Hard Questions About Leadership Careers

so um kristin i last saw you in october what has happened in your work life uh relevant yeah since then besides covid cases have quadrupled or doubled or tripled because Ohio went from being pretty low to being kind of a shit show. Yeah. I mean, we're still in a surge. We're expecting the peak to be in January. Although things started to kind of slow down a little bit. Not go down, but just like maintain. But yeah, it's been interesting.

Trying to get anything done in healthcare already is difficult. It's slow, especially in IT, in healthcare. So you splash a little cybersecurity threat and a little... COVID surge in there and it gets very difficult to make progress. So it's, it seems like it's been forever since we last talked. But yeah, I don't know if you were aware that there was like a cybersecurity threat across the United States and Canada and some other countries as well.

um on the health care system it was like a it was in the news yeah i did see that pick up on that at all a little bit so yeah so that was pretty crazy um i've definitely never been in that situation before so that was new for me in terms of like what do we do you know if this happens what do we do this like and just understanding all the implications to everything that we do it was very fascinating um

But all that going on alongside with COVID, it's been a pretty busy few months. So I would say the high points, I got three new team members. They all started. Nice. So what's your team size? I took a really long time to get them in. What's your team size now? So I have 10 right now for my automation and manual testing group, and I still have two in a dotted line on the other side. And I just got two more positions approved.

that we're going to open up. And remind everyone, when did you start managing at all? I really didn't start until January. So you're slightly less than a year. You have 12 employees and two more that you will now go higher. Yep. Yeah. One of them being a senior role, which will be interesting.

This is another topic. We don't have to talk about it. Maybe another time. I really want to hear from people on what it's like to work for someone younger than you. Because I'm younger than almost all of my associates. And I've never worked for someone younger than me. And I feel like for some reason, maybe that would be a difficult thing for me to do. I don't know why. I have no idea why. I just want to make sure that I'm like...

you know, thinking through what it's like for them too. So like bringing someone in who's very senior in automation, who's likely older than me, you know, what... I'm just trying to put myself, I guess, in their shoes. And you already know I have the imposter syndrome because of me not being an automation engineer or a manual tester or a developer.

And so add on to that, like just this nature of I'm leading people who are older than me. It's just, I want to like explore that a little bit because I've never done it myself and hear like what it's like. Have you ever worked for anyone younger than you? Have I worked for anyone younger than me? Sure. Not dramatically younger, though.

The closest and the most dramatic was when I worked at Twitch. Twitch CEO Emmett Shear was about 14 years younger than I was, 15 years, roughly 14, 15. So almost a whole generation.

um and so was that different yeah it's different it's different in a few ways um and i can talk about i also routinely manage people who are older than me when i was early in my career because like you, I went into management quite early, and so I had most of my employees, for my first 10 years of management, most of my employees were older than I was, and even though, even though,

Even though America doesn't officially acknowledge this, there is still what's more common in the rest of the world, the idea that respect should be accorded to your elders. And so you have this juxtaposition where you're supposed to respect and listen to your elders, but... you're the boss and you're not the elder and so you have this juxtaposition between I'm supposed to give in the end I'm supposed to make the decisions and give the direction versus

this person who's the elder and I need to listen to them. So it was weird. I haven't experienced any problems with it. It's not like it's become an issue or anything. I'm just... I just want to know what it's like because I've never been in that position. What were you going to say? I think if you want the one-line summary, and Dani's here, she has some opinions on this too.

Yeah, I wanted him more. Yeah, she says a lot of managers really don't value the depth of experience. That's exactly where I was going to go, which is older employees have more years usually on the job. And so A, like anyone, they want to feel heard. So you already have that with all your team members, but it's a little stronger with someone who may have more years of experience than you.

because they want to make sure that that experience is being valued and they may have something to offer based on the fact that hey i saw this back in the past and so i think it's it's

The simplest one-line sensitivity is just be sure to listen to and respect that experience. It doesn't mean you have to agree with them. It doesn't mean you have to do what they want. It doesn't mean that you have to defer to them. But I think the general idea of people want to feel heard, which we talk about all the time in leadership, is then magnified when there's an age difference of The older person wants to feel that their experience is being valued and heard and there can be

there can be an implied imbalance that says well see i'm your manager and i'm whatever fill in the blank i'm 25 and you're 35. that means I'm a lot smarter than you because I got here in five years and 15 years on, you're still filling out the TPS reports. And so there can be, whether you behave that way or believe that or not, the employee can feel or pick that up even if it's not real they can have the idea of oh you're um you're

thinking that way consciously subconsciously like they read that in because it can be an agenda of oh you're so hot you're in a management role and you're so young you probably think you're better than me And you may not think that, but there's a chip on their shoulder, and then if you play into it, it's worse. Go ahead. I think that actually is more the challenge I face with my peers.

Maybe not my peers directly in my department. It's actually not my peers in my department. It's actually an assumption that I'm making. So I could be wrong. But based on what I've seen of some of the other managers, I could definitely see them kind of being like, what is she doing here? Like, who do you think you are? Why are you doing this? And just kind of looking at me like.

I don't know, like I was the favored one, like, you know, like my boss just for some, for some stupid reason, like, you know, really likes me and promotes me. Like I could see that happening, especially because what I'm. leading is a lot of change and man do they not like change like there's a lot of people who have um years in this company

And they just don't like change. They don't want to adapt. They don't want to adapt new technologies. They don't want the processes to change. They certainly don't want their culture to change. And that's why I was brought in to do that. Got a number of things actually kind of fighting against some of that. And that can lead age to be more of a problem. And the way it leads age to be more of a problem is people lean on age as a one more excuse.

They can use age as an ad hominem reason and attack on the person. If they don't like what you're saying or what you believe or what you're there to do, they can either quarrel with... the actual business reasons or they can say ah you're just young you think everything needs to be new and different you know i mean and and some yeah or you're just a woman you're just

this like yeah you're just being emotional like add hominem attacks yeah and so you just have to learn to recognize those and call them out and say hey look um We need to focus on what the business reasons are or aren't for this change. And if you have questions about those, let's discuss them. I'm very open to them. And I have respect for what's gone before. That's actually a...

That's one of the tenets of the Amazon principal engineers is called respect for what's gone before. Don't just be like, well, all this old stuff's crap. It was done that way for a reason. I want to... talk about a few of the things danny said because they're worth bringing into this another latent belief when you're a younger manager maybe why wasn't i considered for that role if i'm the elder

i've got more experience i was here longer why was i passed over why was it given to her some of that may just be suspicion but some of it may be that no one has given them a good answer like well you have you know this is the mean way but you have social skills like a cave troll so yes you're technically qualified but actually you'd need to work on your communication skills they're not necessarily giving feedback and

As the elder employee becomes more and more senior, specifically legally above 40, you start to get into questions of age discrimination. was i passed over because i'm perceived as too old because i'm perceived as being out of you know and of course the reason that you as a manager have to worry about all these things um being in the employee's mind is it affects their performance but also it just it creates that hidden undertone that you don't necessarily isn't ever expressed of are you

not working with me or you know was i not selected for this role or they're just hidden fears and sometimes they're true the reason they're fears is because in some companies bad things have been done oh this person's too old don't promote them they're too slow whatever the reasons are and so age discrimination like um sex discrimination everything else is uh racial discrimination they're real in some cases and that leads people to worry that they're real in your specific case and so um

Sorry, I'm reading chat and Danny says she's a cave troll. Don't come out in the daylight then. You'll turn to stone. In any case, and... Yeah, you get different types when you ask about working for someone younger. I think the thing to be aware of is for some of your employees that may be a conscious or an unconscious issue.

You can overcome it like everything else by transparency, relationship building, and trust. Trust, I've heard defined pretty well in a work situation as consistency over time.

What builds trust is that your actions match your words consistently over time. So as you deliver that consistent over time experience, the people who... depend on you will come to say oh I can trust Kristen's actions to match your words and to the degree that your actions don't match your words it would be an issue so that's so yep

So like I said, I don't think that I'm having this issue with my own team. But when I think about how to build relationships across the organization with some of these people who are very resistant to change, I'm not... interacting with them directly yet, but I probably will be this next year. So I need to be starting to find ways to build that relationship so they can see that consistency to avoid.

you know, what we just talked about happening. Because if, if you're not working with me daily, then you're not seeing, you're not seeing the value that I, that I add. And yeah. So that's something that's huge this year. If I were to say that there's one thing my boss has asked me to do, it's to build relationships across the organization. Wow.

