Speaker 1: When you start out in your career, you get one
Speaker 1: big piece of advice, got yourself a mentor, And yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds great, but how do you find a career guide?
Speaker 1: And what if you never do? This is game plan. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Rebecca Greenfield and I'm Francesco Levy, and this week
Speaker 1: we're talking about the elusive mentor that we're all supposed
Speaker 1: to have, this career guru that guides us through our
Speaker 1: professional lives and if we have one, will have the
Speaker 1: best professional development and achieve all of our goals. And
Speaker 1: really it's just another thing to feel insecure about if
Speaker 1: you are an ambitious career type and you don't have
Speaker 1: a mentor because you didn't get that memo or you
Speaker 1: miss class that day where they teach you how to
Speaker 1: get a mentor, and it just feels so awkward and
Speaker 1: unnatural to be like you person, will you be my
Speaker 1: intour please now? And that doesn't that's not real, so awkward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what you really want is, you know, you and your
Speaker 1: mentor lock eyes across a crowded room and you have
Speaker 1: a great personal connection, but you also happen to really
Speaker 1: admire them professionally, and they are willing to give up
Speaker 1: a fair amount of their time to help teach you
Speaker 1: how to become a professional like them, and it all
Speaker 1: just comes together so beautifully. Yeah, it's like a meat
Speaker 1: cute in a movie. Yeah. Why can't mentorships just be
Speaker 1: like the first fifteen minutes of a romantic comedy because
Speaker 1: our lives are movies real. So yeah, was that your experience,
Speaker 1: Frantistico though, with your mentorship mentors that you've had, No,
Speaker 1: it hasn't. And I've definitely had people in my life
Speaker 1: who I treated as mentors, are considered mentors or looked
Speaker 1: up to be. They editors I really admired early in
Speaker 1: my career, or even professors of mine at journalism school. Um.
Speaker 1: But and I think that when I was earlier in
Speaker 1: my career, it made sense to check in with them
Speaker 1: occasionally and just drop them a line saying what I
Speaker 1: was up to or ask them for advice on something.
Speaker 1: But because those relationships were informal and sort of organic,
Speaker 1: they faded away, as organic relationships do. And I think
Speaker 1: it would be a little weird for me to to
Speaker 1: drop a line to an old j school professor asking
Speaker 1: them for advice. Yeah, the people who I consider mentors,
Speaker 1: I don't think they even know that they're my mentor.
Speaker 1: So if I said, hey, mentor, let's do some mentoring today,
Speaker 1: they I thought we were friends. Yeah, I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: you're a little bit older than me and I look
Speaker 1: up to you. I don't know. Yeah, we're obviously both
Speaker 1: trying to play it cool with our mentors. I don't mean.
Speaker 1: There are companies that do have formalized programs, but it's
Speaker 1: pretty rare. UM. The Society of Human Resource Management does
Speaker 1: the Benefits every year and they found that twenty one
Speaker 1: percent of organizations have a formal program where they pair
Speaker 1: up employees young and old so that they can have
Speaker 1: these mentor relationships. Which does it sounds nice? So if
Speaker 1: you're a new employee, you get handed the name of
Speaker 1: somebody who's been there for a while and can show
Speaker 1: you the ropes. Yeah, when you put it like that,
Speaker 1: maybe it sounds a little forced. Again, well yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's it's also the total opposite of what we did,
Speaker 1: and maybe there's some advantages to it, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: we have informal mentorships and those people haven't actually made
Speaker 1: any commitment to spend a lot of time with us
Speaker 1: throughout our career. This at least puts that relationship in
Speaker 1: place formally. Yeah, although I found some other research that
Speaker 1: said you still have to have a relationship with the
Speaker 1: person or else. It's basically just like not having a
Speaker 1: mentor at all. So if the mentor and the mentor
Speaker 1: you don't have um like a personal relationship, then it
Speaker 1: doesn't work. So it's like you can force them together
Speaker 1: in a room once a week, but if they don't
