Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 3: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 3: our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
Speaker 2: from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
Speaker 2: episode is airing sort of mid to late May of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. Our title is Conquer the World in
Speaker 2: forty Hours a Week, which what we're getting at here
Speaker 2: is an episode about building career capital and raising your
Speaker 2: profile without work working around the clock. I think there's
Speaker 2: often a misconception that if you want to do anything
Speaker 2: ambitiously with your career, you need to be working eighty
Speaker 2: hours a week or something, and we emphatically believe that
Speaker 2: is not the case, partly because we don't believe people
Speaker 2: generally work eighty hours a week, even when they claim
Speaker 2: they do.
Speaker 3: Right, Sarah, yep, I think this is one of the
Speaker 3: highlights of one of your books that we're going to
Speaker 3: talk about that you expose some of the myths around this.
Speaker 3: But this is hard, and I mean we're going to
Speaker 3: talk about how many hours we work, and I already
Speaker 3: can picture people listening to this who are going to
Speaker 3: be like, that's so low. I can't believe they're getting
Speaker 3: anything done of substance. I work so much more than that.
Speaker 3: That's a lame number. So there's like weird judge layers
Speaker 3: around this, but I think there's also a lot of
Speaker 3: just like blatant dishonesty. So it's a very interesting thing
Speaker 3: to think about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I track my time, so I am
Speaker 2: aware of my work hours, and you know, I will
Speaker 2: admit here that I did it as well. Like I
Speaker 2: used to talk about working fifty hours a week, and
Speaker 2: even that was when I was tracking my time after
Speaker 2: writing one hundred and sixty eight hours. I'd track a
Speaker 2: week here and there, but I would always choose specific
Speaker 2: weeks to track, and it was ones where I knew
Speaker 2: I was going to be at my desk the whole week,
Speaker 2: like I wasn't gonna have something else, There wasn't something
Speaker 2: major coming up that would pull me away from it,
Speaker 2: and so shockingly like, if everything goes perfectly, I am
Speaker 2: working longer hours.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't always happen.
Speaker 2: And so when I began tracking my time continuously, the
Speaker 2: average those first few years was about forty and since
Speaker 2: it's dipped a little bit more, I tend to be
Speaker 2: working more like thirty five to forty hours a week
Speaker 2: is the average, the long term average on my time logs.
Speaker 1: Sarah, have you tracked this loosely?
Speaker 3: I mean I went back and kind of looked at
Speaker 3: my planner the week. Clinical work is easy, I mean
Speaker 3: I can see when I have patients and when I don't,
Speaker 3: and I have like basically two and two thirds clinical days,
Speaker 3: and I tend to work the rest of that other
Speaker 3: one doing sm other stuff. So it's like, but then
Speaker 3: the rest of it often gets chopped up by varyious things.
Speaker 3: So I would estimate thirty five ish, I mean, on
Speaker 3: a good week.
Speaker 2: But I would like to point out that Sarah earns
Speaker 2: a good salary and is raising her profile with her
Speaker 2: various creative endeavors as well.
Speaker 3: I also will raise my hand and say I think
Speaker 3: I do things really fast.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is that as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, she is very efficient which is one of the
Speaker 2: ways that you can make space for career building activities
Speaker 2: even if you are going to work more in the
Speaker 2: forty hour a week range.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I did research for I Know How She Does It,
Speaker 2: which was a time diary study looking at women who
Speaker 2: earned six figures and also have kids at home, most
Speaker 2: people were not working around the clock. The average on
Speaker 2: my time logs was just a hair north of forty
Speaker 2: hours a week, and that included people working in all
Speaker 2: sorts of careers like the tech industry, finance, legal world,
Speaker 2: all those things that we think of as being long hours, consulting,
Speaker 2: and that was where the average was. The person who
Speaker 2: was working the longest in the week that we looked
Speaker 2: at was working sixty nine hours, So nobody worked over
Speaker 2: seventy hours. And the person who was working sixty nine
Speaker 2: was an accountant in busy season, and she sent me
Speaker 2: her file of her work hours because she does track
Speaker 2: them for the entire year basically, and we looked at
Speaker 2: it and her average of billable hours was about fifty
Speaker 2: which means that she was probably working about fifty five
Speaker 2: to sixty hours a week on average.
Speaker 1: So it's not eighty.
Speaker 2: Even people in sort of extreme hours things, and somebody's
Speaker 2: gonna write us a, look, I.
Speaker 3: Did eighty yeah during residency, and when there's times that
Speaker 3: you're you kind of are working eighty I mean there's
Speaker 3: not a lot of it's maybe not all intense work,
Speaker 3: but you're allowed to work up to eighty hours. And
Speaker 3: there were definitely significant numbers of weeks where that actually
Speaker 3: was happening with maybe like maybe it was more like
Speaker 3: seventy four with like a little bit of sleep, one
Speaker 3: ho on call or something. Then you know there's a
Speaker 3: reason there's a time limited amount that people do that,
Speaker 3: Like no one's going to sign up to do that forever.
Speaker 2: Forever, yeah, because it's not really sustainable. And so anyway,
Speaker 2: that's always something no. But that's something I always you know,
Speaker 2: push back against when people talk about, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 2: you shouldn't consider this career because the hours are going
Speaker 2: to be crazy. And I think that's one of the
Speaker 2: ways that men try to get women out of their
Speaker 2: competition is by claiming that you have to work around
Speaker 2: the clock, and then if you look at how they're
Speaker 2: actually working, in many cases they aren't working those hours,
Speaker 2: or if you know, they're somewhere for those hours, they're
Speaker 2: not actually working, they're doing whatever because they don't feel
Speaker 2: like coming home. I don't know that's people's own problem.