So that leads into the first question you ask. So we can talk about that next because you ask about building relationships in a remote team. But I would say with elders. A little bit of respect and humility can go a tremendous way. And yet you then.

marry that still with confidence of yes i can be respectful i can be humble about your greater experience and want to avail myself of it but that doesn't change our position in the end I'm paid to decide or paid to implement this program you don't have to talk about it you have to talk about it at all but you convey yourself with that you're shooting for a blend of Humility and respect for the person, but confidence in your own actions.

There is no, of course, perfect recipe, by the way. Some people will dislike you no matter what you do, and perversely, some people will like you no matter what you do, right? Murderers have fans. they they still have people who believe they're innocent despite all the fingerprints and believe they're fabulous you know like murderers have fans yeah um yeah yeah so cool

Okay, so this also ties in, you're right, with my first question. So one more little sidebar. With the new hires, I'm not as... worried about this idea of like what's their perception of me being younger because they got to meet me in the interview process and I was very candid. I just, I really believe that that's important in an interview. Like I want them to know who they'd be working with. And, and so I'm hoping that, you know, none of them had to like convince themselves to like.

be okay, pretend to be okay with it. And ideally, you know, they've all chosen this knowing who I am to the best of their ability from our interviews. Yeah. So that helps, but you're right. The idea of building a relationship, not just me with them, but helping them build relationships with others in the organization.

um in a remote way and then i guess it would apply actually for me because i have to meet a lot of people that i've maybe like said hello to once you know when i was doing a gemba route or something like i haven't met a lot of these people so i'm actually doing the same thing that my new hires are doing um but just in a different role so in remotely which is a challenge and my new hires have expressed that that's been really difficult for them

And so we're working on trying to figure out some different ways to help them get exposure to other people and to get to know other people and thinking about having some coffee chats.

around some sort of topic that I know multiple people would be, you know, engaged in and then bring them together to kind of get to know each other a little bit, something like that. But yeah, it's an interesting... development and you know 2020 right so well yeah we all need to manage yeah we so this was a good point um your question

which i'll just read out and i'll briefly show the slide and then i'll come back to it this will all be posted on on my website uh if not immediately tomorrow i'll stick it in discord as well in the general chat But I'll post these slides and they'll be on our, we've set up a new website as a resource. So EthanEvans.com has been updated and it has a resource page and these slides will end up on the resource page. But without further ado.

I'll just read Kristen's question then I'll talk through this she had said to me new hires in a remote world this is one of the topics she wanted to talk about new hires in a remote world and how to create a high-performing team How to get strong integration, develop a sense of ownership, develop team trust so good questions are asked and not ignored. Oh, I didn't show this because I'm in a different mode. So there's the slide.

i'm going to drop out of that mode so i stop having that problem but i'm going to go back to kristin for the moment i'll show the slide more later so i thought about this look um relationships are relationships here's what's changed in a remote world in a remote world

So relationships are still based on what they always were, which is time and human caring. And that's why we talk about the book a lot. Did you, I can't recall, but I think you've read Leadership and Self-Deception now. Is that true? Yeah. So leadership and self-deception still applies, but the book talks about human relationships and caring about the person. All of that applies. The difference is... All the serendipitous places you had.

to express that caring have vanished. So hallway conversations, kitchen conversations. If you were in a multi-story building waiting for the elevator in the elevator lobby, riding in the elevator. before and after meetings all those places where you used to be able to express human caring and and talk to someone about their weekend their dog their sick spouse their whatever they're all gone similarly all of the

things that managers used to do to create some of that interaction are gone. Oh, I'm gonna buy donuts and put them outside my office or tell everyone they're in the kitchen and hang out. I'm going to buy coffee or invite people to coffee. I'm going to invite people to lunch, to dinner, to drinks, to an off-site, to an all-hands. Almost all of that is gone. But here's the point for remote teams.

You can actually choose to recreate any and all of those intentionally. The difference is it now isn't a part of your normal flow of work until you make it that way. So it would be weird to say, to send someone a Zoom that said, here's a three minute Zoom, pretend we're in the elevator. That would be a little weird. But what you can do is you can have a coffee chat.

Still virtually. Hey, 9 a.m. or 10 a.m., whatever. Let's get coffee and both talk for 15 minutes. Let's eat our lunches. The hard thing. Go ahead. Now you're competing with everything else at home. So like for me, it's actually, and this is a little surprising to me. I think, you know, I'm a very social person and I thrive on relationships. But for me to break out of like to schedule a separate meeting just to hang out, it's hard to do.

Because I have kids that are begging for my attention. I have dishes that haven't been done. I have so many things to do that if I can get my work wrapped up a little bit sooner. I would rather do that. And so now we're competing with that. People are getting fatigued from being on video chat. And a lot of my team, a lot of IT at least, they don't even turn their videos on.

But we do, most of us, in leadership because we've been asked to and I can see why. So most of the time my video is on and it is tiring. You know, so that's a real thing. But people are getting kind of burnt out from all the online meetings and stuff. And so it's kind of like the last thing anyone really wants is another meeting scheduled for something that...

It's going to just take time away from them getting this other work done. And because of the nature of the industry that I'm in and the global pandemic that we're in, time is just, I mean, we're constantly slammed. So it's really hard to prioritize that when it doesn't seem like a necessity. And that's...

This is that question you've seen my diagram before. Other people here in chat probably know about it. Urgent versus important. What you're saying, and you're right, is on any given day having a social call with an employee,

or someone you want to build a relationship with is not urgent. There is no driving business need. The problem is if you don't work that into your routine, Monday goes by and Tuesday goes by and Wednesday goes by and then the week and then the next week and then the next week and then suddenly you realize I haven't really engaged this person as anything other than a worker bot. For a month. Yeah, and so the tough part is you have to Work it in your flow of work because it is long-term important

And Danny's quoting the research results. Actually, fun time and social time do improve employee performance, even by the way of employees who say they don't want to do it. That said. 40 Pink Dragons was talking to me offline about this earlier, and she suggested, and I agree with her, that when you do the social calls, don't necessarily make the person...

Get on video. Don't be on video yourself. Maybe just call them. Maybe just text them. You know, I think your company uses Slack or something, right? also? No, no, we use Teams now. Teams, Teams, okay, but Teams is, Teams is corporate Slack. The point being, you can use that. We lost Giphy for like two weeks and everyone freaked out. And I was enraged. He took Giffy away, but he found out it was an accident.

And when it came back, it was hilarious. People were like, I feel like I could express myself again. It's such a small thing, but with your emote, that's one of the only ways to do that. And Twitch is the emote. pioneers right so what i guess i would say is um you have to invest that time but i should challenge you really Name a few creative ways that you could engage people without it necessarily being another meeting.

I bet if I was silent, and I will be silent here, you could list three or four I haven't that you could try. Yeah, and I mean, I think we do a little bit of it already. It's just a matter of... I like the way you presented it as it needs to become a part of your routine. I think that that would be good. So maybe pick one or two things intentionally to do outside of just what comes natural to me.

And I saw Duke of Thought had asked about video, why video became an essential piece. And really, Duke, for me, I need to be able to read people. And it is really hard to do that over just voice. It depends on the nature of the conversation. So sometimes, especially if it's a group chat, like if it's with my whole team, when people are on video,

I almost can always get someone to actually speak up and say something that otherwise they wouldn't have if I have them on video. Because I see them thinking, I see them starting to speak up and then somebody else starts to talk and then that person says, oh, hey, did you want to say something?