Speaker 1: make that connection, then it doesn't work. It's a catch
Speaker 1: twenty two because the relationship that you want to have
Speaker 1: is the one that's going to help you. That relationship
Speaker 1: that's organic where you do get along well with some
Speaker 1: but it's really hard to sustain that relationship if you
Speaker 1: don't do the formalized mentor program thing. And so you
Speaker 1: do set up a mentorship relationship that works. There are
Speaker 1: people that say mentorships don't actually go far enough. So
Speaker 1: it's all well and good to have somebody handing you
Speaker 1: career advice that you can do whatever you want with,
Speaker 1: but what you really need is something called a sponsor,
Speaker 1: and that's somebody who might also be your mentor, but
Speaker 1: more importantly, they have the power to actually advocate for
Speaker 1: you and fight for you in places that you can't
Speaker 1: do on your own. So they're in that meeting with
Speaker 1: top executives that you don't get to go to saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you haven't noticed this person, but you should give them
Speaker 1: a chance on this big project. Oh good. Another relationship
Speaker 1: for me in distress about not having I don't think
Speaker 1: I have a sponsor. Uh. And another thing that I
Speaker 1: was thinking about with my own mentor experiences is that
Speaker 1: it's very hard for me to find someone who has
Speaker 1: gone through what I've gone through and is doing something
Speaker 1: that I might be doing in ten, fifteen, twenty years
Speaker 1: down the line. Um just be because of the changing
Speaker 1: nature of our industry, but a lot of industries have
Speaker 1: changed and are going to continue changing. So when I
Speaker 1: do talk to people who I look up to, they
Speaker 1: don't really know how what to say to me. They
Speaker 1: don't they didn't go through what I'm going through, and
Speaker 1: they have no idea what's to come. So I find
Speaker 1: that also frustrating. But maybe we need to be thinking
Speaker 1: about mentorships differently. Maybe we need to approach them differently
Speaker 1: and be looking for them in different places. And that's
Speaker 1: what our guests didn't phyllis quirky is the executive editor
Speaker 1: of Hooked, a storytelling app. She's also a former editor
Speaker 1: at The New York Times. When she was seeking out
Speaker 1: a mentor, instead of looking for somebody older and more experienced,
Speaker 1: she went in a different direction. I think we should
Speaker 1: start with what is your definition of mentorship. I would
Speaker 1: say it's one person sen in a work setting who
Speaker 1: has special knowledge that they can share with another worker.
Speaker 1: It's as simple as that. I think some people get
Speaker 1: caught up in the idea I have to have a
Speaker 1: mentor and define it as that. But in reality, I
Speaker 1: think most people, if they're lucky, but I think most
Speaker 1: people have this at some point in their career, have
Speaker 1: somebody who teaches them something. And even if they don't
Speaker 1: call themselves a mentor, consider themselves a mentor, that's an
Speaker 1: effect what they are. I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: struggle with the idea of, oh, I need to find
Speaker 1: a mentor. I'm going to seek out this older person.
Speaker 1: And it kind of can feel like an inorganic Yes,
Speaker 1: it feels very unnatural, artificial and like you're trying to get.
Speaker 1: Like you were saying before, it's it feels like I
Speaker 1: want to get I need this to get ahead, and
Speaker 1: it becomes kind of stressful and pressurized. Is that not
Speaker 1: how your mentorships developed or is that what they were
Speaker 1: like initially? I never had, like I know some people
Speaker 1: in my early career they actually participated in mentorship program ams.
Speaker 1: I never did. I just had people. And I'm still
Speaker 1: friends with one woman and she's like fifteen years older
Speaker 1: than me, and she really helped me in my career.
Speaker 1: But we never called it that per se, but it
Speaker 1: was just something that that happened. We liked each other.
Speaker 1: You know, should be someone you like and it shouldn't
Speaker 1: be this very transactional kind of thing where I give
Speaker 1: you this and you get ahead and then you do
Speaker 1: this for me. I don't. I don't like quid pro
Speaker 1: q rols in general in career kind of things. I
Speaker 1: think things should be organic and um, you know it's um.
