April and May came in and rattled me around like a hurricane.
I launched a membership I’d been nurturing for months.
My Uncle Ray, for whom I’d been caring for four years, finally succumbed to his multiple diseases, and left our world.
My 13-year-old daughter celebrated a zoom Bat Mitzvah in which she read the Torah powerfully in the presence of 200+ people who love and support her.
We packed up our home and left for (what we hope will be) a month of repairs.
I observed the 35th anniversary of my parents’ tragic car accident. I was nearly 12 when they passed.
As I closed out this season of life happening all at once, I was tired. I reminded myself that it’s not always like this. Though when you’re in one of these spin cycles it’s easy to think this is simply the new pace. I must learn to adjust. I must armor up and be ready.
Instead of believing those thoughts, I actively chose to disrupt the speed and the busyness and the need to figure out all of my next moves.
I chose rest.
I chose quiet.
I chose compassion.
I chose grace.
I chose to sit in uncertainty just a little while longer knowing that I didn’t need to have all the answers.
Practically speaking, that means pushing off a funeral for Uncle Ray until we are ready in the summer or fall.
It means growing my Career Command membership slowly so I can truly take in the power and meaning and magic that lives within the community I’ve built.
It means continuing to create the kind of family where both at once I’m proud of the stable, inclusive and loving home I offer up to my kids AND also I’m sad for my inner 12-year-old who didn’t have those things. How beautiful that the joy in the family I’ve created has offered a direct path to my own healing that still longs to happen.
Part of the healing is knowing I don’t need to be fixed. I need to be loved. That is a practice I can offer myself with the people I choose, the life I design, the communities I serve and the honesty of my words.
Around the dinner table last night, instead of doing our ritual gratitude reflection, we shared the lessons we’ve learned over the past year, a year unlike any of us have lived through before.
"There is no normal." Shared my nine-year old daughter. "What we thought was normal before, like in-person school every day, now doesn’t feel normal. Even the words…in-person school. I mean…we used to say school!"
"It’s less about what I’ve learned and more about who I’ve become." exclaimed my 12-year-old. "I can do hard things. I can deal with SO. MUCH. CHANGE.
They truly set the tone for our evening and the lessons kept flowing into the night. Here are some others that stood out for us:
We are now even more committed to making our schools, work and communities more inclusive and equitable.
We often take our physical health for granted…and when it’s gone, there’s truly nothing else.
While there’s a lot we miss, we have enjoyed spending more time doing less.
We were never in control, even though we thought we were.
We all really like each other. How lucky are we??
As we hit this one-year mark, I encourage you all to gather with your people (in a covid-safe way, of course), and share, document and acknowledge what’s come out of this time for you. Feel free to ask yourself the following questions:
What lessons have I learned in this unique year?
What do I want to remember about this time?
What do these lessons mean for who I will BE now and in the future?
How do I want to remind myself of these lessons if they begin to fade?
After you spend some time with these questions, I’d love to hear your insights. Feel free add comments, below, to let me know what’s come up for you.
We’re coming up on a year of living and planning our lives during Covid. There are signs that the economy is improving. Many organizations have moved out of uncertainty and have put firmer plans in place for the year ahead. My clients are finding several roles that interest them and better yet—they’re breaking through to secure interviews.
To my surprise, I’m hearing a common refrain among them. "I like a Zoom interview!" I’ve added this to my running list of unexpected Covid silver linings. Along with my daughter’s upcoming Zoom Bat Mitzvah. That’s between us, of course.
If you’ve been flummoxed by the idea of job searching and interviewing during Covid, here’s your glass half full perspective.
Travel challenges are no longer a variable. There’s no mapping out your route, wondering if there will be traffic or train trouble. That element and level of planning is completely removed, so you can spend more time actually prepping for the interview.
Seeing yourself helps you avoid bad habits. Goodbye slouching, touching your face, fixing your hair or whatever your body does when nervous. While I wouldn’t look at yourself the entire interview, I would check in on your video to see how you’re presenting yourself a few times throughout your meeting.
You can stand. If you have a standing desk or high counter where you can take the call, it can be a game-changer for you. When you are standing, you are more likely to keep your energy high. I always recommend standing for interviews that are on the phone and if you are doing many interviews for a search, you may want to look into one of the trays that can create a standing option for your everyday desk.
Video peek into the lives of potential colleagues. You should do your best to guard your time and space for the interview. Ideally you want to create a calm and clutter free setting. That said, I’m hearing stories about interviewers with quirky and fun backgrounds or a child who comes in for a hug. This time in which the walls of perfection have come down some can give you a sense of the personality, culture and priorities of the organization.
