Decision Making – Page 12 – mardihumphreys.com

When Can-do Becomes Can-don’t

Our daughter always wanted to be on the go. From the time she was born, I took her to appointments, meetings, and to the office. When she was three years old, she wanted to go to preschool. Then she wanted to have play dates, then she wanted to play volleyball, then she wanted to play club volleyball, then she got an after school and summer job. My husband (her father) and I usually encouraged these activities because they kept her out of trouble. In hindsight, I think we may have gone too far. Now a senior in college, she’s just a girl who can’t say no. This summer she worked for her campus recreation center, a kids’ camp, our local minor league baseball team, and she house/pet sat. Currently, she’s a resident advisor for her college, the fitness supervisor of development at her college’s campus recreation center, a member of her college’s power lifting team, and the vice president of operations for her college’s campus activities board. She’s extremely busy and classes haven’t even started yet. (Is it ironic that she’s so busy at college she doesn’t have time to attend classes?) All these items look fabulous on her resume, but she’ll quickly burn out. Can you relate? Here are three things to consider before taking on another task.

Know Your Limits: You want to be perceived as helpful or “can-do.” But you can’t do your best work when you’re over-committed. You risk missing deadlines. You get distracted by tasks that are urgent in multiple projects and neglect the tasks that are important in each project. You have physical boundaries. There are 24 hours in a day and you shouldn’t spend all of them working. Learn to recognize time vampires. These are tasks that suck the time right out of your day, but get you no further to reaching your goals. Ultimately, they make your job performance suffer because you are wasting time doing those tasks instead of concentrating on hitting your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Before accepting an additional assignment when your schedule is already full, ask yourself: “What’s the worst that can happen if I say no? Will I miss the opportunity of a lifetime?” When you do many things, you can’t do any one of them with excellence. The job market used to favor the jacks of all trades and masters of none, but not any more. Employers have a specific pain they’re trying to relieve by hiring someone. You want to find the employer for whom your skills are the cure. Be careful to not waste time on projects that water down your resume instead of honing the skills you’re developing.

Be Careful Whose Approval You Seek: I once had a manager whose motto was,“If you want something done ask a busy person.” A reputation for getting things done makes you a target. You become her go-to person when your boss realizes you work harder than your coworkers. Are you constantly working more hours to accommodate additional projects? Are you committing to another task when you haven’t finished the last three you started? If so, then your dependability is a liability. Part of your job is to make your manager’s job easier, and you want her approval, but she most likely expects you to tell her when your plate is full. She’ll probably keep piling on the work until you gently tell her to push pause. It’s uncomfortable to turn requests down while your supervisor looks at you with her big Puss In Boots sad eyes. No is a whole sentence, but you want to be perceived as polite, efficient, and a team player. So when turning down a task, be kind, authentic, and offer an alternative. For example: “I’m sorry Sue calling in sick puts you in a bind. I can’t take her shift, but have you asked Diane?” As for your coworkers, it’s pleasant to get along, but their approval is desired, not required. We tend to assume everyone else is as busy as we are and feel like we are letting them down if we deny their request. Stop. It doesn’t matter what other people are doing. You are responsible for you. You don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but you have to get comfortable with disappointing people. Be careful whom you want to impress and whose approval you seek.

Use a Decision Making Process: Recently, I was approached to take on a volunteer position. I immediately filtered it through my decision making process. I asked myself: Will this be worth my T.E.A.M.? If a project or request gets caught in that filter, then I say no. Don’t take on extracurriculars because you have FOMO. People aren’t having as much fun without you as Snapchat wants you to believe. Will this project distract you from pursuing your goals? For example: If you have a physically demanding day tomorrow, should you really go out with friends tonight? People learn to respect you when you say no to things that pull you away from your priorities. Your example may even empower someone else to say no to something that is not a wise choice for her. Sometimes you have to say no to good things so you have bandwidth to do great things.

