Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Good Morning. This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is going to be a longer one part
Speaker 2: of the series where I interview fascinating people about how
Speaker 2: they take their days from great to awesome and any
Speaker 2: advice they have for the rest of us. So today,
Speaker 2: I'm delighted to welcome Meta Malik to Before Breakfast. Meta
Speaker 2: has worked extensively in marketing and human resources and is
Speaker 2: the author of the brand new book, The Devil Emails
Speaker 2: at Midnight, What Good Leaders Can Learn From Bad Bosses.
Speaker 1: So Vida, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited
Speaker 3: for our conversation today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited as well. So why don't you tell
Speaker 2: our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 3: So I Meeta Malik. I've been both a marketing and
Speaker 3: human resources executive. I'm a passionate storyteller, and I'm on
Speaker 3: a mission to fix what's broken in our workplaces.
Speaker 4: And as you mentioned, I have a new.
Speaker 3: Book coming out called The Devil Emails at Midnight, What
Speaker 3: Good Leaders can learn from Good boss from Bad Bosses?
Speaker 3: And what is top of mind for me right now
Speaker 3: is I'm on a journey to raise kind and inclusive
Speaker 3: human beings.
Speaker 4: And it's tough.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure every generation of parents said the same thing,
Speaker 3: But it is.
Speaker 4: It is rough, It.
Speaker 2: Is rough, exactly exactly what we all do the best
Speaker 2: we can. Well, I want to start with the title
Speaker 2: of your book. Is there anything inherently wrong about emailing
Speaker 2: at midnight?
Speaker 4: M I love that question.
Speaker 3: Not inherently, it is the persistent hum of it, the constant,
Speaker 3: continuous rhythm of always emailing off hours and in the
Speaker 3: double emails at midnight. The opening chapter is the scene
Speaker 3: of the boss who never had time for me. So
Speaker 3: I would chase her around the office like a golden retriever.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to be seen. I wanted hello, I
Speaker 3: wanted to thank you. I chased her into the parking
Speaker 3: lot once Laura, I was trying like she would never
Speaker 3: have time for me, except between the hours of ten
Speaker 3: pm and two am, where she would dump out or inbox.
Speaker 3: Can you pay this invoice, can you work on the stack?
Speaker 3: Can you send this note? And and I was there willing
Speaker 3: to respond because I wanted to be seen. And so
Speaker 3: that's the question is, isn't the biggest complaint in our
Speaker 3: relationships that we don't have time for each other. And
Speaker 3: so it's true in the workplace too, And so that's
Speaker 3: what that's what it really means about, if you're only
Speaker 3: available at midnight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because when I heard that, I mean one of
Speaker 1: the things you know, we've talked about on this podcast.
Speaker 2: And some of the research I've done, and I know
Speaker 2: you're a working mom, right that one of the things
Speaker 2: that happens is a lot of parents who are also
Speaker 2: professionals try to in their work day a hard stop.
Speaker 1: Yes, five thirty for day care pickup.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, Ye, you're in it.
Speaker 1: I know you're in it right now.
Speaker 2: And so then you know, you play with your kid,
Speaker 2: put your kid to bed, yes, And now it's email time.
Speaker 1: And so you know, the many people who probably.
Speaker 2: Are emailing in that you know, nine pm, two whatever
Speaker 2: window of the day may not always be doing it
Speaker 2: to be terrible. So I think, you know, we're trying
Speaker 2: to figure out, like, what what is the way we.
Speaker 1: Can you know, indicate to people that were not trying
Speaker 1: to be terrible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I love that you said that some people
Speaker 3: have an out of office or something in their signature
Speaker 3: that says, these are the hours that work for me.
