Forging Ahead — or Plowing Through

AMY GALLO: For me, some of the most powerful moments of 2020 and 2021 have been when listeners were on here detailing the personal impact of mega, large-scale changes.

EMILY CAULFIELD: In one episode, we heard women who lost work, reflect on the loss, not only of income, but also a sense of self. In another episode, women new to the workforce shared their struggles to gain a foothold. And in another, we heard women call out the fact that corporate promises to fight racism had had little positive impact on their experiences as Black employees.

AMY BERNSTEIN: These reality checks and insights are an especially valued part of the show, as are the problem-solving skills and resilience that come through in each woman’s story. Listening helps me better appreciate different circumstances and perspectives, and it stirs up a lot of self-reflection. How did I end up managing that last big life hurdle?

EMILY CAULFIELD: With another eventful year nearly over, the Amys and I are still processing the ups and downs and also considering how to forge ahead.

AMY GALLO: To get us going, I reconnected with three past guests to hear where they’re at, how they made it through 2021, and what they want to do next. But first, here’s a recap of where they each were personally and professionally in 2020.

EMILY LOUISE: So, my name is Emily Louise Robinson. I teach piano and voice, and I am a member of the Houston Grand Opera Chorus, as well as a freelance opera singer. What I love about singing opera is it is utterly and completely consuming. There’s not room for any dialogue in your brain. Your brain just is full. It’s full of the physical. It’s full of the mental. It’s full of, am I with the orchestra? It’s all consuming. And I find that now there’s very little that I do that is all consuming. And I think that’s the greatest loss. The struggle is not about the job; the struggle is about meaning. Am I a singer If I’m not singing? What am I if I’m not doing this thing that I’ve been struggling and striving for, for 15 years of my life?

RUKAYAT: My name is Rukayat. I’m based out of the UK, and I’m currently working in the intelligent automation, so, basically the tech industry. I have, since I started working about eight years ago, continuously been like, Hey, there were some cultural issues here, casual racism, microaggressions. I definitely wanna be working for myself in a couple of years. Like, looking wider at the tech industry, there just needs to be more diverse voices and more diverse voices with influence.

NINA JONES: My name is Nina Jones, and I am a senior consultant in the employee experience team at Engine. And I feel like I’ve just really starting out in my career. It’s been interesting cause I have been furloughed from my role. And that means that for the last two months, I haven’t been working and that’s been, I guess, an obstacle for me because in my plan of the year, this was the time that I was gonna get really good at my job. I was gonna get loads of client experience, and I was gonna already try and build up my reputation at Engine.

AMY GALLO: So that was them in 2020. Let’s hear how they’re doing now. Rukayat, Nina, Emily, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Could you each describe, just big picture, where you were when you spoke to us last, in your career and in your head, and where you’re at now. Rukayat, we can start with you.

RUKAYAT: Listening back to where I was, to a degree I felt stuck in my career. I think I had made a couple of lateral moves. Now I’ve been able to become a manager for the first time, still at the same company, which is really — which has been interesting. But I also burned out, like I only came back to work beginning of November after being off. I will also say, you know, in 2021, like personally, I’m also a full-time carer for a member that terminally ill. So, my head space is kind of figuring things out.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Well, I wanna hear more about that. Nina, why don’t you tell us where you were then and where you are now?

NINA JONES: So, we last spoke in June 2020, and I was about six months into a new job in a consultancy working in employee experience. But I was also on furlough because the pandemic had had a big impact on our work. And I was doing a little bit of pro bono work, but really just trying to think of how I could keep developing and hopefully get brought back to work. I did come back to work, but actually into a new role. I was offered an opportunity to come back and try a different role in the company. And subsequent to that, I actually have changed into doing that role full time. Partly also because my company decided to take their difficult decision actually to exit their employee experience research practice. So, I kind of had to, but I was also enjoying the work that I’d come back to do anyway. So it did make sense as a career move at the time. And yeah, I’m about 18 months now into my new role as a change-delivery consultant. And I’m working on some big government projects in the UK. So, it’s been an interesting 18 months.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Emily, how about you?

