like what we did in this class. But I remember, like in second grade, taking cross stitch and girls Scouts. I do like playing field hockey, like I remember my active these more than I remember my actual schooling. So that's actually very interesting. In many says, it's a richer way to learn. It's that you have chosen to be interested in something. You're doing it because you want to, not because you have to. You are setting goals and meeting them. I mean a lot of athletics are about that, like I'm trying to be a little bit faster swimming, or I'm trying to get my purple belt in karate, right like, So it's about setting goals and working toward them bit by bit and seeing that practice makes you better. And ideally all of education would be like that too, but you know, in any sort of group schooling situation, it's not one hundred percent going to be like that. So I'm a fan of activities. It's always fun to complain about kids being overscheduled, but there's been some interesting research that even kids who do quite a bit of activities. It tends to be helpful instead of harmful. There's very few kids who are in fact overscheduled, and in fact, the average kid could probably do more stuff. I think there are our whole communities where in fact things like art and music have been cut in the schools where kids might benefit from having more of that. So I think the overschedule problem is more isolated than we might think it is. So we try to keep one open day to our activity schedule for the fall. We have Wednesday open, we have Sunday open, and so those are days that either if we miss something early in the week it can follow. We can have those completely off, and so I think that's been helpful too. We also Sunday completely off. I like the one day just nothing nothing. Well, this has been best of both worlds. Episode ten. We were talking about networking for busy professional women and lots of other things too. So if please tune in next week when we'll be back with more about how we make work in life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoebox 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.