Because they can see it. Or they take themselves off mute. That's the other thing. Even if your video is not on. If someone takes themselves off mute for a second and then mutes again, I'll oftentimes go back and say, hey, is there something you wanted to say? Because people are so hesitant to speak up.

and especially in a group setting when somebody else can. So to me, it's really important. So what I've done is I pick certain meetings that I want people to be on video if possible, and I give my team a heads up. like either the day before the week of, or, you know, I just try to give them advanced bonus. Hey, I would really appreciate it if you guys could have your videos on. And I don't do that often, but like when I had the first.

meeting with all the new hires i asked everybody to have their videos on so that they could see the faces of the people that they're going to be partnering with and getting to know um so i try to like mix it up a little bit yeah So your question, you know, you had other parts to it. But what I would say, and I'll talk about those parts briefly. But what I would say is you had, in essence.

the challenge for you is and this is a challenge for all managers i will now generalize all managers struggle with the urgent versus important challenge of i have so many tasks we as a team have so much to deliver how do i choose to put time into the long term

And that's why employees complain all the time that my manager uses our one-on-ones only to talk about tactical items, not to talk about career. I know you may be different because you and I have talked about it, but that's a common complaint. And basically you have to have some sort of routine or discipline to invest in the long term with the faith, and I call it faith, but also the experience.

that that will ultimately pay off in a better team that gets more done. But you have to pay that cost. And that cost here is working in a routine of relationship building. not just you, but also other people. Go ahead, you had a question. Well, so in my team meeting, for instance, we have a weekly team meeting, it's 50 minutes long. I try really hard to stick to that 50 minute mark. And I... often most of the time spend like the first 15 minutes of that meeting um kind of it's usually more

get to know you stuff i'll ask them you know we used to do the questions that you you used to do on stream um and then we started adding new questions and i just pick something out something random i don't usually plan ahead i just pick something random or i ask for any ideas and someone will ask a question and then we kind of everyone can answer in chat or can speak up you know whichever they want and sometimes I feel like nervous that people are thinking I'm wasting their time.

by by doing that but i just i don't know i've seen a lot of people make connections with each other like oh i play that video game too like or yeah i like to build keyboards too like the weirdest things will come out as a commonality and we'll end up having good discussion or like, you know, I was, we were talking about, um, uh,

you know tv shows and the queen's gambit and i was talking about how i thought it was really well done and you know produced well and all this stuff and someone was like well have you seen sherlock holmes i was like well no i never actually watched any of those but like now i'm watching them

And it just provides more connections. And someone else is like, oh, I love that. And so then they started talking. So I don't know. I see the value. And I'm wondering if that's one small way that I'm already doing it. And I guess trying to figure out, like, what's enough, you know? Is that enough? Well, that is a great way. So having some time each day where you engage a team socially and it's not work-related and it's not judgment-related and it's more for fun.

I do think different people that can become routine. And so, you know, unfortunately, there is pressure and value to mix it up a little to do different things just because not like the. The interesting esoteric question or philosophical question will engage whatever, 70% of people are making this number up. But for the other 30...

It's just because nothing fits everyone, you try something else. Yeah. It's only once a week. I know some people do have a daily touch base. I don't do that with my team. They have daily touch bases with their own team, their own scrum team. So I kind of feel like, I don't know, I feel like that would be a lot for someone. So I only do it once a week, but I'm in touch with each team member throughout the week, like each day.

And I don't have everybody together. And I think that might be high overhead. I found for my leadership team when I was working during COVID. We loved having a daily touch base, but that was a team of four or five, like my direct reports, and it was amazing for us. I think 14 would be a lot, 12, 14, 10, those kind of numbers. But we found in COVID it was super valuable because it was replacing all of those serendipitous interactions we weren't having.

And so you might consider it, I know you have some leads or senior people, or you might consider rotating it around a little bit. Look, here's bad news, okay, and this is well documented. COVID has imposed a higher burden on managers. The job of managing and leading has gotten significantly harder. So bad news for you. And maybe Danny, again, knows a lot about this and is studying.

what it's doing inside of amazon so she may be able to chime in or others are invited to but if you're in a leadership position more to that well there's more as a leadership like what What it is is it's the communication burden. What's made managers' jobs harder is communication is harder, and that's mostly what managers do.

And so while the individual contributor who may be coding or designing or QA, that work, which was alone at your terminal or alone at your art board or alone at your legal drafting.

word document that fundamental individual contributor work has not changed but the manager job of keeping everyone informed and coordinated has changed and so like it or not um you know hopefully we'll all be sort of out of work from home quarantine at least mandatory work from home all the time never in office never a meeting

by summer but you have six more months to go where the management burden is higher um danny did write and says managers are exhausted managers are dealing with covid family kids etc which everyone is plus supporting their teams trying to be everything to everyone so we are we are definitely seeing and you may be feeling you know uh

Spoiler, I guess. Definitely. One of Kristen's other questions to me was about managing stress, so we'll get to that later, but this is a source of that. Go ahead. This is a good segue to that. I have really learned very well through COVID the balance of where the line is for I am your boss who cares about you versus I like, but I can't be your therapist. or I can't be your doctor. But I'm the person who is charged with tending to your care in this setting. And so when I can see and hear the...

the stress and the anxiety for my team members. It's my job to try to do whatever I can do and then they have to do their part. And so part of what I've done is I've really taken a lot of the tools that I've learned. And I've been giving them and trying to help, but making sure I'm not crossing those lines. You know, I cannot be your, your therapist, please. But I do, you know, knowing that I'm a high, high empathy, that's.

That is hard. That's very draining on me. And I never want my team to feel like they can't come to me and talk to me. And I always want them to feel comfortable and confident that I will do whatever I can for them. But there's things out of my control. And it's heavy, you know, when your mother-in-law is dealing with potentially terminal illness, when your child is potentially suffering from some sort of cancerous tumor.

these are real things that my team's dealing with during COVID. Yep. You know, when, when you have a family that's dealing with, um, the spread and in other countries and you have no idea if you'd ever get back in time, like.

These are all real things. And I can't do anything about any of this. But what can I do? You know, I can make sure that I'm paying attention to when they're hitting a wall and they need a break. And they're just... trying to barrel through it and and that's just the nature of what's been going on it's kind of like you know you've seen those pictures of and I'm not claiming that we're

in any way doing the same value of work as the front line but you see those pictures of people with like the mask and the patients from having to wear it all day pretty horrid like so like i'm doing my part for those people because those are my team members on the front lines, right? But then you're looking at others who are in things like IT, and it's like there's almost like an invisible mask. I know that sounds maybe a little weird.

But there's other issues, mental health issues and, you know, things that come up through this and from this constant pressure of COVID and this constant pressure knowing that we're affecting lives every day.

you know all this stuff it's just it is a lot and um it has been exhausting yeah there's been a couple of times where i was in a one-to-one and i'm just like putting on this comforting brave but yet realistic face right because that's who i am i'm not ever gonna like paint everything rose colored but inside i'm feeling like overwhelmed

And I have to take a step back and breathe because I can't fix it all. I want to, but I can't. Well, let me talk about that for a minute because you're touching in part on self-care.

And you can't heal anyone else if you're not relatively, if you don't have reasonable emotional resources yourself. So the question you asked was, and we can talk about this other piece of it later but how did your tools and mechanisms for dealing with stress change as you took on more stress in your career moves so before i go into that point by point

The first thing to realize is COVID is stressful for everyone. And it's stressful whether you have it or not, whether you feel at risk it or not, whether you're one of these people who has... what I jokingly call only a belief in chin COVID. Chin COVID is the people who wear their masks down here and they go like, oh yeah, I have a mask on, but it's down here. They've heard about a new epidemic.

scene and that's chin covid it's a new strain um but no matter what your slant is whether it is you think covid is a nonsense thing and it's stressing you out because the world's being taken in by a conspiracy theory or whether you have lost your job because of it, or whether you're managing remote and you have all these problems that Kristen just listed her team having.

The fact is there's no one who's emotionally unaffected by COVID. There's basically only two categories. There's people who are emotionally affected to some degree by... the pandemic and there's people who are emotionally affected by being pissed off about what they perceive as invasions of their freedom over the pandemic but there's basically no one who's like no it's had no impact on me at all

We don't talk about that that much because the news all gets taken up with the deaths and the ICUs and the vaccines and whatever. And so the mental impact is not discussed that much. Coming to the point. Step one is acknowledge both you and the people you're working with, whether they're conscious of it or not, are in a little bit of a siege scenario.

They're worried. They have additional stress every day because they can't run into the store. There might be a line outside of the store. They don't feel safe outside of the store or the store is out of toilet paper again or whatever. And yeah, there's people commenting, and they're right, that the social isolation feels tough.