EMILY LOUISE: Well, when we last spoke, we were very much at home and not performing because performing was one of those last things to come back. And life is so normal now. We’re performing again at the opera, we’re in the shows, we’ve finished Carmen, we’re starting up Dialogues of the Carmelites, and we’re, like, we’re full back into it, and that’s fantastic.

AMY GALLO: That is. Wow, it sounds like everyone has made important steps in your career this year. And also it hasn’t been a very easy year. Rukayat, I wanna ask you, because you were on our episode about what’s changed or not changed for Black women at work in 2021, what have you learned about the pace at which racial justice work is done inside companies, in particular inside your company?

RUKAYAT: I don’t think much has changed, quite frankly. I think, you know, there’s more our eyes on it, but I don’t think that we’re seeing the change that we maybe wanted to or need to.

AMY GALLO: Right. You mentioned when you last were on the show that you were stepping away from the conversations around DEI for your own mental health, and I’m curious if you stepped back into those conversations or have you continued to keep your distance?

RUKAYAT: I tried to step back in just because there was a recent incident, but I also think that part of the reason that I burned out is I was pushing for change that we weren’t ready for. So, being promoted into a managerial position was great. However, the system wasn’t set up for someone like me to be a manager. So, what does that mean when I’m in these rooms and I’m hearing these things and I’m noticing the missing voices and I’m flagging things where I’m often one of two women, one of two people of color. I wasn’t meant to be in this position. I was never meant to be in the room. What was interesting, earlier in the year we had worked with this company — they were a consulting company — and I arguably was producing my best work. They were amazing and brilliant. And it was such a safe environment, and they unlocked all this innovation. And they were so willing to listen and so willing to hear all of me and bring all of me into the room. And then they left, as consultants do. And all of a sudden, I found myself really struggling, cause you have to pull your guard back up. There’s so much work in protecting yourself. And I think that other consultancy were ready for someone like me, were ready for someone that looked like me and thought like me. My company’s not. So what was causing me to burn out was that I was not able to bring enough of myself to work. I had to be so guarded and so on that it just tired me and to a degree continues to tire me. So, to be honest, I’m still kind of figuring out, what does a healthy Rukayat in a corporate world look like?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Nina, I wanna ask you — last time we spoke, you talked a lot about what you were thinking about for the future. How has that move affected your career planning, your vision for what you wanna do?

NINA JONES: Yeah. So, I was listening to the episode and the second and half where you talk to Hana Ayoub, the expert, around how women who are just starting their careers, what things they should be thinking about. I realize all of her advice is so helpful; and actually I’d recommend anyone go back and listen to that episode because it’s been a really good reminder. She speaks about not sort of being passive and maybe setting on cruise control and how we kind of always need to be in touch with the concept of reimagining our careers. And I think potentially I a little bit fell into a, well-this-is-my-new-career kind of, head down, off I go. But I do think I need to spend a little bit of time now thinking what my career looks like because I had joined this company sort of six months before I went on furlough with the idea of becoming an employee experience specialist. And it had been a move into consulting, and I was really excited, and I thought that was where I wanted to be. And I guess I didn’t really make the decision to move across into change in delivery in this different kind of consulting. And while I am enjoying it, I haven’t really thought through what the long-term vision looks like. And that’s definitely something that I probably keep putting off a little bit, thinking that there’ll be a better time to do it, but really I think even though I’m enjoying the day to day, there is that kind of feeling that I don’t really know what this looks like as a specialism anymore, which I guess day to day, you can kind of keep going, cause there’s always something happening day to day.

AMY GALLO: Lots to do, right?

NINA JONES: Yeah. There’s loads to do, but kind of like Hannah said, she said that some people kind of look up and realize they were climbing the wrong ladder. So, that’s what I really want to make sure I want to take Hana’s advice and kind of actually sort of step back a bit and think about it.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. We talked in another episode this season about the pause that the pandemic created for so many of us, you know, to think about, is this really what I want to be doing? And yet also listening to you all about how much things sped up as well, right? It was, it was this pause, but then things really, for lots of people, it was a time of just so much that they had to do personally and professionally. And it’s hard to find that time to lift up their head. And Emily Louise, you had described this period before March 2020, like the beginning of 2020, has been incredibly busy at the busiest time. And then for a performer like you, and opera singer, everything just halted. Describe a little bit where your career is right at this moment.

