Over the summer months, many of us continue in business as usual mode with the same routines—reacting to our email and our calendars set by others’ agendas. We move along in our white pants and sunglasses, with one or two weeks of vacation thrown in for good measure. We often begin September feeling like summer came and went without much remarkable to differentiate it from the rest of our year, save some sweaty commutes and a couple of lovely beach days. Now with summer nearly half over (yes, startling, I know!), I’ve had some time to reflect and ask myself: 

• What am I planning to accomplish during this naturally slower paced time of year?

• Am I tracking toward achieving those goals?

• What will success look like? Will I feel I hit the mark as I regroup over Labor Day Weekend?

After I drop my girls off at day camp at 9 am, I wipe my brow and focus on these things that will make my summer months stand out as a short window of time with a big impact. 

1. Networking
Contrary to popular belief—summer is a fantastic time to reach out to former colleagues, contacts in your field, companies you’re interested in joining long-term—anyone who’s been on your “grab coffee or drinks” list for awhile. And if you don’t have that list, start creating it when you have some down-time (like right now!). The office has a natural slow-down feel while people collectively take vacation—allowing you to have more space to set up fun meetings to connect. Summer also brings out a more relaxed and open tone to these conversations that may not happen at other times of year. 

2. Planning
September through the end of the year is career and corporate crunch time. We’re tasked to: make or beat annual revenue, achieve or exceed professional development goals, spend all the money we were too busy or hesitant to spend throughout the year, and do everything we said we would do in January. By taking some of your summer hours to rework the plan, adjust the monthly targets and get creative about how to re-invest those extra dollars—you are setting yourself up for a fall where you can actually enjoy the changing of the leaves and get excited about the kids going back to school. 

3. Big Projects
You want to learn a new skill? Take a class. You want to write a short story? Block out the hours and write your first draft. You want to de-clutter the kids’ rooms while they’re at camp (very hypothetical, of course)? Get out those garbage bags and go to town. Choose one or two projects that you want to accomplish over the summer. They should be your top priority projects, the kind that when you visualize completing them—you get a physical feeling of relief. If you have ten big projects on your list for summer—go back and edit. Schedule the others for later in the year so you don’t simply cross them off the list. The goal here is not to make your summer chaotic and overwhelming—it’s to get something big and high priority accomplished so you feel like you took a leap in an area that’s meaningful to you. 

4. Vacation Strategy
I have already had my fair number of client calls this summer WHILE my clients were on vacation. They’re often doing some work while they’re out, but in most cases—not an overwhelming amount. Ironically, the fact that they’re not completely disconnected is stressing them out more than the work itself. For people with intense careers that they love, I like to flip the idea of vacation on its head and ask: What are the things you want to do this week that will make it feel like vacation? The answers may be read a novel, spend time with family, grill and eat dinner outside. Completely disconnecting may not be on the list—and that’s ok. Schedule those vacation gems in your days first and then if you need to check email once a day and take a couple of calls—make sure those things don’t interfere with your vacation gems. You get to create what a vacation means to you and once you do, you can use YOUR design as your go to approach. 

Most importantly—to make summer feel like a standout player in your year—make the most of these months by peppering your schedule with those summer-specific things that bring you joy. Outdoor movies and music. Rooftop bars with old friends. Playing hooky on a slow day without meetings. And of course, the beach. The beach. The beach.

I have two daughters who believe they can be whomever they want to be. I spend my days supporting women in the pursuit of their dreams and the shattering of glass ceilings. Yet much of my inspiration comes from early memories of my father conquering any obstacle with charisma, wit and unwavering will. While he wasn’t a feminist by any stretch, he believed in the power of his daughters and the world they were capable of bettering. I’m confident if he were here today—we would be having the open and often uncomfortable dialogue required for cultural and generational change. And that’s what it takes: an inclusive dialogue and a partnership where we’re walking forward together. We may not always be in lockstep, but we must understand that we’re never going to get to gender parity on our own.

Here are 4 ways we can include men on the path to advancing women in leadership. 

1. Make the policies more inclusive
Deloitte is ahead of the pack when it comes to policies with its 16-week leave. While it’s not the longest leave out there, the policy is the broadest in scope, allowing “men and women—to take up to 16 fully paid weeks off to care for a family member. This includes a new child, spouse, or aging parent.”* By making the policies open to both men and women around caregiving beyond children—the organization exponentially increases the impact of the program and most importantly the buy-in of leadership. According to The Wall Street Journal, the policy “has the potential to "normalize" caregiving, making it okay for single people, men, senior executives—anyone—to take a block of time off to care for an ailing family member or a new child.”** As employees of different ages and genders are able to leverage this opportunity, more will be able to take part in the vital ongoing conversation about the value this policy brings to both the firm and its employees. 