Speaker 3: Don't feel the need to respond. I do think when
Speaker 3: you're the boss, you hold power in your organization. So
Speaker 3: if I'm repeatedly emailing and doing the second shift, and
Speaker 3: then what happens is really interesting, Right, I will you
Speaker 3: work for me, and I will say to you not
Speaker 3: to email me back, but you will, and then this
Speaker 3: back and forth.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So some approaches could be delay the sending of it, right,
Speaker 3: but then I don't want to wake up in the
Speaker 3: morning and have thirty emails at nine am that'll arrive.
Speaker 3: That's not helpful either. But anythink Laura, what it forces
Speaker 3: people to do to say, why does this have to
Speaker 3: be an email? Because here's what I have been guilty of.
Speaker 3: I want to get it off my plate and onto yours,
Speaker 3: so I just want to send it. So if I
Speaker 3: actually paused and said, is this an email? Or is
Speaker 3: this when I know I'm meeting with Laura on Wednesday,
Speaker 3: I'm putting this on my list for the one on
Speaker 3: one I'm saving that email, or it's going to be
Speaker 3: in our team meeting that we do every month, you know.
Speaker 3: So it forces people to really think about you're just
Speaker 3: using email to dump your inbox out, which sometimes you've
Speaker 3: been guilty of, or you're going to be more strategic
Speaker 3: of how are you going to communicate with your team?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, making good communication is probably you know, thoughtful
Speaker 1: communication is definitely a good boss move.
Speaker 2: So what are some other sort of more toxic forms
Speaker 2: of communication or bad forms of communication that the bad
Speaker 2: bosses are are own for doing? Well?
Speaker 3: It kind of started during the pandemic, didn't it. We
Speaker 3: have so many ways to interact with each other from
Speaker 3: a technology perspective. So I had a boss who would
Speaker 3: you know, send the email? But then it's the slack,
Speaker 3: the text, the phone call, the missed FaceTime audio. You're like,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, I'm in a meeting, Like why do
Speaker 3: like I got the email wait for me to respond, right,
Speaker 3: And so it's your point of like what are good
Speaker 3: communication styles and vehicles? And you have to think about
Speaker 3: like for me, if I go to like tier one,
Speaker 3: if something is urgent, my team is going to get
Speaker 3: a phone call from me, and that means budget cuts, restructuring,
Speaker 3: someone leaving the team. Like it's if you get the
Speaker 3: phone call, you know I need you right away, and
Speaker 3: then you don't abuse that often, right, because if everything's urgent,
Speaker 3: nothing's urgent. And then when you're emailing something and you
Speaker 3: don't need a response for two days or whatever, the
Speaker 3: deadline is, let the person respond because likely they're not
Speaker 3: responding because they're in the bathroom, which they're allowed to do.
Speaker 3: They're they're taking a snack break or getting some water,
Speaker 3: or they're in a meeting doing work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so thinking about what is the urgency level of
Speaker 2: the communication and matching the appropriate communication to that. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, let's talk about the idea of bad bosses
Speaker 2: in general, though, I mean our bad boss is born
Speaker 2: or made?
Speaker 1: I mean, do people do good bosses become bad bosses?
Speaker 1: Is that something they do?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I believe, and that's what I've been studying.
Speaker 3: Bad bosses are not born, they're made. I've gone from
Speaker 3: being a good leader to a bad boss. In the
Speaker 3: Devil Emails at Midnight, I chronicle thirteen leaders, including myself.
Speaker 3: And what's interesting, Laura, someone who's a bad boss for
Speaker 3: me could be a good boss for you. And so
Speaker 3: it's about context and situation. This boss could be a
Speaker 3: terrible micromanager for me, like oh my god, Mike Maridgian.
Speaker 4: And then you might be newer to the team, and
Speaker 4: so they actually know.
Speaker 3: I need this level of support and hold handholding for
Speaker 3: the moment, and so I think that's really important. But
Speaker 3: we can swing from being good to bad and bad
Speaker 3: to good.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, let's hope that we're all going in the
Speaker 2: right direction. Then I'm going to take a quick ad
Speaker 2: break and then I'll be back with more from Meta Malik. Well,
Speaker 2: I am back talking with Meta Malik, who is the
Speaker 2: author of the brand new book The Devil Emails at Midnight.
Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit more about if somebody
Speaker 2: is listening to this and wondering, Hm, am I a
Speaker 2: bad boss?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean it doesn't always get you know, written on
Speaker 2: the board like she's a bad boss, she's terrible. How
Speaker 2: can we suss that out if our team members are
Speaker 2: unhappy with our leadership?
Speaker 3: I love that you used daughter language from my daughter,
Speaker 3: sus it out right. Here's what I would say is
Speaker 3: that there are three moments when bad boss behavior is
Speaker 3: going to show up. Typically, one is something's happening in
Speaker 3: the external market. They're tariffs, your competition has beat you
Speaker 3: to the market with innovation, something has an m and
Speaker 3: a acquisition has failed. Right, something's happening, it's causing havoc,
Speaker 3: it's causing stress. Second, your boss is behaving badly, and
Speaker 3: in my house we say pooh pooh, trickles down. So
Speaker 3: now you're taking on this person's energy. And then the
Speaker 3: third is something's happened in your personal life. You've lost
Speaker 3: a loved one, you've suffered a miscarriage, you break up, divorce, move,
Speaker 3: all these things that are really like earthquakes in your life,
Speaker 3: and like, how do you handle that? So that's important,
Speaker 3: And then I think, you know, for me, I'll give
Speaker 3: myself as an example. I know that micromanaging is my
Speaker 3: toxic habit. I love a good slut and I love
Speaker 3: the good details, and I want to get everything right.
Speaker 3: And so if I know those moments, I can catch myself.
Speaker 3: But someone might ask, like, how do you do this?
Speaker 3: It's like for me, I've had career journals throughout my life,
Speaker 3: and I will document things that are happening. And I
Speaker 3: think most people Laura know when they're behaving badly. This
Speaker 3: book is not for the baddest of the bad bosses
Speaker 3: who've made headlines. It's for the rest of us. And
Speaker 3: so most of us know that something's off, and then
Speaker 3: if we can start to document, and then I think
Speaker 3: the next thing is to ask for feedback. And how
Speaker 3: I like to do this is not a former boss
Speaker 3: who would say, at the end of my performance review,
Speaker 3: how do you think I'm doing? Tell me how I'm doing,
Speaker 3: and you're like ah, And then I tell him the
Speaker 3: truth and he loses it and he's like, that's actually
Speaker 3: not true, and I'm like, okay, never giving you feedback again.
Speaker 3: But if you put something in writing, like I say,
Speaker 3: Laura looking forward to coffee on Friday when we chat,
Speaker 3: I wanted to share with you some of the things
Speaker 3: I'm working on in terms of my own career development.
Speaker 3: One of the things I want to work on is
Speaker 3: how do I delegate faster and how do I help
Speaker 3: coach the team through some of these mistakes. I'd love
Speaker 3: your feedback on that. And actually I wouldn't even use
Speaker 3: the word feedback. I would say coaching, right, because feedback
Speaker 3: sounds so like oh, black or white, right or wrong right?
Speaker 3: And so if I did that, I give you time
Speaker 3: to digest it.
Speaker 4: I'm vulnerable.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you the things I'm working on, and then
Speaker 3: when we have the conversation, you might actually say, that's
Speaker 3: not actually what I think you should be working on.
Speaker 4: I actually think it's this.
Speaker 1: Well, giving feedback to a manager is incredibly challenging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think, well, the first problem is if
Speaker 2: your manager is sort of open to good feedback, that
Speaker 2: that manager is probably not that.
Speaker 4: Bad exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, there is a bit of a catch
Speaker 2: twenty two here here with this, But I mean, is
Speaker 2: there a way to suss out using that phrase again
Speaker 2: if someone is a problematic boss before taking a job, like,
Speaker 2: or what are some smart things that we should be
Speaker 2: doing through the interview process?