EMILY LOUISE: Yeah. Opera is somehow 100% back, and in many ways it feels so normal. And you have to — I have to step back to realize how weird it actually is because it’s not normal. We are getting Covid PCR tests once a week, twice a week, three times a week, depending on what part of the production we’re in. We are singing in masks literally until, like, the final dress rehearsal on stage. I had this shocking moment where we all took off our masks for the first time, and you’re in the lights and in the light, you can see certain things that you don’t necessarily see without stage light. So, it’s very harsh light coming from the front and from the sides, and what you can really see is the spit flying out of people’s mouths. And I had this moment where we had finally taken off our masks and there was spit flying. And I was like, oh my God, I scream and spit in other people’s face as a living. I cannot believe this is my job. This is so dangerous. Like, there’s so much in the air, and that’s why the company has been so careful. But yeah, it’s this weird balance of it’s totally normal, and it’s totally weird.

AMY GALLO: Yes. Right.

EMILY LOUISE: I will say that what’s changed is normally at this time of year, I would be flying to New York, like, every week for an audition, doing dozens of auditions, and I just sat out this round. And I don’t know if part of that is, like, I’m feeling my age in where I am in my career, and I’d rather sing at home. But it very interestingly to what Nina was saying about climbing the wrong ladder, I had a moment where I was like, is this solo career freelance singing the ladder I want to be climbing? Because it means you’re away from home. It means you’re making erratic money. I mean, this travel to audition, it’s self-financed, right? So, it’s just a lot of and, and stacking. And I thought to myself, where can I audition? So, my new goal is where can I audition to be a full-time chorister as, like, a career with a salary. Houston Grand Opera, I think is honestly one of the best opera choruses in the world. But it’s contract by contract, and I’m doing a full season with them right now, but it’s not a full-time job. It’s evening rehearsals. And I do need to teach and I do need my church job. And here I am in my thirties working three jobs, which is fine, but it’s also a lot, you know?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Gosh, I hear all three of you say there have been important steps. Rukayat, you became a manager. Nina, you got this new job, didn’t stay on furlough. Emily, you’re back. But also questioning, is this really what I want to do? And Emily Louise, we did an episode, actually last week, about freelancers and the challenges they face and in particular, the existential challenges. And I remember so clearly from the last time you were on our show, you said, “who am I, if I’m not singing, am I, am I a singer?” And, and you know, how has the way you see yourself and presented yourself in the world changed in 2021?

EMILY LOUISE: You know, I think ultimately, I have a deep-seated knowledge that I am a singer and always will be a singer. And I think somehow that’s settled in because I do other things that define me as like the things that bring me joy because I’m also an avid reader: Emily Louise, the avid reader. I’m also a mountain biker: Emily Louise, the mountain biker. Right? But like at the core of this is that I sing and that I am very good at it, and being hired to do it doesn’t make me good at it. I’m good at it, regardless.

AMY GALLO: You know, while we’re talking about working for ourselves and being entrepreneurs, Rukayat, I wanted to follow up, cause you had mentioned maybe someday an ultimate goal would be to work for yourself, to run your own business. Where is your thinking on being an employee versus being your own boss?

RUKAYAT: I think it’s definitely still a dream. Definitely still what I’m working towards. Definitely having this managerial position, what’s been amazing and fascinating and wonderful is that you could really influence what like the team spirit is. You can be that safe space. Like you can truly try to create what you want and what you wanna see and what you want to feel. And I think just the ability to even do that kind of makes me know and makes me sure that like, I wanna be able to do that and reach more people once again, because I’m also a carer for someone who’s terminal, my legacy is something I’m thinking about out; and you only have this life, and it’s so short, and it’s so precious that I want as many people to feel as safe as possible in as many spaces.

AMY GALLO: Rukayat, Nina, Emily, do you have any questions for each other as you’ve been listening to one another? Is there anything you wanna ask?

RUKAYAT: I’ve got a question. What do you think the biggest difference has been in the people you are now versus the people you were pre the pandemic?