2. Invite men to the conferences, workshops and conversations
Because of my passion for supporting women in leadership, I go to a fair number of workshops and conferences about the topic. While I’m completely engaged in the content and the palpable inspiration of the speakers—occasionally, I’ll look around the room at the sea of professional women and think—we’re talking to ourselves and that’s why we’re not making any headway. I’m encouraged when I talk to women’s interest groups within Fortune-100 organizations about workshops and we both agree—the content and the spirit of the room MUST work for both men and women. The panel must be diverse in gender and race. The name of the workshop and the marketing materials must be inclusive. This sounds obvious, but I can assure you, it’s often not done—causing us to continuously recycle the same ideas within our closed circles.

3. Find senior male advocates and mentors
Just because you want to be an inspiring woman leader, doesn’t mean you must find all of your inspiration from women. I’ve built wonderful relationships with some of my male leaders throughout my career and they continue to show up for me with wisdom, support and connections within their respective networks. By continuing to seek out these male advocates, you’re including them in the conversation of what it can look like for a woman to lead, broadening their perspective of what’s possible, while giving them an opportunity to be a change-maker via their support of you and your career. If you position it that way, I promise they’ll want to join you for the ride. 

4. Empathize and educate
Men are our partners in moving toward gender equity in leadership and in pay. If we see it any other way, we lose traction and remain stuck. Quite frankly, those men who don’t partner up will be left behind over time—because the movement is hitting a tipping point…this is happening. In my practice, I see women who have been culturally indoctrinated to “want it all,” strive for perfection, feel plagued by guilt if they ever prioritize work over family—and willingly take on the role of CEO of the household. And on the flipside, men are faced with the pressure of provide or perish. Women want to have creative and exciting careers and men yearn to participate more in parenting. As women, if we can empathize with where men are coming from, the pressures they face and the distance they often feel from being able to engage with their families in a real and meaningful way—we can start from a place of partnership in our educating of each other on the costs of how we’re currently living. We can advocate for ourselves instead of stewing in resentment or complacency. We can ask for help, believe asking for help is a sign of strength and believe that the men in our lives are capable of providing that help. 

All of this said, I do live in a reality in which I know there are institutional biases firmly in place—but the necessary disruption begins with coming together, rather than fighting each other. I’m optimistic because I’ve seen this model work, and because women leaders and like-minded men are creating new institutions that will be this change we’re seeking. They will set the example. They will amplify their voices and their results, and those who are smart will listen. 

* Exclusive: Deloitte Enters the Paid Leave Arms Race With 16 Weeks of Family Leave on Fortune.com
** This new paid leave policy may be the smartest perk for families yet on WashingtonPost.com

A few years ago I found myself in a career rut while working in digital marketing. I had done all I could do to follow my own instructions from my post, Love The Job You're With. I was learning new skills and achieving improved results for the business, but something was still missing. I was hungry to do something completely new, after a long career with very similar roles. But what could it be? I was truly stumped. 

I decided to take a couple of career assessments to get me thinking in a new way. One of the assessments provided a roadmap of all the possible career paths best suited to my interests. Number one on the list—Career Coach! While I read my results with a healthy dose of skepticism, given my long career in Marketing (which was also on the list by the way), the idea resonated enough with me that I felt compelled to dive into a fervor of research in a short time. Within 24 hours I'd assembled a matrix of all the Coach Certification programs available in my area, my contacts that had gone through the various programs and the times of my calls to speak with them. The more research I did, the greater my conviction became. I quickly learned that my top choice program had a cohort beginning the following week. I wasn't expecting to be forced to make a decision this quickly about a size-able investment of time and money—and yet every cell in my body was saying, "You must do this!" I listened. 

I talked to my very supportive husband, my biggest advocate and cheerleader. "I know it sounds insane, but I feel like I need to do this. While I know it will be a lot of hard work, I know I'm up to it and I can't remember the last time I was this excited about my career and where it's going." This was a no-brainer for him. He agreed that not only did I need to do this, but in actuality, I'd been coaching my entire career—and this would make it official. 

