Winning at Work, Life, and Motherhood with Megan Hyatt Miller

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 Hartunger. 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 one hundred and ninety two, which is airing in early April of twenty twenty one. Sarah will be interviewing Megan Hyatt Miller about her new book that's coming out about all things productivity and generally making our lives work. Speaking of lives working, we're celebrating Sarah's ninth anniversary of motherhood this week, right, Yes, although does motherhood star when you're pregnant or I guess that's just as the other head, Yes, exactly, so happy birthday. Yes, I mean I feel like I feel like nine is interesting. Like I was just reflecting on you know, when of your kids become tweens, And I'm not sure nine is the answer. But then I was also thinking from my pediatric endocrinologist perspective that perhaps girls should be called tweens before boys do, because typically they do go through puberty earlier than boys. And we are not going to discuss our own children's puberty on this podcast because that would be mortifying for any parties involved. But I am a pediatric endochronologist, so I watch lots of hundreds of kids go through puberty, and I also thought this would be a fun time for me to actually put in a tiny bit of my medical hat on and and tell people when puberty happens, because I'm always surprised that parents don't know, or that they're surprised when it happens to their kids, well because the parents presumably went through it some point, sober women the other gender child or I think there's that. Yeah, men never remember when they went through puberty. People always remember the last part of puberty, so like women remember having their period and men remember like growing a beard and having a voice change. But what we forget is that puberty is like a several years long kind of process. It doesn't just go like from a tiny breast bud to like cycling in like three weeks or something like that. And sometimes I think parents have that idea in their head as well, which is why we'll get like absolute panic because they, you know, stat appointment, my ten year old has a breastbud. It's like that is the definition of normal. There's nothing going on here. I've even had people have their pediatricians do like ultrasounds on a breast bud in a ten year old girl. It's like, what are you doing? Like that's that is what happens, Like that's how it starts. So I guess this is my soapbox to say that it is actually normal for girls to begin the process of puberty, which usually starts with small amount of breast tissue sometimes little bit of hair growth around age eight. Now, that is not average. That is the earliest, like acceptable of normal. And if it's happening before then, or if it's rapidly progressing, I highly encourage you to seek advice from an expert such as your pediatrician or ask for a referral. And there is usually a family component, so if the parents mature earlier, usually the kids are going to mature on the early side, so the family history is helpful, but eight is kind of the earliest acceptable limit of normal for girls and nine for boys, although I still kind of get nervous in a nine year old boy because it's pretty uncommon. That's a pretty young age. But by ten that that can be normal in boys and the boys first, I wonder if kids are listening to the well whatever, they can hear anatomy words, But when you have a little bit of testicular growth, that's usually the first very subtle sign of male and puberty. At that age. Your kids may not be showing you those things, so you may not be aware when it's happening in boys actually, but you know their pediatrician may check it at the checkup, and then you'll see things like odor and body hair growth and all that kind of stuff. And then again, puberty is like a several year type of a thing, so you know, if a girl starts with a little bit of signs at age ten, you might expect a period at age twelve or thirteen, so there is kind of some time between that, like a two to three year gap. Yeah, then exactly, and once girls get their periods, do they stop growing. Is that that that's usually so the earlier they get their period, the more growth is typically left. I've actually reviewed a recent study. I don't know if it was recent, but I recently was reviewing a study on this because I was trying to give a parent some significant data. If a child has early onset of their period called which is called monarchy is the fancy word for that, Like at age you know, eleven or ten, you often can expect three to four inches of growth. If they're on the late side, it's usually more like two inches of growth, but they usually have completed their spurt by the time they have their period. So girls do stop growing far far age wise, typically before boys do. Okay, And in terms of sort of the normal age range for boys, he said, like ten was really on the early side. When ten for things to start would be like early norm And then the latest that it would be normal to start is right around fourteen. So if there's really no signs of anything happening by fourteen, that's when kids boys will often get referred and sometimes you know, get some testing and sometimes even some treatment. Long process, so long process that is, like it's surprisingly mysterious considering that it happens to every pretty much every person. It kind of yeah, yeah, no, that is that is pretty funny. And does it tend to be the same from the same gender parent to the child or would be from the other side question. I feel like I feel like, well, number one, sometimes it could like resemble either side. And that's exactly so if if you have a dad who like you know, grew a beard at thirteen and like was finished growing by fourteen and like, you know, very early, it wouldn't be that surprising for that person's daughter, say to start maturing early, even if the mom didn't, because