Your notes are off camera. I often tell my clients to write the word "pause" on a post-it that hangs above their laptops during the interview. Our tendency to go on and on can prove challenging when we are nervous. So, this simple off-camera reminder can keep you on-track. Sometimes, it is accompanied by an intention set for the interview like, "Be curious." Or "Learn more about the company." Or even, "Practice interview skills!"
Whether you’re grateful for this shift in the job hunt or you’re dreading it, remember with practice you can nail a zoom interview just as you would have the in-person version. Speaking of practice, you can do this on a zoom meeting by yourself so you get a sense of how you look saying your elevator pitch and answering certain questions that may be tricky for you. Like it or not, this practice may be here to stay in some form—so building your skills during your search right now will be critical in your career in the longer term.
Often clients come to me complaining that they’re terrible at networking. Sometimes they’re doing the work to reach out to their people. They’re having multiple conversations a week…and yet nothing comes of them.
They say, "We had an interesting chat, but who knows what will happen." Or "He asked me how he can help me and I froze."
There’s an easy fix for this common challenge.
Have a goal in mind for each conversation. Each meeting's goal will be unique and most often it is NOT – give me a job.
Here are 10 examples of networking goals:
Learn about the person’s role.
Learn about the culture in his/her/their company.
Ask for an intro to a specific person or company.
Ask for intro’s to colleagues in a new city in which you’d like to relocate.
Learn about a specific leader or colleague with whom you may be working closely.
Learn about the organizational structure in his/her/their company.
Learn about his/her/their career transition and tips to making a switch.
Ask about skills or education needed for his/her/their role.
Ask to send in your application for a role to a hiring manager or HR.
Share specific roles you’re looking for so if they hear of them, they can reach out to you.
When you have a clear goal for the conversation, you know if it you hit your mark or not. You’ve also given the other person a specific and actionable way to help you, which makes them feel good, like they hit their mark.
Remember that when it comes to networking, long-term thinking is best. While you will have a goal for the conversation, you also want to consider that you are building a relationship, and this is not simply a transaction.
Your sub-goal is always expanding and curating your network so that you can continue to expand your impact within your career. With this sub-goal in mind, even if you didn’t meet your specific goal in the conversation, you can continue to cultivate the relationship.
Perhaps you will reach out when you are clearer in your own vision of what you need and most importantly you can show your gratitude with generosity of your time and expertise.
In my work with women, there’s one epiphany I’m grateful to witness often. An insight that turns the ship around and provides a new lens to look back on a life half-lived.
Sometimes it starts with a feeling.
Guilt. Anxiety. Frustration
And then there’s a moment where the unseen is seen. The common refrain—I don’t know what I want—becomes untrue.
In its place arises something unfamiliar and beautiful. Many wants.
But still no permission to want them.
As women we are so accustomed to cloaking ourselves in the needs and desires of everyone else in our lives that our own oxygen feels selfish to breathe.
Yet when we inhale and imagine, we see a glimpse of what is possible, and we are filled with hope.
This is the shift that can forever change you. It is an honoring of what you want. No matter how you may fail or fumble. Especially because you may fail or fumble. It is agency. It is trust.
It is admitting to those you love that you have wants and they are important. And practicing together. Continuing to remind each other that they are still important, even when they are inconvenient and throw off the equilibrium of the old systems that put your wants at the bottom of the list.
Your wants are worth fighting for even if there’s chaos before you find your order.
We were not taught to want outside the lanes our culture drew for us. And yet every time we unlearn these bounds—we find who we are meant to be.
I’m thrilled to be featured on The Broad Experience podcast with Ashley Milne-Tyte discussing the impact of the pandemic on women’s careers—and within my own business.
You can find the full episode of the podcast on The Broad Experience Website, on Stitcher or Apple Podcasts.
The good news: you made it through the most challenging school year in history, during which we were all collectively making it up as we went along.
The bad news: the school year is now over, as is the structure and the hanging on by a thread reason for your kids to be occupied and leave you to get at least some work done.
If you’re anything like me, you’re having the same nightmare vision every time you let yourself think through the realities of this summer.
It’s Lord of the Flies time, people.
Most in-person camps are cancelled. My kids are not thrilled about the idea of virtual camp. I don’t want to invest in camps they’re rebelling against before day one.
While I’m typically the person who has every day of every week of summer white boarded and accounted for—the uncertainty of the life we’re currently living is driving me to try it a different way.
Welcome to The Garrett Improv Summer.
I’m working with a few guiding principles. (Plus, a reminder that my daughters are 9 and 12, so this will be tougher for kids under 7 or 8.)