Speaker 1: I think if it happens naturally, that's better. But if
Speaker 1: you you can ask someone, I mean, if you feel
Speaker 1: a bond with someone at work, it's certainly fine to
Speaker 1: ask someone will you be my mentor? So we talked
Speaker 1: about age a lot and now year later in your career,
Speaker 1: at that point, did you switch from being the mentee
Speaker 1: to the mentor. Well, I guess I would have. I'm
Speaker 1: fifty seven now. I guess maybe it started to be
Speaker 1: in my mid forties that I started to realize I
Speaker 1: was older. I'm not sure that I have been a mentor.
Speaker 1: Maybe I have. Maybe people would say that I have been,
Speaker 1: and I just haven't thought of myself that way. I
Speaker 1: think that's actually probably true. People would say that I
Speaker 1: was a mentor, but I never, you know, defined it
Speaker 1: that way. But I think I was entering in a
Speaker 1: period of journalism where I think youth started to be
Speaker 1: very much idealized and glamorized, and so I don't think
Speaker 1: that I felt anyway that older people were perhaps not
Speaker 1: quite as valued. Maybe that was just me, but that
Speaker 1: was a feeling I had. Yeah, I can tell you
Speaker 1: as a younger journalist, I would you know, I definitely
Speaker 1: am always looking for older Yeah. I don't think that
Speaker 1: that relationship should be discounted, A should be discounted, but
Speaker 1: I tend to discount things in general, So that's something
Speaker 1: I kind of de fault too, So that's probably I'm
Speaker 1: sure that's true. I mean, I think it's usually the
Speaker 1: people who I've um sought out as mentors there they
Speaker 1: tend to be not that much older than me, because
Speaker 1: I think with the changing demographics of journalism, there just
Speaker 1: aren't many older journalists in many news organizations I know,
Speaker 1: and that's very sad, and that is partly because of
Speaker 1: the idealization of youth, I think in a way. You know.
Speaker 1: But so about a year ago, you decided to seek
Speaker 1: out an unconventional mentor yes, I thought I really wanted
Speaker 1: to learn Snapchat, and the idea of it terrified me.
Speaker 1: And I had gone on there and I thought, I
Speaker 1: have no idea how to do this. And Snapchat was
Speaker 1: all the rage and and you know, people were saying
Speaker 1: that it was an important thing to know about, and
Speaker 1: I thought, this is an important part of our culture,
Speaker 1: and people were doing journalism and The Times was starting
Speaker 1: to do journalism on Snapchat, and so, you know, I
Speaker 1: couldn't get very far trying to learn it on my own.
Speaker 1: And it just so happened that there was a fellow
Speaker 1: employee sitting just a few rolls down for me named
Speaker 1: Holly Minsburg, who was in charge of our snapchat coverage
Speaker 1: and social media coverage, and so I thought, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to go over and see if she will be
Speaker 1: my snapchat mentor and she's she was like twenty six
Speaker 1: years old. What was her reaction to that? Oh? She
Speaker 1: was just all for it. She was meeting like yeah, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I loved her. She's just this really like positive, go
Speaker 1: get her kind of Uh, you know, a person who's
Speaker 1: always up for some new challenge. Do you think she
Speaker 1: saw it as a mentorship? I specifically asked her, I said,
Speaker 1: I said, will you do? I want it? Well, I
Speaker 1: came at it with the idea of doing a story
Speaker 1: about it, because I covered workplace issues and wrote about
Speaker 1: them for The Times, and so I really came into
Speaker 1: it thinking that I would write about it for others.
Speaker 1: And can you tell me what the relationship was like.
Speaker 1: Were there any awkward moments of having someone who's so
Speaker 1: much younger than you be the authority figure? Yes, I
Speaker 1: would say so. I mean I felt a little embarrassed.
Speaker 1: I would say that I didn't know something or I
Speaker 1: didn't know a lot about this, because, especially from what
Speaker 1: I learned to talk talking with some experts, is that people,
Speaker 1: especially in my generation, the baby boomer generation, they were raised,
Speaker 1: they are used to more hierarchical work structures where the
Speaker 1: older people are supposed to be have higher positions and
Speaker 1: they're supposed to know more, and it's a little bit
Speaker 1: it is awkward and embarrassing to have to admit that
Speaker 1: you don't know how to do something and to have to,
Speaker 1: you know, learn something brand new. Yeah, and do you
Speaker 1: think that she had the skills to to be the
Speaker 1: one who was the mentor? Absolutely? She was great. She
Speaker 1: was the perfect person. Well, for one thing, she knows
Speaker 1: all about everything about snapchat and what She made me
Speaker 1: feel better right away by saying, oh, yeah, my fifteen
Speaker 1: year old cousin had to teach me how to do it.
