Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 2: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 2: episode is going to be a longer one part of
Speaker 2: the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
Speaker 2: take their days from great to awesome and any advice
Speaker 2: they have for the rest of us. So today I
Speaker 2: am delighted to welcome Lauren Smith Brodie to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 2: Lauren is the founder of the Fifth Trimester movement, also
Speaker 2: the author of a book by that name. It's all
Speaker 2: about helping parents navigate the transition back to work.
Speaker 1: She's also had a.
Speaker 2: Long career in the women's magazine world as well. Lauren,
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Laura, so nice to be with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, why don't you tell our listeners a little
Speaker 1: bit about yourself?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 4: So, I am definitely a multi hyphen it as you said,
Speaker 4: I came out of media, originally wrote a book looking
Speaker 4: at the experiences of returning to paid work after maternity
Speaker 4: leave for more than seven hundred moms that's called the
Speaker 4: Fifth Trimester.
Speaker 3: And then I turn that into a business, so I
Speaker 3: help companies do a better job of supporting and retaining
Speaker 3: those new moms, but also all moms, all dads, anybody
Speaker 3: doing elder care, really, anyone across the five generations of
Speaker 3: caregivers who are currently in the workforce and helping them,
Speaker 3: also doing research to understand the economic value of supporting
Speaker 3: those workers.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and you have a family yourself as well.
Speaker 3: I do, indeed, Yes, In fact, I have one who
Speaker 3: just walked in the door coming home early from school
Speaker 3: with neurovirus.
Speaker 1: Oh that's the worst friend.
Speaker 3: Work, travel this week, and big family vacation at the
Speaker 3: end of the week, and just cross your fingers for me. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I have teenagers. So I have a fourteen year old
Speaker 3: and a seventeen year old. They're in eighth grade and
Speaker 3: eleventh grade, and we live in New York City. Also
Speaker 3: have a husband, and I have an extremely needy rescue
Speaker 3: dog who is lying on my bed looking at me
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, between that and the Nora virus, who knows
Speaker 2: what's going to happen in the next twenty f I've
Speaker 2: met us.
Speaker 3: She's got like a stomach issue, the dog like it's
Speaker 3: you know, we're just all about the gas intestinal We're
Speaker 3: going to.
Speaker 1: Buckle up for that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, tell us a little bit about you know,
Speaker 2: the fifth trimester and what you've found. Yeah, that like,
Speaker 2: as people, what do people who do well with the
Speaker 2: transition back to work. We'll start with people themselves and
Speaker 2: then we'll move to organizations. But when people make that
Speaker 2: transition back and do it successfully, what do they tend
Speaker 2: to do differently?
Speaker 3: I really actually I love the way that you ask
Speaker 3: that question because what I've realized now, so it's almost
Speaker 3: ten years since I did that original research looking at
Speaker 3: people's return to paid work after leave, and the research
Speaker 3: I've done since then is on sort of early and
Speaker 3: mid year parenting and the support that you may have
Speaker 3: at work or not have for that kind of caregiving identity.