Speaker 2: But giving that the vast majority of people do not
Speaker 2: work seventy hours a week, the reality is you have
Speaker 2: to be able to work less than that advance your
Speaker 2: career because people are advancing in their careers and not
Speaker 2: working seventy hours a week. I mean, there was even
Speaker 2: a time dary study of like CEOs of major companies
Speaker 2: and it was not seventy hours a week. So you
Speaker 2: can build your career working limited hours, but if you
Speaker 2: want to progress, it's important to be smart about how
Speaker 2: you allocate your hours, and so part of that is
Speaker 2: making sure that you make space for the career capital
Speaker 2: building stuff and put this into your schedule with a
Speaker 2: more prominent emphasis as opposed to leaving it for the end,
Speaker 2: which is I think what a lot of us tend
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: But first you know to.
Speaker 2: Do that, you want to know what those career capital
Speaker 2: building activities are, the things that would raise your profile
Speaker 2: and helpful to even make a list, like Sarah in
Speaker 2: your life, what do you think of as the career
Speaker 2: capital building activities?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely two sides of my career.
Speaker 3: I feel like on the clinical side, like developing specific
Speaker 3: areas where I feel really really strong in and working
Speaker 3: on ways to just like communicate super well with patients
Speaker 3: about certain things. I think goes a long way, especially
Speaker 3: because things are repetitive. So if you get excellent at
Speaker 3: teaching people about their diabetes care, then that just compounds
Speaker 3: itself and to become known as someone who's really really
Speaker 3: good at that. On the other side, I feel like
Speaker 3: I've focused more on like the delivery and refinement of
Speaker 3: my ideas in the last year, including packaging them into courses.
Speaker 3: I mean, I actually just posted a rant about how
Speaker 3: I'm not making much progress on the writing side, but
Speaker 3: I have to give myself credit for having done a
Speaker 3: lot of important work that I think is a good
Speaker 3: lead up to that piece, and so yeah, that's kind
Speaker 3: of I think important, as well as doing activities that
Speaker 3: lead to more growth, like reaching out to other podcasts,
Speaker 3: which is something I try to do, promoting the newsletter,
Speaker 3: and generally trying to make our content really fun and
Speaker 3: awesome so that you know, we hope that people find it.
Speaker 3: So sometimes the core activities can also be important. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and share it that's always important too. Yeah, I was
Speaker 3: thinking in this list for me as we were doing
Speaker 3: this episode, definitely being on other podcasts and then sharing,
Speaker 3: because then there's always somebody who's listening to that who
Speaker 3: is never heard of you before, and inevitably somebody's like, oh,
Speaker 3: well that sounds like something I'm interested in, and so
Speaker 3: that kind of expands your influence, as does media appearances.
Speaker 3: Sometimes writing my own media stuff, so writing articles for
Speaker 3: major publications, or speaking gigs for certain places. If you
Speaker 3: speak for a company, that's awesome, you're sharing news with them,
Speaker 3: but it's somewhat of a limited thing because it's only
Speaker 3: within that audience. Sometimes speaking at conferences where different people
Speaker 3: come in from different places has a little bit more
Speaker 3: influence just because they all take that back to their
Speaker 3: own companies and share it, and so it's got just a.
Speaker 2: Little bit more of a multiplier effect. So I'm always
Speaker 2: keeping that in mind too. But as we were thinking
Speaker 2: about this, I think about there's kind of a four
Speaker 2: part framework here for how you can build career capital
Speaker 2: and raise your influence if you are trying to work
Speaker 2: somewhat limited out not limited but normal hours, normal sustainable hours.
Speaker 2: So we're going to be talking about building your schedule
Speaker 2: so you can prioritize space for the high profile stuff,
Speaker 2: minimizing other work or being really efficient at it and
Speaker 2: making life sustainable that way, regularly paying into your career
Speaker 2: capital account kind of as a habit, and just being
Speaker 2: everybody's favorite person to work with, because that is how
Speaker 2: you grow your influence over time. So, Sarah, since we're
Speaker 2: starting with planning, you need to take this one over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was the first thing that came to my
Speaker 3: mind when I was thinking about this, which is that
Speaker 3: if you do not think about what's going to be
Speaker 3: the priorities of your week, review your schedule prior to
Speaker 3: going into Monday, you're already behind. And I do think
Speaker 3: that planning gives back the time you put into it,
Speaker 3: like severalfold, and so it's always worth doing. It's worth
Speaker 3: doing in the rest of life, it's worth doing for work.
Speaker 3: So making sure that you have a ritual around your
Speaker 3: planning for your work. Maybe it's a Friday afternoon, maybe
Speaker 3: it's a different afternoon to Friday. Does it work where
Speaker 3: you look at your calendar up ahead, you look for
Speaker 3: the times that you're going to have like a little
Speaker 3: bit more quote freedom or ability to do deeper work,
Speaker 3: and you think about what are the priorities that you're
Speaker 3: going to slot in those hours. If you do those things,
Speaker 3: you'll also be able to put out fires, and as
Speaker 3: a bonus, not only will you get more done, but
Speaker 3: probably the whole thing will feel a little bit less
Speaker 3: stressful as well. So if you don't have a ritual
Speaker 3: like that in place, I highly encourage you to get
Speaker 3: one set up.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And you can also try to figure out where
Speaker 2: you will put this high profile stuff. And one of
Speaker 2: the things we always wind up not doing is any
Speaker 2: sort of speculative work or long term kind of thing,
Speaker 2: And so think, well, maybe Monday morning is where I
Speaker 2: do it, or if that doesn't work for you, maybe
Speaker 2: it's like Tuesday afternoon is what I think of a
Speaker 2: speculative time where I'm maybe not scheduling it quite so tightly,
Speaker 2: but thinking of that space is when I am doing
Speaker 2: that career boosting work. We also want to leave buffer
Speaker 2: for unexpected emergencies, right, Sarah.