it can really come from either side, and all of us is regulated by some Really, I'm not going to get into that because I wouldn't even memorize every detail. But like, there are different genes basically in the hypothalamus to tell the pituitary like when to wake up and start stimulating the gonads to make hormone, and those are to some degree inherited in their sensitivity and like what gets them started and so on. And then then and the fact that there's specific inherited that is the fascinating part. That's yes, non gen well, neither is height. You know, like if you have a very tall dad and a short mom, like both kids might end up somewhere in between. It's not like, oh, every boy we have is going to be tall and every girl we have is going to be short, Like, it doesn't work that way. It's amazing. Yeah, oh cool stuff. I mean, as we talked about in an earlier episode, And there are some definite upsides of kids coming into the tween and teen age and I'm being like old enough to supervise themselves occasionally sometimes supervise younger siblings. How old were you when you started babysitting. I think I was like twelve or thirteen, and I was a camp like cit so I felt like that gave me pretty good experience. And then I became like an assistant counselor, so I got pretty adept at managing kind of like four or five year old kids, and then I started to have some like younger charges. But yeah, I think I think around like thirteen, suwhere between twelve and fourteen, And I took like one of those classic like babysitting classes at the hospital. I remember doing that. I think it was a American Red Cross babysitter class. I think I was eleven, which is when you could do it right, and I learned I mean, I'm old enough that they were teaching diaper pinning. They must have been the time that was everyone was transitioning out. It's done that to me too, I don't remember. That's very interesting. But so I had, you know, my technique of like, you know, Dancy, you're not going to poke the kid, and I have my dipe. The reason I even was thinking about it is because I learned my technique of holding the children's legs like with fingers between the ankles so that their ankles aren't, you know, hitting each other when you're when you're changing the diaper wiping, and that that was actually taught there. And who knows if that's the right way to change the diaper, but I have changed a lot of diapers with that technique. So who knew that when they were teaching this eleven year old girl how to do this, that that was the skill she learned uses every day. This is a perfect conversation to introduce our guests because Meghan has kids on both ends of that spectrum. She has babies and teens, so that, yeah, so we'll hear what Meghan has to say about this. I am so excited to welcome Megan Hyatt Miller to our podcast today. Meghan is the CEO of Michael Hyatt and Company, and she is a powerful voice that I have been following for quite some time. So I'm so excited to welcome you on the show. Megan. Hey, Sarah, thank you so much for having me. I am excited to talk to you today. Yes, and when you reached out because you do have a very exciting book coming out, we were thrilled because your ideas meshed so well with ours. Can you tell a little bit about your story and how you came to be the CEO at a company that your dad started? Yeah. Absolutely, Well. The book is called When It Work and Succeed at Life. It's all about how to get something that my dad and I call the double win, which is defined as winning at work and succeeding at life. Because basically, what we find is that in kind of the culture at large, were really given two options. One is this thing called the hustle fallacy, where you know, we just sort of put all areas of our life except our work on hold, and we just go, you know, pedal to the metal and hope that it's just temporary so we can get to kind of the next place in our career, our business, or we pump the ambition break as we call it, and kind of sideline our professional potential in favor of those other areas of our life that we know matter, because we don't want to have regrets and we say, like, there's got to be a better way. We know there's a better way. It's called the double win. It's the third option, and that really is kind of the basis for my story. So, as you said, I'm the CEO of Michael Hyde and Company. We're a performance coaching company. We help leaders in their teams get the vision, alignment and execution that they need to get that double win so they can win at work and succeed at life. And we do group coaching, one on one coaching, corporate training, and then we also have a physical planner product called the Full Focused Planner. But back in twenty twelve, I had just adopted two boys from Uganda who are now twelve and ten. Back then they were much younger, of course, and I had inherited two kids through marriage a couple of years before that. So all of a sudden I had four kids and our business was taking off. I was working with my dad, and you know, he said, I really think a couple of years after that, I really think I would like for you to take overrunning the business. I wasn't yet the CEO. He wanted to make me the COO. And I said, oh, Dad, I really want to do this. I really think I can do this, but I've got these kids who have some special needs and really need my attention. I can only do this if I could be done at three thirty every day. I've got to be the one to pick them up from school. They need me in the afternoons. If they're going to really get to a place where they're thriving, you got to be present. And he said, okay, great, I don't care. As long as you know you've accomplished the professional results, that's fine. And that was really kind of the beginning of my journey to the double win because I had this opportunity ahead of me, but I also had high stakes at home that I knew I couldn't afford to neglect. It felt kind of like in a possible