Speaker 3: Well, a bad boss likely might also be sign of
Speaker 3: toxic culture.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So one example I have that I'll never forget is
Speaker 3: I interviewed at a big beauty brand and void did
Speaker 3: I want this on my resume? And so I'll never forget.
Speaker 3: I did eleven rounds of interviews in a day and
Speaker 3: they didn't even offer me a glass of water. And
Speaker 3: my mom said, they didn't offer you a glass of water,
Speaker 3: you shouldn't take the job. Isn't that interesting? She said,
Speaker 3: they didn't, And I said, no, I'm gonna take it,
Speaker 3: Like that's such a stupid reason not to take the job.
Speaker 3: And let me tell you the signs were there, from
Speaker 3: the rushed interview process, from the back to backs to
Speaker 3: the everyone I loved except my future boss isn't that
Speaker 3: interesting and so was distracted, disengaged, talked over me, didn't
Speaker 3: really seem interested in being there, and I sort of
Speaker 3: overlooked it because I really wanted the job. I mean
Speaker 3: other signs.
Speaker 4: I say.
Speaker 3: It's like I like a good movie trailer. So it's
Speaker 3: the sneak peek into what it might be like to
Speaker 3: work there. So if the organization is hot and cold,
Speaker 3: they want you to meet next week, two days of interviewing,
Speaker 3: and then they go cold, and then they re engage
Speaker 3: you like two months later, and you see the job
Speaker 3: posting sorely on LinkedIn, there's something up. If the recruiter
Speaker 3: pressures you on the next day to accept the offer
Speaker 3: on the spot, something's up. And then just watch for
Speaker 3: the nonverbals. If people seem in interviews not that interested,
Speaker 3: or there seem like they're going through the motions, everyone's
Speaker 3: showing up late with really no apology or excuse.
Speaker 4: You could really.
Speaker 3: Sense a lot from what is being unsaid in those conversations.
Speaker 3: And sometimes the signs are there and I've been guilty.
Speaker 4: I haven't. I just ignored them. I wanted to jump.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's are they showing respect to you?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's in it that would potentially be working with
Speaker 2: as a colleague. Because people don't suddenly become or respectful.
Speaker 3: You will also, Yeah, and you should be on your
Speaker 3: best behavior. Isn't that true when I interview people? Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be myself, but I'm going to try
Speaker 3: a little hard to term you just a little bit
Speaker 3: extra because I want you to come.
Speaker 4: Because you want to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if they be bothered to spend time with this candidate.
Speaker 4: But but here's the thing.
Speaker 1: So, if you do have a bad boss, if.
Speaker 2: You're working for somebody who would fit in one of
Speaker 2: these categories in your book, is your.
Speaker 1: Only option to quit?
Speaker 2: Or can you maybe you know, either reach your peace
Speaker 2: with the situation or make it better or move yourself around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think that's a great question. The
Speaker 3: book is not about quit every time you have a
Speaker 3: bad boss. And in my dedication to my children, and
Speaker 3: I said, dedicated the book, and I said, you're going
Speaker 3: to have a bad boss one day, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to hand you this book because it's about like we
Speaker 3: will all have bad bosses. But you know, when I
Speaker 3: talk about the thirteen, three of them really impacted my
Speaker 3: mental health. And so if it's to the point where
Speaker 3: you're finding yourself being chipped away, you're being screamed at,
Speaker 3: you know true story the Medusa who threw a Chanel
Speaker 3: shoe at my colleague, right, these things, Yeah, that's not
Speaker 3: a place you want to be. But there's a few options.
Speaker 3: Number One, you can try to manage the boss, depending
Speaker 3: on what the you try to retrain them. We go
Speaker 3: back to your question on how people communicate an over communicator.