Share your stories of saying no to good things to make room for great things here:

College Educated

My husband and I helped our daughter move back to campus to begin her Senior Year last week. It made me feel nostalgic, but not in the “our-little-girl-is-growing-up” way. More like the “have-I-been-a-good-mom?” way. Our daughter is in college, but I’m earning a degree in parenting an adult child. Here are five things I learned and how I intend to use that knowledge this school year:

Boundaries: I’m going to stop feeling bad for setting and holding boundaries. For example: last Spring Break she paid for her trip. Following her return, she ate peanut butter and jelly for a week because she misjudged her next pay day. Sure, I could’ve given her $50, but what would that teach her? She’d learn she can count on me to bail her out of financial jams. Setting boundaries with an adult child is tricky. She still kinda lives with my husband (her father) and me. We have precious little recourse if she breaks our rules. If we ask her to tidy her room and she doesn’t, what are we going to do about it? Not help her pay tuition? If she perceives the house and everything in it as hers, then of course she’s offended when we bristle at her plan to invite a dozen of her friends over to cook a spaghetti dinner together. At midnight. On a Wednesday. I’ll stop making home comfy for her so she can look forward to moving out permanently and making a home of her own.

Communication: If she doesn’t ask me a question, I won’t voice my opinion. Communication is mostly listening. However, I need to limit how long I listen to her vent about a problem before suggesting she turn her thoughts toward a solution, and I must resist the urge to fix it for her. It’s hard to break that habit, but if I get hit by a beer truck this afternoon, she’s going to have to resolve it herself anyway. I need to train her to solve her own problems while she still has her parents to fall back on. Our birdie needs to know we think she can fly. Humans want immediate relief from crisis, but not every hard thing in life is a crisis.

Expectations: I’ll stop being offended when she chooses to spend time with her friends instead of me. She is finding her tribe and figuring out how to live in community. This is my opportunity to do the same. College is a natural time for her to pull away. I can make this transition easier for both of us by not wondering if she’s coming home for the weekend and making my own plans instead. Also, I’ll stop romanticizing my kid. It shouldn’t surprise me when she comes home to eat hot wings, pet the dog, and put items on the grocery list, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I need to see her for who she is and not whom I want her to be.

Sow, Reap: I will let her reap what she sows; both good and bad. When my daughter says she needs something, my first instinct is to find a way to give it to her. I’ll stop, think, and maybe ask a couple of questions before just handing over my retirement money. Actions have consequences. Adulting is one step up and two steps back. Letting her reap what she sowed is hard. But as difficult as it is to stand by and watch my child suffer the consequences of a poor decision, I have to remember that humans learn more from painful lessons than we learn from pain-free ones.

Lean On My Partner: I will step back and let my partner parent. Recently, something was obviously bothering our daughter and she refused to talk about it. Twenty-four hours later, she still didn’t want to tell us about it. She went to her room and after a couple of hours, I was worried. I started to check on her when my brilliant husband had a better idea: Bacon. Soon the irresistible smell of bacon frying on the stove drew her downstairs. She stated she didn’t want to talk about the situation because it made her sad. So I pulled an Elsa and let it go. Can I solve her problem? No. Is it her problem and not mine? Yes. Does the cold bother me anyway? Never. My husband has a different perspective on most every situation concerning our daughter. I’m soft on her for some things and he’s soft on her for others. Luckily, we’re rarely soft on her for the same things. Occasionally, I have to let him take the lead and support his management of the situation. Doing so is easier when it involves bacon.

How do you parent your adult child? Please share your story here:

I Am So NOT Ready For This

“It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Now is as good a time as any.” — Hugh Laurie

I work for an energy efficiency implementer. At the end of 2017, my office managed three rebate programs. On January 1, 2018, we launched an additional program. On June 1, 2018, we launched another additional program. For those of you keeping score, that’s five programs to manage. Launching a new program is hard work. Launching two new programs five months apart is like surfing a tsunami. One Friday, I went to a meeting with another team member, my manager, and my manager’s boss to discuss how to improve our processes. When I arrived, the other team member was missing. Turns out she stepped down. So now I assumed the agenda was to figure out how to divide her tasks until we replaced her. Wrong. When I sat down at the conference room table, my manager’s boss offered me a position she’d just created on our team. WAIT…WHAT? The offer was very attractive: responsibilities more in my wheelhouse than my current ones, growth opportunities, etc. My head spun. She told me to take the weekend to think about it. My only thought was, “Is it wise to refuse a job your manager’s boss offered?” Later, I privately asked my manager what she thought my biggest obstacle would be in this position. She said, “Fear.”