And that's affecting everyone. I know it's affecting members of my household. I actually, I have to thank the Twitch community. I get a ton of my interaction here, whether it's in Discord or elsewhere. But I get a ton of social interaction here or I'd be starving too. Coming to what you do about stress. Look, stress has two pieces. One is how you handle it and one is how you reduce it. And so you can think of that as like tactical and strategic. Tactical is, okay, I'm under stress.

recognizing that and knowing what releases stress for you is that time with my husband is it time with a friend is it Is it the meme of a good glass of wine, which is common? You know, there's stuff all over. It's wine o'clock and so on. But knowing how to... vent your stress or limit it or even just when to get away. And then there's the strategic part of how to systematically reduce stress. So with COVID,

I don't know as I've developed that because you asked about it originally in the context of leadership. The ways to reduce stress as a leader, number one, delegate. Build up a team and just work on building them so you can delegate, building them so you can delegate. You have to be relentless about that. Because your team will turn over and your team will grow.

And unless you can delegate, you're kind of always doomed. So if you want like one of the trademark Ethan one-liners, build people you can delegate to. even if that's painful in the short term because it's the only way out of stress jail long term. People with a good team have people they can rely on.

And for stress, that means both people you can rely on just to help you out with bullshit sometimes. In other words, we all have that friend. I have those friends that I can call up and be like, look. I always use the example of like, I know it's Super Bowl Sunday and I know it's raining, but I need somebody to help me come move my house. Can you forget your Super Bowl plans and come carry boxes?

And some people will do that. And knowing who those people are in your life who will skip fill in the blank for whatever you choose for Super Bowl, who will skip the Super Bowl to help you move.

knowing who you can call on and with team members it's the same thing building up the people that you can give something to and be like you know this may or may not end up the way i'd have done it but it will be good enough and no one will lose their life or get fired and building building building that list of people the other thing and you touched on this a little bit with your team it definitely applies to stress management is knowing when to say no

when to say no to more responsibility when to say no to more opportunity and definitely when to say no to people's needs You, like I, am a people pleaser. You like relationships. And when people ask you something, you're wired. Kind of all humans generally begin wired to say yes. particularly in a face-to-face request. And as a manager, you also have some implied responsibility. Getting to where you can say no is big.

And it's very hard to say a cold no to someone. I know you're very distraught about your mother, your brother, your girlfriend, your whatever. but I can't help you with that. That sounds harsh. Giving them an alternative. We have a corporate support line. Building up your list of not blow off lines, but realistic, I'm sorry I can't do that for you. Here's what I can do. So, for example, for everyone in this community, right, I get lots and lots and lots of requests to review resumes.

And whether that's in Discord or elsewhere, and now I'm able to point people to my YouTube and say, well, I can't do that for you. Here are your options. uh you know you can sign up for the service where i do that um or you can go to our youtube where there's two dozen resume reviews and whole shows But the point is I'm able to give them something. So I think for you. Yeah. Have my arsenal of kind of resources. Have your arsenal of no, but here's what you can do.

As opposed to just cold no. And as opposed to feeling like you must say yes. Because. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Yes will drain you. I wonder. I've never been a yes man when it comes to business stuff. I'm always one to be more realistic and ask difficult questions. A lot of people don't like that. But my boss loved it, so that worked out. But when it comes to the more relational stuff, I guess I don't know if I am a yes person or, you know, I wonder how good I am at saying no.

I know it took a lot for me to get this one person to kind of even open up or recognize the need. And I just... I just straight out said, like, who do you have that you can talk to? Because I can't be that person for you. Right. And if you don't have a friend and you don't want this burden on your spouse, then, you know, there's no shame.

and and talking to a therapist like really there's not there's nothing wrong with it it's a healthy thing even if you think you're in a healthy space mentally it's still a good idea to have a therapist and um And, you know, he ended up getting a therapist for him and his wife and a virtual, you know, therapist. And I've seen like the change in him and I still check in, but it's not my burden.

the same way that it could have been if I wouldn't have been willing to acknowledge my limitation and push to say, no, I can't be this person for you. For the people here, first, let me be super public. I have a therapist. I love seeing her. It's not because I want to necessarily have a therapist, but I get so much value out of the therapy that... I am all in. Now, over time, I found a good therapist. One I feel is it gives me value, and I don't see her all the time. Yeah, that's the key.

I shopped around until I did. And she's worth her weight and her money in gold. I don't pay her in gold. I pay her with a visa. But if she wanted it in gold dust, I would figure it out. The point being... Having someone who's trained who can help you with stuff that's broken in your head or that you're struggling with.

is valuable so i just want to give everyone the validation okay i'm supposedly the big successful now retired amazon vp who's led the career that you're all here to emulate in one degree or another you're here listening to me feel free to have a therapist. I've had one on and off throughout my life, not most of the time, but some of the time, and it's incredibly valuable. So if someone's ashamed of that, you're making a poor choice, sure.

There is a historic thing that says, oh, if you need a therapist, you must be flawed. You might be insane. Isn't that an admission of weakness? Well, fine, I'm weak. Second, yes. Then telling people to get that resource. particularly when they have terrible problems, completely valid advice. They may not be able to hear it, but completely valid advice. And in fact, most... larger employers, including yours, I'm sure, their employee assistance program will give some free therapy visits.

And then we'll help you find a therapist to continue. And so now those aren't always the best therapists, the ones you get sort of freebie through your company, but sometimes they're good.

And regardless, they'll get you started on the right road. And so I just wanted to sort of give a commercial and be transparent and say, That's a super valid tool that, by the way, just like having a coach, just like investing in yourself in other ways, because all of us have some level of screwed upness in our heads.

you know, we all have something that our childhood was bad or our early life was bad or we had an unfortunate event or, you know, whatever. And there's stuff in our heads. Or we just don't realize how we distort. like we distort things all the time and you might use different types of distortion but you don't you might not even realize it you might just be wondering like why am I always in a piffy mood or

You know, why do I never feel good enough? And there's a good chance that you're distorting something with your thoughts. And your therapist can be like, hey, so... When you just said this, here's what I heard. It's like, wait, what? You heard that? You saw that in the way that I exhaled? It's good. It's like having a different type of mirror. When you were talking about the stress of COVID, just understand, I guess, the needs are more and more for that.

As a leader, investing in your team and helping make sure they're getting the mental health resources they need. Here's something I did. I don't know if you can do it, but let me just give you a couple thoughts. My team, when I was still at Amazon, their productivity during COVID went up because they were all trapped at home. So they were actually doing more work. Is your team more productive, equal, or less?

Would you say just raw? I mean, I would say I would say in general, we're all more productive because we've had to be because we have to crank stuff out. My team's always been a pretty hardworking team, but the need for them to be pushing themselves has gone up and the hours have gone up. It still has the stress. and the inability. I've been trying really hard to teach my teens to say no. Good. Because...

None of them like to. They all want to be helpful and available. And you just can't be that all the time. So it's just not healthy. You can't always be the hero. Where is going? Quick story. Our team decided that because we were so much more productive, we would take one Friday a month off. We would just all play hooky. Now, Amazon, at that time anyway, I don't know if it changed its policy.

didn't support this but as a leader i just said well you know this friday of this month and every month we're going to skip school essentially and um The team has continued that, I've learned, after I've left. They're still doing it. So it worked well enough. And here's the key thing. As much as we could measure, by skipping one Friday a month and giving everyone a hall pass during COVID, productivity went up.

more. The sprints where we gave people the Friday off and they could go do their thing and feel like, oh, I'm not letting my team down. Now, I can't guarantee that would happen in your environment, and I can't guarantee necessarily that you can get away with giving people a hall pass. But I can tell you...

You may not be able to do it in that way. You can find a way to give your team, this is where I was going to tie into what you said, give them permission to say no. Give them, to your point, encouragement to say no because Probably they're already producing more than they were. And remember, this is the dark side of corporations. And I don't blame corporations for this. It's just how they're made. They will accept all the productivity your team can crank out.

And the more productivity your team can crank out, the more work they'll give you. And the less headcount they'll give you relative to the work because you're doing it. And so that is a treadmill you can't win. And if you don't set a limit yourself, you and your team, the business will not. And it's not because the business is evil.

