I feel like I'll be digesting this post for a while. There's so much to take in. I still don't understand how you do what you do. It all sounds pretty superhu(wo)man to me! I'm in awe.
What stood out to me is the part where you say "I was taken seriously to the extent I took myself seriously". I've found that to be so true. Since becoming a mother, I've surprised myself by being less intimidated by the world of work and career goals than ever before. Of course motherhood is an initiation of sorts but skills wise I'm unchanged which makes me chuckle at how confidence at work and feelings of self worth are all fleeting and subjective.
I think vulnerability is also a tricky one especially for writers because a lot of writing starts in a private journal and then finds it's way into a public domain because as a writer you feel passionate about the topic and it's often cathartic to share these outpourings publicly. I always try to remind myself that these vulnerabilities are best shared after the situation in question is resolved.
Brilliant as always!!! I had a big laugh at the self care deal, because it’s so true, and for a long time I felt like I was failing (like you can fail at self care LOL), for not being into yoga, face masks, girls night out or other supposedly self care stuff…. I just want to live my life! And what if… self means to work? Or worse, do nothing at all? Refreshing with a more provocative and REAL reflection of how this might happen as opposed to repeating the narrowtives were unconsciously brainwashed to adopt as ours
Isn’t it hilarious how restricted writing about self care is? Yes I felt like I was failing - reading other people’s versions (that didn’t mirror my life) when really my idea of self care is my own. Funny that!!
It’s wonderful to hear you’re giving yourself freedom to be you Elin! 💞🥰
You're always such a straight-shooter. That's admirable. When others might try glorifying "all the things," you're just living your life in a way that suits and works for you and your family and career.
I remember when my son was little and I worked full-time and then single-momed for all the other hours. My sister - a stay at home mom of two - told me she doesn't know how I do it. To me it was just normal life. What else was I supposed to be doing? We just do the thing!
I like the words ‘straight-shooter’, thanks Kristi!
You’re spot on about doing the thing. In many ways it could be argued we rise to what’s in front of us. As I write that I can hear a chorus saying “we also collapse” which can be true.
My friend Mikey was born with what she calls short arms as a result of Thalidomide. She gets cross when people call her brave or daring because she says, ‘what exactly was she meant to do?’. I get called brave for raising my triplets. What were the options? Choose one and ignore the others? I choose love over bravery.
I adored your Revive note btw. And it was beautiful to hear how you use it to bring your son back to you. 🫂💞
Oh I loved this piece, so thought provoking! Saved it to come back with a fresh mind to re-read. So many sentences I highlighted in my mind, wish I could collect snippets on substack like on a kindle. Thank you Danusia! Xx
It was way longer than intended - thanks for sticking with it Carmen! I’m thrilled there were highlights for you. Ooh it would be great if there was that highlighting facility. I’m with you all the way on that. 🔦xx
I love the way you speak about your work. "I never consider the idea of keeping my professional edge" was such a great statement that highlighted to me exactly how our thinking is so often shaped by the way questions are framed. As you mentioned with the self-care question too, "how do you...whatever" makes an assumption that we do, or at least that we "should".
Thanks for reading and for pulling out that big point Rahma. How we frame our questions gives clues to our thoughts on the topic.
For instance I’m soon to launch an interview series here. And I’m sure some of the questions hem people in - I hope interviewees will choose to take their answers wherever they fancy! It’s about Parents that Write by the way. It’s fascinating how the story is parents can’t fit it in (creating, publishing, crafting) YET every day their work launches out into the world. x
Loved this! we truly are our most important clients. I started scheduling time to what I look forward doing (eg: meeting friends - going to the theatre) because I know I will get a kick out of that booking for days before and after it happened.
Thrilled to hear you schedule in things for you to look forward to and savour Barbs. I find the little things are often the best. Not any fanfare or pressure, as these detract from the fun, right? Maybe that’s just my neuro spicy needs 😉
Ps your writing had me in stitches early this morning. Love it.