choice, but ultimately I found this resolution in pursuing you know, the double win, and it's been a really neat journey. I now have a fifth child. We adopted a baby two years ago who's turning to this weekend actually, and so that's been another chapter of this story to try to figure out as well. A little girl I think super cute, right y, you're so cute. I have seen pictures there with me. I have to know, was this something you always envisioned for yourself when you were younger growing up? Did you think you would be more at home? Did you think that because your your model was that you're I think your mom stayed home and you're absolutely, but it was very busy and very active totally. But yeah, I mean my parents have very traditional kind of roles in their marriage. I didn't know any women who had significant careers, you know, I kind of grew up. I was born in nineteen eighty, so kind of a lot of stay at home moms at that point. And I have, you know, lots of great friends who were stay at home moms and totally killing it at doing that. But that was really the only option that I saw. So it really wasn't something that I had thought a lot about until I was in college, and then I really kind of struggled with it because I knew I wanted to have a family. I knew I wanted to have a big family, and so I think most of my growing up years, I really thought I would have to make a choice, you know, that I could either have a big family and be really engaged at home and that would be good for my kids, or you know, there were these career women and they didn't really prioritize their families. And as I've found out, you know, over the over the years, that's a really false dichotomy that that's something that you want. It is possible to do both, but it takes a lot of intent, a lot of vision for your life and what your kind of non negotiables are going to be, which is something we talk about in this book when it work and succeed at life, something that I've worked really hard on myself to make it possible to do both well, not perfectly, by the way, but well because it's perfection is an illusion. It's important to say that, I think, and perfection sometimes can be the enemy. I think, absolutely, what would you say? I feel like there's this popular narrative that Laura and I have talked about a lot where you get to a really hard phase in parenting and everything just seems unmanageable, and at that point a lot of women do kind of understandably choose to sure decide to turn around or throw it or take a break. Did you ever go through anything like that or what would you say to someone going through that kind of a dilemma. Well, I mean I've got through that several times with five kids. You can imagine, you know, we have our children at ages twenty to two, so we really have children at every single stage except newborn. At this point. You know, we've got people launching into adulthood, going to college, going into middle school, elementary school, and toddler. So we've got it all. I think several times that's happened for me. I remember at one point my boys were really having a hard time. You know, if you're not very familiar with adoption, if children are available for adoption, there's usually a lot of hard circumstances kind of leading up to that, a lot to heal from on the backside of that. And I ended up needing to take a leave of absence for a month at one point a few years ago to really do some intensive work with our kids and really help them. And I wondered at that point could I keep it up, you know, were their needs and the needs of our family going to kind of dictate that it was time to step away. I didn't want that to happen. And then again, when we adopted two years ago, I took a three month maternity leave as the CEO of our company at that point with a daughter who was in the nick you for you know, fifteen weeks and so we joined her at about five weeks in she joined our family, and so you know, that was a whole thing too. And then she came home and she had some medical needs as well. So I mean, I think that's a question that I have asked many times. I think what has enabled me to keep going. Number one is asking for help and building a team around me on the home side, which I've done at various levels throughout my career as resources have allowed, you know, as simple as having family members help all the way up to having employees in our home helping at this point, which is really great, you know, but there's there's all a bit at every possible stage of that. But I've also had a real clarity around what was my unique contribution both at work and at home, where did I really do the high leverage work, meaning I got a disproportionate kind of return on investment. To use business language on my contribution in our business, but also in my family. So, for example, you know, I have determined one of the most important non negotiables for me is I want to sit down at the dinner table with my kids five nights a week. It's not a non negotiable for me that I have to cook. It's not a non negotiable that has to be in real plates. It's not a non negotiable that it even has to be necessarily healthy sometimes, you know. But I want my kids to remember that we sat at the table, and so I have really planned around that and been very intentional. Other things are not important to me. It's not important that I go to every doctor's appointment. It's not important that I go to every meeting at school. My husband and I share that, you know, sometimes we delegate that to babysitters or whatever. But there are certain things where I know it's really important for me to be the person there, and I don't want to miss those moments. And I think that clarity gives me the freedom to keep going and keep pursuing my career and make sure I'm not missing the moments that matter most to my kids and to me. That is so interesting, And I love that you even mentioned like doctor's appointments, because