It's because the business doesn't really have a mechanism to recognize when it's squeezing the essence out of your life. It just knows it's getting its work done. And so you have to tell it. This is our limit. So what I've done, and this could be a little teaser for another show you're going to have, is I have started... tracking weekly if my team is finding X amount hours to get into flow. And that wasn't possible until recently.

with these new hires and with some of the changes that have come in our intake. So we've had this influx of intake and it was very difficult for people to have time to do anything extra. But to me, investing in, you know, furthering your education or whatever, you know, you're wanting to grow in yourself as part of your own independent, you know, growth plan. is really important and to me it's not something that i'm willing to sacrifice but it was really hard during covid to prioritize that so

We're still during COVID. We're going to be during COVID at least six more months. So I've been tracking our capacity and demand, and I was able to speak to... leadership above me to say, hey, we've been consistently 20 to 30 percent over capacity for like over six months. And I got the new positions finally approved. So I brought in bringing people in.

which is going to help ease some of that. But what I'm doing is I'm immediately asking them to be, before these new people started, I asked my team to start tracking where I send them out a survey every week to see did they get that time, that downtime or not, that focus. time. And we're slowly increasing the amount to what we think is going to be, you know, our sweet spot. And I've also applied and got some grants for some further education tech courses.

and worked with the team to figure out who is ready for what. And I'm scheduling all those and I'm building it all into my timeline so that regardless of what else comes my way, I'm not just absorbing more work. I've already been blocking out some of that time. And that's my attempt. We'll see if it works. In like four months, I'll let you know if it's working. But that's my attempt in trying to prioritize that for people.

you know listening to you that's excellent so I think offering that that kind of investment really matters I would come back to consider if you have a chance to give your team the occasional opportunity to decompress, to just agree, hey, we're all going to be offline other than emergency pagers Friday afternoon or something. because nothing beats downtime for a break. And again, it may actually raise your price.

raise your productivity we found when we told people they could have a day completely off some of them chose to work that day but in secret

not because they were workaholics, but because they felt like, finally I can work and not be interrupted and get the things I done, I want to get done, done. And some of them, they work part of the day and they did things with their family part of the day. My point is just... have try and experiment if you're i think you've told me about your manager and he's very very supportive if you need to cast it as an experiment we're going to experiment

with COVID break Friday afternoon. And you don't have to make a big deal of it, you don't have to publish it. Like beyond your team, you just sneak out of school for an afternoon. Yeah, we've kind of already been doing that. Well, at least I've been trying to get us to do that. So I'm the one messaging my team at like two o'clock on Friday saying like, I hope you're all done for the day.

Even though I usually have to keep working, but because that's the only time I can get my stuff done is when no one else is working. So I've kind of been unofficially already doing that, but I wonder if it would change. if it would change the dynamic at all, if it was kind of like presented as, you know, cause we did, we did do summer Fridays. Um, and yeah, people loved it. So.

And I don't think my boss has a problem if I were to say, we should just always do that. It shouldn't just be summer. I mean, even my boss's boss, I remember back before COVID, he said that. You make them from... Summer Fridays to COVID Fridays, right? That we'll revisit this at the end of COVID, but COVID is such a stress and people are working so hard. And by the way, you do pretty good productivity and sprint point and other stuff tracking.

you can track if your productivity goes up or down. But like I said, we found we lost nothing. That actually by giving people a break, remember, ours... Ours are a shitty proxy for work done that we use because they're so obvious. Any idiot can look at a clock and look at a calendar and count. And so managers, including myself, including you, we look at clocks and calendars and we count. But that isn't productivity. That's just our like stone hammer, stone chisel way of.

counting up apparent effort the real value yeah is in what gets done and that shows up in sprint points in your case that shows up in work produced Right. Or in the quality or in the ideas that are coming out of it, which is why I'm focusing on this idea of getting into flow because. Two hours in flow state is like a whole day's worth of work when you're constantly interrupted, if not more. So that's kind of why I'm trying to focus more on that.

Maximus is asking here in chat, do high power companies ever consider the 9 slash 80 work schedule? Yeah, we talked about that. We talked at Amazon. My team talked about the 9 slash 80, and that's essentially what we kind of went to, at least in part. And I think it works. And by the way, now that I'm retired.

you know uh i'm working actually a lot but i'm working when i'm rested and ready and want to usually and so i'm getting a lot done in far fewer hours um and yet still highly productive because the hours I do put in are completely voluntary and completely when I'm ready for them. And that makes a huge difference. So I actually think there's a huge myth. Look.

This is great. We're getting into so much philosophy, not that you ask. The American work world was defined in the industrial time where we needed the person at the job to shovel the coal or weave the thread or hammer the rivets and those things those things have like a linear productivity like you It's how much coal gets shoveled depends on how long you have a person there with a shovel moving coal. The world has changed. because of inertia and law and labor union and all these forces,

We've never really redefined how work gets judged. The 40-hour work week, so to speak, was set in the Industrial Revolution, not in the Knowledge Revolution. Yeah, value stream mapping is kind of, that's the route we're trying to migrate towards a little bit. I don't know a whole lot about it, but...

I don't know if you're familiar with that. A little bit. Yeah, we did talk about it. So let me hit up your third question because we kind of skipped over it. We went and did number one and number three. You also ask... how do you know when you're ready to take on more? You specifically asked it was, how would you describe the relationship and responsibility as when you move up in leadership, what does this look like?

How can you gauge when you're ready to take on more responsibility? So I did think about this. Yeah, and that ties to the stress question too, by the way. Because as you... As you increase your stress, if you don't have the right mechanisms and tools to handle it, you know, eventually it will destroy you. So I guess it kind of goes hand in hand with that.

Yes, completely. Yeah, responsibility and stress almost always go together because if you have responsibility, you're probably going to be stressed about executing it rightly, if you're at all. taking it seriously so the changes as you move up you've moved up to your first level of management you're actually getting a big enough team that very shortly you're going to have to have substructure in it eventually assuming you're successful that will

culminate in you having leads or managers or whatever they're called working for you. I've got the new role being created right now. Yeah, you said a senior person. Two people I'm trying to fill it with. Yeah, you said a senior person, so you're going to start having, is that person going to be officially a manager or a lead? No, actually it's not the new position that I'm filling that with. It's two people existing on my team.

So one, I've already basically announced it to the team that she's taking on a lead position. I created a new position for it, essentially. so that you don't have to necessarily be the most senior person in order to get to it. I wanted to widen the opportunities of growth for individual contributors and also for those looking to grow in leadership.

But it wasn't like, oh, I have to go into leadership in order to get to the next level. But also, you didn't have to have 10 years of experience and become a senior, whatever, whatever, before getting into leadership. So I crafted a new position and it's a lead position. And so I'm filling it up with to handle basically primarily it's going to be test lead, test strategy. But I will probably expand as I'm.

expanding my reach to to encompass more DevOps roles so it will shift over time and that's where my senior role is probably going to come into play more is facilitating that shift into DevOps. So maybe eventually that person will take on a lead role, but it's not a management role yet, but it could very well be my succession plan. The point is you're starting to have leads under you.

And with your growth rate, you've gone from zero to 12 and now 14 in a year. If we just extrapolate that, you'll probably have managers working for you by the end of next year, whether or not you've thought that through. That's just, if I just draw a line through the progress, that's going to happen. Well, that's why I'm asking this question. Because there's a part of me that's like, ooh, I can move up. I could do something else. There's the other part of me that's like,

shit girl, you've like not even been doing this for a full year and you just need to chill. Well, so let's talk about that. It's just really hard to tell. Well, I'm going to give you my thoughts on it because see, I'm going to switch displays real quick. I did actually think about all these questions that Kristen is asking and did some of them in advance.

The first thing I would say is the change in responsibility is essentially the higher up the food chain you get, the less hand-holding you get, and the more you're expected to just handle it. Whatever it is, just handle it. So going to an extreme, when the president of the United States has a problem, theoretically, he just gives it to somebody else and tells them to handle it.