EMILY LOUISE: Nina, do you wanna go?

NINA JONES: You can go.

EMILY LOUISE: OK, so, I actually, I was scrolling through my phone and saw a photo of myself. I had taken a selfie at the Ripley-Grier Studio, which is one of the audition studios in New York city. I think it was 2018. And I looked at myself and I went, wow, I miss that girl. She was working so hard, and she was so motivated, and I miss that girl, but I also was so, so tired. So tired because auditioning — auditioning is brutal. You go, you will walk into a room, you sing for five to 10 minutes, and then you may never hear from them again. And you physically have to get yourself to the city. You physically have to, you have to pay for your flight. There’s just so many ands, ands, ands, ands, ands, and being in New York City — I love New York City, but it’s not like a relaxing at experience. But the hustle, I respect the hustle of 2018 Emily Robinson. She was motivated, and I am motivated in different ways now. I’ve read over 70 books this year.

AMY GALLO: Oh, I’m so jealous.

EMILY LOUISE: 2018 Emily didn’t have time for that. Right? You know, I think I’ve mellowed out a little bit, but I do mourn my past self for sure.

NINA JONES: Yeah. I think on reflection, I guess the pandemic was the first big event that’s happened to me in my career in terms of an external force that’s had an impact. I think before then, I’d been quite lucky to have had a quite smooth, as smooth as anything can be from university into a grad job, into the next grad job. And it’s made me a bit more appreciative of those kind of curve balls. And this is a massive curve ball that happened to everyone. And I guess it’s made me — yeah, a bit more appreciative of the things that can happen, that you’re not expecting. Like, I feel a little bit, tiny bit wiser, I guess, to the fact that those things can happen, but a little less of that sort of swagger that you might have a few years in just thinking, yep, the world is my oyster. I’m now kind of a couple of years, like, on my career ladder and just thinking, hmm, was this where I thought graduate Nina, like, with her big idea of where she’d be would be? Probably not. And so maybe I should try and get a little bit more of that, like fire back to sort of get where I want to be.

AMY GALLO: Mm. Rukayat, how about you? What’s the biggest difference?

RUKAYAT: I think like enjoying the small things, you know, for me weirdly the pandemic won’t have been like the defining, it will be like the loss of my family member. So, you know, I think we’ve all had to appreciate the sanctity of life, I think, in a different way. Yeah. Enjoying the small things and enjoying the silences with people.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Yeah. Rukayat, I have to tell you that I lost a dear family member over the Thanksgiving holiday, which was about 10 days ago, and everything you’re saying about legacy and just how it refocuses you. And you know, it’s so true that we — this pandemic has made everything sort of feel, for me, just closer to the surface in terms of emotions. And I just don’t have as much energy and time to do the things that 2018 Emily did or 2018 Amy did. I just don’t have that much energy, but I think the losses we’ve all had, or are going to have, have just made everything crystal clear in terms of what matters. And then it’s a matter of actually taking the steps to focus on those things because that’s harder, right? We can know what matters, but sometimes still we’re running around with, you know, everything to do. And I just appreciate your candor about your caretaking responsibility and what it means and how it shaped your life cause it’s really resonating with me at this particular moment.

RUKAYAT: Thank you, and sorry for your loss.

AMY GALLO: Thank you. Thank you. So, this is our last episode of the season. We’re approaching the end of the year here. You know, we’re starting to think about what next year is going to bring, and I’m curious for you all, what are you gonna be focused on? What are you hoping for in the coming year? Nina, you wanna start?

NINA JONES: Yeah, I can go. So, for me, I’d really like to, and I’m gonna commit to it publicly on the podcast, to really carve out that space to figure out there’s no more putting it off —I can’t keep my head in the sand for much longer — to really say like, has this career change been a good move for me? Is this what I wanna focus on, and actually, how am I gonna build that picture and that confidence back up in? So, then I can just for a minute, like, put that decision to bed a bit and focus rather than having this sort of kind of recurring thing of being like, Ah, did I like didn’t really make this decision? Where does this go? What does this mean for me? Actually take that to time over the Christmas break. And then yes, I guess sort of see what that plan looks like and obviously sort of taken to account all the things that we’ve, I guess, said we’ve learned, which I really resonate with, about kind of the important things as well, because I think that kind of understanding and appreciation also kind of, I guess, where you place your job, like it isn’t the be-all and end-all sometimes. So, while I am gonna say I’m gonna commit to it, I’m also gonna keep that perspective, the mind of, yeah, there are, I think, bigger things that matter. So, not too, too much pressure, but enough pressure so I actually do it.