Speaker 3: Yes, I feel like I learned from you like leave
Speaker 3: that free slot because the truth is that as much
Speaker 3: as we try to estimate what needs to happen, things
Speaker 3: take longer than you think they will, and there will
Speaker 3: always be some sort of quote unquote urgent, unexpected task
Speaker 3: dumped into your lap. So we need to kind of
Speaker 3: build in the idea that that's going to happen so
Speaker 3: that when it does happen, it doesn't derail all these
Speaker 3: other plans you've already put into place. So having that
Speaker 3: backup slot, I think that was one of the tranquility
Speaker 3: by Tuesday tenants is super important, and that again applies
Speaker 3: to your life, but your work calendar as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think it's smart in general, but
Speaker 2: in particular if you are trying to do career capital
Speaker 2: boosting work or some long term project that is going
Speaker 2: to raise your profile. What happens is people like I'm
Speaker 2: going to get to it this week, and then what
Speaker 2: happens this week, Well, your biggest client has an emergency
Speaker 2: or one of your kids get sick, and you're like, well,
Speaker 2: I couldn't get to it this week because this unexpected
Speaker 2: thing happened. It's like, well, guess what, something unexpected is
Speaker 2: going to happen every single week, which is why you
Speaker 2: will never get around to writing that business plan or
Speaker 2: submitting that article for publication, or making a video of
Speaker 2: yourself that you can send into that conference to be
Speaker 2: a speaker or whatever it is. Because something is always
Speaker 2: going to come up, and since you don't have to
Speaker 2: do the career profile boosting thing, you don't, so in
Speaker 2: order to make sure that those things don't derail you,
Speaker 2: you build in space for the emergency to happen.
Speaker 3: And speaking in building in space, one other buffer to
Speaker 3: think about is processing time after meetings if you can
Speaker 3: help it, and you can't always. I know some company
Speaker 3: cultures just kind of book you back to back, although
Speaker 3: it seems like a lot of the larger companies are
Speaker 3: starting to do like fifty minute meetings or twenty five
Speaker 3: minute meetings to kind of help with this. But you
Speaker 3: are going to need to take time to think about
Speaker 3: what was just said, to write down any to dos,
Speaker 3: to capture kind of the essence so you don't forget
Speaker 3: about what happened and have to revisit it. So not
Speaker 3: only do you need that unexpected spot buffer, but kind
Speaker 3: of not booking things back to back as a practice
Speaker 3: and assuming you'll need some processing time for each thing
Speaker 3: that you do is smart. And speaking of buffers, we're
Speaker 3: going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Well, we are back talking about how to conquer the
Speaker 2: world in forty hours a week, trying to figure out
Speaker 2: how we can do career boosting work if we don't
Speaker 2: wish to work excessive hours, if we want to have
Speaker 2: a work life balance that is sustainable over the long term.
Speaker 2: And so we talked about building a schedule that allows
Speaker 2: you to have space for these longer term, speculative kind
Speaker 2: of ventures. But one of the ways that we also
Speaker 2: make space is to minimize the sort of work that
Speaker 2: is not necessarily career boosting. Profile raising may have to
Speaker 2: get done, but it isn't necessarily your top priority.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about meetings.
Speaker 2: You said processing time after meetings, Sarah, But what can
Speaker 2: we do to make every meeting be a little bit
Speaker 2: less of a waste of time?
Speaker 3: Well, our prior guest, Laura may Martin, talked about how
Speaker 3: she doesn't go to any meeting without an agenda, and
Speaker 3: maybe that might be extreme in your personal circumstance.
Speaker 2: Did she ask you for an agenda before you interviewed her?
Speaker 3: No? No, okay, oh no, she didn't. That must be
Speaker 3: an exception. Probably her PR firm was like, no one's
Speaker 3: going to give you an agenda, so just be.
Speaker 1: On the one up for you so you have one.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a very high profile podcast and
Speaker 3: a coveted slot, so you know she wouldn't want to
Speaker 3: do something to put that in jeopardy.
Speaker 2: Okay, But for your average run of the mill meeting,
Speaker 2: we need an agenda.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, So I mean if there's not specifically an agenda,
Speaker 3: you're not demanding an agenda. Still, you can think through
Speaker 3: what is the point of meeting? What do you want
Speaker 3: to get out of this meeting, because that can help
Speaker 3: you do a couple of things. It can help you
Speaker 3: prepare to make the time that you're spending with a
Speaker 3: person more useful. It might even help you tell them
Speaker 3: what to prepare if you realize that the roadblock is
Speaker 3: going to be on their side. Perhaps you have done
Speaker 3: this in your review of the week prior and are like, ooh,
Speaker 3: I'm meeting with the person i'm supervising, but I don't
Speaker 3: know what they've done. So you tell them submit me
Speaker 3: a paragraph like before the meeting so we have something
Speaker 3: to chat about, and really just like make sure you
Speaker 3: actually have to go to said meeting, because sometimes if
Speaker 3: you think through the meeting and what the purpose is,
Speaker 3: and you really can't come up with one, And it's
Speaker 3: just like about FaceTime. You know, there's probably enough other
Speaker 3: meetings that you have FaceTime. And again this may vary
Speaker 3: depending on what the culture is of where you are.