Aww! Thanks! I feel like we need to be a bit all over the place with scheduling things. Something small, something important, for fun, doctors appointment, and everything in between, so you won't get the "Pavlov's reflex" and start dreading calendar reminders.
I had this idea the other day about an essay on scheduled sex. It’s coming along but I’ve not quite hit the right spot yet! I think your list made me think of it 🤣
I love and resonate with your emphasis on not putting our lives into specific “work” and “play” boxes; only to be opened at the “appropriate” times. It’s not about juggling, it’s about integrating. I know for myself this has allowed me more space, presence, and creativity. Great piece!
Hi Eliza! As I read your words I’m whooping for you. More space, presence and creativity - what’s not to love about that?! 💯
I’ve a feeling to do justice to this concept I’d need to craft a more philosophical essay. Once an academic, always one🤣
My underlying philosophy is a refusal to split self. I’ve a feeling that we become cordial like when we do this. Undiluted is what I want in order to live a full life.
Some of the practical in the ground daily operations involve juggling. But the philosophy changes the experience so much that it just doesn’t feel like a juggle.
I’m adding that to give a little more nuance. The piece was already so long I began to blush.
I have a question that might not be directly answerable (or you may not want to, I respect that too) but I'll take a chance anyway. Can you somehow specify precisely what you do and how you came to do it? I worked with consultants for a while and in spite of this exposure I never understood what they were supposed to be doing or how they ever qualified for those positions... Don't think there are consultancy degrees? Also while some were really sharp others seemed.... less.... so? I'm sure you're one of the sharp ones :) But I am just trying to visualize how one even builds oneself into that position. Like how do you, without hustle as you say, end up working with a CEO and hugely improving their business? I am truly genuinely wildly curious.
Hi Lidija, your questions shine a light on so many areas. I'll try to do justice to them, where I can.
The consulting industry is (in my experience) somewhat more robust than the coaching one. But I hear people have similar queries and concerns about both. The unregulated nature of consulting and esp coaching led to a VAST array of 'expertise'. I could talk for hours on this but will rein myself in ;)
You asked what I do and how I came to do it. After my Masters I won an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Fellowship and PhD scholarship. It led to my tenured career as an organizational development and behaviour specialist. I was located in business schools in the UK and US. Throughout my career I was privileged to research and publish funded international studies. I left having set up my own consulting firm - I straddled both my business and academic career for a while then switched over.
What all this means is that I was positioned in knowledge and reputational terms to enter senior places in organizations. I'd also consulted in industry as part of universities so I was theoretician as well as practical application based. My discipline is all about structures and people's behaviour in organizations. Industrial psychology with design strategies.
On top of this I was one of the first handful of people in the UK to train as a professionally certified coach (via the states-based Co-Active Training Institute). I worked as faculty for a short while with CTI on their business offering after I graduated plus for the International Coach Federation because I believe in regulating this impactful area of work. Along the way I've skilled up but less to keep a professional edge - simply to make sure that I can serve boards, senior teams and individuals fully.
I (and associates in my firm) are hired to optimise leaders behaviour in boards and senior teams, and to work individually with high performers. This involves wider strategy too. Other consultants are hired for disparate kinds of consulting.
My no hustle approach rests on personal recommendation. No board is looking for someone to assist them on insta, tik tok etc. Even Linkedin doesn't have the bombproof confidentiality that is required in this kind of reputational work. Last week, for instance included supporting a CEO exit from a global brand. This person needed to go speedily (that's all I can say) - being asked to support this person comes from trusted relationship in that business.
My private practice is more like other people's. Founders and creatives come to me to build, scale, change their business and life. I guess I could market this better but I'm miserable at doing it despite knowing how. Ha.
I hope in some way I've answered. I've tried to be as forthright too.
oh your answer is absolutely enlightening, thank you so much for taking the time to lay it out! Yes it really makes sense when you describe the academic path you took towards it. I have follow up questions if I may? I have found that very often 'improving productivity' in large corporations has meant basically squeezing employees like lemons and trying to remove every non-essential position - I have had the dubious pleasure of assisting a few consultants in conducting organization-wide interviews to create a detailed image of the organizational chart only for the purpose of crossing off as many boxes from that chart as they possibly could..... Do you hit against this in your work? How do you navigate that space between what is good for the company's bottom line vs what makes it a decent place to work? Because my god most of them are no longer that. Do you find people listen to you in that sense?
