Computer. Hello, and welcome to another session with Career Conversations. Today I'm talking to Megan, and we are going to talk about surprise, surprise career Conversations. Megan, welcome to the show. Thank you, Janice, for having me. Can you just let us know a little bit about yourself before I dive in on the first question? So I guess when I say that, because that's such a loaded question, I would like name and what you currently do, and if you wish to tell us which company you
currently work for. Sure. My name is Megan Bazuto. I currently serve as the president of the International Association of Women. I also just stepped into a new role that will kind of combine what I do at IAW with heading up marketing for our parent company professional diversity network, because I just, like, adding more on my plate. She's laughing because my face is like, what are you doing? What? I just spoke to you months ago. Okay. I saw you in person. Yeah,
we might talk about this. When opportunities present, I feel like you have to go for them. And there was an opportunity, and I raised my hand and said, yeah, I can help there. It has put me in a place where I will be leading more brand initiative and strategy for our parent company, but I will not be stepping away from what I love doing here at IAW. And so it's kind of the best of everything. Gives me a career advancement play while also still getting to do everything
that just fills my soul. So it's good. Back to a previously scheduled programming. Are you an introvert? We're coming back to that. Don't you worry. Are you an introvert? So I like to say yes. Like, when I do all the online assessments, whatever, I score very introverted. But I'm also a people person. I do enjoy being social. I enjoy being in places where I'm surrounded by people. But I
think a lot of it is energy levels. And when I'm out and about and mingling and constantly around other people that are loud and vocal, I have to come back to myself and spend time alone. I need quiet space, and I think that I'm refueled by the quiet space I'm refueled by when I can spend time alone. But I kind of like to say I'm kind of an extroverted introvert. Like, there's a little
bit of both. Okay. And so the follow up question always is, so what does introversion or being an introvert mean to you? So that's a good question, because I think that a lot of people have some preconceived notions of what an introvert is. And to me, it's really the person who wants to spend time alone that needs that alone time, that needs the quiet time, that is not the loudest voice in the room, that isn't necessarily the one throwing the party all the time, being out and about all the time.
And I think that for me, it's sometimes feeling like I need that space to just be alone. If I don't find time to recharge by spending some time, whether it's outside on a walk or just a day at home in my office with no meetings, I'm very particular about buffering my schedule so that I get that time to recharge. All right, so I'm going to just dive straight into that. So as part of buffering your meetings, tell me what your calendar average calendar day might
look like all week? Yeah, I mean, it really varies depending on the week. I used to be really good about blocking Monday morning and Friday afternoon so that I had space so that I wasn't. I find if I show up in my office at 830 Monday morning and I have a call at 09:00 A.m., that overwhelms me. So I have blocks of space that allow me I i do a number of things through IAW, where I have to be on camera doing interviews or hosting webinars.
So those I always have buffer before and after. So if I have to be on and being super polished and super professional, I buffer my space around that so that I have breaks before and after. So I'm not just run from one meeting to one meeting to one meeting. I also with my team calls. I tend to stage them in one day so that I can kind of knock everything out one by one. But then I guess week to week, it's not always predictable. And so some days I get to the
end of the day and I think, oh, that was a bad day. I didn't protect my schedule, but I'm way more intentional usually, about making sure there's time blocks that give me space to get outside for a walk, to give me space to prep for a meeting, to give me space to actually get tasks done, because if you're on calls all day long, you're not getting things done. And so you said you used to be really good about blocking off Monday mornings and Friday afternoons.
What changed? I took on more responsibility, and I traveling. So the month of April, I traveled with my kids. I'm currently going through a divorce, so there's been lots of crazy stuff with that and just having to be places I don't usually have to be. One of my friends got married, so I was away for that and helping with that. And so I find that during the week, if I'm out of the office for other things, I open that space on Monday and Friday so I can accommodate the
people who need me, so I can accommodate getting the work done. And so now I just finished a season of, like, April to early May, was crazy busy with family obligations, and that the last event was this past weekend. And now I'm right back to, okay, what's my calendar going to look like, for the next six weeks because I'm realizing that I've overdone it and I need to make sure I have that space back.
Yes. Okay. That is great. So with the work that you do and the business that you work with, can you tell me some misconceptions about your industry, if there are any? Yeah, it's interesting because the International Association of Women, we support women, so we're a membership organization where we provide resources and benefits and tools and programming to women all around the world. And I think when I tell a lot of people what I do, there's two things. There's one like, oh, people,
how does that work? Do people actually show up? I think they think that women just kind of hide in the corner, and they don't ask. They don't raise their hand and ask for help. And we coach a lot of women on how to do this because women are notoriously bad at raising their hand and asking for help. And so I think a lot of people think, oh, well, do women really need the help and support? And I think if you look at statistics,
women are more likely to have confidence issues. They're more likely not to ask for what they want from a salary. They're more likely not to negotiate things. And so I say yes, women really do need the support, and we're here to provide that support. And so it's funny conversations sometimes with people who question, well, do you find that women show up authentically? Do they actually show up and ask?
And I'm like they do. Once we've created an environment that fosters that community and comfort, where we're here to do exactly what we say we're going to do. Also, the idea that we're very much a circle, that anyone is welcoming, that we foster that environment where no matter who's coming into the room, whether it's a virtual room or in person room, they're going to feel welcome. They're going to be supported. They're going to find people who will help them get to the next level.
Okay. And so with those misconceptions and things that you think about, and you mentioned with your calendar that you try and put buffers, but you also mentioned you got a new job, and when opportunities arise, you say yes. Is there anything you say no to? Yes, there is.
This is something I've struggled with my entire life because I'm a people pleaser, and I have a really hard time saying no. I've gotten really good about using my team at work to do things that so I used to think emails would come through, and I'd just respond. There's a perfect example. You sent one the other day, and instead of responding, I forwarded it on to Tracy, who could help you more directly. And so it's not that I'm saying no to you.
I'm just reallocating the work somewhere else because I hate saying no. Right. I do say no socially from time to time, if everyone's like, hey, let's go out on Friday night, and I need time to refresh myself. And if I go out and have dinner and drinks and social, I know that my energy isn't going to it's just going to drain me more. Whereas I have a group of friends who thrive on going out and catching up and sometimes I really need that, but sometimes I
don't. So I say no. There's been times throughout my career where things have come across my plate, opportunities have come across my plate. There was an opportunity a few years ago and I had to say no because things within my personal life just weren't at a place where I could take on more from a career perspective. I just knew that I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say, yeah, give me a new role, give me more responsibility. But my husband
at the time was very ill. We were having a lot of changes in our house, and I said, you know what? If I do that, it's going to overwhelm me and I have to do what's right for me. And at that point in time, it was prioritizing my family and my kids and making sure everything in my house was operating efficiently, even though I had to say no to the really cool opportunity. And so follow up question to that, how did you let the organization know that it wasn't them and it wasn't the right time to
say yes? Yeah. I'm usually pretty transparent with the people I work with and the people I work for without being overly sharing too much, but being pretty open about what's going on personally. And I encourage this with my team as well, the people I manage. I think that in order for us to show up at work as our best selves, we have to know what's going on personally as well. You don't have to
know every single detail. You don't have to know every little story, but if there's big themes that are emerging, it's important information. At that point in time, it really was, hey, I love this idea. I want to support as much as I can, but I don't have the capacity to give that role the attention it needs right now. Let's revisit this in a year or so.
I'm respected at work. I do a great job, and I think that's a big part of it is that if they know the reason behind it, I realize, hey, there's a role that needs to be filled and you're probably going to go find somebody else and I'm okay with that. But just so you know, I'm not saying no to this entirely. I'm just saying no right now. Okay? Yeah. And you were lucky enough to have the option to do that because I feel some people might feel that if they say no, that opportunity will never come by
again. And the what if the different things. That people might think about it? Right? And so what is something that you have done regularly that has improved your career? Networking, really building relationships and spending time getting to know people and understanding what other people need, adding value to other people's career stories, even if it doesn't directly benefit me, but keeping my network really
tight and close. I think that there's people I worked with when I started my career has gone. You talk about nonlinear career plans. My career has been this wavy line all around. I started in accounting and finance with a piece of technology. I went from working at IBM to working at a video game company. I then pivoted into marketing. I was a freelancer for a period of time. I had my own business and
then ended up at IAW. And there's themes like I still stay in touch with people I worked with 20 years ago when I started my career, and I still support them in ways and they still support me in ways. And by regularly showing up and just checking in, it doesn't have to be every week. You're investing hours and hours in networking. But we stay connected on LinkedIn, we comment on posts, we check in from time to time.
And the job I started at IAW like eight, nine years ago, and that opportunity presented itself because of my network. And I was in New York City visiting with friends. I mentioned what I was doing to somebody. She said, oh, I think I might have a role for you. She brought me in part time as a consultant and that's how it happened. And so I think about that one moment where I just mentioned what I was doing and she gave the opportunity. And that has expanded into more and more
and more. But really networking is something I've done consistently. And so would you say that your network is broad or very specific and niche? Broad? My network is so broad and sometimes I wonder, sometimes I think, oh, maybe it's too broad. But because I've worked so many different places and I spent five years living overseas in Shanghai and Dubai, and so my network spans global, but it's also people from all different industries and all different jobs. And in some ways that's really great
because I can find anybody to do anything. But when I think about kind of like the, well, do I have the specific enough network to actually benefit my day to day job right now that needs improvement? I would definitely say my network is broad at this point.
And so a lot of people might think that introvert can't have networks and don't like networking because people ill people and some people might find it overwhelming because you said your network is broad, which implies that there might be hundreds or maybe thousands of people that you know. So what is one thing you do? At least once a month that helps you grow and or nurture your network. And can you be really specific about it? Yeah. So one thing I do every month, and we've done some
content around networking for introverts because it's not impossible. I know it's overwhelming and I know it's hard. So one thing I've started doing every month, and I do this as part of an accountability thing I run through IAW is I'm very intentional about identifying five places I can network and it doesn't have to be. So maybe we'll attend one in person event during the month. I will find a Facebook group. I can go engage in a LinkedIn group. I'll find a virtual event.
I the also make a list of at least five people I want to have a touch point with. And a touch point doesn't necessarily mean we're going out and having coffee, but it might be go look at their LinkedIn and see what they've been up to and see if I can just drop a message or if I've read a good book recently, I might recommend they read the book. Just little touch points like that. And then I look to add at
least ten people to my network every month. So I'll go through and find opportunities at the events I'm attending. I try to walk away going, okay, I'm not just showing up to have a cocktail and mingle, but who can I actually meet and walk away feeling like I have a relationship where we could follow up and collaborate in the future? So I try to be intentional about instead of just kind of showing up and seeing who falls into my LinkedIn.
More intentional about where I'm showing up, when I'm showing up, and how I'm gathering those contacts and nurturing them. So a slightly different question. You mentioned the non linear path that your career has had. Would you consider yourself to be a leader? Yes, I would. This is a loaded question and you're laughing. I love the pause. It was like yeah, because I've struggled. So I've struggled with Impostor syndrome because I took time. When we lived overseas, I did not work. So I
found out I was pregnant. My husband was offered a job in Shanghai and I said, Great, let's go. I can take some time. I can have the baby. I can figure out this being a mom, I can step away from my career. It was supposed to be 18 months overseas, so I could take that time to figure out mom and what am I doing from a career perspective. So 18 months turned into five years total overseas. Another kid, we moved home, we had another baby.
I'm still not back to work. So I ended up with this eight ish year gap on my resume. And I really struggled to come back and feel like a leader because I felt like I had this gap and I hadn't stepped up in the same way that other people around me had. And when I reflect now, I've earned the respect of others around me. Some people I work with don't even know I have a gap on my resume, which I find hilarious. Why would I? Right? It's in my head. Right? It's in my head. And so I struggled
with the am I truly a leader? And I believe I am. I believe I lead the community of IAW. I lead my team at IAW. I lead others around me. And I try to lead by showing good examples. Right. I try to foster environments where people can trust me and people know my decision making process. I would say, yes, I'm a leader. But I struggle with that question because my path to being a leader, I've doubted myself. And so I sometimes sit here and question, like, do I deserve to be here?
And I've come to accept that I do. And I've done a lot of work in this area, but I think we can lead without a title. We can lead with a title. And so I do believe I'm a leader. I've just sometimes struggled to accept that along the way. All right, thank you so very much. This has been an interesting conversation. I have one final question for you before you let the people know where to find you, and that is is a hot dog a sandwich, in your humble opinion?
No. And could you walk us through your thought process? I mean, technically, if I say a sandwich is something between bread, I guess, yes. But I just look at a hot dog, and I don't think sandwich. I suppose you could call it a sandwich, but I call a hot dog a hot dog. To me, a sandwich is two separate pieces of bread, and a hot dog bun is connected. All right,
thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. Everyone has a different viewpoint, so it's wonderful to be like, wait, and the walk through it. Yeah, that's a great question. It has sparked debate over the years. I've led a lot of online co working, and that question has stopped anything work related, especially it's been, like, engineers or UX designers or anything. Just, of course, the whole rate. Oh, that must be fascinating.
Thank you for joining us today. Please let the people know where they can find you should they wish to connect and be part of your growing, expanding network. Absolutely. So LinkedIn is the best place to find megan bazuto. It's B-O-Z-Z-U-T-O. If you just search that, it should show up. I'm also on instagram and facebook, but not quite as active in those places, so LinkedIn is best. All right, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here today. This is janice
at the career introvert, helping you build your brand and get hard. Have a great rest of your week.