Speaker 3: But if there is any way there is some meeting
Speaker 3: that you find may not be the most important, you
Speaker 3: could perhaps point out the fifteen other meetings on your
Speaker 3: calendar that week and maybe you could just get the
Speaker 3: notes for that one. So really understanding what the purpose
Speaker 3: the meeting is for can do can do a lot
Speaker 3: for you, especially in advance. You don't want to be
Speaker 3: having these thoughts three minutes before the meeting starts.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Another idea is, you know, sometimes we waste a lot
Speaker 2: of time because we are waiting for other things from
Speaker 2: other people and we can't sort of start on anything else,
Speaker 2: and we're constantly tracking things down. So you have a
Speaker 2: system as well, Sarah, for looping back on stuff.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's funny, that's a funny I put the phrase
Speaker 3: in there. But then I'm also like, you know, when
Speaker 3: you get a email from someone like two days after
Speaker 3: they sent you an email that you like didn't feel
Speaker 3: like responding to, and they're like looping them back and
Speaker 3: you're like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Momping this up to the top of your inbox.
Speaker 3: That's just like more when it's like an unsolicited thing.
Speaker 3: But that's not really what we're talking about here. Looping
Speaker 3: back to me means like something's on the back burner
Speaker 3: and I don't want to forget about it, but I
Speaker 3: don't want it to like bother me, and I also
Speaker 3: don't want to fail to deal with it all together.
Speaker 3: So making sure you have some kind of reliable place
Speaker 3: to put things that you need to check back on
Speaker 3: and a ritual that includes checking that folder or place
Speaker 3: those two things will allow you to kind of put
Speaker 3: them out of your mind but also not missing. So
Speaker 3: my practice is to have I actually don't have this
Speaker 3: in my personal email, I haven't needed it, But in
Speaker 3: my work like outlook email, like at clinical work, there's
Speaker 3: a waiting on folder where if there's something that's just
Speaker 3: like cooking, like I've asked for something I'm waiting for
Speaker 3: a response, I just put it in there, and every
Speaker 3: single week when I do kind of like my clean
Speaker 3: out and review process, I just check and glance and
Speaker 3: see what's in there, and if there's anything I need
Speaker 3: to send a bump up email about although I never ever.
Speaker 1: Just pinging you, Sarah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, our.
Speaker 2: Friend Laura May Martin will tell us though, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is in her book. The problem is if you
Speaker 2: don't answer the email, you're going to get something else.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a second email or third email,
Speaker 2: it's going to be an instant chat, or somebody's going
Speaker 2: to add a calend, you know, meeting to your calendar
Speaker 2: to get an answer. So even if you can't answer,
Speaker 2: you're better off at least responding and saying, you know,
Speaker 2: I'll be working on this on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: I'll get back to you on Wednesday, and then people
Speaker 1: feel heard.
Speaker 2: Another way to sort of work more sustainable hours is
Speaker 2: to make sure you're only working on a certain number
Speaker 2: of things at once, and we learn this from our
Speaker 2: conversation with Cal Newport on slow productivity. But the way
Speaker 2: I like to think of it is, actually, and we're
Speaker 2: recording this shortly after tax day, is that every project
Speaker 2: you were doing has some sort of administrative tax associated
Speaker 2: with it. And so the issue is if you have
Speaker 2: a ton of projects going on at once, each one
Speaker 2: of those is exacting its own administrative tax, and that
Speaker 2: can wind up adding up to a significant number of hours,
Speaker 2: Whereas if you limit the number of projects you take
Speaker 2: on at any one point, you have fewer hours devoted
Speaker 2: to the administrative tax, and the amount you're working is
Speaker 2: still the same. Like, if you're working on five projects
Speaker 2: and each has two hours of tax a week, that's
Speaker 2: ten hours of tax. If you're working on three at once,
Speaker 2: you still have those extra hours that you would have
Speaker 2: been devoting to the other two, but you only have
Speaker 2: six hours of administration. And so ideally you're getting through
Speaker 2: those three quicker, if at all possible, because you're devoting
Speaker 2: more time to it at the moment, and then when
Speaker 2: you're done with each one, you can add another project,
Speaker 2: but you're still limiting that total administrative tax time. So
Speaker 2: that's one way you can sort of make life feel sustainable.
Speaker 2: And then Sarah is a big fan of vacation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, this isn't in the realm of minimizing,
Speaker 3: but this is in the realm of sustainability. And this
Speaker 3: isn't necessarily going to apply to someone who is only entrepreneurial,
Speaker 3: as Laura will discuss, But if you work for anyone
Speaker 3: else and you are offered vacation time. You should take it,
Speaker 3: enjoy it, plant look forward to it. It is going
Speaker 3: to create some kind of long jam work wise, but
Speaker 3: for most people, if you don't take it, your odds
Speaker 3: of getting burned out and just kind of tired of
Speaker 3: what you're doing are so much higher. And it really
Speaker 3: is included as a benefit in many many jobs. I'm
Speaker 3: actually a not a huge fan of these new unlimited
Speaker 3: vacation situations because I feel like that's a mind game,
Speaker 3: and often people are then afraid to take it because
Speaker 3: if you have unlimited vacation, like what has really owed
Speaker 3: to you, But if you have like specific amounts of
Speaker 3: vacation that you can take, I hope everyone listened to
Speaker 3: This is like thinking about how to use that and
Speaker 3: use it well. Some of it for family, some of
Speaker 3: it for yourself, some of it for fun. You need
Speaker 3: some reflective rest.
