Finding my work wise woman

Last December I was a train wreck. I'd returned to work three months after giving birth and my business partners were struggling. Covid meant juggling uncertainty, cash flow, technical development, clients, remote working and childcare. I was breastfeeding round the clock, Kyles our CEO was juggling home schooling and our CTO Michaela was at max capacity with her full time gig. It was f*cking hard.

I started getting sick, a lot. Screaming at the kids. I had a very low empathy and tolerance for others which I knew was a big warning flag for burnout. My basic need for sleep and safety weren't being met and my relationships were fracturing.

I attended an event with renowned psychotherapist and coacher of coaches Jackie Fury. Jackie is the ultimate work wise woman. She's been in enough boardrooms and counselled enough CEO's to tell you the hard truths. With expletives if necessary.

At the event she explained her hierarchy of making hard decisions. First she started with logic. Second, she moved to her heart. How did the options feel when she felt them in her heart? Third, she consulted the wise woman at the very top of the hierarchy of her decision making.

Driving home, I reached down and touched my heart. I was so damn exhausted. My wise woman? She was underwater struggling for gulps of air. I had to find her.

I needed the big guns. I reached out to psychologist Kate Day, a Brisbane based specialist in behaviour change. Kate explained two things.

I was experiencing cognitive dissonance , a mental state that occurs when what we believe doesn't align with the way we behave. It explained why I was feeling super sad and tense. I strongly believed in Ahisma , the sanskrit word for nonviolence to all beings, including ourselves. This self constructed exhaustion felt like a type of violence.

Kate also explained elite performers have an imaginary backpack of energy, plus a spare backpack for emergencies. Every time a kid got sick or we did a tough development sprint it would drain my energy backpack. This period of increased demand meant I had no time to fill my backpacks with energy like I once had.

I needed to push my car to the fuel station and refuel. This was midlife. It wasn't supposed to be shitlife.

Kate had me make a list of things that gave me energy and drained my energy.

Then rate those activities out of 10 e.g. 1/10 really draining. 10/10 energy giving. The list gave my conscious and subconscious mind a clear picture of what was helping and what was not. Sleep gave me energy, boot camp at 5am was actually draining me etc.

Then Kate asked me to define what I had capacity for.

At first I had no idea what she meant. I had could have capacity for some things and not others? My capacity was not infinite? Kate asked me to reflect on the energy draining list. This list offered hints at what I had capacity for and what I didn't.

I realised I didn't have the capacity for

• managing clients when my 12 month old and 3 year old were home
• getting up too early, even for exercise as I didn't sleep well the night before
• my partner working 60 hours a week - I had a career too why weren't we viewing them equally
• believing I could achieve the unachievable goals I set - Covid just meant that some of the things we set out to do just couldn't happen in the timeframe

I also realised I didn't have capacity for being an overworked, overstretched human anymore. I was drawing a line in the sand.

Kate then encouraged me to do the scariest thing of all.

Establish my rock bottom, or in her words, my baseline.

An example of a baseline could be if "my boss continues to behave this way I am leaving this job" or "if my partner continues to behave this way I am going to leave this relationship".

It turns out that my baseline was "if I keep feeling unhappy I will walk away from our business."

Ugh. That was tough. And then she wanted me to communicate all this? Was she nuts? I'd be letting everyone down. I couldn't get my head around it. So I rallied against it.

One morning a few weeks after my conversation with Kate I reached out to Jackie again and asked whether she'd like to be a guest on Learning to Thrive , our podcast about learning and leadership. We got to chatting and I filled her in. She then asked me a question that jolted me awake.

"Who taught you that your joy wasn't important?"

With that Jackie had hit on one of my biggest values and goals, joy. This is what I had felt on mornings with my baby boy on maternity leave. What I felt marrying my husband and moving to the coast. What I felt when I realised I wanted to pursue wellbeing and change in my career.

This is what we can't forget about change. After the logistical and practical information is presented, we need authentic emotion through a meaningingful vision to really hook us in. Jackie explained she'd learnt that her joy wasn't important from her mum. I reflected and realised I had also learnt it from an old acquaintance.