AMY GALLO: We may all need to be back on this call in six months or so and just see where we all are. Emily or Rukayat, who wants to go?

EMILY LOUISE: Yeah. So, for me, it’s to make sure and reevaluate that I have not paused too much, that I have not allowed myself to become comfortable in the things that I’m doing to the degree that it means that I’m no longer pushing forward for something more. And I think it’s OK to want more. And I want to allow myself to want more, but more is uncomfortable because in my case more would mean moving cities, moving countries, completely changing the course of my life, and that’s scary. And is this scary worth it? So, I think that’s what I really need to take a hard look at. And I don’t know the best way to make that decision or evaluate that for myself. But little by little, I think perhaps I can get a clear idea about that.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Is the scary worth it? That’s a great, great thing to ponder.

RUKAYAT: Yeah. I think for me, happiness. I think 2022 would definitely, and specifically in my work life, what does it, what does a happy Rukayat in her work life? But I also wanna be making a difference in the way that I want to be creating safety for people who are underrepresented specifically in the tech industry, cause that’s the industry I work in, and I feel like there’s so much opportunity.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Well, I’m sincerely, deeply hoping that all of you and all of our listeners get happiness, a chance to reflect, and the opportunity to try really scary things next year. So, thank you all so much. I really can’t tell you how much this conversation has meant to me at this particular moment. So, thanks so much for your candor and for sharing your experiences.

NINA JONES: Thank You, Amy.

EMILY LOUISE: Thank you, Amy.

RUKAYAT: Thank you.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, I thought that Rukayat, Emily, and Nina raised some really important questions, ones I could relate to, like that one about, am I really on the right ladder?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. You know, you’re putting one step in front of the other, right? You’re climbing each rung, but you’re sort of looking around going, Do I really wanna be here? That for me defined a lot of what 2021 was about. It was like I was putting one foot in front of the other. I was moving forward, but I wasn’t so sure about the goal anymore. Speaking of questions that resonate, that question of, is the scary worth it?

EMILY CAULFIELD: Yeah. That really stuck out.

AMY GALLO: I mean that is, if we’re reflecting on this year and wondering are we moving toward the right goal, and if we realize we’re not, which I think Emily Louise realized, the amount of effort and risk you have to take to get on the path you want — the stakes feel high right now.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Can, like, you handle the rejection that could come up or could you handle the new challenges that a new job could bring? Like, the scary doesn’t always feel worth it when life is harder.

AMY GALLO: It makes me grateful I’m not been a career coach or a therapist this year because I just feel like my advice to people would be, like, Just do what’s easiest, don’t take any risks, don’t make it any more complicated than it needs to be. And yet, I mean, all three of these women and many of the people in our lives are taking risks, are making big changes, are finding ways to forge ahead, even if it’s so terribly uncomfortable.

EMILY CAULFIELD: And I like that Rukayat reflected on what does a healthy, happy Rukayat look like in a corporate job? It made me think about what I need. I wonder if you guys had a similar thought when you heard her say that.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. When I heard her say that, like I was like, oh, I so wanna see healthy, happy Rukayat. Like, I want that to be realized. And I also, it gave me a little bit of, like, I don’t know, the shivers because I, I was like, Oh, do I know what a happy healthy Amy looks like? Hmm. That’s a big question. That’s a really big question. And one that I don’t think we stop to ponder all that often.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Who has had the time in the last two years to reflect on that question? First of all, it’s such a brilliantly framed question, right?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Yeah. Emily, do you feel like you have space to reflect either on whether you’re on the right ladder or what happy, healthy Emily looks like?