Speaker 3: I had a boss who would text me pretty much
Speaker 3: every other day at six am, just random thoughts and
Speaker 3: things they were thinking, and I wouldn't respond until eight
Speaker 3: thirty over email. And I started to retrain them to
Speaker 3: go back to email and stop showing up in my
Speaker 3: text unless it's important. The second is you can look
Speaker 3: for career allies and sponsors within your company and see
Speaker 3: if you can make a move within. And then the
Speaker 3: third thing is if it's something that you don't think
Speaker 3: you can tolerate for much longer, then that's a decision
Speaker 3: you have to make. But if it's someone who's a
Speaker 3: micromanaging boss and it's slowly h start creating the exit plan,
Speaker 3: but also take the time to say, I'm going to
Speaker 3: work for Meta for the next six months, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to make sure I get the right bullets on
Speaker 3: my resume. Let me make the most of this, right,
Speaker 3: I make the most of this opportunity and say I'm
Speaker 3: not going to leave until I've finished this project or
Speaker 3: learned these skills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that can help you feel a lot more
Speaker 2: in charge of a situation too, that it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: it's just business.
Speaker 1: We're transactional.
Speaker 2: I'm not under this person's thumb for the rest of
Speaker 2: my life. I Am just here for the next six
Speaker 2: months and.
Speaker 1: Tell it absolutely figure something out.
Speaker 2: All right, We're gonna take one more quick ad break
Speaker 2: and then I'll be back with more from Meata Mallek. Well,
Speaker 2: I am back talking with Meta Malik, who is the
Speaker 2: author of the new book The Devil.
Speaker 1: Emails at Midnight. Sounding like you've had a lot of
Speaker 1: experience in the fashion.
Speaker 2: Industry, so with the real sort of Devilwares product kind
Speaker 2: of where this comes from.
Speaker 1: Yes, a classic bad boss in the in the movies.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious you know, what is your I mean,
Speaker 2: this is a productivity show.
Speaker 1: What is your schedule looking like?
Speaker 4: These days?
Speaker 3: My schedule is looking like Interestingly enough, I am taking
Speaker 3: many more breaks than I used to. I have been
Speaker 3: guilty of taking, you know, treating myself like an uber app.
Speaker 3: There'll be days where I'd be on Zoom all day
Speaker 3: and then at the end it's like the Zoom hangover.
Speaker 3: You're plopping on your couch at nine pm at night
Speaker 3: and You're like, oh my god, like what just happened?
Speaker 4: Because I've been on video all day or calls on day.
Speaker 4: So the thing I'm.
Speaker 3: Doing now is I'm actually trying to take walks really quickly,
Speaker 3: even if it's like ten to fifteen minutes, and go
Speaker 3: outside because to energize myself. I also like to do
Speaker 3: a good dance off with my kids, you know, put
Speaker 3: some music on anything to just honestly, the productivity hack
Speaker 3: for me is to step away from the keyboard so
Speaker 3: I can be more productive, because otherwise I find myself
Speaker 3: you'll get sucked into things if you're not blocking out
Speaker 3: time to actually go refresh and recharg I mean, god,
Speaker 3: even our phones need to be recharged, right, So that's
Speaker 3: the biggest hack I have right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you have any sort of morning routine or
Speaker 2: are You're not a morning routine person.
Speaker 3: I am a morning routine person. I mean I get
Speaker 3: up before the calm, the calm before the storm in
Speaker 3: my house. So the night before I'm doing everything to
Speaker 3: get the kids ready for school or right now it's
Speaker 3: summer camp. God help us, right, So we're doing that,
Speaker 3: but everything as much as I can to be prepared
Speaker 3: so that in the morning I can be up alone
Speaker 3: reading or writing and having a cup of tea for
Speaker 3: about fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on when everyone wakes up,
Speaker 3: and then it's probably like ninety minutes of everything to
Speaker 3: get everyone out of the house and then I'm starting
Speaker 3: my work day or going to the gym and then
Speaker 3: starting work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what sort of time are we talking is
Speaker 2: this is this quiet moment happening? Like how early do
Speaker 2: you have to be up to get your calm?