Define It: Fear. Such a little word. Such a big emotion. Don’t you just hate feeling like something has taken control of your life away from you? What is fear, really? Isn’t it just risk and uncertainty? If you define the risk and minimize the uncertainty, can’t you, with practice, overcome the fear? Exposing my fear would make me vulnerable, but not exposing it would keep me from taking this promotion. So I took the weekend to think about what I would have to do for this job and why it was scary. I came up with two major fears: rejection and driving. Then I thought about what I would have to do to take fear’s power away.

Deal With It: Anticipation is a double-edged sword. On the one blade, you have fear. On the other you have excitement. The trick is to reinterpret the fear into excitement. In this position I’d have to convince people to participate in the programs. I’d have to communicate in writing, on the phone, and face to face. I’d have to talk to skeptical property managers and small business owners. Rejection was a given. So how do I minimize it? These are great programs. There’s no downside. There’s no catch. And THAT is kinda the problem. How do I convince people that it’s not too good to be true? I’ll be warm, fuzzy, honest, and available to answer questions. I know there will be some people I just won’t be able to convince no matter how hard I try. But, they’re just going to turn me down. They’re not going to kill me. I’ll have to get over it and move on. Maybe I’ll circle back around to them next year with testimonials from the smart people who participated in the program. As for the driving, I’d recently felt that particular fear was negatively impacting my life and I should do something about it. While lunching with a friend, a month or so prior, our conversation had wandered into the deep end and I confessed my fear of driving. Guess what? She has the exact same fear. We then made a pact to face it together. We’d already spent some time thinking about how to achieve that so when this promotion came along, our timetable sped up. We’d already started taking turns driving to places we’ve never been, and now with every excursion, I feel our confidence increasing and our anxiety decreasing.

Delete It: I keep telling myself, “Don’t think just do it.” Just do the job. Just start the car. There is a fine line between preparation and procrastination. I’m a planner. I love to “get ready” for things: work, vacation, writing. But getting ready to do something isn’t the same as actually doing it. In fact, getting ready can prevent me from taking action. Eventually, there’s nothing to it, but to do it. I’m also a bit of a perfectionist. I want to cross every t and dot every i before beginning a project. But I realize life doesn’t work that way and it takes a lot of time. Time I could be building momentum. If I can just build enough momentum, I can keep moving forward. After all, an object in motion tends to stay in motion, right Newton?

Am I still scared? Yes. I don’t feel equipped, but I believe experience will equip me. Successful people start before they feel ready. Richard Branson is a great example. Google him. My fears still haunt, but they are contained. I don’t face them alone, and I didn’t let them stop me from accepting the promotion. Thanks for reading my story! Now tell me yours here:

Begin at the End

At my high school graduation party people asked, “What’s your college major?”At my college graduation party they asked, “When are you getting married?”At my wedding reception they asked, “When are you getting pregnant?” At my baby shower they asked, “When are you having another baby?” At my 40th birthday party they asked, “When are you going to retire?” I don’t know why parties prompt these questions, but they make me want to avoid them. Why do we rush each other through life? I guess it’s normal to be curious about other people’s milestones and goals because it prompts us to think about our own. Goal setting is a life long process, btw. It doesn’t stop at retirement. The goals will be different, but just as important. When it comes to setting goals, beginning at the end can jump start brainstorming. Think about your funeral. If you could be a fly on the wall at your funeral and eavesdrop on conversations, what would you want to hear people say about you? If you have a difficult time imagining this scene, here are some prompts:

What do you want people to say in your eulogy?
What are you known for?
What are your accomplishments?
What is your career about?
What are you proud of?
What are your best memories?
Whom do you help?
What does your home life look like?
What is your impact on the world?
What is on your bucket list? Is it written down? Does it have deadlines?
What do you want to accomplish that you are not yet working toward?
What circumstances are in your life that you want out of your life?
What is your legacy?