EMILY CAULFIELD: Currently, I don’t. Like, hearing from all of these women, I’m like, I have external factors in my life that I feel like are taking up so much space that make it hard for me to really give a lot of attention to thinking about my career trajectory. And so I’m just like gonna do the things I need to do today and do the things I need to do tomorrow, and hopefully that will add up to a career that is happy and healthy. What about you?

AMY GALLO: I feel like I have no — I mean, I feel like I barely have space to get the things done today. I also, I think there’s part of it — the reflection I think will be painful. Cause I do think the past two years have been full of grief and loss; and to ask myself what I want next, what does the future look like, what do I want out of life, I think requires processing that grief and loss in a way that I’m not quite ready for.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. Although — so, you guys know I recently lost my mom, and I will tell you, it does force you to do the reflection. We’ve been talking about the, what’s important to me? I mean, first of all, you get a very strong sense that life isn’t forever, and you don’t want your career to happen to you. You want to drive your own career, right? But also, this idea that on one lane is family, friends, romantic life, and in the other lane is work and they run parallel forever — that’s nonsense. They intersect like crazy, and you better figure out how to prioritize one and then the other, or how they blend together. But the separation, I realized over the last two weeks, is totally artificial.

AMY GALLO: Well, and I think the clarity that comes with a loss, like you’ve been through, I can imagine opening your email. You’re like, Nope, not important.

AMY BERNSTEIN: But also knowing not to dismiss it, knowing that it would become — I would be able to focus on it not today and not tomorrow and not a week from tomorrow, but I would be able to focus on it and I would want to focus on it, just putting it in abeyance for a moment and just — I’ve never done this before, but I had to stop working for the better part of two weeks. And in my 40 years of working, I’ve never done that before. I felt like I had no choice there. I just couldn’t handle it otherwise. And thank goodness we work in a place where that is absolutely OK. And there’s a lot of support, but it’s helped me think very clearly about setting priorities about saying no to stuff. You know, you cannot push on every single aspect of your life with 110% determination. Some stuff has to be more important than other stuff. You cannot go full throttle all the time. You have to figure out how to make your life not just sustainable, but somehow gratifying to you. Because you only get one of these lives. And it’s not a work life or a home life. It’s one life.

EMILY CAULFIELD: So Amy, after losing your mom, how did you stop working? How did you take that time for yourself?

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, it wasn’t an act of will. She died, I went down to New York where she was, and you know, I’d of threw myself into the logistics, which is a heck of a lot easier than dealing with your emotions. And then I told folks at work, yeah, I’ll be back this — she died on Sunday. I’m down in New York on Monday from Boston. I was driving back Tuesday, and I had planned to be back at work on Wednesday. I woke up on we Wednesday, and it felt like a tsunami of sadness had just grabbed me. I just felt I was washed out to sea. And I realized I was good for nothing. And so, I just texted with my boss, with Adi and said I’m not coming back. I need to do this thing. He was totally supportive. I threw myself into writing her death notice, which turned out to be a really wonderful exercise ‘cause it reminded me of what she was like when she was in her full glory. And I just, I couldn’t work. I couldn’t focus. I felt unmoored. And I, I’m not sure I’m moored again. But I feel a lot steadier. Some of it is that I gave myself the time. And that would be my best advice: take the time you need, and don’t try to anticipate how much you need. You don’t know; you go through this once, losing your mother. So, Amy G, you also lost someone dear to you. Can you tell us about that?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. These non-biological relatives are always hard to explain, but he – Dante was his name — was an important part of our family. He was at the hospital when my daughter was born. We spent all our holidays with him, all our family vacations. And you know, he was relatively young, just in his sixties, and it was pretty sudden and it, you know, I feel like I have a lot of the same feelings of, it’s very clarifying and it’s all consuming. And I also had, you know, just a week where I was like, Nope, can’t work. Can’t think about it. And partly that was taken up with logistics of planning the funeral and doing all that paperwork and all of that stuff. But part of it was just, like, I can’t think about anything else right now.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Right. So what did you take away from all that?