Speaker 3: And then I also did a white paper more recently
Speaker 3: with a menopause care company called Midi Health looking at
Speaker 3: what happens when workers have support for menopause at work,
Speaker 3: and all of those things I realized as I was
Speaker 3: trying to connect the dots are really about the subset
Speaker 3: of people who have made it work, who had the
Speaker 3: support to made it work, to make it work. There
Speaker 3: are obviously incredibly important and accurate headlines about attrition of
Speaker 3: women in the workforce, very negative headlines about the impact
Speaker 3: of all of these sort of life transitions and caregiving
Speaker 3: on women's hopes and ambitions and careers. I like to
Speaker 3: look at what's possible. So with the fifth trimester, before
Speaker 3: I knew that's what I was doing, I was looking
Speaker 3: at specifically these women who had come back and maintained
Speaker 3: their careers. And we know that about thirty percent thirty
Speaker 3: to forty percent depending on which study you're looking at,
Speaker 3: of new moms leave their jobs within about a year
Speaker 3: of having that baby. And these were the ones who stayed,
Speaker 3: or at least who stayed in their careers. And what
Speaker 3: did they do to reframe and redefine ambition and success
Speaker 3: in those moments to hopefully get out of some of
Speaker 3: the things they were over delivering on in their job
Speaker 3: previously so that they could then make room to keep
Speaker 3: growing or just to tread water. Treading water needed to
Speaker 3: be okay for a lot of people, to a lot
Speaker 3: of them were really deliberate about asking for the help
Speaker 3: they needed and for those who weren't able to a
Speaker 3: lot of what I researched and looked into was how
Speaker 3: do you convince people to be okay asking for the
Speaker 3: help and support you need? And often that comes down
Speaker 3: to understanding the business case for retaining them. So it
Speaker 3: feels like obviously the moral and ethical case should be enough,
Speaker 3: but very often in order to go into some of
Speaker 3: those negotiations as new parents asking for things for the
Speaker 3: first time, it's really helpful just to understand the numbers
Speaker 3: behind the economy of supporting parents. And so that's what
Speaker 3: I've done with a lot of my work since then.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So basically that people who do it well are
Speaker 2: okay with asking for what they need.
Speaker 1: Is that what I'm understanding you to say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I guess it really boils down to something
Speaker 3: that simple. It's also it's really it's being open to
Speaker 3: sort of a new normal. It's understanding that although you
Speaker 3: may be quite good at the job that you do,
Speaker 3: you are a brand new at being a working parent,
Speaker 3: and so you're going to need some grace in transition,
Speaker 3: and really understanding that there is in fact a whole
Speaker 3: additional fifth trimester. So in America, most parents are going
Speaker 3: back to work usually at between like eight and twelve
Speaker 3: weeks postpartum. There's no federally protected paid parental leave, and
Speaker 3: so those who can are able to take and have
Speaker 3: access to it are able to take twelve weeks of
Speaker 3: unpaid FMLA, but looking at the research when you actually
Speaker 3: understand where that came from, twelve weeks is totally arbitrary,
Speaker 3: and what it takes to actually get new moms in
Speaker 3: particular over the hurdle is you really want to have
Speaker 3: six months of paid leave, which feels like pine the
Speaker 3: sky for most workers in America. So what can you
Speaker 3: do as a worker to bridge that gap? First of all,
Speaker 3: not being so hard on yourself, understanding that if it
Speaker 3: feels hard at eight weeks or twelve weeks, that that's
Speaker 3: not because of anything you're doing wrong. It's just this
Speaker 3: idea that we have normalized something that is abnormal compared
Speaker 3: to the rest of the world. It was actually FMLA,
Speaker 3: federally protected unpaid leave, was passed into law by Bill
Speaker 3: Clinton in nineteen ninety three. I want to say, who
Speaker 3: I might get there wrong? I think it's ninety three,
Speaker 3: and it had been proposed for nine years prior to that.
Speaker 3: And when it was originally proposed, it was supposed to
Speaker 3: be six paid months, which I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people don't realize. But even back then, we knew that
Speaker 3: six months was most protective of mom's physical health, mom's
Speaker 3: mental health, baby's physical health, datter partner's bond with the baby,
Speaker 3: mom's ability to maintain her income, and her status at work,
Speaker 3: all those things, and yet we ended up with the
Speaker 3: sort of band aid placeholder that was supposed to be
Speaker 3: improved upon that so far has not been except in
Speaker 3: several states where it has been, except by private companies
Speaker 3: where it has been. But then you have to have
Speaker 3: a job at one of those companies. So anyway, there's
Speaker 3: this whole I think that this is where the root
Speaker 3: of mom guilt comes from, working mom guilt, in particular
Speaker 3: that you know, if you go back and it feels hard,
Speaker 3: there must be something wrong with you. No, not at all.