As for me, I would want to hear people say, “My life was better because Mardi was in it.” But what does that look like in real life? At work, it means practicing random acts of office kindness. When a stressed out coworker says, “Do you have a minute?” My reply needs to be, “I always have a minute for you.” When trying to balance meeting the client’s goals with meeting the customer’s desires, it means listening then clearly and diplomatically communicating boundaries. It also means turning away from the work email and taking a four mile walk with my husband to watch the sunrise on a Sunday morning. Here are three suggestions to get you moving toward setting your next goals:

Do Your Homework: Find people who have already achieved what you want to do and study their lives. Read their bios on LinkedIn. Read articles and books they’ve written. Find out what they were doing at your age. How did their choices then get them to where they are now? Success leaves clues if you’re willing to look for them. Then look at your own goals and determine what steps you need to take to achieve them.

Be S.M.A.R.T.: A goal is a dream without a deadline. It’s personal and it’s yours alone. It will just remain a dream unless you harness it, so make your goal S.M.A.R.T.: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. Keep track of the date you set the goal, the target date for achieving the goal, and the date you reached the goal.

Journal: Write down how you’ll benefit from achieving your goal. Analyze the obstacles in your way and your strategy for overcoming them. List specific action items necessary to achieve your goal and set deadlines for them. Record affirmations for yourself to help you think positive. Track your progress and reward yourself for it.

The end of your life gets closer every second (insert Debbie Downer sad trombone here: “Wah. Wah.”) Unlike Mick Jagger, time is not on your side. Instead of feeling morbid, use this reality to fuel your purpose and set your goals. Have any advice on goal setting for me? Please tell me about it here:

Vulnerable to Extinction

When I ask young women what they want to do with their lives, I’m surprised at the number of whom say Stay at Home Mom (SAHM). Their answer saddens me because it’s such a tough row to hoe here in America. I think they are brave to admit this desire given the current state of the women’s movement. Speaking as someone who is reaping the consequences of choosing child-rearing over career, I have some news for SAHM wannabes:

Not News: Whether or not SAHM is a profession is highly controversial. Since women in America do not receive a paycheck to be SAHMs, for the sake of this conversation, I refer to it as a job. I think we can all agree that it takes skill to run a home: Time management, organization, budget balancing, crisis management, cruise director, chauffeur, nurse, maid, teacher, coach, cook, housekeeper, etc.

Also Not News: Plenty of women have to do all of the above while simultaneously working a full time job. A friend who is a wife and mother of a preschooler was excited to accept a position that pays $12.13 an hour to start. I’m smiling and congratulating while in my head calculating how far that money will go. When did food, clothing, and shelter get so expensive? Her situation is common. Are you married and need daycare so you can work because you can’t pay your bills with one income? In 2016, Americans paid an average of $196 a week to put one child in daycare, and the price just keeps going up. Of the parents surveyed, two-fifths said costs rose $1000 per year.

Actual News: Many women consider raising children a full time job, but America’s legal system doesn’t. Is it even possible to be a SAHM anymore? If you are going to be successful, here are three things you should consider:

Partner: You will need someone who is willing to support you and your children financially at least for a while. Be prepared to give up luxuries like eating out, expensive vacations, and designer clothes, for years. Work to maintain good communication. Regularly check in and ask how he’s doing and tell him how you’re doing. Go on dates so the two of you have bonding experiences that don’t include the kids. Acknowledge this is hard for both of you, and be assertive in expecting help with managing both the chores (cooking/cleaning/yard work, etc.) and the child care. It’s not “babysitting” when it’s your own kid. It’s parenting.

Gig: Can you work at home to maintain some sort of professional connection? Because while you may be a SAHM for around 20 years, eventually, you’ll retire and a 20 year hiatus from the work force is damaging to your marketability. Start now to prepare for life after your nest empties. What about starting a business? What about working part time? What about volunteering?