Speaker 1: I felt old when I was learning it, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's a teenage thing or started out that way still
Speaker 1: someone is. And so that was she really reashared me
Speaker 1: right away with that, and so and then just her
Speaker 1: very positive encouraging to two two was great. I think
Speaker 1: we often hope to get more out of mentorship than
Speaker 1: just learning skills. You know, it's a relationship. Do you
Speaker 1: think you were going to get that out of your mentorship.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, Uh yeah, I could tell because I
Speaker 1: just knew her personality. And then we found out that
Speaker 1: we're both from Minnesota, so that was kind of fun.
Speaker 1: We had that in common, and you know, we we
Speaker 1: just you know, I feel like I'm going to stay
Speaker 1: in touch with her, and we have, you know, stayed
Speaker 1: in touch. And Yeah, it was definitely more than just
Speaker 1: learning snapchat skills. It was it was way more than that.
Speaker 1: It was just more you know, it was a great
Speaker 1: relationship and plus I was learning how to learn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you mentor her? You think in the end a
Speaker 1: little bit like was it hard to kind of resist
Speaker 1: that more traditional relationship? I didn't. I don't think I did,
Speaker 1: And that was something. And when I wrote the story
Speaker 1: and talked to some experts about it, they were saying
Speaker 1: that which might have been a way to um improve
Speaker 1: the experiences if I had mentored her, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I did, maybe something rubbed off on her that
Speaker 1: I'm not aware of. Hopefully it did, but I didn't
Speaker 1: consciously go into it. It was kind of one way.
Speaker 1: Since hearing from the experts that you could have reversed
Speaker 1: mentor her. Have you done that since writing the story
Speaker 1: about it? Well, I have a new job now at
Speaker 1: a tech startup where I am by far the oldest person,
Speaker 1: and I'm really trying to think about how I can
Speaker 1: perhaps be a mentor to these younger people. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's partly why they hired me. So I've
Speaker 1: only been doing it for, you know, a little under
Speaker 1: four months, so I still have to find my way,
Speaker 1: but I hope that I will perform that service for
Speaker 1: my new colleagues. Yes, certainly, working with Talia, you learned
Speaker 1: more than just how to use snapchat um. It maybe
Speaker 1: was like a way of relating to the world in
Speaker 1: a way that younger people relate to it um. And
Speaker 1: now it sounds like you're working with a lot of
Speaker 1: younger people. So has that helped you in your current job. Definitely.
Speaker 1: I realized, like, I've got a colleague who's in her twenties,
Speaker 1: and I realized from the start she has so much knowledge,
Speaker 1: and I realized I can learn from her. And I
Speaker 1: think if I hadn't had this mentorship experience, I might
Speaker 1: have been a little more resistant to that idea and
Speaker 1: I would have thought, Oh, I'm you know, as the
Speaker 1: older person, I'm the one who has to you know everything,
Speaker 1: while there's so there's so much I don't know, and
Speaker 1: just admitting that is so important. Do you find that
Speaker 1: people your age you told about your unconventional mentorship that
Speaker 1: they were resistant to it. You know that they felt like, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're the ones who know things. I know. I think
Speaker 1: everyone understood, especially a lot of people my age are uh,
Speaker 1: not everyone. I don't want to stereotype everyone my age
Speaker 1: is this way, but we are. It's hard for us
Speaker 1: to pick up new technology, and I think it's an
Speaker 1: obstacle for us to in our careers. And I think
Speaker 1: there's a widespread recognition of that out and so I
Speaker 1: think everyone I told about that was really supportive because
Speaker 1: it's so much better to have a one on one
Speaker 1: um learning experience of these new technologies and just try
Speaker 1: to pick them up on your own. This is I
Speaker 1: highly recommend anyone who wants to learn some new technology
Speaker 1: at work to try this. So, given your experiences, do
Speaker 1: you think that we might need to rethink the idea