sometimes I think we have to some of us get in like we have to follow some certain script like r oh, well right, I'm supposed to do this, But there is that moment where you can sit back and question, well, wait a second, actually, like where am I most useful? Where am I most valuable? Right? And so that's I love that. That is fantastic. Yeah, can you name one or two things, well, maybe in addition to doctors appointments that you have chosen to not do because they don't add a lot of value, either at work or at home or totally. Well, one of the things that I've done at work is that I have really worked hard with my team, my executive team. I have six director reports, five executives, and one chief of staff to have them kind of trained, so to speak, to make recommendations for me, because decision fatigue is a real challenge for women leaders, I mean any leaders, but like especially for women because we're making so many decisions in all areas of our life all the time, right, and like, your brain can kind of only handle making so many decisions, even if like me, you're a good decision maker. And so what I've found is that if I can have the people in my life who and this is true at home and at work, who are the experts make a recommendation, what only I can do is say yes or no because I have the big picture of the financial context or whatever. But if they will do the heavy lifting of making the recommendation, that saves so much work. And I have to kind of remind myself of this on a regular basis, because sometimes I find myself sneaking back into the middle of the decision. I'm like, oh, no, no, no, they need to make a recommendation, and that keeps me from being the bottleneck for them. So that's a good example, I think on the work side. On the home side, we were recently in the process of applying to schools. So we're at the end of elementary school with one of our sons moving into middle school, and we were applying to three or four different private schools, and my husband and I talked about this. This is one of the things I think has been really helpful for us is we looked at all the kind of responsibilities at home and recently renegotiated those in the last six or eight months and said, okay, this is a little unequal. And he's an amazing partner, you know, he always wants it to be equitable, but you know, it just kind of drifts sometimes. And he said, why don't I take over the school application process and so like I would go to the very last meeting, you know, and all that, but he would go to two or three meetings before that, or he would correspond with the admissions people and that was huge. I had not delegated something like that before to him, and he did a great job, you know. And we share doctors appointments. We try to kind of split those up fifty to fifty. So that's kind of one of the other things that we do. But it's just like reimagining this again, where's the leverage at work and at home? Like what for me that comes down to what are my kids gonna remember? You know, what is the thing that only I can do or what is the thing at work and in my business that drives the results, you know? And what else can other people do that they can probably do better than I can. That is so true, And I love the reminder to renegotiate that discussion that you have with your partner because everyone says to do it, but it's not a set it and forget it kind of. It's it's because kids get bigger, things changed. And the other key thing that you mentioned that I want to bring up is like, sometimes it's nice to just fully delegate one thing, right, because if you were like, honey, can you help me with school? Like what does that mean? Right? But if it's like can you do it up until the very last part, then it's very clear and you know, oh kind of what's on everybody's plate. And most most of the time people will rise to the occasion when they know of, oh, it's their task. So that's such a great example. Yeah, very very good. It's worked out really well. What would you say you're this is a random parenting question, but I'm often curious to ask this one of people that have kids that have like you've been through every stage of parents now like multiple times. So what are your favorite stages and like anything you're especially looking forward to or going to miss? Yeah, well, I think the thing I'm going to miss is that I've only gone through the tiny baby stage one time, so all of my other children came to me later. So when I got married, my two step kids were seven and five. When we adopted our middle boys, they were three and fourteen months. And then we adopted our daughter, who's now too, when she was weeks old, and she was extremely premature. She was twenty seven weeks, one pound and two ounces, so she was really little. I really when I said little baby, I got little little baby. She was two pounds and four ounces by the time we got to her, so she was anybody. And you know, that was just a dream of mine in a really sweet, precious time. Was also, of course exhausting, as every mom will tell you, But every day I look at her and I'm like, this, this is going so fast. What I know after having five kids is that in the blink of an EYI the twenty you know, and it happened so quickly, and the days can feel long, but my gosh, the years just go buy in a flash. So you know, I think I'm going to miss that because she's our last one. I think that transition into adulthood is hard. It's a real privilege to be involved with that as we're going through that with our two older children. But it's hard, you know, there's a lot of friction and chafing against I want to be independent. I'm not quite independent. It's kind of it's funny. It's almost like a repeat of the toddler stage, except like they're much bigger, with much more independent than that point. But the cars had cars, Yeah, and you know college and jobs and you know apartments and all that kind of stuff, and so I think that's