Speaker 3: So instead the real advice is to link arms with
Speaker 3: others who have similar needs and to call out and
Speaker 3: see the business case behind calling out the needs you have,
Speaker 3: because if you help your employer help you, you're ultimately
Speaker 3: creating a better culture and a more profitable company. So
Speaker 3: it's really that reframe and then how you apply that,
Speaker 3: like you can apply that in you know, like the
Speaker 3: ways that you ask for flexibility in your day. And
Speaker 3: I have sort of whole negotiation tactics around that in
Speaker 3: how you how you organize your mornings, how you organize
Speaker 3: your childcare, how you sort of orient your feelings about
Speaker 3: that childcare, like how you make child care decisions in
Speaker 3: a way that ultimately helps you feel good, which then
Speaker 3: comes back to your child. Anyway, all the research had
Speaker 3: been sort of previously focused very much on what's good
Speaker 3: for baby. I like to look at what's good for mom,
Speaker 3: because when you look at what's good for mom, ultimately
Speaker 3: that's good for baby too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's let's talk about that negotiation.
Speaker 2: Let's say that you would like a slightly more flexible
Speaker 2: schedule when you when you come back.
Speaker 1: What are how how would you propose doing that?
Speaker 3: So the first step is a pre step, which is
Speaker 3: really it's convincing yourself. And this is what I spend
Speaker 3: if I like get on a screen or stand on
Speaker 3: a stage and talk to an audience, you know, for
Speaker 3: an hour. So much of what I'm doing and sharing
Speaker 3: all of these data points and research and the numbers
Speaker 3: is to help fill up your pockets, right, Like pretend
Speaker 3: you have on cargo pants, Like fill up your pockets
Speaker 3: with everything you need so that you feel like I
Speaker 3: have I can go into these these negotiations, feeling really
Speaker 3: really sturdy in what I'm asking for, knowing that it's
Speaker 3: not just for me, you know, as a as a
Speaker 3: needy person myself, for my little family, but it's something
Speaker 3: that is ultimately better for my employer. It makes me
Speaker 3: you know that you can look at kind of how
Speaker 3: your employer compares to other employers in the area or
Speaker 3: other employers in your field, and look at you can
Speaker 3: either make the case that they need to be doing
Speaker 3: more because others are doing more so to keep up,
Speaker 3: or you can make the case that actually, like they're
Speaker 3: doing the most and they need to maintain that in
Speaker 3: order to maintain their sort of their lead of retaining
Speaker 3: retaining new moms. So convince yourself and then you want
Speaker 3: to have a really firm sense. This is so basic,
Speaker 3: but you just want to know what your job description
Speaker 3: is you and not believe how many people don't actually
Speaker 3: like can't stop and think, like, what is what are
Speaker 3: the five things that are on my job description? And
Speaker 3: I guarantee you you're doing twenty five hundred things because
Speaker 3: so many of us like outgrow what we're doing and
Speaker 3: we're really comfortable with the old stuff and we add
Speaker 3: the new things and we get promoted and we take
Speaker 3: the new stuff on and we don't ever get rid
Speaker 3: of the old. And that's how you find the time
Speaker 3: that you ultimately are going to need to be able
Speaker 3: to have the white space in your day to keep growing,
Speaker 3: to keep feeling like you can breathe, to have time
Speaker 3: for networking and connecting and business development and all the
Speaker 3: things that sort of keep your career moving on that
Speaker 3: upward track. So research outside, then research inside the company
Speaker 3: what policies are already available that you may not be using.
Speaker 3: Then go in with a sense of what your job
Speaker 3: description is and propose a plan, but also have a
Speaker 3: plan being a plan see that fulfill that job description.
Speaker 3: Then you can also propose, this is sort of the
Speaker 3: last step to try it, just propose a trial period
Speaker 3: because particularly if you're a new mom, but really in
Speaker 3: kind of many stages of caregiving, your needs are going
Speaker 3: to change within a month, within two months, and so
Speaker 3: you want to have this sort of a continuum of conversations,
Speaker 3: not just a one and done. And this way you
Speaker 3: end up actually sort of showing the service you're providing,
Speaker 3: like they're giving you something you need, but you are
Speaker 3: you're the test case you're helping them see what works
Speaker 3: what doesn't work, and communicating in a sort of naturally
Speaker 3: open fashion that just buys people's trust.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we're going to take a quick ad
Speaker 2: break and then I'll be back with more from Laurence
Speaker 2: Smith Brody. Well, I am back talking with Laurence Smith
Speaker 2: Brody of the fifth trimester and talking about how people
Speaker 2: can successfully transition back.