Speaker 1: of what a mentor is in today's workplace? Oh? Definitely,
Speaker 1: I mean we should. We should think of I think
Speaker 1: it would be great of HR departments or managers thought
Speaker 1: of really tried to create two way mentorship programs. And
Speaker 1: you know that especially the two way part, which I
Speaker 1: didn't really do as well as I You know, I
Speaker 1: wanted to, but just to feel like there's things there's
Speaker 1: in both directions, there's things that that workers can give
Speaker 1: to each other. Yeah, how would that help older employees
Speaker 1: advance in their careers? I guess is that something we
Speaker 1: need to be thinking about now. Oh yeah, absolutely, I
Speaker 1: mean I think that's one thing. One reason maybe that
Speaker 1: there aren't as many older workers or older workers do
Speaker 1: phase out of some careers is these tech skills that
Speaker 1: they don't have, and those are very much valued and
Speaker 1: justifiably so. But if there were training programs and one
Speaker 1: on one mentorship programs, say these older workers have those
Speaker 1: skills plus you know, then then they have the then
Speaker 1: they give the institutional knowledge of if they've been an
Speaker 1: organization for a while, and the experiences that they've had,
Speaker 1: they can provide those to the younger workers because as
Speaker 1: you said about this glamorization of the young, it does
Speaker 1: maybe discount some of the actual skills, like use that
Speaker 1: institutional knowledge that these older workers do have to offer. Yes,
Speaker 1: the wisdom factor, as you mentioned, older workers have a
Speaker 1: harder time learning technology and your piece you talk about
Speaker 1: that that's not just an age thing there, there's like
Speaker 1: neuroscience behind the Yeah, there's actually neuroscience that shows that
Speaker 1: it is physiologically harder for older people to learn things.
Speaker 1: There are these extensions of neurons called dendrites. They're kind
Speaker 1: of the antenna that past information between the neurons that
Speaker 1: was actually shrink as you get older, which I found
Speaker 1: so depressing when I talked to the neuroscientists about that.
Speaker 1: But the good news is that if you practice learning, uh,
Speaker 1: you can um you know, uh, you know, reduce the
Speaker 1: effect of that. And that's what something like this does.
Speaker 1: It really strengthens your brain. You if you practice learning,
Speaker 1: you strengthen you know, the workings of your brain. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's the theory behind those learning apps that
Speaker 1: have been mostly proven to be animosity. Um, are there
Speaker 1: things that happened to your brain as you get older
Speaker 1: that are beneficial to the work place? Yes. Um. What's
Speaker 1: really what older people have that younger people don't have
Speaker 1: is have less of is pattern recognition and the ability
Speaker 1: to put things into categories. And so this is very
Speaker 1: useful when you encounter a new situation and an older
Speaker 1: worker might be able to see from past experience and
Speaker 1: just the way their brain is organized from being able
Speaker 1: to see certain things you know, they can call up
Speaker 1: these these past um events and be able to tell
Speaker 1: and predict what might happen based on this new idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it sounds like these are verse mentorship programs are
Speaker 1: a good idea because there are things in our brains
Speaker 1: that we see differently that we might be able to
Speaker 1: help people of different ages understand better. Exactly. Well, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming and talking to us, Um,
Speaker 1: it was really a pleasure. Okay, I hope some more
Speaker 1: people do reverse mentorships because of this. What Phillis did
Speaker 1: specifically might not work for everybody, but it just goes
Speaker 1: to show you that people are kind of blowing up
Speaker 1: the mentorship model. Like the traditional approach, just find somebody
Speaker 1: who will teach you and stick with you throughout your
Speaker 1: career who's older than you and more experienced, isn't really
Speaker 1: working that well for everybody, or even for most people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: most people under forty can't say that they've had a mentor.