When Jeff Bezos at Amazon has a major problem, like say, oh, we have to adjust how we're going to run our warehouses in the sense of COVID. He doesn't do that work. He calls up the guy who runs all the warehouses and says, hey. We have to stay in business even though COVID's a reality. Handle it. That's what changes. Is you get less and less hand-holding and more and more just here's a problem, figure it out. And you're expected to have the skills.

to decompose the problem yourself, and importantly, to ask for help if you need it. So all of those people are free to go back and say, well, Mr. President, I can do that, but it's going to be a billion dollars. Well, Mr. Bezos, you know, I can make our warehouses safe, but it's going to take three months and be a billion dollars. Which, by the way, I think they spent even more than that. But leaving that aside.

you're expected to be able to either fix it yourself or ask for specific help. As you move up, that will be more and more true. By the way, it doesn't mean you need to be an expert.

What it means is that you need to know how to deal with your non-expertise am I gonna hire an expert am I gonna get a consultant am I gonna teach myself or go to class am I gonna like what am I gonna do as opposed to needing to be led through like well Kristen you don't know this maybe you should consider getting a mentor No one's going to do that. I used to say, as an example, because I've spent most of my career with the title vice president,

I had it a bunch in startups before I went to Amazon, then I had it for a long time at Amazon. And one thing I've said about vice presidents is if someone bothers to tell you that you're not performing well,

before they fire you, they're actually doing you a favor. Like, that's an extra thing you don't expect. And the reason I say that is because vice presidents, people at a high level, are expected... to be able to figure out am i doing something valuable or not like actually being told hey you know your area is not performing well you need to up that that's a courtesy at that level

Now, most of the people listening who aren't at that level say, no, my God, if I'm not doing well, my manager owes it to tell me that before they just fire me. I agree with you. But at each level, there's an assumption of more and more independence. So you asked the question, specifically, how would you describe the change in responsibility as you move up? The change in responsibility is that you'll be given

bigger and hairier challenges and expected to more be able to figure out how to take them apart and act on them on yourself. You can ask for help. But you can't just say, oh, I don't know how to do this. Help me. You're expected to carry it as far as you can and say, okay, I've broken it down and I can handle parts A, C, and D, but I need help on B and I need resources on E. That's the change, in my opinion. Now, there are other people here. If there's someone else who wants to say something,

about what they've seen in the growth of responsibility, feel free to chime in and chat. I don't feel I have the only opinion on this. So then let's talk about are you ready for more or not because that's the decision you're thinking about. Yeah, and I'm thinking over the next year. So, you know, I have a year's worth of work ahead of me right now. And I have a year to figure out. Well, probably less than a year because I probably need to let my boss know sooner than that.

but I have a year until I potentially would need to consider this. And I've heard this. You're not the only person saying this to me. I'm going to actually do a show on this. I'm going to specifically do a show on what happens when the magic loop works too well. Because I've taught you and others the magic loop that we talk about, which is briefly reviewing for everybody. It's do your job, then go ask your boss how you can help and do what they want.

your career will grow because very few people do their job well and then ask their boss how to help and then if you want to go for the advanced version after you help a couple times you say hey I want to learn this or I want to do that can I help you while doing this other thing

Or can you give me an assignment that helps me grow in this way? And the boss will usually say yes. So there's lots of shows we've done on the magic loop. I won't go all into it. But now that I've been teaching that for a year. kristin you to some degree i'm implying from what you're saying and also others have come back to me explicitly and said oh shit i applied your magic loop at first it was great

Because I got this new job and this new project and whatever. But now I'm like, shit, they're giving me so much. I'm not sure. Which is where you are. Yeah. The first thing I would say is if you're looking only at career growth. If you always wait until you feel pretty comfortable or ready, you'll be too slow and too late. Because we generally don't feel comfortable until we've actually been comfortable for a while.

So just realize if you're trying to maximize career growth, you're going to have to tolerate and stay on the edge of some, oh, hey, I'm not really. I'm not sure I'm ready for this. That's going to be a tension. Now, you obviously don't step up for something when you're like, shit, I am totally drowning. Everything I've done the last three months has been a disaster. But it's also unlikely your management...

if it really is a disaster, is going to offer you anything new. So remember, your management usually only offers when they think you're doing a pretty good job. So you may not feel it, but remember, being offered more is usually a sign of management mostly thinking you're doing pretty well nonetheless the rule is if you wait until you're like no I'm ready to move up you're going to be on the slow side and also remember although you

perhaps individually suffer this less than some, many women are more hesitant to think well of themselves and to see opportunity. than their male counterparts. You mentioned earlier in this broadcast, imposter syndrome. Be aware. There's an angel and a devil on the different shoulders. The angel is saying, well, maybe I could do more. The imposter syndrome is saying, oh, I'm not qualified. I can't balance that for you. I can just tell you they exist.

Now let's ask a few diagnostic questions. If you're considering stepping up and you're on the edge of knowing whether or not you want to, one good question to ask is, do you have a support system at work? So, for example, and I think it's true in your case, Kristen, but it's a question you can ask your boss again. If I step up further, can you support me?

What what can you do to help make sure I'm successful? What resources what training what mentorship what? That's always a valid question is I want to do this job. I'm excited to do it But what support resource can you offer me? What's your idea of what I need? These are great discussions to have. The second question to ask is you are going to take on new challenges.

absorb psychic energy you have to ask do I have a support system at home so in your case you have a great husband is he ready to support you if you bite off another chunk at work He might be, I'm not going to put words in his mouth, he could be anywhere from enthusiastic, like, this is great. You're funding our family. You help us get a new house because I know you have. It's blah, blah, blah. It's fantastic. Or he could be like, ah.

Not so much. So you at least want to know that. Yeah, he'd probably be like, so is the raise going to be enough to cover full-time child care? But that's a real question then. I mean, that is a real question. Look, you want to do more, but we're thin on the home front. Will we be able to bring in help? And that can take all kinds of forms. Go ahead. And Ethan, just a whole other layer, speaking of being a woman, right? I'm planning on having another kid at some point in the next year or two.

It's really hard to think through like how I just get so far ahead of myself. I shouldn't even be trying to plan this far ahead, but I'm like, oh, I should wait and make sure I don't get pregnant until. close enough to when this transition could happen I could take time off and then come back into this new role but then that could be terrifying because I'm going from two kids to three kids

And you never know what that's going to be like. And then getting the pressure of a new role, maybe that's a terrible decision. But these are the things that I kind of have to weigh in my head of the balance of what I want. And it's just, I don't know. It's, it is a challenge. I'm all for women, you know, doing what they want. It's their thing. But like. being pregnant sucks i don't know if anyone else felt that way but like i don't like it and the first year is hard it's exhausting um

And I have to be realistic about that. If that's something I want, then do I, you know, it just, it does, it sucks, but I have to think about it and potentially delay things. And I know like my organization and my boss would all be supportive. They would never put that kind of pressure on me. I wouldn't, I don't feel like I'd be worried about getting discriminated against or anything like that. This is all just my own pressure of when is it the right time.

And you never really know how life is going to change, right? After you have another kid, life can change. You get a divorce, life can change. You lose a loved one, life can change. You know, you get an accident and your physical health changes. Like, you can't really predict that stuff. So I don't like making decisions based on that. It's fair to plan for things you can. That said, there are numerous women here in chat who maybe...

who've had kids and careers, who probably are more, they can at least give you a second perspective on that beyond mine, and probably one that's a lot more informed. I will say statistically, Women often make the choice, oh, I'll put career second while I focus on children. And society, broadly speaking, is trying to change and say, how do we support women so they can have both? Now, have we gotten there to where that's true? Probably not.

but we're closer than we were. Yeah, some organizations are closer. Yeah. And so... I don't know what to advise you there. What I would say is it's a real consideration and part of it is personal taste.

I don't think, you know, there's probably some miracle person, male or female, who manages to have a high pressure, high responsibility corporate career and somehow be... very highly available to their family most people do report some level of feeling of a trade-off that the more demanding their career the less time they have with family.

And to some degree, of course, as we talked about and as you said, your husband might ask, sometimes you can use the money from the career to simplify a little bit of that. And that's where the maid service, the lawn service, the nanny type stuff come in. Bottom line though, what I will say is I would be hesitant. If you have specific plans or specific aspirations to try to have another child soon, then maybe it's a valid trade-off.

fairly far away or somewhat far away or unknown far away missing out on today's opportunity because tomorrow's child may arrive is a little sketchier to me just because I will tell you a story of some people who watch. I'll tell you a story of some people who watch the channel and how fast things change. I had someone who's been on our channel before. reach out to me and say, hey, I'm being offered a choice between basically promotion A and promotion B. Can you help guide me through it?

and i wrote him back a long email between promotion a and promotion b and he was asking the same question you are which is promotion b is bigger and scares me and i'm not sure if i should take it one of the things i wrote him was I would try to take promotion B because opportunities like that don't come along very often. And you might want to seize the moment.