Speaker 1: To work after paid leave.
Speaker 2: You mentioned something interesting there of sort of looking at
Speaker 2: exactly what your job description is and getting sort of
Speaker 2: back to the core of your job description as a
Speaker 2: way to free up white space in your day, and
Speaker 2: not just white space for emergencies, but white space for
Speaker 2: growing and trying new things.
Speaker 1: Wonder if you could elaborate on that a little bit
Speaker 1: and why that's important.
Speaker 3: This is like, I have a feeling you relate to this.
Speaker 3: But so often we write about the things that we
Speaker 3: need ourselves, and I think it was like how many
Speaker 3: days in a row that I took a shower and
Speaker 3: then immediately ran out of the shower and dripping wet,
Speaker 3: wrote down the idea that I'd had, like the to
Speaker 3: do list thing that hadn't made it onto my list,
Speaker 3: and I realized if you are doing all of your
Speaker 3: like good thinking in the shower, like you need to
Speaker 3: have some space on your calendar for shower time. That's
Speaker 3: actually just like you at your desk or computer or
Speaker 3: couch or wherever you do your work. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: you need to be able to build that time in.
Speaker 3: It also communicates, sort of counterintuitively, when you aren't the
Speaker 3: person answering the emails late late at night, if you
Speaker 3: can schedule send for the next day, it communicates the
Speaker 3: sense of power and control that you have over your
Speaker 3: life and schedule that then you sort of boom brains
Speaker 3: back to you. You feel it, but you also project it,
Speaker 3: and people only treat you as well as you treat yourself.
Speaker 3: So if you can save some of that space, not
Speaker 3: only do you have the space, but you look like
Speaker 3: someone who like has their crap together enough to be
Speaker 3: able to have time to make a connection. That's lovely
Speaker 3: to be able to, you know, make time to go
Speaker 3: have a coffee or to post something on LinkedIn. How
Speaker 3: many times do we see somebody post something on LinkedIn
Speaker 3: and you think, oh my gosh, how did it? I
Speaker 3: never like, it's the thing I just did. The last
Speaker 3: thing on my list. Well, they must have to do
Speaker 3: something right if it's something that made it on jitter
Speaker 3: list and they actually did it that day, So be
Speaker 3: that person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, try to avoid the hot mess vision of the life,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: And I say this as.
Speaker 3: A person who's like made a second career out of
Speaker 3: vulnerability and like being a little bit of a mess
Speaker 3: and comfortable with that because we can't fix things. We
Speaker 3: can't fix challenges we can't see, and so like, yes,
Speaker 3: have a spit up on your sweater and tell people
Speaker 3: that's what it is. Or you know, if you're exhausted
Speaker 3: and stumbling over your words, go ahead and say I
Speaker 3: didn't sleep last night, Because what that says is not
Speaker 3: I'm weak and I didn't sleep last night, But like
Speaker 3: I have a whole life beyond here, and I still
Speaker 3: showed up. I'm still here because this is still important too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I heard somebody recently having a discussion about
Speaker 2: one of the ways you can kind of stay in
Speaker 2: is to.
Speaker 1: Consider being a good employee for a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great you know, top of the pile,
Speaker 2: but like if you've been an A plus worker for
Speaker 2: a while, it might be an a minus kind of
Speaker 2: person for for a year or two as you're hanging
Speaker 2: in there and knowing that it is, by the way,
Speaker 2: is still an A, which is still an A and
Speaker 2: is you know, from the retention perspective, probably better your
Speaker 2: A minus is it's going to take a new hire
Speaker 2: a long time to get up to that A minus, yes,
Speaker 2: but kind of convincing yourself to be okay with that
Speaker 2: for for a little.
Speaker 3: While, Yeah, I think that all. There's another aspect to that,
Speaker 3: which is also that you know, it's a little bit
Speaker 3: like if you heard the concept of the good enough mother.