My intuition was critical in moving me toward my current path of coaching and it continues to be my strongest driver in building my business. While I had some opportunities to hone my intuition in my corporate career, I found that it was not something that was often admired or respected, and in turn, I frequently kept my hunches to myself until they were validated with reams of data. It has taken time to unlearn this behavior and not only begin to reconnect with that intuitive voice, but also take risks in trusting it. 

I see this as one of the biggest challenges for my clients when they walk through my door. They come to me for advice, wanting me to make a slew of decisions for them and they quickly learn…I don't do that! My advice would come from my perspective and in coaching, I help clients tap into their own inner wisdom so they can find the solutions that are right for them. I find that when we are disconnected from our intuition, we're rudderless and stuck—looking to others to make decisions for us and following the paths of friends and family who have done the self-reflection that we have not done. In my practice, I help clients reconnect to their intuition so they can begin to experiment with trusting it and monitoring the results. 

In order to get a taste of how it works, you can try this exercise:

1. Close your eyes when you have five minutes of private, quiet time (even if you have to schedule it!). Say hello to your intuition. Acknowledge that you've neglected it lately. Take a deep breath and let your intuition know that you're open to listening now.

2. Every time you feel that strong gut instinct in your body, keep a journal (or note on your phone) of what it is, where you feel it and if you're going to follow it.

3. Try following it once a day for a week. Note the results in your journal. How did you feel when you followed your intuition?

All of this said, I think it's important to validate your intuition with data—and I continue to do this within my business. As an entrepreneur, I don't have time to do this for every decision. I have learned to go with my gut much of the time so that I'm constantly moving forward. While this may not be possible in many corporate cultures, there can be a balance where we practice leveraging this critical tool as a way to develop in our leadership and to grow in our expertise within an organization. As I develop my own intuition, I'm comforted to know I have an internal compass on which to rely—even in the most complex terrain. 

Whether you believe email is the enemy or you get a tingle with each chimey alert—or you consider it as over as the phone call—let me set the record straight. In professional life: email is still here, it’s important to do it well, but it shouldn’t rule your life or be your only communication channel. Here are some strategies I’ve developed over the years that I share in workshops with employees who are helplessly overwhelmed by this still critical information tool. 

1. Tone = Professional + Dash of Personality
When I review emails my clients send, I find they are often on opposite ends of the spectrum—from casual enough to be a text to so formal they seem robotic. Where you land on the continuum does depend on the corporate culture of your organization—so it will vary. When in doubt, I lean toward a mostly professional voice while adding in the use of contractions to tone down the formality. Most importantly, if you want your emails to be memorable throw in a nugget from your personal brand or a note of connection you have with your email receiver. This reinforces the relationship you’re building with this person and will make him or her more likely to respond. You’re appealing to your audience as humans and not simply someone from whom you need something. 

2. Clear Subject Lines Win Every Time
Remember those SAT Prep reading comprehension exercises where you had to find the main idea of a paragraph? It’s time to revisit that skill. You must be clear about what you need in the subject line, using it to highlight a tight deadline or action required. Also—if the conversation in a thread has evolved over the course of the back and forth—make sure that the subject line reflects the current email you’re sending instead of simply using the same subject line you’ve been using for weeks. Lastly, don’t send emails without a subject line. Just don’t .

3. When Angry: Save. As. Draft. 
Sometimes an email comes through that grabs you by the throat. Whether you’ve been blamed for something you know you didn’t do or it’s simply another request from that person who expects you to do her job again—DO NOT rage email a response. Instead of writing the email immediately, go take a walk. Run up and down 8 flights of stairs. Find a YouTube video of baby goats at a yoga class (which you should do anyway). If you must write the response as soon as you get it, do yourself and your company a favor: save as draft and then walk away for at least 15 minutes. Nothing good is coming of that immediate angry response. I promise you. Take it from someone who was reprimanded by her CMO for sending that email. All roads post-rage email lead to a dark place. 

4. Consider Your Audience
Even if you’re writing a similar email to many different recipients, do not simply cut and paste your email content and send. Think about your receiver. What level is she in the organization? How well do you know him? Do you have a hobby in common or a child the same age? Is this someone who requires data to prove out your assumption or is it someone who simply wants to be informed at a high level? An email to a senior leader should be short and concise, given the limited time he or she may have to spend on your email—where as an email with your day to day contact on a project can provide more detail. 