He wrote me back in the time that our emails, you know, like a day between emails and his email back to me said, so it turns out there's a reorg. My boss is being subtly sidelined. says she's gonna leave the company, and probably both my promotions are off the table. And that was like 48 hours. The point I'm making to you is, So many things can change in your situation. Your company could struggle financially. Your supportive boss could be hired away by someone else.

It doesn't mean you should take every promotion. It does mean pass them up with care. So, going back to the list, do you have support at work? Do you have support at home? Are there livable consequences of failure? Let's assume you move up in tank. Will your boss allow you to step back? Will he give you help? Or will it be like, oh, you failed, you're fired?

Even if you were, do you feel like you have high employable skills if that happened? Probably in your case, my guess is, particularly if you talk to your boss in advance, there are livable consequences to failure. And so I would say consider that, though, is what does failure look like and can you live with it?

And generally you can. Like generally we build failure up as worse than it is or struggling as worse than it is. Here's the last one. This one's probably most important for you to think about. Do you have reserves of personal mental energy?

Like, here's a diagnostic. When you think about taking on more responsibility, yes, you may be scared or concerned. We all are. But are you also... excited is there a piece of you that's like yeah because if there isn't it's going to take energy to get through it so yeah i mean what if the answer is I don't know that I have those reserves, but I'm also very excited and wish I could figure out a way. And I saw Danny posted.

lived off four hours of sleep at night for years like I could not do that there's just no way I'm such a terrible person when I don't sleep There's going to be no way to do that. I wish I could. I feel always like I could be so productive at night, but I force myself to go to bed because I just know I need to sleep. Well, that's good to know yourself. Yeah, I don't...

Some people can do. I don't feel like at this point I have it. So think about that. Remember, that may be true, in which case make a wise decision. It's okay. Look, advertisement for everybody, again, full disclosure, not only do I have a therapist, which I talked about earlier, and I love her to death, but I also chose to step back from the career track when I took the job at Twitch.

So many of you have heard this, but I will say it again so you know. When I was leading the Amazon App Store, I had a team of 800 all around the globe, and I owned a product and a P&L. I left all of that to take a job working with Image Shear at Twitch when we bought Twitch, where in the beginning, my only report was my assistant.

I had no teams. My only job was to advise Emmett, who, by the way, didn't have to listen to me and didn't even really ask to have me around. I just had to earn his trust and say, hey, I'm here from Amazon. I'm here to help you. And I was able to do that, but the point is I chose a huge step back because I wanted to work on what I wanted to. Now, I was also in a very good position. I was a VP at Amazon and the pay for the two jobs was the same.

So it was a sweet deal where I could go from responsibility for 800 people to responsibility for one and collect the same paycheck. But, important, I stepped back from the high growth career path. One of my peers... When I left that job to give a contrast, one of my peers had a couple hundred people working for him, and now he has a couple thousand and runs a huge chunk of Alexa. So I chose to step back from the high-growth career track.

And I am totally satisfied with that choice. Part of that may be something psychologically called confirmation bias. One of the great things about career choices is confirmation bias will tend to make you feel good about whatever you pick. Not always, but if you pick something reasonable and your life doesn't end up to be total disaster, confirmation bias will ensure that you feel really good about it. For anybody who doesn't know confirmation bias, it means...

after we buy the red sports car we feel really good about it but it turns out after we don't buy the red sports car and instead build the deck on the back of our house we feel really good about that and after we don't do either of those things and instead pay down our credit card debt we also feel so smart for doing that our mind convinces us how brilliant we are so good news Kristen any choice you make you'll probably later feel brilliant but well it's good to know

It's okay to take a pause. You're having a very successful career. You're quite young. You have the chance to grow later. That said, I tend to favor. Grow fast early because... people have a perception of are you someone who grows or not and you kind of get into this bucket and your resume shows like oh are you an up into the right trajectory or are you kind of a flat trajectory? I wouldn't push you into anything.

You ask, what does more responsibility look like and when are you ready to take on more? You know, you have to talk. I've used a ton of words. You probably really need to have two conversations. One's with your husband, well, three. One's with your husband, one's with your boss, and the last one's with yourself. And they come down to, if I have this opportunity,

What are the risks? What are the advantages? And are we all in this together? And in the end, the thing I'd encourage you to feel safe is there's no terribly wrong choice.

The last thing, of course, you know, I wouldn't be complete if I didn't say use decisive. So everybody knows one of my two favorite books is decisive. I need to pull that one out again. Yep. I mean, I have time. I'm not... stressed i'm not stressed about making my decision which is great um because that's how i tend to be but i i know that i have time i know that i have goals that i'm working towards over the next year

And I think that over time, you know, it will kind of naturally reveal itself. But I do like to kind of plan a little bit ahead. It's kind of like. Sometimes I wish I just had grown up wanting to be a doctor because I know exactly the path I would need to take to do that. And instead, what I want to do, I never really exactly know.

It's really hard to figure out how to get there because I don't know exactly what it is. I can bring Liger on. You know Liger, who's in our channel and chat all the time, right?

so he is a doctor and i can tell you i coach you on on stream live and i coach him because he's in singapore mostly through discord and though he's a doctor he is racked with angst about what path to follow so there's a grass is greener like he doesn't know like should i finish my phd should i do this should i do that it's it's your conversation he's a physician so just um

So, yeah, I guess that's fair. The grass is always greener. I guess I just wish I knew a little bit more of a concrete goal that I was working towards. And I toy around with the idea of consulting in some capacity and executive coaching. Well, now you've asked a whole other question, which is what do you want to be when you grow up? It's different than how do you want to grow your current Ohio company. That's a much bigger question.

Yeah, so I'm trying to figure out if this aligns with it. Like, does moving up this track make sense for where I'm hoping to get to? And right now I think it does because as I move up this track, I get more and more interaction with executives and with leadership, which is who I think I want to work with. Right.

And being a leader is great because it teaches me so that when down the road, when I'm wanting to potentially do some sort of coaching or consulting, you know, I have a better understanding because I've been through some of that stuff. So I think it makes sense. if that is indeed the path that I want to take. But like when discussing stuff with my boss about, you know, management and, and culture shift, I just, I would love to.

to like figure some stuff out and then like coach other managers. I mean, I just, I'm just drawn to that idea of how can I help other people let go of these. You know, structure is important, but some people get very legalistic. They get very puffed up. They have an ego. They don't want anything to change because they're afraid that how will that impact the way that people are perceiving me and the value of what I'm providing. And the thought of helping work with those people is exciting to me.

It's also daunting, but it's exciting. So I think that it makes sense. I could go down this path and then be like, absolutely not. I'm not interested in doing consulting and coaching. It's possible. I don't know. There's an illusion, which now I can put on my gray hair earned hat. Your goals in your career. will likely change several times over your life so it's unlikely that your desire to be a coach

or a consultant will be the last idea you have about what you wanna do or the last thing you do. I know. Most people, I read today, most people by the time they're 50 will have held at least 10 different jobs. And 50 is not the end of careers anymore. The end of careers is 60 or 70 or later. Sometimes.

But I didn't want to be a coach. I had no notion of that 10 years ago. I wanted to be an executive. And then I did that for a while. And then I wanted to be a coach. And before that, I wanted to be other stuff. you will probably undergo multiple changes. So don't try and hold yourself to like, I'm choosing what I want to do for the rest of my life. choose what do I want to do now and what do I think I want to do next and then let what's beyond that take care of itself because I can't predict

I haven't seen very many people, maybe none, who can predict what it is they want to do all their lives. There are people who do one thing from 20 to 70. You can watch a funny movie about one. It's one of my favorite short documentaries, if you've never seen it, called Jiro Dreams of Sushi. It's about a Japanese guy who makes sushi, and he's...