AMY GALLO: I mean, I think I took that we need to give one another that space, and I feel the same deep gratitude to colleagues here who stepped in and helped. And I think one of the other things I really learned, especially because it wasn’t someone who was easily explainable in my life, is that I had to be little more open about how deeply I was affected than I think my first instincts would’ve told me to be, and I had to do that because I had to — I needed the people who around me to understand how deep that grief was. And it’s been, it’s been so helpful to talk to people.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, and to make sense of it that way, right?

AMY GALLO: Yes. Yeah. And I’ve actually — a couple colleagues I’ve just, who’ve reached out on slack or have sent emails — I’ve just said, “I hope you don’t mind. Can I send you a picture of him? And can I tell you a story about him?” And they’ve all been so wonderful about it. And that’s another lesson: I knew I couldn’t work, and yet I didn’t fully separate myself from work and my colleagues because I needed — when I knew I was going back, I needed the shared experience of like, I’ve been through something intense. Can you please see that so that when I hop onto this WebEx call and I look a little teary, you get it. You know? Like, even you shared your mom’s obit with the team, and my instinct was to share it with more people, like people who don’t even know you, just because I was like, look at this amazing woman. I think there has to be connection in these intense emotions and, and otherwise you’re just feeling them by yourself. Like, I don’t think that’s healthy. What I keep hearing you say, Amy, or I keep repeating in my head, is you have to give yourself time to feel the feelings you’re feeling. I mean, this was actually a friend who lost her mother last year just said, “When you need to grieve, grieve. Don’t stop yourself from doing it. It will just make it worse.” And I think that’s true for any intense emotion we do, especially in work cultures. There’s this sense of like, pull it together. I think we’re rewarded professionally for doing that, for plowing through. But I think personally it just takes a huge toll.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And a lasting toll. Yeah. I mean, you get to the point of real burnout, and it’ll take you a very long time to get past that.

EMILY CAULFIELD: That’s scary.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Well, and I think what actually really ends up getting harmed, not only obviously your own mental health, but your relationships. When we don’t give ourselves room to grieve, to have the feelings we have, and we are keeping it together at work, it’s our friendships, our loved ones, like, they’re the ones who bear the brunt of that. I think that damage is lasting, as you say, Amy B.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And I would extend that to any time in your life when you haven’t done the self-reflection you need to do. When you haven’t asked yourself, am I on the right ladder? Is this really what I feel like when I’m happy in my work? Because it does, it wears on you. And it does express itself in that, you know, you become short with your friends and you don’t focus on the relationships that matter to you. And finally you become so exhausted physically and emotionally that you just can’t handle your life.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Although I will — OK, I do wanna say —

EMILY CAULFIELD: Don’t say that to me [laughs].

AMY GALLO: I know. I was like, wait, does that mean I’m gonna have to do self-reflection? I’m like, no, no. I wanna put a plug in for the recognizing — I think what Nina did very well was saying, I know I’m not asking these questions right now. And, and I, I just wanna say, I think it’s OK if you’re aware I’m not asking.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Totally agree with you. Yes. Thank you for making that point.

AMY GALLO: Well, and I think there’s the, “Well, the time’s not right now.” And there’s a difference between like, “I’m putting all those emotions down, and everything’s fine, and I’m just pretending and it’s OK,” and “I’m just gonna plow ahead and —.” Like, there’s a difference between that and the, “I don’t have the time and space right now, but I will soon and I’ll keep asking the questions.”