5. Formatting Is Your Friend
Back in my digital marketing days I worked with one colleague who sent me emails that were 5-6 paragraphs of running prose with at least 10-12 questions set within long-winded sentences. These emails made me angry. I still get angry thinking about them. Marie Kondo your emails, friends. If those flowery sentences don’t bring you joy, don’t write them and PLEASE don’t make others read them. Bold category headers, bulleted lists of questions, clear objectives, underlined deadlines—when I receive emails with these things, I feel safe. Like all is right with the world and I can accomplish anything. Don’t you want to make people feel this way?

6. Deadlines Motivate People
Oh I wish it weren’t so, but it is. Deadlines keep people in line, so if you are asking them to do something—you’re missing a NECESSARY step if you don’t include a deadline. Put the deadline in your subject line. Put it in bold, underline—or even red font within your email. If it’s a tight deadline—acknowledge it as such and invoke the name of the important person who is committed to all of you making this deadline. Agree to offer more time in the future and when it’s within your control, stay true to this agreement. 

7. Don’t CC The World
Get clear on roles and responsibilities for your projects and what the communication flow will be at the very beginning. When you cc a near nation-state, you raise the stakes on each email thread and throw off the productivity levels of people who did not need to be informed of every detail. What could have been a simple back and forth on logistics is now a keynote speech via megaphone. Why create this level of pressure where it’s not necessary to do so?

8. Two Words: Proof Read. Whoops, That’s One Word
This one bites me often, which is why I know myself well enough to hire a copyeditor (who was thrilled to get a shout-out in this post!) . Even though you’re working fast, you must read your email a couple of times (at least!), spellcheck, and make sure there’s only one space between each sentence (a pet peeve of mine). You don’t want to proof read for the first time after you’ve hit send and get the stomach pit! This is avoidable and while I don’t expect perfection—typos may be the thing that separate you and a competitor or a colleague who may be after the promotion you want. Proofreading takes one minute and it’s a minute very well spent.

9. Follow-up Separates The Leaders From The Rest Of The Pack
You may think you’re being a nudge, but many people actually rely on your follow-up. While I don’t recommend waiting for others to follow up with you as your queue to complete a task, I do acknowledge that the world in which we live often requires a second (or even third) email to convert a client, set up a meeting, or even prompt someone to meet their deadline. When you don’t follow-up, you leave opportunities on the table—and that’s not how we do things when I’m your coach. 

10. Amidst Confusion, Pick Up The Phone
After the 4th, 5th or 25th email back and forth on one topic, you may get a gut feeling to have a conversation or set up a meeting. Trust this instinct! Tone, intentions, and humor can be lost in a marathon email thread and you could save yourself and colleagues A LOT of time by picking up the phone and hashing things out in a 5-minute conversation. If you’re not making a phone call or setting up the meeting because you want to make sure decisions are documented, work through your challenges on the phone and then send a confirmation email of what you discussed to assure everyone is on the same page and you have the written documentation you need. 

For many of you with 5+ years of experience this will be a review and also a reminder of what to share with your teams who may not have the institutional knowledge of email etiquette and efficiency. If you’re at the beginning of your career, get some feedback on your emails from more senior members of the team. If you can get on the right track early in your career, think of the hours of time you can save for all involved. 

You’re exhausted. You’ve been in back to back meetings all day and you finally return to your desk only to get that stomach pang. It’s 5:30 and you’ve done NOTHING on your to do list. How did this happen? For working parents, this productivity fail can result in evenings where you’re more connected to your phone than your kids while they’re awake—and then signing on to start your workday again after they’ve called you back to stall their inevitable slumber for the fifth time. Not ideal for anyone who wants something resembling a life! 

If you want to get your work done during the day AND be present for your family in the evening, pay attention—I’m talking to you! Here are some strategies that work for my corporate clients who are balancing career and family. 

1. Take a proactive approach to time
It’s time to commune with your calendar. It’s not your enemy, it’s your solution to getting your priority projects accomplished. To take a page from my longtime guru on time and life management – Stephen Covey, put “first things, first.” I’ve listened to the cassettes (yes, I said the c-word!) of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People more times than I can count—and it’s the primary reason I’ve been able to incorporate a writing practice into my busy life of being a small business owner and a mom. Identify your priorities, values and mission in work and life and make sure your calendar reflects them! I sit down with my calendar a month at a time and schedule in writing time one to two times a week. Then I schedule EVERYTHING else around those dates with my laptop and favorite writing coffee shop. 