I’d make a distinction between improving productivity and enhancing leadership performance at senior levels.
My specialism is at senior level so squeezing them like lemons doesn’t chime with values I hold. Nor do I countenance this approach! Advisory work around placing talent in the right place for the job in hand does inevitably mean hard conversations, sometimes.
But it’s rare that someone at this org level is loving their role if the org thinks they are not now suited to it. Our work isn’t remedial, unless it is 😉 High performance made even better, rather than underperforming made redundant.
Humanising boards and senior teams is my focus. Absolutely there are organisations that care about this. It’s a dance between shareholder focus, and being a truly decent place to spend most hours of life.
Oh ok so you don’t work with top level people to restructure the rest of the structure, you work with them to help them be better versions of themselves? That makes sense :) Final question if I may - what brought you to this career path? I remember choosing my way at university and being so wildly and deeply clueless about all the options that even existed out there…. Not that I am not happy with my choice, it made me who I am as a person, but sometimes I sure wish someone had guided me to something actually monetizable 😅
I DO work on structure but at the top level - culture flows from decision making at the top. It shapes so much. Much of my academic work was on decision making processes 😉
I was headhunted to become an academic. A CEO of a food retail chain mentioned how I ought to throw in my tenure for industry. I don’t follow like a sheep 🐑 but the time was right.
Is it more about you finding the way to money with what you’re doing?
Hahah possibly. Maybe I just haven't streamlined optimally. I mean I have done a bunch of things but it has all been deeply disconnected from each other so none of it really makes for a solid foothold in any particular industry... So wherever I try to apply the skills it seems like I miss that little bit of credentials that would make me seem a fit.
This all of course since I have started looking for 'real' jobs since my preferred career (illustrator) sort of stopped working dead cold since the pandemic... And I'm a good illustrator too, if I do say so myself. But like you I potentially suck at selling myself.
I find the idea of a boss-babe insta mom quite triggering, if I am being honest.
Your approach is so authentic and so grounded that it is inspiring. I admire women who can look after the kids and work at the same time, blending the two together. While I sometimes struggle to take a shower, let alone commit to a deadline 🫠 I know I shouldn't compare, but I do.
Maybe it is that my kids are small, maybe it is that I need a bit more practice, maybe it is something else.
Either way, thank you for sharing so honestly and openly.
I choked on my decaf coffee over the words, 'boss-babe insta mom'. That's my starched linen tablecloth into the wash (...only joking, I've popped a book over the stain).
It IS triggering and most of all so damned hard to upkeep the splits of self online. Possibly one of the most insidious parts is when women forget which version is the core one - the real self rather than the curated one.
Truth is Polina I've had to blend. If I waited till I could get to myself or get to my business 'around the margins' I'd still be waiting. I also can't pop myself on a shelf for a couple of decades, that feels unnatural for me. Integrating teaches my children so much. We craft a life together.
I'm also glad you mentioned about your children being small. What I see generally (not from what you've written) is a narrative around a purity of focus. That we must teach our children that they are the exclusive focus and when they look away then, and only then, they can expect their mother to occupy herself. This isn't the narrative for fathers.
I'm wondering if women of around 35/40's are trying to redress a situation where some of their mothers were forging careers. Where they didn't feel focused on. Then, I see the outcomes of children who were the focus but their mothers were not fulfilled but felt they ought to be. Look to another corner of mothers and we find grief stricken estranged ones where children now decide their mother did not do her job well enough.
Motherhood has become a profession. I want you to know I struggle to shower. Deadlines are a bugger. And comparison is a powerful filter for what we do and don't want. It's such a human activity like breathing. It's been demonised.
I feel like I'll be digesting this post for a while. There's so much to take in. I still don't understand how you do what you do. It all sounds pretty superhu(wo)man to me! I'm in awe.