EMILY CAULFIELD: So, Amy G, at the beginning you mentioned that you were questioning whether or not you’re on the right ladder or questioning your goals. Is this the approach that you’re taking, kind of putting things aside for later?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I mean, being — I can remember in the beginning of 2020, I did this, like, goal-setting session with a friend of mine where we got together, we drew out these — we had, like, diagrams about our goals and whatever. And I think about doing that right now, and I literally feel like I’m choking, and I can’t do it. And I think, OK, at some at some point I will, I know these questions need to be asked. I just can’t answer them right now. Like, I will start shaking if I have to do it. So, I’m gonna put it off, but I’m not telling myself I’m not feeling the emotions. I’m not telling myself I’m not questioning. I’m not saying there aren’t big choices to be made and goals to be set. I just can’t do it right now. I can’t do it right now because I just don’t have the clarity. And I think most of my mental energy is being taken up, you know, processing the past two years and not processing like looking forward, like actually processing, Am I OK? Is my family OK? Are my friends, OK? I’m just consumed with more immediate concerns than my career goals for 2022.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Yeah. I know. There’s some of that smaller stuff that I feel like I can put aside to for a while, but then in another way, I’m like, I can’t afford to put these questions off. I can’t afford to not think about this stuff right now. I can’t afford to — I’m sorry — I’m talking about working out again. I can’t afford to continue to not work out because I know that if I fixed that or made that part of my life a little bit better, it would make the other parts of my life easier. So, like turning the attention to what would make me feel happy and healthy, like Rukayat’s thinking about, are things that I need to do; but at the same time, it’s like such a vicious cycle. I don’t have the energy to do it. And it definitely takes energy. So, for people who are interested in goal setting, what did yours look like when you did it?

AMY GALLO: I mean, it was someone who I both have a professional and personal relationship with. So, someone I felt safe with, and then we just sort of chatted. We started by just chatting, like, what was great about the last year? What do you want to see different this year? Like if you got to December of 2020, what would make you feel most satisfied? And it started a lot around emotion and like how we wanted to feel and like the impact we wanted to have. And then we started to get more tactical. How do we actually wanna get there? We drew this diagram of concentric circles about like the impact our work has on one person. It was, like, the inner circle and then a team and then an organization. And then broad, like, this podcast would be in the biggest circle because we’re reaching many people at a time. And I think about that a lot of, like, where am I focusing my energy right now? What is the impact? Is it that very inner circle? Is it like the middle circle, or is it this big, outer circle? And that does help me make choices about where to dedicate my limited energy at the moment.

EMILY CAULFIELD: So, will you try to go broader to a larger audience or will you turn more inward to a smaller audience?

AMY GALLO: I can’t answer that question right now, Emily. That’s a question I can’t ponder right now —

AMY BERNSTEIN: Give her some space! [Laughs]

AMY GALLO: [Laughs] No, but that is the kind of question I do want to ask myself. And I actually, if I take a deep breath and I do think about 2022, like, I have a book coming out, so I do think I’m probably gonna be focusing on that broader circle of trying to reach more people with the things I care about, the things I’m passionate about. It’s just even hard for me to think about that question right now

EMILY CAULFIELD: That makes me think of Alice Boyes in one of our earlier episodes, she was like, what is the most important work you could be doing right now?

AMY GALLO: What is the most important work you can be doing now? I think that is clarifying. Like, even if you don’t have the opportunity or the space to ponder these bigger questions. It’s like, well, what do I wanna do right now?

EMILY CAULFIELD: Yeah. And right now could be like spending time thinking about your mom. Or just feeling your feelings. And that is, like, the most important work.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I have to say Amy B, I have loved hearing about your mom on the show over the years. And I look forward to more stories about her.

EMILY CAULFIELD: She’s the most amazing career woman I’ve ever read about.

AMY GALLO: And she made Amy B, you know.

EMILY CAULFIELD: She made another amazing career woman.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, stop.

AMY GALLO: That’s our show and our season. I’m Amy Gallo.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m Amy Bernstein.

EMILY CAULFIELD: And I’m Emily Caulfield. Our editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Rob Eckhardt, Erica Truxler, Tina Tobey Mack, and Elainy Mata. Robin Moore composed this theme music.

AMY BERNSTEIN: If you like our podcast, the best way to support us and to support HBR generally is to subscribe. You can do that on HBR.org.

AMY GALLO: And we have some exciting news. Women at Work is launching a book series. It’s based on our show and includes interviews articles from hbr.org and discussion guides. The first three books are called Speak Up, Speak Out; You, the Leader; and Making Real Connections. They’ll be available in February 2022, but you can pre-order them now — any of the titles or the entire set — on Amazon or through your favorite bookstore.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Remember too, that we publish a newsletter, which you can sign up for by going to HBR.org/newsletters. Thank you for listening, reading, subscribing, contributing, and spreading the word about Women at Work.

AMY GALLO: Thank you for everything.