Speaker 3: It could be as early as I have usually five
Speaker 3: thirty six am. But I'm not somebody who's up at midnight.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm going to say, I am going to
Speaker 3: say that I'm not a say I'm not ashamed to
Speaker 3: say I'm sleeping at midnight. And there is this like
Speaker 3: anti hustle culture movement where it's like, you should.
Speaker 4: Be my god, you're sleeping at midnight. Right.
Speaker 3: I had a boss be like, you didn't respond to
Speaker 3: my note.
Speaker 4: We needed approval. I'm like, it was eleven o'clock at night.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget. This is very pandemic, and he was
Speaker 3: annoyed with me. And I woke up in the morning
Speaker 3: to all these texts.
Speaker 4: I was like, I was.
Speaker 3: Asleep, right, and so, yeah, but you can be guilty
Speaker 3: on the other end. So if I'm up early, I'm
Speaker 3: not sending emails. I'm trying not to send emails super
Speaker 3: early eiler. Right, it can be either end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, keep it relatively within the context of the work day.
Speaker 2: So any sort of other routines that make you more
Speaker 2: productive as you're juggling your various projects. I'm curious what
Speaker 2: your sort of planning process looks like with all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have Actually people ask me what are you
Speaker 3: using in terms of technology. I love an old school
Speaker 3: notebook and a journal and why I keep it next
Speaker 3: to me in meetings And it's not what you would think.
Speaker 3: It's not for a note taking, but it's for idea generation,
Speaker 3: because you can have pretty much in every meeting now
Speaker 3: like somebody you know, somebody in quotes taking notes right
Speaker 3: and transcribing them for you. But to have idea generation,
Speaker 3: like if I'm sitting here with you in our conversation
Speaker 3: and something comes up, I could quickly just jot it
Speaker 3: down right, And so that way, that's much more productive
Speaker 3: for me because I can go back and look at
Speaker 3: all those ideas and it's not a paragraph, but it
Speaker 3: might be something that you said like two words, and
Speaker 3: I write it down. So then when I go back later,
Speaker 3: I'm inspired to write a social media post, write an article,
Speaker 3: it might be the book idea And so that's really
Speaker 3: important to me.
Speaker 2: And I also it's saying you find it good to
Speaker 2: have it as a paper notebook.
Speaker 3: I do. I do, but because for me, when I
Speaker 3: write something down, I digest it and I remember it.
Speaker 3: That doesn't mean that I'm like handwriting my books, but
Speaker 3: I do think there are some moments where I think
Speaker 3: if I can write it down, it will stick with
Speaker 3: me much more.
Speaker 4: And then I'm doing what many other.
Speaker 3: People are doing, which is you have to block sort
Speaker 3: of if you make your calendar access to access to everyone,
Speaker 3: then don't be upset if you're booked, you know, seven
Speaker 3: to seven, and so you know, blocking time to do
Speaker 3: email or writing or you know, thinking and actual work
Speaker 3: is important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, tasks take time, and so if you
Speaker 2: aren't willing to allocate times to them, then they.
Speaker 1: Exactly aren't going to happen.
Speaker 2: So right, that's what has us maybe emailing at midnight sometimes.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I haven't built in.
Speaker 2: Time during the day, which is that what I mean
Speaker 2: should a god boss do that? I mean, should they
Speaker 2: be blocking out time for those those emails and that
Speaker 2: administration stuff like that? I mean very you know, how
Speaker 2: would you see as like a good boss scheduled during
Speaker 2: they should?
Speaker 3: I mean, but with the you think about in the
Speaker 3: race to embrace AI, a lot of this work should
Speaker 3: be automated. And you hope that AI doesn't create a
Speaker 3: generation of lazy bosses, right because if a lot of
Speaker 3: this work is being automated, then you actually have time.