challenging. But I feel like every age has really special parts to it too, And I think one of my challenges to myself is to look for how to be grateful for each stage while also being honest about the challenges of it, because every stage has great things about it and really hard things. Are two year old now, I mean every day, I'm like, by seven o'clock when I put her down, I'm like, there's a reason people do this when they're twenty and not forty one, because this is this is a little exhausting. And what's great about being forty one is I know it goes fast and I'm really present to it, and I you know, like try to soak it all in. And I love that too. Yes, Oh, I totally see that. And I think Laura is not on this today, but she's had some of those same feelings and having her last baby at that same time. For you, so you mentioned like being able to end your day in a really timely manner and be able to fully focus on your family at dinner. Are you do you tend to be a second shift person or are you truly able to pretty much disconnect? And do you have any tips for doing so because I know a lot of people find that very challenging. Well, one of the things that we talk about in the book When It Work and succeed at Life is we talk about five different practices. And the second practice is constraining your workday. And you know, when we brought our boys home and I was looking ahead at you know, becoming the COO and decided to I could do it, but I could only do it if I could be done at three point thirty. What was amazing about putting that constraint in place is that it really forced all kinds of other decisions around what was high leverage. You know, I keep saying that that phrase but you know what ultimately was going to deliver, like the maximum amount amount of results in the minimum amount of time. What was the unique contribution that only I could make? And so I think one of the things that happens when you put constraints in place, and by that I really mean hard edges. So what time you're going to start working, what time you're going to end work, and then what you're going to do and what you're going to allow in the off hours. And for me, my constraints are nine to three. I don't work before nine and I don't work after three, about, you know, eighty five or ninety percent of the time. Course, occasionally, you know, there's some hr thing that comes up, or some emergency or whatever I have to deal with. That's pretty infrequent though. And then when I'm not working, when it's not those hours, I don't work at night, I don't work on the weekend, I don't work on vacation. Again, about eighty five or ninety percent of the time. Of course, occasionally emergencies come up. What that does is it forces you to make better decisions. In the time that you're working. You're not doing things that are not high leverage you're really doing the things that drive the results, and that's you know, it's funny. This idea of the double win is not just kind of a work life balance idea, which sometimes I think it's kind of pooh pooed, either because it's disappointed us or it seems so unattainable. This is really a strategy for high performance at work and at home. And what we have found in our business is that and with our clients. We have about now seven hundred small business owner coaching clients that come to us once a quarter, and when they put these constraints in place, their business results increase, their effectiveness as leaders increase, and certainly their personal lives improve in terms of their health and their most important relationships, et cetera, et cetera. That is so cool, although it doesn't surprise me, because it's true. You never are more productive than when you know this is the time you're gonna leave, this is the time you're gonna and everything's gonna fit in the middle, so all of the dead time is kind of cut out. So that's fantastic. What do you do to relax? What are your favorite uses of downtime, whether those are things on your own as well as things with your family. Yeah, so our family. My parents have a lake house and I have four younger sisters and we love to be at the lake when the weather is nice. That's one of my favorite things is being on the water. And I'm determined this summer I'm going to learn how to surf. We have a surf boat and I want to learn how to do that. It's way outside of my comfort zone that I've been working out and training for it, so I'm hopeful I can do it. So that's one thing, is just being out on the water. I love to fish. I love to just you know, ride around on the boat. I love to kayak whatever, and I love to do that with the kids. So that's great, probably one of my favorite things to do. My husband thinks he just gets kick out of this, but I love to just sit like quietly in my room with a stack of magazines. Like if you if you see me going on a trip by myself, which I have not, of course done a long time. I always make stop by the bookstore at the airport and I get a stack of magazines and I'm like, I can't wait to get on the plane read the magazines. You know. That's that's one of my most favorite things to do. I also love to cook, especially on the weekends when I have a little more time. I'm not doing that quite as much as I used to with my two year old daughter because she wants to be held all in the middle of that, you know. And so like last night we were measuring out the rice together. It was, you know, it was really exciting. But I love to cook. And then I'm going to take up piano this year. This is going to be kind of like a new hobby for me. This is of the things we talked about in the book is the value of non achievement. And I think, especially for women, this is hard. This is like how do we possibly have time for any of this? You know what, Like I'll have to do this, you know when my kids are grown and gone. But even just if it's fifteen minutes a day, just something for yourself where you get to cultivate and