There will be:
Fun
Creativity
Alone time off screens (meaning make your own fun instead of watching 6 seasons of Glee)
Learning
Movement
Rest
Nature
Helping others
To drill down into some more detail here:
We started with a Summer Ideas Workshop this past weekend.
I wrote down the principles on a big pad and then gave everyone a big piece of paper and markers.
With pictures and words, we listed activities that fit under each category on our respective Summer 2020 blank slates.
We presented our ideas to the rest of team Garrett.
Example brainstorming for me:
Fun: Outdoor weekend day trips, games, date nights!Creativity: Writing daily (blog/book), Writing workshop with girls 2x per week
Alone Time: 9 - 4 work hours for sessions/writing/learning
Learning: Online course, continued racial equity learning, reading as a familyMovement: Yoga/walking
Rest: In bed by 10, journaling
Nature: Prospect Park, Upstate NY—walks, hikes, swimming (not sure where or how)
Helping Others: Bringing supplies to Uncle Ray, Working on political campaigns aligned with my values.We attempted to map it all together into a loose schedule. That’s where team Garrett lost patience and came to terms with our disappointment for the summer we are collectively having, one that is not the summer we wanted. There were tears and frustration.
Instead of setting a schedule, we decided on boundaries and guidelines that included when the adults must be left to do their work and when the kids can "finally" get onto their devices. All other activities can be chosen by each kid or adult based on their lists.
To make it all work, we’re bringing back a former babysitter for a couple of weeks to hang out with our younger daughter and she may be able to help sporadically for the rest of the summer. But again—we’re playing it by ear and taking extra precautions to make sure it’s safe for our sitter and for all of us.
We have selected some free learning options for the kids to include into their schedules, like Camp Kinda and Camp Khan Academy.
Summer Ideas Workshop results aside, we’re going to learn from our rocky start to virtual learning in March. For those of us planner types, we will remember to shoot for loose guidelines and not rigid schedules. We will remember that our first priorities are still the physical and mental health of our families. We will ask for help when we need it. Of course, I’m grateful that my business is designed for the flexibility of cutting my workday, during the summer—and yet I have never run this experiment before. I’ve always had camp and childcare coverage to keep the same pace as in all seasons.
So, onward we march...into the great somewhat unknown of Summer, 2020. Ready for smiles, tears, insights and boredom. We are here for all of it. Because...we have no other choice.
Job seekers and career-transitioners often come to me in a panic, feeling they are unemployable. They believe they will never find a job that pays them what they want, let alone with a company that’s aligned with their values.
They fear:
Their experience is fragmented and all over the place.
They’ve stayed at one company too long.
They’re too old and their experience will not be valued.
They’re too young, appearing green and naïve.
They’ve spent too much time out of the work force.
All of this may be true, in the version of the story they are telling. Before we get to any of their materials—elevator pitch, resume, LinkedIn and beyond—we rework their narratives.
If you’d like to begin this process, I invite you to push your thinking with this free writing exercise:
Rewrite your narrative as if you’ve stepped into an alternate reality where every career move you made was intentional, and you learned something important from every role and every change.
As you move away from the formality of your resume and the salesmanship of LinkedIn to view your story from a different perspective, you will find:
Meaning
There were deep relationships built and lessons learned that could only have been found in what seemed to be failures at the time. There were risks taken that prompted you to grow. Moments where you discovered a true purpose behind your work AND moments where you found you needed to rediscover how you could best use your talents.
A Through Line
Even if it is not obvious at first, there is connective tissue that bonds each career move into a cohesive, contained package. Whether you find it in your values or in a certain strength of yours that was often leveraged or amplified in others, there is a way to pull a disjointed or fragmented seeming career into one that makes sense to you—and one that can be more easily explained to others.
The Skeletons
Every career has its fair share of challenges. Toxic bosses who give you an eye twitch for many months. Microagressions in a corporate culture built on white supremacy. Being passed over for a promotion while on parental leave. These are critical offenses and issues that shaped what you are striving for in your next role to feel safe and valued. And yet now, you get to choose how much or how little you share about them in your narrative. I highly encourage you to work to heal these career-related traumas with a therapist and reflect on how you shape the story so that you both advocate for what you need, and also share the version that helps you connect to your confidence and your worth.
Once you’ve completed the exercise, share it with a friend, former colleague or your coach. Notice how it feels to tell the story in this new, all-true and yet intentionally shifted perspective. Practice this retelling when you’re networking or discussing your career change with friends. Start with your close-in circle so that your narrative seeps into your muscle memory. This will create a more fluid process when writing all your other materials, and help you step into your interviews with the clarity of what you have to offer.