2. Your new mantra: “Do I need to be in this meeting?” 
Now that you’ve identified your priorities, use them as your filter for when you answer this productivity make or break question. Be ruthless in protecting your time and saying no to meetings where your intuition is telling you: 1) It will be a waste of time, 2) Your input is not needed on this topic 3) You can give an opportunity to someone on your team to lead. If you have a hard time declining, try my approach to using The Inspired No. As much as possible, question the need for a meeting. There are times where it is necessary, but often times we set up time with others simply to hold ourselves accountable to deadlines or doing the work. What other way can you hold yourself and others accountable? If you’re a leader, set the tone that questioning the need for a meeting is ok. It can become part of the culture so that as a team, you can help each other protect your collective time. 

3. Kill the meeting to prep for the meeting
This may be controversial and I’ll put out the caveat that if you’re rehearsing for a presentation or pitch—there is a need for practice. That said, we have gone completely overboard in our abundance of “meetings for the meetings” and more often than not it can prompt employees to experience everything ranging from disengagement to outrage. Instead, how can you use tools like Slack or even email to assign roles for meetings and get feedback from colleagues on how the work is progressing? In my experience, the meeting for the meeting often occurs when there is a gap in leadership on a project., assignments are organized by committee and there is much time hemming and hawing over who does what and how to proceed. If you’re experiencing that gap in leadership, consider this as an opportunity to step up and run the show. While it may seem like you’re taking on more when you do this, you’re actually saving time by providing clear direction and a structure for your colleagues—cutting down on hours of hesitation and second-guessing. 

4. Run meetings with military precision
Meetings should have rules. Whenever possible they should be 30 or 45 minutes, max. Everyone should arrive on time. If they don’t arrive on time, you don’t restart the meeting when they arrive. In addition to everyone knowing what the meeting is about (I wish this was a joke), there should be an agenda and pre-work that MUST be read prior to the meeting. Everyone should show up with a pen and notebook. Personally, I find laptops in a meeting distracting, but I know this is becoming standard practice. If you’re trying to create a culture where there are fewer meetings and you have only a few times where you gather with people in person, I do think pen and paper facilitates better team interactions and dynamics than a room full of laptops—but that may be a question of style. There should be a clear leader of the meeting who will keep the discussion to the agenda and capture interesting topics that are not on the agenda to revisit at another time. 

5. Delegate like a boss
You don’t have to do it all yourself—especially when you have employees reporting to you! I see many leaders with teams, still struggling with delegating and the costs are clear—overwhelm and a lack of growth. When you stay focused on the junior tasks that could be growth opportunities for your direct reports, you cut off your own opportunities to expand your skills and expertise—not to mention your chance of being promoted. Even if you don’t have a team, (with the support of senior leaders) gain some leadership experience by mentoring a more junior employee on a project you’re working on together. You can practice training employees, handing off tasks and letting go of control. These are all necessary skills to both protect your own time and move to the next level in your career. 

6. Leaders: create office hours
If you’re in charge of a team and you all sit together in a small space, you may be the one who can always answer that question or give advice or coach—at any moment in the day. It’s exhausting and you can end up feeling like your time is not your own. One way my clients are able to protect their time is by creating office hours 2-3 times a week and communicating that this is the time to come over to discuss something in person. If they come over for a quick chat at other times, it’s up to you to kick them out of your cube—in the most respectful way—and redirect them to your office hours. You may want to post your hours somewhere to give your team the visual cue. 

While I don’t recommend implementing all of these strategies at one time, pick one or two to experiment with and see how much time you can create in your day! Begin the dialogue with leadership around the way meetings are impacting productivity and engagement for the team. These habits are deeply engrained in corporate cultures and buy-in at a senior level is necessary to make a change. Most importantly, practice disconnecting from work during those pre-bedtime hours with family. I know I’m not alone when I say this is hard and I’m not always good at it (and I do this stuff for a living!). Keep at it, re-focus every day, and when your 2nd job—otherwise known as evening crazy town—is as ridiculous as it usually is, try laughing. It truly gets me through. 

Last week I broke all kinds of records in my business. It was impressive! I medaled in procrastination, laziness and even binge-watching. You're welcome, Netflix! I stared at a blank screen that taunted me into frustration and shame. Then, as the last hours of Friday afternoon ticked by, I reviewed my week's accomplishments and requested of the universe a do-over. Knowing that was not going to happen, I took a walk instead. While taking in the beauty of the trees in spring bloom and the familiar sites of my neighborhood, I took time to reflect on where it all fell down on what should have been a perfectly viable five-day stretch. 