What stood out to me is the part where you say "I was taken seriously to the extent I took myself seriously". I've found that to be so true. Since becoming a mother, I've surprised myself by being less intimidated by the world of work and career goals than ever before. Of course motherhood is an initiation of sorts but skills wise I'm unchanged which makes me chuckle at how confidence at work and feelings of self worth are all fleeting and subjective.
I think vulnerability is also a tricky one especially for writers because a lot of writing starts in a private journal and then finds it's way into a public domain because as a writer you feel passionate about the topic and it's often cathartic to share these outpourings publicly. I always try to remind myself that these vulnerabilities are best shared after the situation in question is resolved.
Brilliant as always!!! I had a big laugh at the self care deal, because it’s so true, and for a long time I felt like I was failing (like you can fail at self care LOL), for not being into yoga, face masks, girls night out or other supposedly self care stuff…. I just want to live my life! And what if… self means to work? Or worse, do nothing at all? Refreshing with a more provocative and REAL reflection of how this might happen as opposed to repeating the narrowtives were unconsciously brainwashed to adopt as ours
Isn’t it hilarious how restricted writing about self care is? Yes I felt like I was failing - reading other people’s versions (that didn’t mirror my life) when really my idea of self care is my own. Funny that!!
It’s wonderful to hear you’re giving yourself freedom to be you Elin! 💞🥰
You're always such a straight-shooter. That's admirable. When others might try glorifying "all the things," you're just living your life in a way that suits and works for you and your family and career.
I remember when my son was little and I worked full-time and then single-momed for all the other hours. My sister - a stay at home mom of two - told me she doesn't know how I do it. To me it was just normal life. What else was I supposed to be doing? We just do the thing!
I like the words ‘straight-shooter’, thanks Kristi!
You’re spot on about doing the thing. In many ways it could be argued we rise to what’s in front of us. As I write that I can hear a chorus saying “we also collapse” which can be true.
My friend Mikey was born with what she calls short arms as a result of Thalidomide. She gets cross when people call her brave or daring because she says, ‘what exactly was she meant to do?’. I get called brave for raising my triplets. What were the options? Choose one and ignore the others? I choose love over bravery.
I adored your Revive note btw. And it was beautiful to hear how you use it to bring your son back to you. 🫂💞
Oh I loved this piece, so thought provoking! Saved it to come back with a fresh mind to re-read. So many sentences I highlighted in my mind, wish I could collect snippets on substack like on a kindle. Thank you Danusia! Xx
It was way longer than intended - thanks for sticking with it Carmen! I’m thrilled there were highlights for you. Ooh it would be great if there was that highlighting facility. I’m with you all the way on that. 🔦xx
I love the way you speak about your work. "I never consider the idea of keeping my professional edge" was such a great statement that highlighted to me exactly how our thinking is so often shaped by the way questions are framed. As you mentioned with the self-care question too, "how do you...whatever" makes an assumption that we do, or at least that we "should".
Perspective-shifting read, as always!
Thanks for reading and for pulling out that big point Rahma. How we frame our questions gives clues to our thoughts on the topic.
For instance I’m soon to launch an interview series here. And I’m sure some of the questions hem people in - I hope interviewees will choose to take their answers wherever they fancy! It’s about Parents that Write by the way. It’s fascinating how the story is parents can’t fit it in (creating, publishing, crafting) YET every day their work launches out into the world. x
Loved this! we truly are our most important clients. I started scheduling time to what I look forward doing (eg: meeting friends - going to the theatre) because I know I will get a kick out of that booking for days before and after it happened.
Thrilled to hear you schedule in things for you to look forward to and savour Barbs. I find the little things are often the best. Not any fanfare or pressure, as these detract from the fun, right? Maybe that’s just my neuro spicy needs 😉
Ps your writing had me in stitches early this morning. Love it.
Aww! Thanks! I feel like we need to be a bit all over the place with scheduling things. Something small, something important, for fun, doctors appointment, and everything in between, so you won't get the "Pavlov's reflex" and start dreading calendar reminders.