Speaker 2: Time, absolutely, So that's about making life sustainable and minimizing
Speaker 2: the work that is not the highest profile things you
Speaker 2: are doing.
Speaker 1: We also want to make.
Speaker 2: It a habit to regularly pay into your career capital account.
Speaker 2: And obviously, when you think about a bank account, it's
Speaker 2: like money that is built up over time that you
Speaker 2: can draw upon if you need it right. So a
Speaker 2: lot of that is about the connections you have in life,
Speaker 2: so building genuine work relationships. So Sarah, what do you
Speaker 2: did the notes for that? So what do you mean
Speaker 2: by building genuine work relationships as part of career capital?
Speaker 3: Taking time to get to know your colleagues, maintaining relationships
Speaker 3: from older positions that you've had, connecting over non work
Speaker 3: topics as well as work topics. I'm not suggesting to
Speaker 3: be best friends with every single person in your office,
Speaker 3: but just making a point to getting to know people.
Speaker 3: If you noticed your front desk person was away for
Speaker 3: a week, asked them where they went, Asked them if
Speaker 3: they enjoyed it, Like, ask them if they went to Germany,
Speaker 3: Like what do they do there? Like actually getting to
Speaker 3: know the other humans you're working with just makes it
Speaker 3: so much more fun and at the same time, like
Speaker 3: sometimes it can lead to opportunities you might not expect.
Speaker 3: And one practice I've talked about before in this podcast
Speaker 3: is I really try to make Friday a social lunch day.
Speaker 3: It is challenging. I like struck out last week. I
Speaker 3: was like, actually, no, I was going to strike out,
Speaker 3: and then at the last the eleventh hour someone texting
Speaker 3: me and was like I can go, and I was like, perfect,
Speaker 3: I'll meet you, and then another person actually ended up coming.
Speaker 3: So it was great and it doesn't have to be long.
Speaker 3: I mean we probably met for like twenty five minutes
Speaker 3: because both of us had to run and see afternoon patients.
Speaker 3: But still we also then saw some other doctors in
Speaker 3: a different specialty and like talk to them. So like
Speaker 3: having that camaraderie is super helpful and can pay off
Speaker 3: in more ways than one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because a lot of opportunities do come through other people, right,
Speaker 2: And even in a huge corporation where you'd think like
Speaker 2: they're going to choose people who are best for a job,
Speaker 2: they're going to choose people to staff on this project
Speaker 2: that they knew who has expertise in it, Like, no,
Speaker 2: they do not. They are staffing the person that the
Speaker 2: project manager knows and has worked within the past. And
Speaker 2: if they're like, oh, shoot, now we need somebody who's
Speaker 2: an expert in this, what do they do? That person
Speaker 2: asks the people they've worked with on the past six projects, like, hey,
Speaker 2: who should we ask to do this?
Speaker 1: Who do they suggest?
Speaker 2: The person they know and have been hanging out with
Speaker 2: I mean, it is amazing how human it still is,
Speaker 2: even in very huge places. But with that in mind,
Speaker 2: you want to be the person that they are thinking about.
Speaker 2: If it's something high profile, something that you know would
Speaker 2: be building a skill set, So getting to know your colleagues,
Speaker 2: getting to know people who are external because obviously you
Speaker 2: may not work for that same place forever, and if
Speaker 2: you do decide at some point that you would like
Speaker 2: to go somewhere else, it is so much better to
Speaker 2: have a friend at XYZ Corporation who's like, hey, you
Speaker 2: should totally check out the resume from this person I
Speaker 2: know and whose work I respect. Like you will almost
Speaker 2: automatically at least get an interview if somebody out of
Speaker 2: company has forwarded a resume.
Speaker 1: That's just the way most companies work.
Speaker 2: So worth keeping in mind if you're ever going to
Speaker 2: be job hunting in your life.
Speaker 1: And I would also.
Speaker 2: Suggest proactively reaching out to people. One of our former guests,
Speaker 2: Molly Beck, wrote a book many years ago called reach Out,
Speaker 2: which is about her own method which every day she
Speaker 2: reaches out to someone, and you know, it doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be elaborate. It's maybe somebody that you knew in
Speaker 2: the past and want to reconnect with somebody you met recently,
Speaker 2: just a close colleague or friend that you've been thinking
Speaker 2: of and you know, wanted to share something with, or
Speaker 2: a total blind like I'm just going to reach out
Speaker 2: to this person in the universe because they did something
Speaker 2: and I want to. And I was the target of
Speaker 2: a Molly Beck reach out back in twenty thirteen, I believe,
Speaker 2: and we've kept in touch ever since. So I just
Speaker 2: suggest viewing the universe as a wonderful place of possibilities
Speaker 2: of people, and there's no reason not to reach out.
Speaker 2: You might not hear back from people. I'm sure she's
Speaker 2: sent many that have resulted in crickets, but she does
Speaker 2: enough of it that she's built a fantastic network by
Speaker 2: doing that.
Speaker 3: You also wrote go to stuff, go to stuff. Maybe
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, because okay, here is the thought here.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people, if they feel very
Speaker 2: busy in their personal lives, they become very focused on doing.
Speaker 1: The stuff of their job.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, I can't go to the happy hour
Speaker 2: because I have to see my kids after work. Well, okay,
Speaker 2: we may all want to see our kids after work,
Speaker 2: but you're probably already doing that five days a week,
Speaker 2: maybe once every two weeks. You don't go immediately home,
Speaker 2: you know, you do something else and you're still with
Speaker 2: your kids immediately after work nine out of ten days.
