M3 & Q1 2023 | Speaking @ The Nueva School & Vouch
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
In April, I looked back at my goals I’d set for Q1 and I’d accomplished all but one! And, that I’m finally publishing this Q1 reflection in mid-June, tells you how Q2 is going: Far less structured/disciplined. (In fact, I’m already starting to reflect on Q2, which prompted me to send out this reflection! So stay tuned for a larger update next week!)
Things I launched in March:
Spoke to the team @ Vouch, an insurtech for startups, debuting a 45-min distillation of The Mindful Manager curriculum
Wrote a short reflection on LinkedIn (just in time for Women’s History Month!) on the multi-decade journey for women to get the right to vote in the US and how that gives me hope, even with overturning of Roe v Wade last year.
Gave school-wide talk to 400+ high schoolers at the Nueva School in the SF Bay Area on perfectionism & identity (more below)
Things I’m working on
V1 of a book proposal for The Mindful Manager (If you have any connections in the publishing world; I’d love to chat! Or if you’d like to be a reader, email me!)
Things I’m reading/doing
Book Rec | I finished Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, a book I’d been slowly savoring by reading one chapter a week. I highly recommend it for anyone who aspires to write, loves books and appreciates hearing about the internal process of a writer.
Things I’m thinking about
Applying product discovery to public speaking
My high school self found working on teams a drag. And my academic experience was often isolated and solitary: I’d grind out my studies, alone at home at 1, 2 or 3 AM in the morning. You take tests alone and so I had this internalized idea that I needed to figure out the “right” answer by myself. More often than not, I answered essay prompts on weighty things like the meaning of life without ever discussing them with another person!
Yet, my post-college life has universally been about working with and on teams. And learning to process a problem with multiple stakeholders to get to a better solution (and their buy-in!). Now, I’d say that one of my strongest skills is the ability to find answers outside of myself: by asking for help explicitly, musing about a problem with peers, and generally taking wisdom wherever I can find it.
It took business school to crack open the ego-attachment to “being the smartest” and “having the right answer by figuring it out myself”. In my Master’s program, we had subject matter experts at the top of their field from every single industry and 40+ countries. I quickly realized that instead of reading up on oil & gas, I could simply ASK the resident oil & gas expert. And that no amount of reading could make me an expert (which was my go-to approach in high school and my twenties!) As Chief of Staff to the Group CEO of a new business, literally everyone on the C-level that I interacted with had at least a decade of experience, if not two, in their area of expertise. I learned very fast that my value wasn’t “having the right answer” but listening well, asking good questions and following through on what we discussed together.
Product (and leadership and life) requires the skill of both listening intently to others while formulating your own opinion. I’ve seen what happens when product leaders build the product they want, without having listened to their actual customers - or make the mistake of assuming that their users want what they want! People make this mistake too - they assume they understand what motivates others (or what others need) without explicitly asking.
This really came home to me as I prepared to give a talk to 400+ gifted high schoolers who’d read my essay on burnout & perfectionism. As I sat down to write, I realized I’d been implementing the same product discovery process I use in software, by talking & processing with different personas and stakeholders in the months leading up to my talk.
First, the parent persona. Shout-out to Sunil and Natalie, wise friends and informal mentors, who gave me the parent perspective.
“Your message can’t simply be, ‘Don’t work so hard.’ Work ethic does matter!”
“Check out this Google study on what variables actually correlate with success.”
“Tell them not to waste time trying to be someone else - because if they do and they’re successful, they have to pretend to be someone else for the rest of their life.”
Next, the teacher persona. I was lucky to spend time with teachers and administrators at the Nueva School who see and talk to students daily, understanding the pressure they feel, both the proximate, “Freshman and sophomores are stressed about internships” and existential: “Students are terrified that not getting into their dream school will be the end of their whole lives.”
Finally, the student persona. I have to admit, without the community of church, I no longer have easy access to people of all ages. My friends mostly have toddlers and I simply don’t have high schoolers in my network! So I used proxies: my best friend from high school, and a friend whose 12 year old daughter is already struggling with the trap of perfectionism.