Oh jeez calendar reminders give me diarrhoea.
I had this idea the other day about an essay on scheduled sex. It’s coming along but I’ve not quite hit the right spot yet! I think your list made me think of it 🤣
Yes please! And also scheduled hard intimate questions (because there's never a good time for serious potential confrontational talk)
I love and resonate with your emphasis on not putting our lives into specific “work” and “play” boxes; only to be opened at the “appropriate” times. It’s not about juggling, it’s about integrating. I know for myself this has allowed me more space, presence, and creativity. Great piece!
Hi Eliza! As I read your words I’m whooping for you. More space, presence and creativity - what’s not to love about that?! 💯
I’ve a feeling to do justice to this concept I’d need to craft a more philosophical essay. Once an academic, always one🤣
My underlying philosophy is a refusal to split self. I’ve a feeling that we become cordial like when we do this. Undiluted is what I want in order to live a full life.
Some of the practical in the ground daily operations involve juggling. But the philosophy changes the experience so much that it just doesn’t feel like a juggle.
I’m adding that to give a little more nuance. The piece was already so long I began to blush.
I’m so grateful to hear from you too. X
I have a question that might not be directly answerable (or you may not want to, I respect that too) but I'll take a chance anyway. Can you somehow specify precisely what you do and how you came to do it? I worked with consultants for a while and in spite of this exposure I never understood what they were supposed to be doing or how they ever qualified for those positions... Don't think there are consultancy degrees? Also while some were really sharp others seemed.... less.... so? I'm sure you're one of the sharp ones :) But I am just trying to visualize how one even builds oneself into that position. Like how do you, without hustle as you say, end up working with a CEO and hugely improving their business? I am truly genuinely wildly curious.
Hi Lidija, your questions shine a light on so many areas. I'll try to do justice to them, where I can.
The consulting industry is (in my experience) somewhat more robust than the coaching one. But I hear people have similar queries and concerns about both. The unregulated nature of consulting and esp coaching led to a VAST array of 'expertise'. I could talk for hours on this but will rein myself in ;)
You asked what I do and how I came to do it. After my Masters I won an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Fellowship and PhD scholarship. It led to my tenured career as an organizational development and behaviour specialist. I was located in business schools in the UK and US. Throughout my career I was privileged to research and publish funded international studies. I left having set up my own consulting firm - I straddled both my business and academic career for a while then switched over.
What all this means is that I was positioned in knowledge and reputational terms to enter senior places in organizations. I'd also consulted in industry as part of universities so I was theoretician as well as practical application based. My discipline is all about structures and people's behaviour in organizations. Industrial psychology with design strategies.
On top of this I was one of the first handful of people in the UK to train as a professionally certified coach (via the states-based Co-Active Training Institute). I worked as faculty for a short while with CTI on their business offering after I graduated plus for the International Coach Federation because I believe in regulating this impactful area of work. Along the way I've skilled up but less to keep a professional edge - simply to make sure that I can serve boards, senior teams and individuals fully.
I (and associates in my firm) are hired to optimise leaders behaviour in boards and senior teams, and to work individually with high performers. This involves wider strategy too. Other consultants are hired for disparate kinds of consulting.
My no hustle approach rests on personal recommendation. No board is looking for someone to assist them on insta, tik tok etc. Even Linkedin doesn't have the bombproof confidentiality that is required in this kind of reputational work. Last week, for instance included supporting a CEO exit from a global brand. This person needed to go speedily (that's all I can say) - being asked to support this person comes from trusted relationship in that business.
My private practice is more like other people's. Founders and creatives come to me to build, scale, change their business and life. I guess I could market this better but I'm miserable at doing it despite knowing how. Ha.
I hope in some way I've answered. I've tried to be as forthright too.
oh your answer is absolutely enlightening, thank you so much for taking the time to lay it out! Yes it really makes sense when you describe the academic path you took towards it. I have follow up questions if I may? I have found that very often 'improving productivity' in large corporations has meant basically squeezing employees like lemons and trying to remove every non-essential position - I have had the dubious pleasure of assisting a few consultants in conducting organization-wide interviews to create a detailed image of the organizational chart only for the purpose of crossing off as many boxes from that chart as they possibly could..... Do you hit against this in your work? How do you navigate that space between what is good for the company's bottom line vs what makes it a decent place to work? Because my god most of them are no longer that. Do you find people listen to you in that sense?