Speaker 2: But you are at least showing that you are willing
Speaker 2: to go to things and build sort of relationships outside
Speaker 2: of working hours. So, whether that is industry events, if
Speaker 2: there's a happy hour with a group of people you
Speaker 2: work with, if it is a speaker on a topic
Speaker 2: that is of relevance to your industry that's happening in
Speaker 2: your town, it might be worth going to. That might
Speaker 2: be worth going to a conference. Maybe you pick two
Speaker 2: or three a year that are worth putting the effort
Speaker 2: into traveling too. But just showing your face is going
Speaker 2: to go a long way. You don't have to do
Speaker 2: it every night. Nobody does it every night. Like this
Speaker 2: is often viewed as I can either or situation like
Speaker 2: either I go out with colleagues or I go home
Speaker 2: with and see my family, and I can't do both
Speaker 2: and I'd be a terrible parent if I didn't see
Speaker 2: my family, so ergo, I can't go out. And it's like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: only if you're viewing it one specific night, But people
Speaker 2: have listened to this podcast long enough no to think
Speaker 2: one hundred and sixty eight hours, not twenty four. So
Speaker 2: don't view the one night where thing is in conflict
Speaker 2: as the only time there is. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: other times where things aren't in conflict, So you can
Speaker 2: be the kind of person who does both agree. So
Speaker 2: on that note, we'll take another ad break and we'll
Speaker 2: be back with a little bit more on how to
Speaker 2: build career capital.
Speaker 1: Well, we are back talking about how to.
Speaker 2: Conquer the world in forty hours a week, and one
Speaker 2: way that we can continue to build our career capital
Speaker 2: is to become better at what we do. I mean,
Speaker 2: some of this is just happens over time. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm sure that Sarah, your initial sharing how to care
Speaker 2: for diabetes on like day one of you working as
Speaker 2: a physician was probably a little bit more awkward than
Speaker 2: now many years in, but you've also actively taken steps
Speaker 2: to improve at what you were doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think a lot
Speaker 3: of that comes from kind of learning by doing, but
Speaker 3: some of it may come from asking for feedback from
Speaker 3: whoever your audience is. Some of it comes from interacting
Speaker 3: with other professionals and asking how they do and kind
Speaker 3: of taking the best snippets of what you hear, like, Oh,
Speaker 3: that's a really good analogy. I'll try to use that.
Speaker 3: Some of it might be reading industry stuff. I learn
Speaker 3: a ton of conferences, both the academic stuff presented, but
Speaker 3: then just as much value from like, oh, how do
Speaker 3: you guys do this over there? As I just said, So, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think it's really important and it makes your job
Speaker 3: so much more fun. I find that when I don't
Speaker 3: do those things, I don't know, it just feels a
Speaker 3: little bit more stagnant. So I think the sustainability piece
Speaker 3: also links directly with the improvement piece, because finding ways
Speaker 3: in which to grow in our careers makes those careers
Speaker 3: more rewarding, keeps our brains active, and it's probably going
Speaker 3: to lead to more opportunities and success. So there's really
Speaker 3: no reason to decide that at some point that you're
Speaker 3: sort of done with improvement or learning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if you are feeling that maybe it's time
Speaker 2: to make a change in something else, I mean, unless
Speaker 2: you know there are reasons people don't like you're three
Speaker 2: years away from retirement in someplace with a great pension.
Speaker 1: I get it. I totally get it.
Speaker 2: But if that's not the case, you might wonder what
Speaker 2: there is in life that you might want to change
Speaker 2: in a way that you can keep learning and growing
Speaker 2: and don't just feel like you are punching in the clock.
Speaker 3: Lauren and I had a little well we kind of
Speaker 3: disagreed on one. Okay, Harvy out to this, which is
Speaker 3: that I wrote that I will say in the young
Speaker 3: baby years, like the pumping years, the kind of not
Speaker 3: getting sleep years, which isn't that much time in the
Speaker 3: grand scheme of things, even if you have five kids,
Speaker 3: that's like five years if you pumped a year with
Speaker 3: each of them out of a fairly long career. That
Speaker 3: is the one time I felt like stagnation was the
Speaker 3: only option. I mean, I don't mean that, and obviously
Speaker 3: there's still subtle things you can do, but for me,
Speaker 3: that was a time I felt like it was actually
Speaker 3: helpful to give myself permission to be like, get your
Speaker 3: notes done, see your patients, do what you need to
Speaker 3: take care of them, and like the extras can wait
Speaker 3: until you're not chained to this thing because you have
Speaker 3: to then also get home to feed the baby who
Speaker 3: wants you. Like it was a brief period of time.
Speaker 3: It wasn't that much fun. I don't think I lost
Speaker 3: that much. But if that happens to be you or
Speaker 3: Snary right now, I kind of give you permission to coast.
Speaker 3: But maybe Laura doesn't.
Speaker 2: Well I'll point out, I mean, maybe you were coasting
Speaker 2: in job number one. But we started this podcast when
Speaker 2: you were five months pregnant with Genevieve, and we built
Speaker 2: it for the first year while you were doing it
Speaker 2: around feeding her whatever. So I mean I would maybe
Speaker 2: argue with even your retelling of the history of events here.
Speaker 1: And I would also say that again.
Speaker 2: If you are in a limited hour situation because you
Speaker 2: are dealing with a nursing schedule or you know, very
Speaker 2: young baby or something like that, is maybe you want
Speaker 2: to spend more of your time of your limited time
Speaker 2: on the big payoff stuff versus all the basic stuff
Speaker 2: of your job. So maybe this is a great opportunity
Speaker 2: when you're coming back from eternity leave. Somebody else has
Speaker 2: been covering that boring staff meeting that you've been running
Speaker 2: since time memorial, Like, huh, maybe my deputy could keep
Speaker 2: doing that while I spend that hour.