I asked my best friend, “What do you remember about high school Tiffany?” And her answer became the opening metaphor in my talk:
“Even though we had lockers, you always carried your textbooks with you in this massive backpack ALL the time. I used to make fun of you, that if I poked you too hard, you’d tip over and flail on your back, like a turtle on its back. I called it your turtle shell!”
She got serious and quiet: “I also worried about you. I felt like you were carrying so much - so many expectations for yourself - and I worried that you’d break under the weight of it all.”
I could’ve cried. So many nights, at 1 am, 2 am, 3 am and 4 am, I wondered if anyone saw me; if anyone could see how much I was struggling.
My best friend did. And she was my safe place where I could put down the burden of perfectionism, where I could be ME, where I could be a kid.
Not a future valedictorian, but just a kid who wanted to watch TV, laugh, and do things for fun.
Not do things because I felt like I HAD to do them to get into Harvard (or be better than my sister), but do things for the joy of doing them.
My friend said of his daughter: “She’s starting to say things like, ‘I don’t want to do this because I’m not good at it.’ And you and I both know that some things, like music, you do need to just grind out to get better at it.”
So, this is the tension I faced, when I finally sat down to write.
How do I share the wisdom and compassion I wished for my younger self while doing justice to the reality that the world is hard and requires intentionality & sacrifice?
How do I honor the truth that we are more than the work that we do - and that we are shaped by how we work and what we work we choose to do?
How do I talk about learning to prioritize myself, my wellbeing & joy, while acknowledging my present privilege, built on my parent’s labor, my own labor in my teens & twenties, and the continuing halo effect from the top tier schools and companies on my resume?
How do I separate out the discipline & work ethic I’ve built from the unnecessary weight, pressure and expectations I put on myself; the things that have held me back more than they’ve helped?
So this was the opening metaphor: I changed my outer appearance, regressing to my younger self and pulled on a 45+ lb backpack as a metaphor for the things I carried in high school, what I described as “unconscious beliefs I carried that weighed me down.” I call these psychological weights we carry “maladaptive coping mechanisms”: things that we learned & internalized at a young age to keep us safe but aren’t helpful now to us in our present reality or the real world.
Here’s the rubric I walked through in my talk:
That old adage is wise beyond measure: “What got you here, won’t get you there.”
My at-times stubbornly independent mindset, “I can figure this out on my own,” has carried me far - very far. And, it makes me easy to work with! I basically self-manage myself and I’m very self-directed. It’s a skill you DO need - especially when you’re navigating uncharted waters, as a leader in a company, when you’re just starting out, or as you encounter new challenges in your personal life.
And, it will only take you so far.
My new adage: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Over the last year, I’ve been intentional about inviting in partners for the new things I’m doing. For my sabbatical, I assembled a personal advisory council to hold me accountable and to share their wisdom & perspective. For my class, I asked a former colleague, now working on her Masters in Counseling, to be my teaching assistant. I didn’t need her, but I wanted her as my thought partner, to co-create with me, and to help me hold space for students while I taught. As I think about new roles, I’m thinking now about who I can partner with up front - and who I’d want to bring into the team later.
I think the hardest part of high school is feeling alone.
The gift of adulthood for me has been finding friends who’ve carried me through some of the hardest challenges of my life, personally & professionally. Thank you to everyone who has walked with me.
A few questions/prompts for reflection:
If you’re feeling alone and you don’t feel seen, take a step to reveal how much you’re struggling to someone so that you can be seen.
If you’re struggling with perfectionism, self-criticism or comparison, I highly recommend Kristin Neff & Chris Germer’s Mindful Self-Compassion workbook and/or processing with a therapist or coach.
Do one of the three traps above resonate with you? Which of the antidotes or tools can you employ now/tomorrow?
If not, what are your “maladaptive coping mechanisms” or unconscious beliefs that are weighing you down in your current context?