Network: Stay in touch with other moms and former colleagues. With all the social media platforms available, you have no excuse to let relationships go, but also make the effort to connect face to face. Meet for coffee, lunch, a walk, a book club: any activity that comes naturally so that you have adult relationships to cultivate for the future day when you have the bandwidth to pursue your life’s next chapter.

Do you have any advice for potential SAHMs? Share it here:

I Have Diabetes. It Doesn’t Have Me

I’m a (mostly) under-the-radar diabetic. I don’t show any outward signs attributable to the condition. For example: I don’t have to wear a medical alert bracelet and I still have both of my feet. The most common way I’m outed is when someone asks me what the secret to my weight loss is and I choose to tell the truth. Why do I hide it? Because I feel like diabetics are negatively perceived. As if we suffer from this disorder solely due to poor life style choices. Since I keep receiving requests to comment on it, here goes:

How I Got It: I had gestational diabetes (diabetes brought on by pregnancy) so I got a heads up Type 2 diabetes was a strong possibility for my future. After I gave birth, the doctor told me weight was a major factor in the onset of Type 2 and to watch it. So I did. Religiously. I rarely ate a French Fry or a doughnut. For. 20. YEARS. So you can imagine how angry I was to discover after a routine physical that my A1C (the test that measures three months worth of glucose in your blood) came back so high that I was labeled a diabetic and shoved into the matrix. I was prescribed a medicine and told to come back in three months for another test so I could start taking an additional medicine to protect my kidneys from the medicine I was just prescribed. I was handed a glucose monitor and testing supplies, told to stab myself before every meal, and to make an appointment with their diabetic specialist. My head spun. I went to the diabetic specialist and she was a God send. She was the voice of reason. She asked about my habits and lifestyle, then told me the factors that cause diabetes: genetics, weight, stress, and age. She determined my problems were genetics and age. She gave me a simple, but difficult, plan: Severely limit my carbohydrate intake.

How I Manage It: I am regimented. I have a minimum daily water intake requirement. I have a maximum carbohydrate allowance per meal and per snack. I have to watch the clock to make sure I don’t consume too many carbohydrates too close together. I have to measure and check serving sizes. I have to do math. I have to exercise every day. I have to test my blood glucose level on schedule. I have to see a doctor, diabetic specialist, optometrist, and podiatrist annually. I have to treat sugar like poison and carbohydrates like the enemy. I have to take food and water with me everywhere. I have to be extremely self-disciplined. I have to do a lot of meal prep. My diabetic specialist looked at my latest numbers and said, “What do you do, cook?! All the successful ones do.” “I have to,” I said. “Eating out is like negotiating a mine field.” I have to manage my emotions. I actually close my eyes during pizza commercials on TV. I have to resist lashing out at non-diabetics for not understanding how hard it is not to eat foods you love. Unfortunately, I do not always succeed.

How It Has Changed Me: Well, I’m 16 pounds lighter, my belly is always empty, my bladder is always full, and I’m hyper aware of the stigma of diabetes. Have you seen the TV commercials for diabetes drugs? Why are diabetics portrayed as overweight? According to the Center for Disease Control, In 2017, more than 100 million American adults are living with diabetes or prediabetes. So why aren’t there any diabetic friendly restaurants? I’m also a bit short tempered with those who don’t understand the condition and ask questions like: Why can’t you be spontaneous? Why do you have to carry all that stuff? Do you have to take a break right now? I never realized how awkward it is to not eat anything at parties until I couldn’t eat anything at parties. I smile and say no thank you a lot. I often offer to throw away a paper plate with a few crumbs on it that someone is finished with and move slowly to the trash can to make it look like I’m social. Sometimes denial hits: My numbers are so good and so consistent, I wonder if I really have diabetes. Maybe I can eat my hamburger on a bun this time. Then when I do, my number shoots sky high and reality hits. Hard. The bottom line is I’m very fortunate. My diabetic specialist’s plan has worked for two years now and she thinks if I keep working her plan, I can manage my condition without medicine in perpetuity. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to the ladies room. AGAIN.