Speaker 1: And that's not to say they haven't had people in
Speaker 1: their lives like the people we're talking about, but they
Speaker 1: definitely don't have these formalized relationships. It just makes you
Speaker 1: wonder if we're even thinking about this in the right way,
Speaker 1: Like should we even be talking about mentorships or should
Speaker 1: we be calling it something else? Like are we looking
Speaker 1: for a different kind of relationship or a lot of
Speaker 1: different kinds of relationships? Yeah, that sounds like a good
Speaker 1: model for someone like me, who I'm not going to
Speaker 1: find the one person, but maybe there's a buffet of
Speaker 1: people I can collect, you pick and choose. It's all
Speaker 1: a cart This person has experience in your industry. That
Speaker 1: person is just a kind of wise sage lead type.
Speaker 1: This other person, um knows how to do snapchat. That
Speaker 1: sounds like a delicious um this Oh my god, the
Speaker 1: salad model we just coined it. Yeah, the salad mentor Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I love the idea of a salad mentor. Um. It
Speaker 1: is a lot of work, though, to go out and
Speaker 1: find all the people with all the specific skills you need,
Speaker 1: also when you don't even know what those skills are
Speaker 1: sometimes because who knows what the world will be like
Speaker 1: in fifteen years. I think that that puts a lot
Speaker 1: on the employee. Yeah, but the more we've talked about it,
Speaker 1: the more I feel like I'm coming down on the
Speaker 1: side of actually doing the work and having the awkward conversations,
Speaker 1: like you can only get so far if you're trying
Speaker 1: to be laid back about finding career guidance. So you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to send some awkward emails and you're going
Speaker 1: to have to look around and do a deep inventory
Speaker 1: of what skills you think you need and who has
Speaker 1: those skills that you might want to talk to, and
Speaker 1: you're probably going to have to get some rejection. I
Speaker 1: feel like with everything that helps you in your career,
Speaker 1: there's an element of it that's just not cool, like networking,
Speaker 1: mentor ships. It's like you can't be cool about it.
Speaker 1: You have to be sort of a door and say
Speaker 1: I need your help, and I'm going to send you
Speaker 1: a politely worded email explaining exactly what I need from you.
Speaker 1: This is why I'm all about LinkedIn everyone once again,
Speaker 1: Once again, we are not sponsored by linked And now
Speaker 1: it's time for half big takes, happy fake takes. You
Speaker 1: can call in with your very own half big take
Speaker 1: at two and two six one seven zero one six
Speaker 1: six And this week we have a listener half big
Speaker 1: take about saying goodbye. This is Meg from New York.
Speaker 1: My half big take is about saying goodbye at the elevators.
Speaker 1: We just shouldn't do it. So someone comes to your
Speaker 1: office to meet with you, and when they leave, you
Speaker 1: should say goodbye at the door by the elevator bank.
Speaker 1: Do not walk over to the elevator with Do not
Speaker 1: press the button for them. They're an adult, they got
Speaker 1: there on their own. They can get out of the
Speaker 1: building on our own. The awkwardness of the stand the
Speaker 1: vader now you have pressed the button for them, it's
Speaker 1: just so sad. So let's all just say goodbye at
Speaker 1: the door and be on our way. Okay, thanks and
Speaker 1: love the podcast. I'm with her for sure about the
Speaker 1: awkward stand and press the button weight period. You should
Speaker 1: just shouldn't do it. But I do think that and
Speaker 1: depending on the layout of your building, you might have
Speaker 1: to walk somebody pretty far, like some I have. I
Speaker 1: have been in other people's office buildings and been sort
Speaker 1: of abandoned at their cubicle or whatever and been like,
Speaker 1: I have no idea where or how to get out
Speaker 1: of this building. But that's so many awkward goodbye find
Speaker 1: to avoid that this thing to say, well, we have.
Speaker 1: When Jenny guests hosted on the show, she did have
Speaker 1: an alternative to saying goodbye after you've had lunch with someone,
Speaker 1: which is to end it, you just say break. So
Speaker 1: I think you can do that for meetings, to just
Speaker 1: say break, and then it's like their challenges to find
Speaker 1: their way out of the building they can do with
Speaker 1: their an adults. Shore you guys, you do that franchise
Speaker 1: that what is your idea that you'd love to share
Speaker 1: with the world. I think it's important not to get
Speaker 1: over zealous about seasonal change and changing the way that
Speaker 1: you dress. In most parts of the country, there are seasons.