If he's still alive, chat will know if he's alive or not. But when this movie was made five-ish years ago, he'd been making sushi for like 70 years because he started basically as a kid. And then he... was still making sushi and like his son was nearly retirement age and had never gotten to take over the sushi shop because dad was still working in his 80s um long story short though

Not everyone finds that. Stereotypically, that's incredibly Japanese to find some art and pursue it for 70 years. That's not normally our culture. The only thing I'll say back to you is at least think about like I'm making a five-year plan here, not a 50-year plan. And think about... Will this make me happy for the next year or two? Because as you pointed out, with injuries and sickness and kids and family,

Our visibility beyond five years is very poor. I know your history. And two years ago, you weren't working at this company at all. I don't recall exactly, but you were in some completely different world. You were in marketing. I was a contractor. I was a contractor as a project manager, and I came from an agency world, from a small studio, design and development studio. Right, so really nothing. And I never would have thought I'd be in healthcare or IT. Right.

Very shocking. And that was what, three years ago at this point? Yeah. Yeah. That was like two years ago. Right. Well, yeah, I'm being generous. So the point is, trying to predict more than two or three years in your circumstance, feel free, but don't cling to it. Like, be like, well, in five years, I hope I'm here, or ten years, I hope we're there. But, like, there is a good chance. See, I could project things to you that you'd be like, no way. First...

You'll not be in healthcare anymore. Second, because your brother's out here, you'll be living in Seattle. Your family, your mom and dad, who I know are there, will have moved with you. Like, you have no idea. Yeah. Those are all likely things, at which point I will be hitting you up to try to help me find work. Although my boss already told me he has some great connections in both Seattle and anywhere in California if I ever wanted to go out west. See?

So, you have no idea. A little bit, that does mean, going back to what I said, it's why I gave that other person the advice, carpe diem, right, seize the day. Take the opportunities when they're there within reason because you don't know what the future will bring. I will also advertise You don't know when shit will go wrong And what I mean by that is

I got myself, I've talked about this on the channel before, I got myself fired twice. I got myself fired early in my career twice by having a really big mouth. For those who want the nitty gritty details, I was never actually fired. I was always laid off. But one time I was a layoff of one. So that seems like a little bit of a legal maneuver, like your ass is fired, but we're calling it a layoff. So you don't know what will happen.

To your point, you've probably never heard this exact story from me, Kristen. I'll replay it really quickly. I had just adopted my daughter from China. My wife had quit her job so she could stay home with the child. We flew back from China. I went into work. I was there on Monday. I was sick with a cold I had picked up on the way from China on Tuesday. And when I went in Wednesday morning, they laid me off. Oh, yeah. I do remember that. That's insane.

Wife, no income. She had given up her job. So we went from two income, no kids to no incomes, one kid in like 72 hours, right? And, you know. That's crazy. Yeah, well, you did it. It woke me up. So the point is you can't completely predict future outcomes. And look, I've done fine, obviously, right? you'll do fine too but just understand the changes not all of them will be in your control so so being being very vulnerable with with the stream

as I am always, but taking it to another level. Um, Danny, you're, you're talking about fear being, you know, the mind killer. Yes. And, um, when it comes to fear, um, You know, I guess in the past, I've not realized that I was so stressed. I really didn't know. I didn't have a clue. And so I've gone through some stuff and learned that I didn't have good boundaries up. I was never feeling myself up. I was just giving and it wasn't healthy.

And so I've worked really hard to change that. And I have this fear that if I advance, can I handle it? Or am I going to... neglect myself am I not going to see it am I not going to you know grow the tools that I need to handle it that's my biggest fear so failure to me isn't really like getting fired I'm not actually worried about that

Failure to me is me getting in to the point where I have to make the decision to step down because I'm too stressed out or ignoring myself to the point where my body is telling me I'm stressed. That is really the fear that comes into play with this conversation. And that's definitely, I mean, I don't have a problem admitting it. I wouldn't probably. advertise that to my team but you know it's just that's the question um could I could I handle it I don't know

I'm a responsible person, so I feel like I could come through. I've never not come through for work. It's just at what extent. But at what cost, right? Yeah. So I started a thread in chat of all the things that manage stress. And you can go back and look at it. There are so many things. that can reduce stress, allow you to manage it, but you've got to build up your arsenal. And frankly, they range, right? Lots of drinking. Well, somebody no doubt said drinking.

I'll go with it though. There are a few times in my life where I've been like, damn it, I just need a big slab of chocolate cake. No, it's not on my diet. No, it's not healthy I am having a rotten ass day and I'm going to cheesecake factory and getting my favorite chocolate cake which has Some ridiculous amount of calories and I'm gonna feel better after it and it's true

Self-medication in that way you can't do all the time. The general point I'll bring back to you, though, is if you want something practical, you can do if you want to move up. Not only is it learning to delegate and building a team, which again is that strategic part, another strategic piece is learning how to manage your own stress. And that's something you can invest in.

For you, is that meditation? Is it time with your kids? Is it time with your husband? Is it time not with them? My ex-wife, because I was divorced many years ago, she had a saying. She said, it's Mother's Day. Come back when it's not. Her requested Mother's Day gift was take the kids and go away.

My four-year-old has been telling me Happy Mother's Day every day for the last week. I'm fine with you telling me Happy Mother's Day. If you could just be good the whole day, that would be great. Fantastic. The point is find your stress management tools that work for you, and there's so many. People listed nature and journaling, sleep, tea, chocolate, music.

There's such a long list but learning which ones work for you and then important Recognizing doing them which ones I'm gonna well again urgent versus important If you manage your stress and your health every day, you won't reach that critical point. I mean, I will say I've been meditating. I love the Headspace app. I've been using it for a while now. I'm doing a series on prioritization right now, which has been really cool. I, today, I haven't missed the date yet. I'm at 262 days consecutive.

of meditation and my average session has gone up. It started real small because I was new to meditation. I was doing like three minute sessions. Now I usually do a 10 minute session. 20 minutes is a little too long for me 15 minutes I can do but I usually feel like I'm in a rush to get to the family so um so yeah I've done 281 sessions 44 hours 262 days It's better than me. I know that like, I mean, like my boss meditates for like an hour or two every morning, like super early.

It's insane. He went all out. He like one time went for, you know, a week to one of those places. But he teaches you all about meditation. Yeah. So I can't do that. I'm not ready for that. No, well, you know, there's a joke which the people on Dr. Kanagia's channel told me, which is, meditate 30 minutes a day. If you don't have time to meditate 30 minutes a day, meditate an hour a day. And I thought that was pretty damn funny, if nothing else.

That's great. 30 minutes, huh? Yeah, I probably should work my way up to a 15-minute average. The funny part is just if you think you don't have 15 minutes, you probably need to meditate 30 is what the meditating people would say. It's true. That's totally true because when you're in this constant state of distraction and...

um you know splitting your attention um it takes you a while especially when you're new to this to like learn how to separate from your thoughts and so that's something i i can say I didn't realize how poor my sleep was until I'd been learning through meditation how to kind of shut it down. And my sleep for the last, like, I don't know, six months has been so much better. I still get woken up by my four-year-old, but I can fall asleep quickly.

For years, my brain just never shut off. And I just thought, this is just my brain. This is just how I'm wired. But what I've learned is that by practicing even this little bit every day, and it's still hard every day.

to separate my thoughts, you know, myself from my thoughts, it is impacting me in healthy ways. So I'm going to continue that trend because I think it's, you know, it is a... it's not just like for the moment, you know, it's teaching, it's teaching your, it's rewiring your brain and how to function and what to do with that. which is amazing. It's just crazy how quickly we get distracted and start thinking about other things. Well, I know it's nearly midnight where you are.

We've covered a lot. Yeah, and it's important for me to get my sleep. Yes, we talked about that. We've covered a lot. I'll briefly switch over to the other display, scroll through all the slides so that they're in the tape. And then I will post them online and I'll send them to you, Kristen, right? Yeah, this has been a great chat discussion. Kristen, you know, as always, if you have more questions, let me know. Reach out in between.

For everyone else, we'll be back Wednesday and then more shows to come. I appreciate you all very much as a community. You're part of what keeps me COVID sane. And so help each other out, support each other. And share the show with others so that more people benefit from what we do here. Anything else, Kristen? Nope. Cheers. All right. Get your sleep. See you later. Okay. Bye.