If you are a Type 2 diabetic and have advice for me, particularly regarding diabetic friendly restaurants and/or low carbohydrate recipes, please comment here:

I’m Sorry (Not Sorry)

Haters. Don’t you just hate ‘em? Why do people think it’s okay to judge your behavior? I mean, kvetch all you want, but don’t say it out loud. How rude! (Mardi said in her best Stephanie Tanner voice.) Ever feel like some of the things for which you’re criticized are just plain dumb? Here are three things for which you should not apologize:

Taking Time For Yourself: Hang out at Starbucks before work. Skip that invitation to go out in favor of staying in and reading or watching Hulu or napping or whatever. Take a vacation day from work and go to the movies. Attend that personal leadership conference. Book that spa day. Develop that exercise routine. You have both mental and physical limits. You have to refuel. If you don’t, it gets harder to focus on tasks and solve problems. I know it goes against the dominant “do whatever it takes to get the project done” mentality, but working non-stop actually prevents you from getting the project done. When you’re rested you work smarter and not harder. It isn’t just your body that needs rest, your brain has to stop thinking about work in order to reboot. So take a few hours and stop thinking about work. When you return, you’ll be surprised how ready your brain is to think differently about the task you left.

Setting Boundaries: “No,” is a whole sentence. You are not obligated to attend that event, serve on that committee, or mentor everyone who asks. Is it worth your T.E.A.M.? Leaders know their time is precious and limited and they learn how to say, “No.” You demonstrate self-respect when you refuse a commitment for which you know you cannot make time. You absolutely have to say no to situations that endanger your safety or integrity. If you work in an environment that supports work-life integration (handling tasks for your personal life while at work and vice versa), work will infringe on your personal time. It’s difficult not to think about work while you’re at home and sometimes it isn’t practical to leave work at the office. Just like it’s not always feasible to leave what’s happening at home outside the office. Be aware of your level of frustration. When it gets overwhelming, take a break. Identify what needs immediate action and what can wait. Then train your mind to focus only on what needs done and to ignore what can wait.

Spending Money You’ve Saved on Yourself: You work hard for the money (shout out to Donna Summer) so give yourself an allowance every week and let it add up. It takes discipline and restraint to leave that money alone, so when you want to spend it, do so with zero guilt. If you want to buy a necklace, laptop, or Michael Kors handbag, and you have enough cash set aside, do it. In fact, it makes you a better employee. How? You become persistent. You’re motivated to work in order to buy things you want. When you reward yourself, you want to do it again, so you have to go back to work to earn the money to do it. You also learn how to achieve your goals. When you want a promotion, you have to figure out what you have to do to get it and how long it will take. You use the same skills with a purchasing goal. You also became self-aware. What you buy says a lot about what you find valuable. When you identify your values, you can translate that to your job. What excites you about your work? How can you use that to stay motivated to get your job done?

Tell me some things people make you feel like you should apologize for here:

Who Are You Calling Old?

More frequently I hear, “You look great for your age,” as opposed to, “You look great.” Sometimes I shop in the junior department to get the right size and I get “the look” from the other shoppers. You know, the look that says, “You’re too old to wear this style.” Men and younger women offer to carry heavy things for me. I lift weights four days a week. I can carry three 12 packs of Caffeine Free Diet Coke, people! When I just wear mascara, I look fine in the mirror, but Snapchat tells a very different story. In getting to know a new coworker, she asked if I had any children. I replied, “Our daughter is a senior in college.” She said, “You still have a child in school?!” Nice. Merriam-Webster defines ageism as “prejudice or discrimination against a particular age-group and especially the elderly.” Did you know there is a longevity revolution? It’s discussed mostly in terms of economy and health care, but I feel like it means, “Hey, we’re all living longer, so stop treating me like I’m irrelevant.” That’s the fear, right? Being irrelevant? Your needs are unmet because you get marginalized? As usual, I have more questions than answers:

Why Is Ageism a Thing? Everyone is getting older by the second. Isn’t it counterproductive to assume someone can’t contribute to society because they’ve reached a certain age? This has been going on a long time, like at least since 1967. Ever heard of “Logan’s Run?” The perception is old people consume resources without contributing to their replenishment. At what age do you think that happens? It depends on how old you are. (Isn’t it ironic?) People 18-29 years old think 60 is old. Middle aged people consider 70 old. People aged 65+ years think 74 is old. We’re afraid we won’t be able to get what we want when we want it. We resent a percentage of our paychecks going to Social Security to support retired people whom we imagine use the money to take a month long trip to the Grand Canyon.