Speaker 1: I would have been doing that reaching.
Speaker 2: Out to people outside my company and showing them the
Speaker 2: great work I've done on something you know that's not
Speaker 2: a trade secret, but I can my profile that way,
Speaker 2: So I would just you know, you might want to
Speaker 2: rebalance it that way.
Speaker 3: Awesome. I think depends maybe on your industry, your flexibility,
Speaker 3: and what the deliverables look like. But I'm glad to
Speaker 3: know I didn't seem like I was slacking on the podcast.
Speaker 1: No, exactly.
Speaker 2: And finally, the last part of this is being everyone's
Speaker 2: favorite person to work with. And you say, well, what
Speaker 2: does this have to do with building career capital? What
Speaker 2: does this have to do with raising your profile? And
Speaker 2: it's getting back to the idea of building those work relationships.
Speaker 2: But people want to work with people that it is
Speaker 2: pleasant to work with, Like this increases your influence in
Speaker 2: so many ways because people are like, if they have
Speaker 2: a choice, they want to do pleasant things. And if
Speaker 2: working with you is a pleasant experience, then the number
Speaker 2: of people who want to work with you rises, and
Speaker 2: as such, your ability to command what you wish within
Speaker 2: the market of your corporation, within the free market as
Speaker 2: a consultant rises the more demand there is for you.
Speaker 2: So how do you become everyone's favorite person to work with. Well,
Speaker 2: partly it's about making sure that everything you touch has
Speaker 2: done extremely well and efficiently. I mean Sarah's talked about
Speaker 2: this with some of her medical processes, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, like become you know, emptying your inbox, like making
Speaker 3: sure not to let loose ends go undone. But also
Speaker 3: on the process side of things, if you see something
Speaker 3: that is happening again and again that feels sort of
Speaker 3: like it's not running smoothly, like it sort of gums
Speaker 3: up the works every time, then this is something to
Speaker 3: like almost like get into that sort of lean methodology
Speaker 3: six sigma, Like what can we do to make this
Speaker 3: just like smooth sailing? Like work as a team, figure
Speaker 3: out a process, because when you solve those kinds of problems,
Speaker 3: people notice and it makes your life a million times easier.
Speaker 3: I feel like, you know, we're talking about diabetes a
Speaker 3: lot today, but like that is something I won't take
Speaker 3: cared of For this. It wasn't really me, but our
Speaker 3: group and certain people in our group have taken great
Speaker 3: pains to make so smooth because we have new diagnoses
Speaker 3: multiple times a week, and if every single time that
Speaker 3: was like, oh, what do we do with this? It
Speaker 3: would be a nightmare, and instead I feel like it's
Speaker 3: just like we everyone it's a choreographed like beautiful dance.
Speaker 3: I don't know, like people know what their role is,
Speaker 3: we know what to do, we have a process. But
Speaker 3: it amazes me that I've been in places or situations
Speaker 3: where it seems like, Okay, surely this has to come
Speaker 3: up in time and time. Again, I don't have a
Speaker 3: great example on the tip of my tongue, but like,
Speaker 3: surely I'm not the first person who have asked for
Speaker 3: XYZ and it seems like it was. So find those
Speaker 3: things in your work and deal with them.
Speaker 1: And then be unfailingly reliable.
Speaker 2: Like if you say you were going to do something,
Speaker 2: do it by the time you said you would do
Speaker 2: it in the format that you said it would be done. Now,
Speaker 2: of course we all understand that there are things that
Speaker 2: come up that you can't but if that is going
Speaker 2: to happen, letting people know that as soon as possible
Speaker 2: and coming up with a way that you can help
Speaker 2: solve that problem for whoever it is going to inconvenience
Speaker 2: goes a long way toward making you still be reliable
Speaker 2: even if the original deliverable wasn't doable, and then part
Speaker 2: of that is only taking on what you can do.
Speaker 2: But that's an entirely different topic.
Speaker 3: And the hope this goes off we're full circle now
Speaker 3: because this all goes back to planning, because that planning
Speaker 3: session where you figure things out, you know what you
Speaker 3: have on your plate, is going to be the way
Speaker 3: in which you're able to accomplish this reliability.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Well, we'll pivot now to our Q and A here.
Speaker 2: So this is from a person who works as a
Speaker 2: pharmacist and she is potentially adding a different business to
Speaker 2: her what she's doing. She's particularly opening something new and
Speaker 2: she also wants to get some new certifications. But because
Speaker 2: she's going to be doing something new, she doesn't necessarily
Speaker 2: want all her colleagues to know about it. Now, there
Speaker 2: is downtime at the pharmacy. There turns out to be
Speaker 2: times when people are not lined up to get their
Speaker 2: expertise on things, and so she would like to use
Speaker 2: that time for advancing her career. However, sometimes her colleagues,
Speaker 2: when there's not a lot going on, will just come
Speaker 2: over and talk, hang out, shoot the breeze, whatever people
Speaker 2: do when they're bored at work. So she's saying, how
Speaker 2: can I politely get people to stop doing that without
Speaker 2: calling attention to the fact that I am kind of
Speaker 2: setting myself up to do something big and new during
Speaker 2: this downtime.
Speaker 1: So, Sarah, what do you think this can be challenging?
Speaker 3: I mean, my answer wouldn't be to cut off that
Speaker 3: person or people entirely, because you want to build those relationships.