Speaker 3: This is like I think it's from the seventies maybe,
Speaker 3: but it's It was a sociologist named with correct me
Speaker 3: from Witcott Witcomb who looked at as you researched that
Speaker 3: if you're too good of a mom, it's actually not
Speaker 3: great for your kids. You want to be like you
Speaker 3: want to be like a B plus a minus because
Speaker 3: it teaches them independence, It teaches them how to do
Speaker 3: things for themselves and how to advocate, and that life
Speaker 3: is not perfect, and it's actually ultimately builds a sturdy
Speaker 3: or stronger kid. So I think about that a lot,
Speaker 3: and I think about it in the context of the
Speaker 3: paid work that we do too, because yeah, like we
Speaker 3: are sort of many of us, particularly you know, once
Speaker 3: by the time you've like climbed the ladder enough to
Speaker 3: get to where you want to achieve, it's like we're
Speaker 3: so programmed to over deliver, we're programmed to want to succeed,
Speaker 3: and you have to realize that actually part of your
Speaker 3: job is to manage, and managing means letting go of
Speaker 3: some things and letting other people learn how to do
Speaker 3: them or teaching them how to do them. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just delegating. But actually, in the context of feeling
Speaker 3: like you're delegating because you now have a family to
Speaker 3: take care of, feels like your giving up. But the
Speaker 3: truth is, even if you didn't have the kid, you
Speaker 3: would be in that inflection point anyway where you have
Speaker 3: to learn to start me and teaching other people to
Speaker 3: do things, and so freeing up that time for yourself
Speaker 3: ultimately is a power move.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: And there's also something I've heard and people try, which
Speaker 2: is that I know a lot of a plus employee
Speaker 2: people as well have a tendency to want to ask
Speaker 2: permission for everything, like to get my flexible program in
Speaker 2: formal writing or that I'm officially doing an eighty percent
Speaker 2: schedule as opposed to just like leaving twenty.
Speaker 3: Percent and getting your job done.
Speaker 1: And getting your job done, I'm curious what you think
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think that's that can be such
Speaker 3: a good point because from an HR perspective, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of the people I work with are in
Speaker 3: talent in HR. As soon as you have a policy,
Speaker 3: you have to make people comply to the policy, as
Speaker 3: opposed to if you just have people who find a
Speaker 3: way of being grown ups and getting their job done
Speaker 3: in a different time frame, different style, different location, that
Speaker 3: can be okay. Where it gets tricky is that, you know,
Speaker 3: we find that people are more able to be flexible
Speaker 3: with themselves if they you know, if they're privileged in
Speaker 3: some way. So you want to make sure that you
Speaker 3: know you aren't, that you're not imbalanced, and who you
Speaker 3: let do what you know. Essentially, that's why you want
Speaker 3: to come back to the job description. You just want
Speaker 3: to make sure that people are doing the jobs they're
Speaker 3: hired to do. And if that's done, I mean, and
Speaker 3: part of your job might be showing up for the
Speaker 3: team meeting and mentoring and being around physically that could
Speaker 3: be part of your job. But yeah, it's it's sometimes
Speaker 3: the policies actually are more detrimental than not, which is
Speaker 3: which is surprising.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's that's kind of life.
Speaker 2: But we're going to take one more quick ad break
Speaker 2: and then I'll be back with more from Laurence Smith Brodie. Well,
Speaker 2: I am back talking with Laurence Smith Brodie of the
Speaker 2: fifth trimester. So, Lauren, I'd like to pivot to you here, Yeah,
Speaker 2: talk about how you work. Let's let's talk about your schedule.
Speaker 2: Do you have any routines that you think make you
Speaker 2: more productive? In particular more routine.
Speaker 3: I do, So I think I have learned to work
Speaker 3: with my brain, which is very much a brain that
Speaker 3: is on from about ready three pm to eleven pm.
Speaker 3: It's so bad for a parent because like that's when
Speaker 3: my kids walk in the door and when I want
Speaker 3: to be with them. So what I've learned to do
Speaker 3: is to do sort of the low hanging fruit stuff first.