Can You Fight It? You want to work and advance in your career, but your appearance and your resume expose you as a woman over 40 years old. Not only are you fighting a glass ceiling, but now you also have to negotiate a glass floor of hiring managers younger than you who assume you’re neither tech savvy nor value your industry experience. What do you do? Update your resume. It should be one page long. Get an appropriate Gmail address (your.name@gmail.com) and include it in the contact section of your resume. Use a font that is modern and easy to read like Calibri or Garamond. In interviews, if you’re asked a sneaky question, like, “How long do you plan to keep working?” Emphasize how much you enjoy it. Mention things you do that reveal you’re always learning: reading the blogs of famous business thought leaders, using a trendy app, a TED Talk you posted on your social media.

Can You Win? It’s an endless uphill climb. You have to stay engaged, grow thick skin, and develop a sassy attitude. Oprah Winfrey said, “We live in a youth-obsessed culture that is constantly trying to tell us that if we are not young, and we’re not glowing, and we’re not ‘hot,’ that we don’t matter….I refuse to let a system or a culture or a distorted view of reality tell me that I don’t matter.”

What Does Winning Look Like? Getting paid for a job based on your skill, abilities, and experience, and not getting turned away because of how long you’ve been in the workforce. Here’s what winning looks like in the volatile and youth obsessed music industry: The rock band U2 have been together 42 years. Not only do they stay relevant by working with artists like 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music winner Kendrick Lamar, but they also make money. U2’s 360º stadium tour in Jun 30, 2009 – Jul 30, 2011, made $736,421,584. It is currently the highest-grossing concert tour of all time. These guys are 56 (Edge, Larry Mullen, Jr.) and 58 (Bono, Adam Clayton) years old.

I could spend hours talking about ageism, but we are getting older by the second. If you want to continue this conversation, please use this form to send me a question or comment:

You Call THIS Having it All?

We’ve gone from Helen Gurley Brown in 1986 telling women we can have it all: career, family, social life, etc., to Oprah Winfrey in 2018 telling us we can’t have it all at the same time. I feel like the narrative of the American Woman is: Have a demanding career, a successful husband, active children, and manage all these things with no support; otherwise, you are not a “real” woman. And, it’s not men who are judging us. We do this to each other. It needs to stop. NOW. As usual, I have more questions than answers:

Why is this even a goal? I’ve spent the last 21 years hoping by the time our daughter was old enough to hold a full time job, marry, and start a family, the environment in America would be conducive to parenting while working full time. It isn’t and I don’t think it will be in my lifetime. Do we really need government policies that force companies to not fire a woman for taking time off to give birth and recover from it? Apparently so: FMLA. Now why would any company do that? Work for women is not a luxury. If we have to legislate to keep women employed, how about policies more like the ones in Great Britain ? When I gave birth to our daughter, I took a 12 week maternity leave. I saved up my sick days and rolled over my vacation days for two years in order to be paid for most of that time off. I trained someone to fill in for me while I was out, but mostly I trained him to call me when he had questions so I could log these calls and prove the company needed me to return. Yes. I’m one radioactive spider bite away from being a super villain.

Why do we assume women want to marry? I blame the media. I had this conversation with a couple of female friends on different occasions recently and both of them were hard pressed to come up with reasons why their daughters should marry their current boyfriends. We all finally landed on the African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Marriage encourages couples to work out their problems and stay together. Relationships are hard. They require you to put the interests of your mate ahead of your own. Not every woman is willing to do that, nor should society expect her to.