Speaker 3: And I think if you become the one that always
Speaker 3: is like cold shoulder, but I think you could kind
Speaker 3: of like a balance, or maybe you make light of
Speaker 3: it and be like, Okay, I love that gossip time,
Speaker 3: but like, I really have to get XYZ done. You
Speaker 3: can be vague about it. I also think headphones could
Speaker 3: be really strategically employed here because if it looks like
Speaker 3: you're listening to something could be like a meeting, a podcast, whatever,
Speaker 3: then people might take the hint. It doesn't have to
Speaker 3: mean you have anything going on the headphones, but maybe
Speaker 3: some white noise would be helpful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think she could legitimately say, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I'd like to spend a little time studying tonight, so
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna be over here doing that. If you
Speaker 2: guys need me, And I mean, if they ask you
Speaker 2: what you're studying for again, pharmacy, like there's new stuff
Speaker 2: coming out all the time, or you could be studying
Speaker 2: for an advanced certification, where like nobody really would need
Speaker 2: to question that, like why on earth do you need that.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, because I'm a pharmacist, and you know
Speaker 2: I need to be on top of my field to
Speaker 2: better serve the people we work with. So I mean,
Speaker 2: that's that's a pretty obvious thing. So I don't think
Speaker 2: you need to be too specific about it. I mean,
Speaker 2: especially if you're studying electronically, like I would be if
Speaker 2: there's a textbook that's related to something that has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with what you guys currently do.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that's the case.
Speaker 2: I think you're probably on an iPad and so nobody
Speaker 2: knows what you're doing. One way you can sort of
Speaker 2: proactively deal with the fact that people do want to
Speaker 2: chat is if you're seeing things are winding down, like
Speaker 2: go check in with anyone you know, say like, hey,
Speaker 2: how's it going, and just want to chat what's up?
Speaker 2: Like budget yourself, Like five to ten minutes for each
Speaker 2: person that would normally want to talk with you get
Speaker 2: that little short conversation over with it, then go do
Speaker 2: your thing. Be like oh that's great, Yeah, okay, I'm
Speaker 2: still going to go study now. You know, if you
Speaker 2: guys need me, let me know. And that way, people
Speaker 2: feel like you asked about their weekend on Monday, you
Speaker 2: asked on Thursday and Friday what they're going to do
Speaker 2: on the weekend, Like you had that little small talk conversation,
Speaker 2: but you're still getting time for your thing.
Speaker 3: Love it well, love of the week. On this career episode,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go on brand on theme here. I
Speaker 3: love paid time off. I love it. I love having
Speaker 3: a specific amount of it. I mean, I guess I
Speaker 3: wouldn't love that if it was like three days a year,
Speaker 3: that I'd be very resentful. Then I have a reasonable
Speaker 3: amount of it. I like allocating it, I like thinking
Speaker 3: about it, and I like that it kind of comes
Speaker 3: as a benefit of my job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I have never had PTO.
Speaker 2: I was thinking back of, like, have I had any
Speaker 2: job where I was like accruing paid time off? I
Speaker 2: don't believe I was, because you know, I did my
Speaker 2: like service jobs in high school and college.
Speaker 1: I was a part time worker.
Speaker 2: So you usually aren't necessarily fully accruing time with that,
Speaker 2: and you know, then I did an internship where I
Speaker 2: wasn't I was paid, but I wasn't like getting paid
Speaker 2: time off or anything. It's not like part of the
Speaker 2: job with that. And then I went and worked for
Speaker 2: myself and well, Vandercam Inc. Is a wonderful place to
Speaker 2: work in many ways, or paid time off policies somewhat
Speaker 2: to stingy. So yeah, no, I've never had that. But
Speaker 2: obviously I take tons of vacation. I'm generally just doing
Speaker 2: things like checking in on email for thirty minutes in
Speaker 2: the morning two or three times when I'm off, and
Speaker 2: then I can take however much time I want, as
Speaker 2: long as I meet my deliverable.
Speaker 1: So that is an.
Speaker 2: Upside, sometimes a downside, but mostly an upside of self employment.
Speaker 2: So I guess I would say my love of the week,
Speaker 2: since it can't be PTO, is having been in the
Speaker 2: same business for a long long time. So recently, for
Speaker 2: various reasons, I've been meeting with a lot of people
Speaker 2: in the publishing world at lots of different houses, and
Speaker 2: the upside is I know somebody at every single one
Speaker 2: of them. You know, I'm having meetings with teams. It's
Speaker 2: always I know somebody from somewhere in it that you know,
Speaker 2: they worked at somewhere I published with in the past,
Speaker 2: or they were at a magazine that I was familiar with,
Speaker 2: or I interviewed them as an expert or on something.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's just there's always someone and that was kind of
Speaker 2: fun to see. So an upside of having you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think of myself as a great networker, but
Speaker 2: just from the sheer fact of being in something for decades,
Speaker 2: you meet people, and sometimes the people who you met
Speaker 2: who are so awesome, like early in your career, wind
Speaker 2: up in places of influence and power, and that's really
Speaker 2: really cool to see. So this has been best of
Speaker 2: both worlds. We've been talking about how to conquer the
Speaker 2: world in forty hours a week, make space for career building,
Speaker 2: career capital building work even if you don't want to
Speaker 2: work around the clock, because guess what, nobody really works
Speaker 2: around the clock. We will be back next week with
Speaker 2: more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 3: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
Speaker 3: and you.
Speaker 2: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: This has been the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 2: Please join us next time for more on making work
Speaker 2: and life work together.