Speaker 1: Some places it kind of stays the same temperature all
Speaker 1: year round, but like today, it got a little bit cooler.
Speaker 1: It's also close to Labor Day. There's that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's ads for school supplies. I feel like there's just
Speaker 1: like the smell of fall in the air and it's
Speaker 1: really still like seventy five degrees out. But I put
Speaker 1: on so many layers. I wore like a fall outfit
Speaker 1: today and I feel dumb about it. So you're saying,
Speaker 1: don't do that, try not to be like you don't.
Speaker 1: I screwed up, And now I'm yeah, I'm ready to
Speaker 1: like walk across the coat. Maybe it's like get excited
Speaker 1: about the seasons in a different way than changing your wardrobe.
Speaker 1: You know, like, um, buy yourself some new supplies, buy
Speaker 1: some new pencils that you can sharpen and feel really
Speaker 1: excited about and get that cool fun fall feeling without
Speaker 1: making clothing missed ups. I don't know how to get
Speaker 1: excited for fall, but sure not a fall fan over here?
Speaker 1: What you seem like the kind of person who like,
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep the night before school because you're so excited. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's that feeling. It's that leftover fling the academic years. Becca,
Speaker 1: What is your happy take? So? I was inspired by
Speaker 1: a woman who tweeted, Hello, it's me a woman eating
Speaker 1: lunch at ten thirty am because I packed it, and
Speaker 1: as a seasoned lunch bringer, you are. You're very good
Speaker 1: about that. I just have some advice. How to not
Speaker 1: eat your lunch at ten thirty am is my half
Speaker 1: big take, which is you need to train yourself to
Speaker 1: not eat your lunch at ten thirty am. You need
Speaker 1: to say no. But once it becomes twelve, you can
Speaker 1: eat that lunch, don't. Sometimes I used to beat myself
Speaker 1: up saying, like only I could make it to one,
Speaker 1: but no, that's not gonna work. You need to have
Speaker 1: some leeway. But yeah, you just you gotta don't eat
Speaker 1: your lunch at ten thirty. Just don't. But you so
Speaker 1: you admit that there is a temptation because you packed
Speaker 1: your lunch. It's just like it's like sitting there next
Speaker 1: to your desk screaming your name. That sandwich is like
Speaker 1: eat me eat, And you're obviously going to be hungry
Speaker 1: as soon as you get bored, which is going to
Speaker 1: happen at ten thirty. But you, once you train yourself,
Speaker 1: you I've been doing this for years now and I
Speaker 1: can't remember the last time. I remember when I was
Speaker 1: first starting out, I had a lot of eleven am
Speaker 1: lunches and it's really depressing. And then you're hungry again
Speaker 1: and it doesn't break up the day, and then right
Speaker 1: you've defeated the whole purpose of packing your lunch. So
Speaker 1: you're your hack for this is just years of rigorous
Speaker 1: self conditioning exactly. There's no hack, really, it's just you
Speaker 1: gotta do it or be or I don't know, yeah,
Speaker 1: or don't pack your lunch, just go out and buy it.
Speaker 1: I mean's appreciator enjoy them buying lunch during the work day.
Speaker 1: So so everybody's doing it right whatever you're doing No,
Speaker 1: everyone's doing it wrong. Yeah, I got it, and this
Speaker 1: has been half big takes, half baked takes. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to another episode of game Plan. You can find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter. I'm at RZ Greenfield and I'm at
Speaker 1: Francesco today. You can tweet at us with your half
Speaker 1: big take or anything you like. You can also leave
Speaker 1: us a voicemail at two one to six one seven
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Speaker 1: show was produced by Liz Smith and Magnus Hen. Next
Speaker 1: Time the hat A podcast is Alec McCabe and we'll
Speaker 1: see you next week later. If we could coin a term,
Speaker 1: that'd be so cool, Like let's say something to say
Speaker 1: it's like not one mentor, but like a buffet of
Speaker 1: mentors that's fine, Like a mentor family.