Here's what I picked up on my wisdom walk that not only shook me out of my funk but also gave me the idea for this post—creative bonus! 

1. You dumped it, but that's ok.
It truly sucks when we brush up against our humanity. Just when we think we're changing the world, creating work that moves people, delivering projects on-time and on-budget, we fall. And it hurts. After my triple-medal week, I had to look at myself and say, "It was not your week. That makes you a human, not a bad human." Acknowledging your "failure" and going a step further to accept it, neutralizes the situation in a way that helps you move forward. It could even bring you into a moment that connects you with others, knowing that you can't be the only one who experiences productivity fails! 

2. Do something that brings you joy.
This is counter-intuitive. My first instinct was to punish myself and continue to stare at the blank screen while I dodged the barrage of self-directed insults. But, at my core, I'm all in on the "F it" approach to intuitive living. When something feels like a struggle, do what makes you happy and see what happens. While this method was not wholeheartedly appreciated by my loved ones during my high school years, my long-standing practice has served me well. When I set out for my walk, my senses were hungry. I took it all in and it was exactly the peace I was seeking. I was flooded with ideas and explanations that reconnected me to my path. 

3. What can you learn? 
Once I was in a more accepting place, I was able to turn my rough week into an opportunity to learn what works for me and what clearly DOES NOT. What was different this week that could have thrown me off my game? I was slowly getting over a head cold. I gave myself four days to heal and I was NOT budging after that. I had to get back to work, right? It was just a cold. Because I was sick, I also took a nearly ten-day break from exercise. This did not work for me! I needed my release for both my body and my mind. I would have changed the game for my week if I re-set expectations. If I admitted that I was still sick, rested more and walked instead of going for my run, I would have been able to at least move my body—rather than sparring with my blank screen. What was different for you and how can you turn your productivity-fail into the answers you need to keep you on track? 

Most importantly, for all of this to work you MUST believe you can get back at it with renewed fervor and momentum. You MUST deposit your unproductive week into a distant past and re-commit to the things you need to put in place in order to get back to work! I say this as I sit in my favorite writing coffee shop at my best writing time with my most effective caffeinated writing fuel. I threw everything I had at this morning so I could crush any lingering doubts. And that, my friends, is how it's done. 

Recently, I took a risk and switched my career-focused weekly article to something deeply personal. I honored the 31st anniversary of my parents' death in a piece called, The Importance of Anniversaries. There were many reasons for me NOT to post something that honest and revealing. A few I tossed around were:

"People will think I'm a mess."

"That's not what people want to hear from me."

"Over-share!" 

But, I was compelled to write it and driven to share it. I felt as if I was giving myself permission to finally speak my native tongue after years of only experiencing it in fleeting moments. 

I put it out there. I went for a run. And when I returned, something remarkable happened—an explosion of love and support and inspiration and hope. Family, friends—old and new, people with whom I lost touch for 20+ years, so many camp friends and total strangers reached out to me on every channel including my neighborhood streets to say the piece inspired them to heal in a new way or they now can better help a friend going through loss and—

"This is the thing you need to be writing and speaking about." 

Deep breathe. While I'm not going to switch gears completely, my eyes and ears were and are at attention to better understand what's happening here. I've stumbled upon, My Truth. It's that thing that when you talk or write about it, it sounds like the most real, raw, honest version of you. For a while now, I've noticed this phenomena when discussing women in leadership and those clues have prompted me to drive my business down that path. What I'm learning is that I may have more than one and each may last for a different window of time—but when you listen to your intuition and speak Your Truth, here's what happens:

You feel alive
When I wrote the piece about my parents, I became that kid again—the girl who lost them AND the girl who survived it. I was able to connect words and emotions that I often struggle to marry in my weekly writing. I was a vessel rather than a wrangler. Every cell in my being was in cahoots and planning the epic party that lived in my belly for days after the piece was completed. Even before I sent it out to the world, I knew it felt different to write—and that after writing it, I was different.

People wake up and listen
When you speak Your Truth—whether it's in writing or in person, your passion and your honesty work like a magnet to draw people in. They lift their heads up out of busy-ness and the noise of media inundation to better understand what it means to be human, to learn something both basic and powerful about their lives that was always there. This is what happened to me on that day when my phone exploded with the music of diverse and simultaneous mobile alerts—all in an effort to go beyond saying, "I'm sorry". They were saying, "I get it more than I ever have." 