Speaker 3: Actually to not be a eat the frog for breakfast person,
Speaker 3: but I recommend that for others who neworks form. But
Speaker 3: I will get up, get my kids out the door,
Speaker 3: walk the dog, come back in. Still while I'm in
Speaker 3: either my pajamas or my workout clothes. I will do
Speaker 3: like the three emails that if I don't do them
Speaker 3: that day will just haunt me the whole day and
Speaker 3: sit over my head and be the thing I avoid.
Speaker 3: So get those done quickly. They're not usually hard. They're
Speaker 3: just like the thing that needs to get out in
Speaker 3: order to move somebody else to the next step on something.
Speaker 3: Then I will try to exercise. Oh no, wait, wait,
Speaker 3: before that, I have a group chat with my mom,
Speaker 3: my sister and my dad. I'm sure you hear this
Speaker 3: a lot, and we do. We do wordle, and we
Speaker 3: do connections, and I am like, the best thing that
Speaker 3: I am at my entire life is connection. So I
Speaker 3: feel like an immediate sense of like pride all day long,
Speaker 3: no matter how the rest of it goes. Then I
Speaker 3: do a little workout, and when I say little, I
Speaker 3: mean super little. I do like a peloton fifteen minute
Speaker 3: or twenty minute like weightlifting thing, and I feel really good.
Speaker 3: And then then I start my meetings. So sometimes I
Speaker 3: will have clients and who I'll meet with as early
Speaker 3: as you know, eight or nine. AM happy to do that.
Speaker 3: But a great day is when where I start like
Speaker 3: actual on screen meetings or on phone meetings. At ten,
Speaker 3: I usually eat a late lunch. Ah wait, there was
Speaker 3: eating in there too. I have the same I make
Speaker 3: myself the same smoothie every day again like a little bit,
Speaker 3: because like if I get vitamins and protein at breakfast,
Speaker 3: like then I kind of the rest of the day
Speaker 3: is fine, and I try to do something social in
Speaker 3: the day, whether it's just a quick phone call with
Speaker 3: a friend or or actually like turning a meeting into
Speaker 3: a walking meeting with with somebody who's I have a
Speaker 3: lot of colleague friends. I'm very, very lucky to be
Speaker 3: at a stage of life where like, first of all,
Speaker 3: I work for myself and work from home. Secondly, like
Speaker 3: so many people I work with I can that are friends,
Speaker 3: and so many friends I've found ways to work with,
Speaker 3: so I try to take advantage there and double dip
Speaker 3: on that. There's always a load of laundry going. I
Speaker 3: have a feeling it's the same at your house. And
Speaker 3: then I really like to cook dinner every night. I
Speaker 3: love the sort of book ending of my day and
Speaker 3: the cooking part. Sometimes there's some work that happens afterwards,
Speaker 3: but my kids come home and generally are doing their
Speaker 3: homework while I'm wrapping up my meetings. I usually do
Speaker 3: meetings until about six six thirty, sometimes seven, and then
Speaker 3: we have a late dinner. My husband has a commune,
Speaker 3: gets home around seven thirty or eight, and we sit
Speaker 3: together every night like they're at an age now where
Speaker 3: like anybody who doesn't have that in their life yet,
Speaker 3: like you may get there one day and it's awesome.
Speaker 3: So I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, when do you do that thinking the shower,
Speaker 2: thinking that you said you were trying to push out
Speaker 2: of the shower into other points of your life.
Speaker 1: When does that seem to happen?
Speaker 3: That's a good call out. So often that will happen
Speaker 3: on whatever the social thing is. You know, I have
Speaker 3: really really like sort of purposefully blurred the lines, and
Speaker 3: so so I don't have friend conversations that don't also
Speaker 3: include some of what I'm working on. And also I
Speaker 3: forgot to say this, but a big part of what
Speaker 3: I work on is my public policy work through a
Speaker 3: nonprofit that I co founded called the Chamber of Mothers.