Love the term ‘dubious pleasure’. 🤣
I’d make a distinction between improving productivity and enhancing leadership performance at senior levels.
My specialism is at senior level so squeezing them like lemons doesn’t chime with values I hold. Nor do I countenance this approach! Advisory work around placing talent in the right place for the job in hand does inevitably mean hard conversations, sometimes.
But it’s rare that someone at this org level is loving their role if the org thinks they are not now suited to it. Our work isn’t remedial, unless it is 😉 High performance made even better, rather than underperforming made redundant.
Humanising boards and senior teams is my focus. Absolutely there are organisations that care about this. It’s a dance between shareholder focus, and being a truly decent place to spend most hours of life.
Oh ok so you don’t work with top level people to restructure the rest of the structure, you work with them to help them be better versions of themselves? That makes sense :) Final question if I may - what brought you to this career path? I remember choosing my way at university and being so wildly and deeply clueless about all the options that even existed out there…. Not that I am not happy with my choice, it made me who I am as a person, but sometimes I sure wish someone had guided me to something actually monetizable 😅
I DO work on structure but at the top level - culture flows from decision making at the top. It shapes so much. Much of my academic work was on decision making processes 😉
I was headhunted to become an academic. A CEO of a food retail chain mentioned how I ought to throw in my tenure for industry. I don’t follow like a sheep 🐑 but the time was right.
Is it more about you finding the way to money with what you’re doing?
Hahah possibly. Maybe I just haven't streamlined optimally. I mean I have done a bunch of things but it has all been deeply disconnected from each other so none of it really makes for a solid foothold in any particular industry... So wherever I try to apply the skills it seems like I miss that little bit of credentials that would make me seem a fit.
This all of course since I have started looking for 'real' jobs since my preferred career (illustrator) sort of stopped working dead cold since the pandemic... And I'm a good illustrator too, if I do say so myself. But like you I potentially suck at selling myself.
Had to read this a few times to soak it in.
I find the idea of a boss-babe insta mom quite triggering, if I am being honest.
Your approach is so authentic and so grounded that it is inspiring. I admire women who can look after the kids and work at the same time, blending the two together. While I sometimes struggle to take a shower, let alone commit to a deadline 🫠 I know I shouldn't compare, but I do.
Maybe it is that my kids are small, maybe it is that I need a bit more practice, maybe it is something else.
Either way, thank you for sharing so honestly and openly.
I choked on my decaf coffee over the words, 'boss-babe insta mom'. That's my starched linen tablecloth into the wash (...only joking, I've popped a book over the stain).
It IS triggering and most of all so damned hard to upkeep the splits of self online. Possibly one of the most insidious parts is when women forget which version is the core one - the real self rather than the curated one.
Truth is Polina I've had to blend. If I waited till I could get to myself or get to my business 'around the margins' I'd still be waiting. I also can't pop myself on a shelf for a couple of decades, that feels unnatural for me. Integrating teaches my children so much. We craft a life together.
I'm also glad you mentioned about your children being small. What I see generally (not from what you've written) is a narrative around a purity of focus. That we must teach our children that they are the exclusive focus and when they look away then, and only then, they can expect their mother to occupy herself. This isn't the narrative for fathers.
I'm wondering if women of around 35/40's are trying to redress a situation where some of their mothers were forging careers. Where they didn't feel focused on. Then, I see the outcomes of children who were the focus but their mothers were not fulfilled but felt they ought to be. Look to another corner of mothers and we find grief stricken estranged ones where children now decide their mother did not do her job well enough.
Motherhood has become a profession. I want you to know I struggle to shower. Deadlines are a bugger. And comparison is a powerful filter for what we do and don't want. It's such a human activity like breathing. It's been demonised.
Sending you solidarity xx