If you haven't yet discovered Your Truth—don't fret. You can experiment with becoming aware of how it feels to talk about certain topics with friends, family and colleagues. When do you get impassioned and raw and excited and feel like you don't want the conversation to end? What are the conversations that draw others in and when do you naturally form connections? In discovering Your Truth, you can begin to explore a new career path, direction for your business or way to help the world with your gift. Know that in this search, you don't have to have all the answers. You simply need to be open to the questions. 

Looking for additional support? Schedule a complimentary Clarity Call with me at rachelbgarrett.com/coaching
 

As I support more women in the throws of balancing teary morning school drop-offs with intense C-suite executive presentations and the dinner, homework, bedtime-pushback trifecta—it’s clear—flexibility is one ticket to keeping some semblance of sanity. But for the subset of women who love what they do, are loyal to their organization and are respected for their work, they often feel like the conversation around flexibility is the career kiss of death. This all or nothing mindset can lead them to keep pushing hard, ignoring the tug to spend more time with family, or completely give up on this seemingly un-ending, un-winnable race they’re running. They opt-out. Or they move to part-time schedules believing they’ve effectively put their careers into neutral. 

In her December 2016 Atlantic Monthly piece, “The Ambition Interviews”, Rebecca Rosen identified the women falling into these three groups as: High Achievers, Opt-outers and Scale-backers. In reading the article with my coffee one Friday morning, it dawned on me that our answers in learning more about the next phase of this conversation is within the experiences of this Scale-backer group. We have a lifetime of examples for how to be the hard-driving High Achiever group that staffs up with full-time plus help to make it work. We call those examples men. And on the flipside, women have been staying home or opting out of work since the beginning of women working. We know how that’s done. But it’s that middle group that we’re just figuring out. We don’t have clear role models or mentors for how to do this well without “burning the candle at both ends” as Rosen puts it.

Rosen states that the women in the Scale-backer group “… hadn’t lost their ambition; instead they’d changed the definition of the word. They saw that ambition takes many forms, only one of which is becoming CEO. While everyone may have started out with lofty career goals, many also had lofty personal goals; ambition doesn’t stay in a neatly contained career-goals-only box. Just as many of our classmates had previously aspired to be the best in their chosen field, they now wanted to be the best mother, the best partner, the best everything else.” 

While I see this to be true in some of my clients—with many others, I continue to see their ambition rub up against a resignation that flexibility removes the possibility of advancement—which is something for which they yearn. And it’s not about C-suite titles or recognition—it’s about involvement in strategic leadership decisions, building and mentoring teams and continued learning and growth opportunities. The question they ask is the one that’s currently on the table for organizational thinkers and leaders. 

Let’s stop asking how women can have it all. 

Instead ask, how can women continue to advance while maintaining flexibility and support? 

The answer, in a word is: Expertise. 

The women I’m describing have done incredible things. They’re attorneys creating unique ways to leverage the law to protect vulnerable populations. They’re award-winning social marketers. They’re IT professionals in male-dominated corporate cultures delivering top tier results. 

And yet they have temporary amnesia, resistance or just plain fear when it comes to promoting this expertise in their organizations—and leveraging it to gain both flexibility in a role and advancement opportunities. 

Developing a unique value at the organization and internally promoting the shit out of it, is currently your key to creating a happy union between flexibility and advancement in today’s workplace. 

I’m reading your mind right now. Why is this so hard? Why do you have to be an absolute rock star to go on a class trip without feeling like you’re running from the law? First, sadly many rock stars still have these feelings of guilt. But the truth is, my hope and life’s work is to be part of the change so that flexibility can be the rule and not the exception. 

Flexible workplace conversations are happening and employers are beginning to change expectations and support working parents—but change is slow to trickle down to most of the women in my circles. I believe it’s coming and will work toward that end—knowing how productive, engaged and excited my clients are about their careers when they get the space and support they need to succeed in both areas of their lives. 

For now, while we’re in this transitional moment in time, plant the seeds of your badassery often. Set boundaries early. Identify the three areas of flexibility that are most important to you (ie. family dinner 2x a week, doctors appointments, school drop-off 1-2x a week, etc.), and focus your message on those priorities. It’s up to all of us to stand up and advocate for the lives we want to live while the culture is changing around us.