Speaker 3: So all of that is like donated time, but it's
Speaker 3: with colleagues, but they're also very much friends and so
Speaker 3: there will be a lot of sharing of ideas and
Speaker 3: just helping each other that happens then and so often
Speaker 3: that will spark something that will either inspire me to
Speaker 3: then like go put time on my calendar the next
Speaker 3: day to follow through on something, or it will just
Speaker 3: like it will happen in the meeting. It happened this morning.
Speaker 3: We had an idea in a meeting that we just
Speaker 3: ran with and now each of us sort of has
Speaker 3: our own creative role that we're taking on it. And
Speaker 3: that feels like that white space to.
Speaker 1: Me, excellent.
Speaker 2: Well, there are a couple of great ideas in there
Speaker 2: that I just wanted to call out, like one having.
Speaker 1: This family group chat. Doing a game.
Speaker 2: Together can be a fun way to start the day
Speaker 2: and stay connected with people, but while doing something so
Speaker 2: it's not just are what are you up to?
Speaker 1: I don't know what are you up to?
Speaker 2: And then working with friends that I know. Some people
Speaker 2: do like to have separation between work and life, but
Speaker 2: there's some wonderful upsides when you can arrange for it
Speaker 2: to have a person who you would voluntarily spend time with.
Speaker 2: It be someone that you are spending time.
Speaker 1: With while on the clock.
Speaker 2: Exactly, Yes, so Laura, I ask all my guests, what
Speaker 2: is something you've given us already?
Speaker 3: Some?
Speaker 2: But what are some What is something you've done recently
Speaker 2: to take a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 3: Actually? Have I have a really good example for this?
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe not. I have a feeling you have a
Speaker 3: lot of people who answer that question with Laura. I
Speaker 3: took a walk, but like like I took the best
Speaker 3: walk of my freaking life.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's like a nap. There are some good naps
Speaker 1: or some great naps.
Speaker 3: Walk.
Speaker 1: There's some good walks about you know, amazing.
Speaker 3: There's okay, there's some contacts that makes it make more sense.
Speaker 3: So I head this is last week. My dad is
Speaker 3: very ill and lives far My parents live far away
Speaker 3: that I'm in New York there in Atlanta, so a
Speaker 3: plane right away. But I've been trying to get home
Speaker 3: every at least once a month for a couple of nights,
Speaker 3: and I've had some I was on Capitol Hill the
Speaker 3: week before that for my nonprofit. I have work travel
Speaker 3: tomorrow for a fifth trimester. So I'm just I have
Speaker 3: like seven weeks in a row of travel and I
Speaker 3: don't want to give anything up of all the other
Speaker 3: things I'm doing because I need the income from my
Speaker 3: paid work, and my children are teenagers, and I'm having
Speaker 3: this feeling of this like window is closing, like they
Speaker 3: actually sometimes want to spend time with me, and I'm like, yes,
Speaker 3: I'll drop everything to spend time. So all of that
Speaker 3: is context to say Sunday night, Monday night, I was
Speaker 3: in Atlanta caring for my dad, extremely heavy but really
Speaker 3: really fulfilling conversations, like lots of I left the trip
Speaker 3: with a draft of his obituary that he wants me
Speaker 3: to work on with his best friend. So then that
Speaker 3: meeting was scheduled like really heavy but important and so
Speaker 3: simultaneously kind of I feel bad calling it heavy, like
Speaker 3: like very very meaningful things. Get home to LaGuardia at
Speaker 3: like five, get home to our apartment by six, immediately
Speaker 3: get on the Q train with my son because we
Speaker 3: have tickets on a Tuesday night, which is really unusual,
Speaker 3: to go to a concert for a band that he
Speaker 3: really likes in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: Mood.
Speaker 3: I haven't slept in three nights at this point. I mean,
Speaker 3: I put my head on the pillow, but I didn't
Speaker 3: sleep well. So we go to Brooklyn for the concert.
Speaker 3: We get home from that at midnight. I wake up
Speaker 3: the next morning and I am just emotionally and physically beyond.
Speaker 3: And I'm at a point in life now where I
Speaker 3: could just tell my kids, get your own breakfast. Kids,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go back to bed, but I just
Speaker 3: I wanted to see them. So I got up, did
Speaker 3: the thing that I told you about earlier, take the
Speaker 3: dog out. It's one of these like weirdly warm days.