Martin Seligman, grandfather of positive psychology taught us that our brains learn helplessness Iafter repeated setbacks, even when we have the power to change the outcome. we can also learn that our joy isn't important, . In a similar way, we can also believe our joy isn't important simply being told so from well meaning people in our lives. From parents who went through hardship and trauma to well meaning friends or even bosses.

Tara Brach , the famous buddhist psychologist, suggests that when we suffer it's because we are believing stories that feel real but aren't true.

The stories I was believing was that it was better to disappoint myself than others.

That working myself to the point of self destruction, was actually what a servant leader should do. To really help the business.

But that is wrong. Oh so wrong.

As Owen Eastwood so brilliantly explores in Belonging, the Ancient code of Togetherness, our ancestors actually understood that a leaders primary purpose was to look after the wellbeing of the group. Groups after all demonstrate an instinctive tendency to give power to individuals who bring the greatest benefit and least harm to individuals.

How was I supposed to best serve the needs of our work tribe and customers when I was low on empathy? How could I actually serve the business and our team if I had to quit?

Much has been written on the ROI of wellbeing, and the data is now clear that the ability of business to meet its goals is highly correlated with the wellbeing of your employees. It's just clear. Healthy happy employees are just better for business and crucial for success in work 4.0.

But ultimately I decided, just like our ancestors did, that one of the fiercest way to ensure our business would be around in five years was to protect the tribe's wellbeing, starting with my own.

We learn from our peers. Our leaders. When leaders communicate our capacity we enable others around us to do the same. Give me a better way to protect the survival of your business than to ensure you and your work tribe are thriving in it.

I also had to confront a level of risk. If I did have to walk away would I be okay? I am fortunate I'm in a situation where my partner has a profitable business as well. But even so I decided that if all four of us ended up living in a tent, happy and healthy, it would be better than being unhappy, divorced potentially in acute care with chronic fatigue.

So then of course I had communicate the change. There was no point in keeping this all to myself. It wouldn't change anything.

The idea of approaching my business partners with this information was vomit inducing. They were struggling too. It was COVID. They might say "it's a no from me". I may have to walk away. That was a true possibility. I could not control the outcome of the conversation. And the idea of leaving threatened my sense of belonging to my work tribe. I'd be cast out and eaten by dinosaurs.

When communicating change often it's the lack of language that trips us up. Kate gave me sentences which I used to create key messages I could repeat, so important points didn't get misconstrued.

Here are some of the key messages I created, wrote down and practiced before my conversations. Plus a few from friends.

• I don't have the capacity to work after 3pm/Friday's Mr Client - I can't meet with you until Tuesday morning
• I don't have the capacity to manage clients on days when my kids are at home
• I understand this news may be really concerning for you, I'm really curious to understand more about those concerns
• If nothing changes, I will need to walk away
• Could we brainstorm some ways to change the current situation together to come up with an outcome that works for all of us
• Would you like to take some time and come back to me with your thoughts?
• I know you're both busy, what if I investigated this possible solution and came back to you
• I have a career too, we need to work towards an equal work day arrangement

The conversations were awkward. It was messy and tough. But losing our business or friendships would have been tougher.

I'm happy to say six months on, we've made some changes. We've made a couple phenomenal new hires. We've reconnected as a team in person, finally! Our customer experience and shared vision is even stronger. Yay for change.

I am back. But it's taken seven months. I'm doing some yoga again. And I'm starting to expand my capacity.

The reality of finding my work wise woman, reminds me of the classic Stockdale paradox .. I had confront the brutal facts, all the while maintaining the faith that we would prevail.

Finding my work wise woman was not a polite pleasing pathway for the fainthearted.

It has been a radical rebellious march to joy.

So meet my inner wise woman. She's stronger, clearer, calmer. And she is living and breathing purpose. To keep her tribe well.

Final note.

The path to your wise woman is ultimately unique. You decide what's important. You decide what you value. You decide your capacity. You decide your baseline. But whatever you do? Find her. Because your joy. And you. Are absolutely f#*king worth it.