nurture a part of yourself that is not related to work and it's not related to your kids, I think is hugely valuable. So I'm going to do piano lessons, which I haven't done since I was like ten or twelve years old and learn to play the piano again. I love that. That is such a great answer. Yeah, and you covered all the realms family, home, cooking, piano, art, and the stack of magazines. That's like a simple pleasures. I love it. I love it too. I guess I have one more cliche question before we get to our favorite thing or love of the week, and that would be, what would you tell young Megan, you know, before or maybe before she had kids, Like if you were going to give yourself one piece of advice, because some of our listeners are kind of at the forefront, like they don't have kids yet, but they're thinking about it. Yeah, other than to read your book, what would you do? You should do that too, but what else that it would be great? You know, I would say that you you can do anything you want, but you can't do everything you want. And what I mean by that is, I think when you have vision for your life and you take the time to get clear on what do you really want professionally, what do you really want for your personal life, for your health, for your relationships, for your impact in the community, you know, maybe your spiritual life those things, I think there's always a way to make those things fit. Everybody has the same amount of time in their week, you know, And I think it's possible to make those things fit and have a really satisfying life. It's not possible to do it all. That is a complete lie and it makes a lot of us feel really badly about ourself and it's not helpful. But you can do the things. There is enough time to do all the things that matter to you, really and truly. But in order to do that, you have to get clear. And I think if I could go back and tell myself that and also tell myself to be brave in pursuing those things, to believe that and know that the resources, the kind of creative solutions, all those things would present themselves. If I just kept going and stayed committed to that vision, it would be possible. I think sometimes we take the exit ramp too easily, and we give up on our dreams for our life. And it's sad. That is perfect. There is great advice, and I'm sure our listeners will take it to heart. Okay, are you ready for your love of the week? I am ready, awesome, Okay, I'll go first, just to give you another minute. Okay, mine would be the Kids America's Test Kitchen Cookbook, because my almost nine year old is now getting into cooking and the recipes in there are just they're written in a nice simple way, but they're America's Test Kitchen, so they're like really really love it, and we made I'm like legit brownies the other day that I am still enjoying. So if you have kids interested in cooking, the America's Test Kitchen Kids Cookbook, I'm ordering that. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'm ordering that. That sounds so fun. Okay for me? It would be the Stanley Tumbler Cup. So this is something from an Instagram account that I love called the Bye Guide Be You Why Guide, and if you just look them up at the by Guide you can find it. But it is basically this sixty four ounce cup. I think that's right. It's a big cup with a handle, and I'm looking over at it on my desk and a straw and it's insulated and it's stainless steal. I have been more consistent at drinking water in doing this since I started using this probably a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago. It's like a game changer to me. I know this sounds hilarious, like it's a cup but it fits in your car cup holder. Like I don't leave home without it. I take it everywhere. My team thinks it's funny because like they never see me without it, and I am just obsessed. I like ice and I like a straw. And that's one of the things that didn't work for me about those big water bottles where like you use it, and you know you do with water all down in the front of your shirt. Anyway, this is a game changer if you're serious about hydration, which also helps your brain. So just ps, I love it. I will link it up. Yeah, So reminder listeners where they can find you and tell them the name of your book one more time. I am definitely going to check it out myself. Awesome, thank you. It's called when It Work and Succeed at Life. And the best way to find out about the book is win in Succeed book dot com slash leadership. So when in Succeed book dot com slash leadership. What's great about that is if you pre order the book before April twentieth, among many other things, you get a free ticket worth about five hundred dollars to our virtual live book launch event where my dad and I are going to be interviewed kind of the most intimate interview that we've ever done. We don't even know what the questions are. It's going to be really exciting, kind of all about our double win story, our journeys to get here, mistakes, et cetera. And then we're going to have some great interviews with other guests. It's going to be a really really neat event helping to make people, just like your listeners, kind of understand how this could become real for them. You know, what's the path to winning at work and succeed and it like look like for you so again, win and succeed book dot com slash leadership. Awesome, we will link that up as well. That sounds like a really great and fun opportunity. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on, Megan Hyatt Miller. It has been a pleasure. I have so enjoyed following your journey. Ah, me too, Thanks Sarah, thank you for having me, and thank you guys for listening. It's been enjoy to be with y'all. All right, So that was great, Thanks Sarah for that interview. Today's question comes from a listener who says, I recently discovered your podcast when trying to find content about returning to work after having been a stay at home mom. Really enjoyed listening to you guys. It's helping me mentally prepare for this big transition in my life. This person works in the design industry and stopped working full time after having her first son in twenty thirteen. She had done part time consulting on and off as needed until twenty twenty, when you know, things went crazy. She said they had decided to stay that she would stay home because her husband husband's job has strange hours and lots of travel, but she is definitely ready to go back to work after seven years. They have been reevaluating his career, hoping to have him make a change where his hours will be more regular, no travel. But she says, would be curious if you have any content on best of both worlds for returning full time to the workforce. Would love any insight and tricks. So Sarah, I mean, what do you got? Yeah, well, I just the word content actually spurred me to think about mindful return With Laurie Mikolk, I believe I think she mostly focuses on like after maternity leave, but you know, she may have some resources for those who have longer gats. Certainly the name of her her company would make me meet thinks. So I think the one thing you seriously have going for you is that you have dabbled in the consulting the whole time. So really, you know, even if it was minor, you are still on the pulse. You still have contacts, You still kind of know how to like do the thing that you are good at doing, which is like design projects. And so now it's just a matter. I wouldn't even think of it as like something totally new, but more like scaling back up to a more structured, maybe employed opportunity rather than doing things freelance, if that's you know, what you want to do. So I think you already have like a huge leg up in terms of that, And I would start by just going through all the contacts you've been working maybe over the past two or three years, and just letting them know that you are ready and who do they know and what's out there and this sort of post COVID time might be a great time as industries are kind of you know, recovering our and are and maybe looking for, you know, more effective ways to reach others and advertise and do all that kind of stuff that designers have to help with. I would also say, and after you you give your thoughts, but if we have a yes that a person that is listening to this thinking, hey, I went back after eight years, and you know, with whatever profession that you are in, whether that's a freelance designer or a lawyer or anything, I would be we'd be fascinated. That does seem like it's a gap we haven't really addressed, at least not recently. So please feel free to let us know if that is you and one would like to tell your story. Yeah, no, it's a great question. And first of all, yes, the fact that you did this with the part time consulting still there is such a huge difference from not having done that. I mean, some people when they elect to stay home with the kids, they've sort of retired in the sense that they aren't keeping up with the industry, and that is totally cool, but it's going to be a lot harder to get back in if you want to. Now maybe you don't want to, you are in fact retired and that is great as well. There's many other things one can do with one's time. But if you are thinking that you may have any chance of wanting to go back in professionally at some point, keeping at least a little bit of that going is going to make such a huge difference when you do decide to scale it back up, because then you are not starting from zero, as Sarah was saying. You still have your contacts, you still have a resume of experience, you have things you can point to that you have done. Maybe you've even been going to conferences or taking classes or something. And if you are, you know, if we have listeners who are taking some time out of the workforce, you might want to think about how you could build in I don't know, five hours a week for that sort of thing. It doesn't have to be a lot, but the difference between nothing and something is just huge for future you trying to make a professional change again, So figure about how you might put that five hours into your life to make that work. The other thing is just to you know, I'm sure you will wind up with a wonderful job because of your experience, your part time consulting experience. Things you might want to look for is if there are perhaps other parents who are returned to the workforce at your company, if there are other people who acknowledge that they have lives outside of work, Like when you're going through the interview process, if people are talking about like you know, oh yeah, like I love this job, and you know, oh yeah, they see that picture over there, that's my bowling league that I bowl with every Thursday night. Like, you know, things like that are good signs because it means that they're able to, like say every Thursday night, like I'm not doing anything, I cannot work late, I have a commitment, you know it. Just there are little signs like that that a company is more reasonable as a place to work. Now, obviously you don't have to have that, Like if you want to work in one of those places, that's all in one hundred percent great, Like this could be a fun transition for your family where maybe your husband could take on more of the stuff that you have been doing and you lean in a little bit more to your line of work. But if you are looking for something that has a bit of the flexibility that that those are the kinds of things you can look out for. But yeah, I second with Sarah. We'd love to have a guest or two who have taken decade out of the workforce and have come back in and hear your advice on what made it work and things that other listeners should keep in mind. Well, this has been best of both worlds. Sarah interviewed Megan Hyatt Miller and we will be back next week with more on making work and 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.