Speaker 3: And I was like, you know what, this is a
Speaker 3: perfect walk day, except I have a really important quarterly
Speaker 3: check in with one of my anchor clients, a law firm.
Speaker 3: I like, in like an hour and fifteen minutes, I
Speaker 3: had a meeting with my dad's best friend to like
Speaker 3: actually discuss the points of what's going to be in
Speaker 3: life memorial for him. And then I had a couple
Speaker 3: clients in the afternoon. I just really have time, and
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, so what can I do. I'm
Speaker 3: going to not shower and get dressed from my quarterly meeting.
Speaker 3: I'm on a zoom. I can put on my eyebrows,
Speaker 3: put on lipstick, put on a sweater. They would never know,
Speaker 3: so I'm gonna do that. So I sort of immediately
Speaker 3: made that call. Then I went for the walk and
Speaker 3: I did it with my vest, my middle aged lady
Speaker 3: waited vest, which felt really good. Weather's great. I didn't
Speaker 3: wear sunglasses because years ago, as psychiatrist said to me,
Speaker 3: like make sure the sunlight actually hits your eyeballs because
Speaker 3: it helps your It's not just vitamin D. It's actually
Speaker 3: serotonin or something. Don't put me I don't know which.
Speaker 3: And so I'm doing all the things and then I'm
Speaker 3: like feeling bad that I haven't actually really read everything
Speaker 3: that I need to read about what is going on
Speaker 3: in the Middle East right now. So I like put
Speaker 3: on the daily for the last two days and I'm
Speaker 3: doing that. I'm answering emails while I'm doing the walk.
Speaker 3: It's not what you're supposed to do, right, it is
Speaker 3: not zone out take a walk time. I like, somebody
Speaker 3: asked for a favor in the middle of it. I
Speaker 3: scheduled the favor on my calendar. As I'm on the walk,
Speaker 3: and I'm thinking, you know what, this is the best
Speaker 3: walk I've ever had because it's not what it's supposed
Speaker 3: to be, and yet it's making you feel so so good.
Speaker 3: And I've been talking a lot. I was preparing at
Speaker 3: the time, sort of in my mind what I was
Speaker 3: going to say on a webinar that I was booked
Speaker 3: to do like two days later. And I have two ideas.
Speaker 3: One is just resentment proof. I talk all the time
Speaker 3: about how you should make decisions with your own lack
Speaker 3: of resentment in mind, Like, you don't want to resent
Speaker 3: your job, your your partner, your boss, your children. Worst
Speaker 3: of all, you really don't want to resent yourself. So
Speaker 3: how can you make a decision that like like sort
Speaker 3: of forecasts feeling good about this? And then the idea
Speaker 3: of being comfortable with your compromises. That walk was an
Speaker 3: exercise and comfort with my compromises. I was compromising all
Speaker 3: kinds of ways, and that I realized is the goal.
Speaker 3: The goal is not perfection, The goal is not like
Speaker 3: a balanced life. The goal is being comfortable with your compromises.
Speaker 3: And I was like, look at me living the thing. Now.
Speaker 3: I know what I'm going to say on Laura's podcast.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I love it. I love it for sure. Well, Lauren,
Speaker 1: where can people find you?
Speaker 3: Oh? So you can just email me. It's Lauren at
Speaker 3: the fifth time spelled out, or I'm on LinkedIn as
Speaker 3: Lauren Smith. Brodie Smith is my middle name, but I
Speaker 3: use all the names and I'm on Instagram. The fifth
Speaker 3: trimester is my account there and again it's the spelled
Speaker 3: out version and come find me. I would love to
Speaker 3: meet anybody. And if you want me to come to
Speaker 3: your business and help them do a better job of
Speaker 3: retaining you, just let me know.
Speaker 1: This sounds good?
Speaker 2: All right, well, Lauren, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you to everyone for listening. If you have feedback
Speaker 2: about this or any other episode, you can always reach
Speaker 2: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: this is Laura, Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 2: the most of our time.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2: More podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.