Why do we assume women want to have children? Sometimes looking at Facebook feels like watching a mommy contest. I see posts of locally sourced organic meals served to the entire team after the pee-wee ballgame accompanied by a comment about rushing off to answer work emails after her player is in bed. I’m exhausted just reading it. If you’ve got one foot on the corporate ladder and one foot in the kitchen, you’re doing the splits, and that gets real painful, real fast. How do you excel at either one? As a society, we need to stop asking women why they don’t have children. Personal reproductive choices are no one’s business.

Is work-life balance an illusion? So you have to work and you want to have children. Why do women feel guilty for getting help? Why is it shameful to have a cleaning lady? What is wrong with hiring a full-time baby sitter? Why can’t a husband be the primary care-giver? Are women just control freaks? Do you want to control both doctor’s appointments and staff meetings? Why does childcare cost so much? How do we stop hiring managers from looking at women of child bearing age during interviews and think to themselves, “I wonder how long she will be on the job before she gets pregnant?” Now that I’m past child bearing years, I have advanced faster in my career since my daughter started college than in her lifetime up to now.

Do you teach your daughters to plan their futures? Have you laid out a schedule for them? For example, “Okay honey, here’s what you do. After high school, go to college. Graduate in four years with a Bachelor’s degree then get an entry level position at a corporation. Work there for three years and get promoted. Work three more years, then get married. After three years of marriage, get promoted to manager, then have your first child.” This makes your daughters about 30 years old when they have their first child, by the way. Why do you even have to contemplate giving this kind of controlling counsel to your daughters? Does it even occur to you to give that same advice to your sons? What skills should you teach your daughters to cope with trying to have it all? Should you warn them that their choices will involve sacrifice? For example: You can have both a career and kids, but both will suffer. How are women ever going to achieve equal pay for equal work if we can’t work? How do we promote more women to the C-Suite if we are penalized for child-bearing?

Share your thoughts, suggestions, and experiences here:

Can You Keep a Secret?

Maybe you were at the wrong place at the wrong time and overheard something you wish you hadn’t. Maybe you received an email that wasn’t meant for you. However it happened, now you know something about a coworker you wish you could forget. So unless you can perform Gilderoy Lockhart’s Memory Charm on yourself, here are four suggestions on how to keep a secret:

Don’t Think About It: If it’s in your head it’s likely to come out of your mouth. Put it out of your mind especially when the coworker in question is around. Do something that diverts your attention: Go to the ladies room, work on the next client presentation, proofread the activity report, watch a puppy video. Whatever the secret is will burden her and there’s nothing she can do about it right now. It isn’t your place to tell her, so don’t. You may feel sorry for her, protective of her, outraged for her, but don’t let your non-verbals betray you. It won’t be a secret forever. When it comes to light, THAT is the time to release your emotions. Until then, keep them in check.

Don’t Tell Other People: You’re not supposed to have this information, so pretend you don’t. If another coworker suspects something and asks you to confirm or deny, don’t fall for it. Juicy gossip is tempting, but almost always hurtful and not just to your coworker. Oprah Winfrey says, “When someone talks to you about other people, know that they’re talking about you behind your back, too.” The last thing you need is a reputation for gossip. You want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Do Be Helpful: A member of your team is being attacked. Part of your job is to protect the team (think Michael Oher in Blindside). If the attack is unjust, then there should be evidence that your coworker is a good employee. Have you received emails congratulating the team on a job well done? Flag them for future reference. Did a customer tell you he appreciated your coworker’s help? Ask him to email the manager his comment. Building people up not only helps them, but also makes you look good.

Do Be There For The Big Reveal: The thing about office secrets is they don’t stay secret for long. Not even in Vegas. So after this secret is revealed, be a support to your coworker. A chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link and right now your weakest link is your coworker. It’s in your best interest to not let the team falter because of this distraction. If the criticism is founded, gently identify how she got into this mess, figure out how to prevent it from happening again, then encourage her and the rest of the team to rally and repair any damage. If the criticism is not founded, now is the time to remind her of what she’s doing right, stay focused, and in the immortal words of Taylor Swift, “shake it off.”

Have you had to keep a secret at work? Share your story here: