"How do I make the most of my time at my soulless job?" - Fixable

[00:00:00] TED Audio Collective So Francis, this morning I was looking at the actual data around

[00:00:14] Leos because there's so much anxiety, understandable anxiety and and so many assumptions we make

[00:00:21] about this experience.

[00:00:23] There's a company out there called Revealio Labs that is trying to ground some of these

[00:00:28] assumptions in the data and they looked at this question of how quickly people were actually

[00:00:35] getting rehired in this environment because of course the fear is I'm laid off and never

[00:00:43] to be never going to work again or it's going to take a long time and these are real,

[00:00:48] these are scary, existential questions.

[00:00:50] So as of late December Tech workers who are being laid off right now at higher rates

[00:00:57] than other parts of the economy, Tech workers are finding new jobs within three months at

[00:01:03] a rate of 72%.

[00:01:06] That's encouraging.

[00:01:08] So it's encouraging and higher than I expected.

[00:01:13] It's higher than I expected as well.

[00:01:15] The other stat I saw that was really helpful was that 40% of Americans have been laid

[00:01:23] off or terminated from a job at least once.

[00:01:27] And you know, when we're going through it, when we're experiencing it and we think it's

[00:01:31] a sign that there's something very wrong, we think that it's a rare event, it's not

[00:01:37] rare, it's what it means to participate in American capitalism and you are going to be

[00:01:43] okay.

[00:01:46] Hi, Manmora.

[00:01:49] I'm a company builder and leadership coach.

[00:01:51] I'm Frances Frye.

[00:01:52] I'm a professor at the Harvard Business School and your wife.

[00:01:56] Most important, most important yes.

[00:01:59] And this is fixable from the TED audio collective.

[00:02:02] We believe that meaningful change happens fast.

[00:02:05] Anything, everything, everything.

[00:02:07] Everything.

[00:02:08] And good solutions are usually just one conversation away.

[00:02:12] Frances, today we got a message from Delaney.

[00:02:14] Delaney is not her real name.

[00:02:16] She's got a great job in tech but is starting to lose some motivation.

[00:02:22] So let's hear directly from her.

[00:02:26] My entire team would laid off except for me.

[00:02:29] I feel like I should be more grateful for the place where I am.

[00:02:32] My problem is that I want to do something great but I'm not inspired by any of the work.

[00:02:40] So how do you decide to cut your losses and take the risk to do something that's more

[00:02:46] aligned with you knowing what a dollar is worth having been poor before?

[00:02:53] How do you decide?

[00:02:56] Frances, what's your initial reaction?

[00:02:58] My initial reaction is how do you know when it's okay to jump to a less secure place.

[00:03:06] I have a lot of empathy as someone who also grew up on the low end of the socio-economic

[00:03:13] hierarchy.

[00:03:14] I totally get it.

[00:03:16] When you have been without means, when you have been hungry, it feels like irresponsible

[00:03:23] to take the decision where you might be in need as opposed to someone who can't provide.

[00:03:29] And I was thinking this episode is quite a bit different for us and it also is more real

[00:03:37] in some ways.

[00:03:38] Fixing is messy.

[00:03:39] I mean, it is messy.

[00:03:40] It's a little dreary.

[00:03:42] There might be points of conflict.

[00:03:45] So I would say that we're going to get into some real issues here and it's going to maybe

[00:03:50] feel a little bit uncomfortable on the way but this is reality and we get to a really good

[00:03:55] place at the end.

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[00:04:34] Canva presents unexplained appearances.

[00:04:37] It was an ordinary work day until that presentation appeared out of thin air.

[00:04:42] Also it's eerily on brand.

[00:04:44] Wait, did that agenda just write itself?

[00:04:48] Words appear making this unexplainable case.

[00:04:51] Unexplainable?

[00:04:52] It's Canva's AI tools.

[00:04:53] I can generate slides and words in seconds.

[00:04:56] Really?

[00:04:57] The real mystery is why I'm only learning this now.

[00:05:00] Canva.com designed for work.

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[00:05:45] Hi, Delaney.

[00:05:46] Welcome to Fixable.

[00:05:47] Thanks for having me.

[00:05:48] What would make this conversation most shamelessly, selfishly helpful to you?

[00:05:56] Yeah, shamelessly would love the step-by-step plan for how to occupy my time in the next year

[00:06:05] and a half or two years that I want to give myself to keep working at this giant corporation

[00:06:11] that sets me off on being an entrepreneur for myself.

[00:06:15] Awesome.

[00:06:16] Wonderful.

[00:06:17] Well, let's start with what?

[00:06:18] Tell us about the work you're doing now for this big giant corporation.

[00:06:22] Yeah, so I work for a major tech company which has just done some huge soulless layoffs

[00:06:32] that pretty much wrecked the last vestige of hope and loyalty that I may have had for

[00:06:41] this company.

[00:06:42] I've been a very capable, enthusiastic, creative, imaginative, hardworking employee.

[00:06:52] So people say, oh, come with me on this big idea that I have because you're going to help

[00:06:58] me get there.

[00:06:59] And I go, sure.

[00:07:01] And then I'm following someone else's dream and I'm spending all my energy on their vision

[00:07:07] and by the end of the day, all I want to do is play the Sims and dissociate into a made-up

[00:07:14] reality.

[00:07:15] How long have you been there?

[00:07:17] Four years.

[00:07:18] Okay.

[00:07:19] So, ago I was an English teacher and was very invested in the vocation part of teaching.

[00:07:27] I taught ninth grade and I loved them.

[00:07:29] I love working at age.

[00:07:31] They're so great.

[00:07:32] We have one of those with us.

[00:07:36] They're the best.

[00:07:37] They're truly the best.

[00:07:38] I loved it.

[00:07:39] But I was broke.

[00:07:40] And I had this incredible opportunity fall into my lap where in the middle of the spring

[00:07:46] semester at the school where I worked.

[00:07:49] A friend of mine who had worked at this company for the last few years and who I'd been

[00:07:53] kind of under the wing of as she tried to teach me ways of working in that company's mindset

[00:08:00] and I'd applied many times and been rejected.

[00:08:04] She called me and said, hey, I'm trying to start up an education program within this

[00:08:09] company and I'm three weeks from going on maternity leave.

[00:08:15] And they finally gave me headcount.

[00:08:18] And I don't trust anyone else to start up an education org except for you.

[00:08:24] So I want to hire you as a contractor and if you just trust me, we'll spend the next

[00:08:30] year getting you converted to be a full-time employee.

[00:08:33] And I was like, when do you get this opportunity?

[00:08:37] Right.

[00:08:38] Yes.

[00:08:39] I entered this corporation with all these adults.

[00:08:44] And not the children corporations.

[00:08:47] Yeah, very few 14-year-olds.

[00:08:50] Very few.

[00:08:52] And like the vibes were so different.

[00:08:54] You know, I was not the authority anymore, the way that I was in a classroom.

[00:09:00] And then those first six months were really hard because I didn't have an ally.

[00:09:03] I was learning corporate, world, politics, energy.

[00:09:08] I learned fast when I became a full-time employee.

[00:09:10] I started to believe that like actually I've got a really good thing going on.

[00:09:14] I'm pretty valuable to this group.

[00:09:17] But it turned out that the job that she had offered for me wasn't quite as inspiring

[00:09:22] or awesome as I had hoped.

[00:09:25] Instead of really being about transformative education, it was about compliance, you know

[00:09:32] and making sure that the people in this department, which was a privacy and security department,

[00:09:40] were following regulations basically.

[00:09:44] So I spent two years in this education org.

[00:09:47] Then my other friend who I've networked and made friends with over those two years,

[00:09:53] he says, hey, your education job sounds boring and frustrating.

[00:09:58] Come work with me on product.

[00:10:01] So I follow him and his vision.

[00:10:05] And this team was a complete sea change.

[00:10:08] It was a lot of, I would say to put it kindly, it was Silicon Valley on steroids.

[00:10:19] It was a bunch of men who were like, I understand women, I've got a wife, you know?

[00:10:27] And just comments like that constantly.

[00:10:29] So again, like another element of my illusion is shattered because I start to see this gross

[00:10:37] culture.

[00:10:39] But I was starting to gain confidence.

[00:10:42] I can do this.

[00:10:43] I belong here.

[00:10:45] They need me.

[00:10:46] So as soon as my brain clicks into this, my company lays people off and they lay off my

[00:10:53] entire team.

[00:10:56] It's up for me.

[00:10:59] So every meeting that I'd had in the last six months was now meaningless, every project

[00:11:07] that I had worked on gone.

[00:11:11] And not only that, but our VP's and senior leaders had no plans for what to do with

[00:11:18] the people who remained.

[00:11:20] My manager is like, honestly just chill.

[00:11:23] You're fine.

[00:11:24] Do you need, what's the case against just leaving?

[00:11:27] Like if this, if you're feeling this degree of friction, why stick around?

[00:11:35] I think they call them the golden handcuffs.

[00:11:39] Having been a teacher to be in this position where I'm making four times as much money

[00:11:46] to know that at some point in the next year, I'd like to get pregnant and it would be great

[00:11:51] to have maternity leave covered by this company makes me go, it's not practical to leave now.

[00:12:01] But I know that I want to leave.

[00:12:04] So how do I maximize this time?

[00:12:07] How do I figure out in this time how to reinvent and become the next thing?

[00:12:13] Can I give you the punchline?

[00:12:16] Yeah.

[00:12:17] You can't make the company, the villain in the story.

[00:12:22] Because you can't be in relationship with any integrity with this entity if they are a cartoon

[00:12:30] version in the story that you're telling and now living within.

[00:12:36] For me, it's less that they're a villain.

[00:12:38] They're a place where I'm getting the means with which to jump into the next self.

[00:12:49] The layoffs were almost like this freedom, like liberation because it was just so clear.

[00:12:59] They don't really care about us.

[00:13:02] Their corporation not a human, not a family and I'm not going to lose myself in the work.

[00:13:07] But I don't know is how to now take the things that I care about and turn those into

[00:13:12] the main event and not the after hours event.

[00:13:15] A little bit about those, I'm a painter.

[00:13:19] And my paintings have been the place where I've found so much self.

[00:13:28] Like life feels so big when I'm painting.

[00:13:32] What's in the way of you doing that right now?

[00:13:35] Time.

[00:13:36] Can I play back the story?

[00:13:38] Just a little, Francis please jump in and stop your wife.

[00:13:42] No, no, no.

[00:13:44] But it sounds like you have made a fair exchange with this organization where you get a subset

[00:13:56] of things and the organization gets a subset of things.

[00:14:02] So you're getting the security that you crave and didn't get when you were in the classroom.

[00:14:10] That makes sense for you at this point in your life.

[00:14:14] The organization gets an awesome creative, adaptable employee who they can put in lots of

[00:14:21] different environments and she seems to step up to the challenge.

[00:14:26] And that contribution has been tested.

[00:14:28] This is a difficult environment to keep a job in tech.

[00:14:32] You have managed to do that.

[00:14:33] That is a testimony to your talent and resilience contribution.

[00:14:39] Help me understand the tension point.

[00:14:40] Is it that there were trade-offs that you made that you don't feel great about and want

[00:14:46] to figure out how to feel better them so you can stay for another two, three, four years?

[00:14:51] Or is it that you're looking for a graceful exit just from a practical standpoint?

[00:14:58] I'm struggling to find a friction point that I actually believe by.

[00:15:05] I don't believe you have a problem.

[00:15:07] Where my problem is is I don't feel like I have enough space and time to invest properly

[00:15:13] in the art dream and in what that world looks like because it's, I don't have an audience.

[00:15:21] I don't have a what's like, I need to be able to invest significant time in this.

[00:15:28] I wonder if you can find any bandwidth in the current situation you're in.

[00:15:32] Or you get paid very well with nobody's asking you to do anything.

[00:15:35] Trust me, you should see some of the pieces I've been making.

[00:15:38] I mean, I've sat here and I've been creating and making and it's what really motivated

[00:15:43] me of like, I should talk to these people because this is going to be the case forever.

[00:15:46] It sounds like the perfect fucking situation.

[00:15:48] I'm saying this was so much love and respect in my heart.

[00:15:52] You are on the payroll, being paid still four to six, probably now six X, what you were

[00:15:59] making in the classroom.

[00:16:01] No one today is expecting you to do anything.

[00:16:04] You're waiting for your next assignment.

[00:16:07] This week should have been the greatest week of your life.

[00:16:10] You can make art all day while you wait for the memo that says please do something

[00:16:15] for the company that's paying you.

[00:16:18] Why is this not the greatest moment in your professional life?

[00:16:22] Why is this just a gift from the heavens?

[00:16:26] It has an expiration date on it.

[00:16:28] It's like I have all these pieces but they're not attached yet to a structure, to a center.

[00:16:35] Do you want this company to be funding your art or do you want to jump off the cliff and

[00:16:41] try to fund it yourself?

[00:16:46] Tired of unnecessary payroll errors and the problems they bring?

[00:16:50] Like employees missing bills because of shorted paychecks, managers taking the heat from angry

[00:16:56] employees about those shorted paychecks, HR and payroll teams clocking late hours to correct

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[00:18:29] I don't want to jump off a cliff.

[00:18:31] OK, so we're taking that off the table.

[00:18:33] So that's door number two.

[00:18:35] So that's door number two and to go and live the life of an artist, which people do every day.

[00:18:41] There's insane security tradeoffs.

[00:18:45] This is why I'm like, I think there's like two years.

[00:18:49] I really think there's about a year and a half, two years.

[00:18:51] I think there's one of the problems is that I commit myself to things.

[00:18:58] Like that doesn't sound like a problem.

[00:19:01] Well, then how do I use these two years where I will not be investing 40 hours a week in

[00:19:06] the business that I want to start?

[00:19:08] Every piece of business advice I've ever heard or seen is something about like hustle.

[00:19:13] You got to get you got to go all in on making your on making your dream happen.

[00:19:18] And like I just I won't be able to because I will still give my attention to this place

[00:19:23] where I'm being paid.

[00:19:24] May I step in here?

[00:19:25] Yeah, please.

[00:19:25] So I and I'm watching the two and I feel my wife's frustration.

[00:19:32] And then I hear your frustration.

[00:19:35] So I'm going to so you're getting you're choosing to stay with the company.

[00:19:41] I'm going to give you my punchline.

[00:19:43] I think you have to fall in love with the company for this to work.

[00:19:46] So when you got on the call, you painted a pretty villainous organization.

[00:19:52] And by the time we got to the end of the story, this is a very benevolent organization

[00:19:57] to you.

[00:19:58] I think you're going to have to fall in love with the company and with your situation

[00:20:03] at the company if you want the next 18 months to work.

[00:20:06] I think a cynical transactional relationship isn't going to work.

[00:20:11] I can feel it with you.

[00:20:12] Some people can do cynical transactional things.

[00:20:14] I don't think you can.

[00:20:15] I don't think you can, Delaney.

[00:20:16] So I'm going to take that off the table, which means you're going to have our greatest

[00:20:21] compliment, by the way.

[00:20:22] Yes.

[00:20:23] So if you want to work at this company in good faith, I and accept their money and their

[00:20:30] benefits, I want you to figure out how you can add delicious value to it.

[00:20:36] I want you to honor what they are and what they're doing because you're accepting their

[00:20:44] salary and you're talking about it in hours, but I would rather talk about it in energy.

[00:20:51] So if you are depleted at the end of the day, you're not doing anything else.

[00:20:54] But if you are energized at the end of the day, you all of a sudden have time.

[00:20:59] So how can we make what you are doing energy producing as opposed to energy depleting?

[00:21:05] So I would recommend that we just completely reverse the narrative.

[00:21:12] Can I take another swing?

[00:21:13] Now you take another swing.

[00:21:14] I want to start with a list of attributes that you present to us and I'll start with

[00:21:20] me in the inference.

[00:21:21] Maybe you can do it.

[00:21:23] Savvy, sophisticated thinker, super creative, intelligent.

[00:21:33] I have a hard time believing the story that in the past four years, you have only really

[00:21:44] worked in the service of other people's hopes and dreams.

[00:21:48] It feels like you are very much in touch with what it is that lights you up about the

[00:21:54] world.

[00:21:56] Then where my coaching brain goes is why is this human invested in this version of the

[00:22:06] story?

[00:22:07] What is underneath and is it that she hasn't forgiven herself for the fact that she's

[00:22:18] not doing security into her decisions about the work to do?

[00:22:23] Which is a beautiful choice for you, for the child you're contemplating bringing into

[00:22:30] the world.

[00:22:31] I just want to just honor that that is a choice that is not just rational and cold but

[00:22:40] also really beautiful.

[00:22:41] It's a, that's an investment in taking care of you and I want to invite you to have some

[00:22:48] compassion and forgiveness and deep respect for the part of you that demanded that she

[00:22:57] be fed and nourished in that way.

[00:23:01] It's been very challenging to, and I apologize for the emotion in my voice.

[00:23:10] It's been a challenge to shift identities from being a classroom teacher trying to make

[00:23:19] the world a better place and then to go into an environment where being promoted, getting

[00:23:31] money, it's hard to justify the work to my moral self.

[00:23:39] It's like it was just starting to percolate.

[00:23:43] I was made a lead on the team and then they're all just taken away.

[00:23:48] I think to myself, is this just a wake up call from the universe?

[00:23:52] Keep your distance.

[00:23:53] Don't fall in love with it because it doesn't love you back.

[00:23:57] And it doesn't have to.

[00:23:58] That's not its job.

[00:24:00] Well, Delaney, I feel like we're finally in the real conversation.

[00:24:04] Yeah.

[00:24:05] So thank you for going on that ride with us and for showing up vulnerably.

[00:24:11] I have a lot more to say but we need to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

[00:24:17] All right, Delaney, I'm going to play back what we hear the issue is for you and you tell

[00:24:25] us if this feels right.

[00:24:28] You were in a position where you correctly diagnosed that there was a gap between what

[00:24:35] you wanted to be doing, probably your core value system and the role you had initially been

[00:24:41] cast in.

[00:24:42] You skillfully found an exit from that role into this role that was more energy producing

[00:24:52] and more aligned with the work you wanted to do and your core values.

[00:24:57] You just experienced a shock to that solution, which is that your team went away and now

[00:25:03] there's a lot of uncertainty about that role and you're trying to figure out what your

[00:25:07] next move is on this chessboard of Delaney's life.

[00:25:13] Is that a reasonable summary?

[00:25:16] And you have articulated two paths forward.

[00:25:20] One is close yourself off so you don't get burned.

[00:25:24] So don't fall in love again.

[00:25:26] And it's like when you quote somebody after a breakup, I'm never going to get close to

[00:25:33] someone again and we don't want to give all of that power away to the other thing.

[00:25:38] And so I don't want a random shock in the world to influence your trajectory of falling

[00:25:46] in love.

[00:25:48] So I want us to explore at least the possibility of not doing the closed off version of you.

[00:25:56] But perhaps doing the awesome version of you and realizing that you need to practice

[00:26:05] having some self-imposed limits so that if you work till midnight and all day on the

[00:26:12] weekends, try to think of ways that you don't have to do that.

[00:26:16] So I wouldn't lessen the love.

[00:26:18] I would increase the operational capability.

[00:26:23] Let's get super practical for Delaney.

[00:26:25] Where does your mind go on her options in this moment?

[00:26:30] So listen, you're given a reset moment and you're going to mourn the people that have left

[00:26:35] and the trauma that has occurred.

[00:26:37] But I would use it as a chance to refuel, put the oxygen mask on yourself and use it

[00:26:41] as a reset.

[00:26:43] You're choosing to have a hustle and a side hustle which I love and honor that and do it with

[00:26:49] integrity.

[00:26:50] And I don't want you to have regret that you took money for something you didn't earn.

[00:26:54] So how can you do both?

[00:26:55] Which is, how can I accomplish what it takes other people 10 hours to do in six hours?

[00:27:01] Now I believe if you put that challenge in there, you could do that.

[00:27:05] I think your framing was beautiful, Frances.

[00:27:07] I want you to in this gift of four, five, six, seven days start to think about what role within

[00:27:16] the company would be energizing to you.

[00:27:18] What's like, what's your job description?

[00:27:21] Who are these other resources that you would work with because these people are sources

[00:27:26] of energy for you?

[00:27:27] And I love that framing, Frances, as just a gut task.

[00:27:30] Is this task energizing to me?

[00:27:32] Is this human energizing to me?

[00:27:34] Is this daily experience energizing to me?

[00:27:37] So shamelessly, like get out the piece of paper and really write your own job description.

[00:27:44] And so when someone calls you and they'll put, they might not put it in this form.

[00:27:50] It might not sound like an invitation.

[00:27:52] It might be like, oh Delaney, this is what you're going to do next.

[00:27:55] But in fact, it is.

[00:27:56] This is a negotiation because in most cases, you're an outweigh employee.

[00:28:02] That also gives you tremendous agency and freedom.

[00:28:05] You can say no, thank you.

[00:28:06] This is not going to work for me and I'm going to leave.

[00:28:10] But I want you to have a lot of clarity because there is something important to you in

[00:28:15] this relationship right now is that there is a tremendous amount of security.

[00:28:19] And so if you have your job description already done, so it's not your emotional reaction,

[00:28:23] but you already know what you want.

[00:28:25] Negotiate for those things.

[00:28:26] So if we had to just role play right now, what is the role you would like?

[00:28:33] In the role that I make for myself, I get to share wisdom.

[00:28:41] That wisdom is not provided, but it is questions, its discussion.

[00:28:47] I want to work with my peers to expand their ideas, become better collaborators, think

[00:28:57] effectively through problems together and not wait to be told what to do.

[00:29:03] So my role has some kind of that piece in it.

[00:29:07] Delaney, this is great.

[00:29:09] You have my tension.

[00:29:11] Now I'm now I'm role playing the other side of this conversation.

[00:29:14] I have unveiled your new job and it's called super program manager.

[00:29:19] Congratulations.

[00:29:22] What you just described is actually not on my list of program manager necessarily.

[00:29:28] So tell me how what you just described connects to the mission of the company.

[00:29:34] So if if I'm staying where I am, then you need these kinds of discussions because there

[00:29:40] are fifty eleven products at this company and they all get created in different ways.

[00:29:47] That makes it really hard to send out a unified product to users so you need me to bring

[00:29:56] together the product managers and the UX designers to talk about what makes their products

[00:30:02] similar.

[00:30:04] Let's talk about it because handing down directions on high from these different silos

[00:30:08] isn't working.

[00:30:10] Really?

[00:30:11] As you just fired a whole bunch of people because of inefficiencies.

[00:30:14] I was just you just use the magic word because this is the year of efficiency.

[00:30:18] Delaney, it sounds like you're going to make this whole journey more efficient and more

[00:30:26] effective and I'm not going to do it by being the person who knows all the things because

[00:30:30] I don't let me bring you together because I know I can facilitate that conversation.

[00:30:36] That's where my expertise is.

[00:30:37] It's in the facilitation.

[00:30:38] Delaney, how do you feel in your body having this conversation?

[00:30:46] I feel the groove because this is like this is the expertise that I've earned since I was

[00:30:54] twenty years old and started working in a classroom because I didn't have to know the

[00:30:59] answers to the questions I was giving.

[00:31:00] I just had to set up the circumstances that enabled a conversation to happen.

[00:31:06] For what it's worth, I feel like I am having a conversation with your highest and best self

[00:31:14] right now.

[00:31:15] So I'm super excited about what you just articulated.

[00:31:20] It also happens to align with the fears and anxieties of every tech leader that we know

[00:31:31] that this is a mission critical problem that needs to be solved.

[00:31:35] The homework we're going to leave you with is to really use writing as a tool for thinking

[00:31:42] here but really put this down in a form that will help you think through it in a structured

[00:31:48] way but that someone else could consume so you can have this conversation in a fast moving

[00:31:56] environment when these decisions are being made.

[00:31:58] How would your reaction to that as a person?

[00:32:02] As I shared before, the organization did not have a plan for any of the people left behind

[00:32:07] by the layoffs.

[00:32:09] When I went and talked to this chief of staff person, I mentioned some of these things

[00:32:15] to her that I like.

[00:32:17] I'm a strategic mind, I'm great at hosting conversations, I bring people together, I ask important

[00:32:22] questions, I get people talking.

[00:32:24] You see an opening to create order in the chaos and do it in a way that's going to light

[00:32:30] you up.

[00:32:31] You're the only woman with the information to put that equation together.

[00:32:35] Yeah.

[00:32:36] Yeah.

[00:32:37] And Delaney, that beautiful creative artist inside of you is not being left behind in this

[00:32:43] scenario.

[00:32:44] And that's the other part of the challenge is how do you write this job description in

[00:32:49] a way where she has a reason to show up?

[00:32:51] Maybe not every minute of every day, but there are ways to do this that are creative and

[00:32:57] generative and help you build a world that's a little better today than it was yesterday.

[00:33:05] Without you making such a severe security trade off.

[00:33:12] I feel like I have some work to do over the next couple of days, which is nice.

[00:33:18] I think that this kind of approach, I have faith that it will help me at least solve the

[00:33:25] other practical need I have, which is to find joy in the work that I do during the day.

[00:33:33] And I hope that if I have this energy, that the outcome of having a job where I'm thriving

[00:33:41] is that at the end of the day, I do have that energy to devote to the side hustle.

[00:33:49] That's the dream.

[00:33:51] We guarantee it.

[00:33:52] Yeah.

[00:33:53] I mean we can guarantee it.

[00:33:54] Thank you.

[00:33:55] I got a sense that I could sit in on your private coaching sessions.

[00:34:08] You were super direct and you broke through.

[00:34:13] So that was pretty mesmerizing on my end to witness.

[00:34:18] But let's think about the generalizable lesson of it.

[00:34:22] Here's what I'll say, for people left behind after a layoff, I think there are so many complex

[00:34:31] emotions that come to the surface.

[00:34:34] It really strikes at our most fundamental fears and anxieties.

[00:34:44] Am I going to be okay?

[00:34:46] Am I enough?

[00:34:49] Am I worthy?

[00:34:50] I think these questions that lurk in the background, and I think it is important to remember

[00:34:57] wherever you are in the story, so much is happening that has nothing to do with you.

[00:35:02] Where she started was this is a bad company and I was seduced into.

[00:35:11] Wasn't credible but it was also the very understandable reaction to the situation that happens all

[00:35:16] the time.

[00:35:17] If that's the diagnosis, what I love about the prescription that we finally got to

[00:35:24] is that when all of these things feel like they're happening to you, how do you pivot

[00:35:28] from reactive to proactive?

[00:35:31] These are mere mortals making decisions and they don't have all the information.

[00:35:36] They do not.

[00:35:37] And so to be active in answering the question, what is the best use of you?

[00:35:43] These are very dramatic moments to do that.

[00:35:45] There's also an opportunity to do that all the time, all day, every day.

[00:35:50] And so really thinking about your role in co-producing the best use of you.

[00:35:55] The best use of you is an opportunity that all of us have at any point in a company's

[00:36:00] life cycle.

[00:36:04] Thanks for listening everyone.

[00:36:06] We would love to include you next time.

[00:36:08] Please reach out to us, email at fixableatteb.com or call us at 234Fixable.

[00:36:14] 6234-349-2253.

[00:36:22] Fixable is brought to you by the Ted Audio Collective.

[00:36:24] It's hosted by me, Francis Frye and me, Anne Morris.

[00:36:29] Our team includes Isabel Carter, Constanza Gallardo, Lydia Jean Cot, Grace Rubenstein, Sarah

[00:36:36] Nex, Jimmy Gutierrez, Michelle Quint, Corey Hageham, Alejandro Salazar, Bandai and Chang and Roxanne

[00:36:43] Highlash, Jake Gorsky as our Mix Engineer.

[00:36:46] We'll be bringing you new episodes of Fixable every week so make sure to subscribe wherever

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[00:36:54] If you can, please take a second to leave us a review.

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