Speaker 3: The biggest complaint we started is not enough time for
Speaker 3: my team. And I think about my calendar like I
Speaker 3: think about my closet. There's a bunch of stuff I
Speaker 3: don't wear. There's a bunch of stuff I don't need,
Speaker 3: bunch of stuff that's outgrown, et cetera, et cetera. You know,
Speaker 3: the worst feeling, Laura is like you're in a meeting
Speaker 3: and you all show up and you're like, what's this
Speaker 3: meeting about? Nobody knows. You hang around for ten fifteen minutes,
Speaker 3: and then someone maybe has the courage to call it,
Speaker 3: or it goes on for a while and then the
Speaker 3: person's like, oh, Laura was supposed to be here, she's
Speaker 3: the decision maker, she's out on vacation.
Speaker 4: Oops. What.
Speaker 3: Or it's a meeting that's just been going on for
Speaker 3: months that you don't need anymore. And so I think
Speaker 3: finding people having the courage to say, we're not doing
Speaker 3: this meeting because of the following reasons. It's being discussed elsewhere.
Speaker 3: It could be a slack approval's already done, the project's finished,
Speaker 3: get the meeting off the calendar, and then you actually
Speaker 3: have more time to be emailing. You have more time
Speaker 3: to be meeting with people and teaching them and coaching them.
Speaker 3: And many bosses and some organizations you've got assistants who
Speaker 3: can also help you track your time as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well time is valuable and treating it as
Speaker 2: such is very important. So ATA I always ask my guests,
Speaker 2: what is something you have done recently to take a
Speaker 2: day from great to awesome?
Speaker 3: Take a day from great to awesome? What an amazing question?
Speaker 3: Just duck out early, can things and go with my
Speaker 3: kids to get ice cream, to go to the movies,
Speaker 3: to do something spontaneous that sparks a moment of joy
Speaker 3: that they like to do, and I'm happy to join
Speaker 3: them in.
Speaker 4: Those are the things.
Speaker 3: And I'm not canceling on people last minute, but just like, oh,
Speaker 3: this can be moved, Like why is this.
Speaker 4: Is actually urgent? It's not urgent, but it's important.
Speaker 3: I'm going to push it out a few days and
Speaker 3: so yeah, that's like when I feel like I get
Speaker 3: to spend time with the people I love, it goes
Speaker 3: to being like just a great day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, awesome, that is awesome. And what are you looking
Speaker 1: forward to right now?
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to my kids going back to school
Speaker 3: and leaving summer camp patchwork, which for any any parents
Speaker 3: working outside the home, it's tough, right it is.
Speaker 4: It's tough with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the hours are different, the you know,
Speaker 2: some have some have before care and aftercare which is great.
Speaker 2: Not I'll do, but then you know there's often not
Speaker 2: the bus, right, like you know you had the bus.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all those things everything.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited for my book to come out because
Speaker 3: I really feel like it's going to really help people
Speaker 3: and change the way they think about work and how
Speaker 3: they lead and how they interact with each other. So
Speaker 3: that is something I'm really looking forward to to a
Speaker 3: thing out and hearing people read it and tell me
Speaker 3: what they think about it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, meet it. Where can people find you?
Speaker 3: You can find me on LinkedIn. I love to meet
Speaker 3: new people, so please DM me and you can find
Speaker 3: me on.
Speaker 4: Medamalk dot com.
Speaker 3: And the book The Double Emails at Midnight, available on Amazon,
Speaker 3: Barnes and Noble, your local independent bookstore anywhere you buy books.
Speaker 2: Absolutely all right, Well, Anita, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: joining us. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you
Speaker 2: have feedback about this or any other episode, you can
Speaker 2: always reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 2: I may email you back at midnight, but you don't
Speaker 2: have to respond to me then. So in the meantime,
Speaker 2: this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
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