YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL; JUST NOT ALL AT THE SAME TIME?

This week I am taking my own advice and keeping my life in balance. Please enjoy a repost of the MOST READ Heart of the Middle blog post. Later this week I will have the pleasure of speaking to a group of professionals on “Having it all is not a destination…”; seems appropriate as I prepare for that event to repost this one and keep things in balance!

In November 2009, I was driving from Austin, Minnesota to the St. Paul/ Minneapolis airport as fast as my heart would allow.  The first snowflakes of the season were floating onto my rental car windshield as the corn fields quickly flew by.  The flakes would have been a pretty site if they weren’t blurred by tear filled eyes.  Earlier that day I had completed yet another weeklong management meeting at corporate office.  My family was based out of New Jersey, so every weeklong meeting was another week away.  

I had quickly climbed the corporate ladder in my eyes.  Nearly 12 years into my career, I had worked in three different divisions of Hormel Foods and had been the National Sales Manager overseeing Regional Sales teams for 4 years.   I had the corner office, I had a great reputation.  The next job could have been a Vice Presidents role.  Everything I had dreamed of was all coming true.  And yet as I drove that snowy, deserted farmland road I wondered why I had ever wanted “this dream” at all.

The tears came fast and hard, that ugly kind of cry that stains a silk blouse as the tears fall, the kind that can cause car accidents due to blurry vision.  I concentrated on the middle double line in the road in an effort to maintain my speed and keep moving towards the airport.  My five year old son had just had another epileptic seizure.  My husband reported to me that “he was fine”.  Drive safely he would say, get home when you can, we are all “fine”.  But I was not fine, I was the farthest that a mother can ever be from fine.  I still had to drive an hour and a half and board an airplane and then drive home where I would hold my son before I would ever be fine again.

At this point in my life I was a mother to two boys ages 2 and 5, I was a wife to a loving husband and many would say, “I had it all”.  But having it all would have meant that I was there for every sporting event, every birthday party, that I could read the boys stories and tuck them in at night.  Having it all would have never brought on such a horrible guilty and helpless feeling as I drove past these sad dead corn stalks thousands of miles away from my epileptic son.

I do not know where I first heard the saying “You can have it all; just not all at the same time”; I have always used it with the employees I have managed that have struggled to find balance between their personal lives and career.  

Although I do not know where I first heard it, that day in November was the day I realized the statement could be true.  A few days after that trip, I contacted a long time mentor and friend and asked if I could take him up on a previous offer to start a new sales team on the East Coast.  Working out of a home office and starting as a sales representative all over again for a new corporation.  With no one to manage and just a business to build.  It was as if I was playing the game of Candy Land and was only a few squares from the top of the ladder and I pulled a candy card that forced me back down to the bottom of the game board all over again.

The decision to abandon my career track was the most difficult and easiest decision of my life all in one moment.  There was never a question in my heart what I needed to do, there was never a choice that I needed to make.  The universe made that choice for me and I followed its lead.

As the years went by and my boys grew, I was there.  

“You can have it all; just not all at the same time” has taken on a new meaning to me.  I used to think that “having it all” had an actual destination, a place or a position, perhaps a title.  But through my years I have discovered that “having it all” has no destination, “having it all” is a journey.  Careers and our lives have seasons.  Seasons of struggle, seasons of success, seasons of redemption.  Riding that roller coaster of seasons and all of the fulfillment that comes from the ride results in “having it all”.  

As a manager learning from my own experiences, I have worked to become attune to my employees’ personal and professional “seasons”.  Working to support them in “having it all” but also recognizing when they may be on the same confusing ride I was on many years ago.  Riding to a destination, title or place that does not really exist.  A place they will never get to or that they will regret traveling toward once they arrive. 

Managing in the Middle…

  • Supporting employees in their careers has become easier for me when I ask what does “having it all” mean to them?  
  • Are they considering not only the season of career and life they are in now but the season of their life they will be in next year or in a few years to come?  
  • Do their professional goals synch up with their personal goals? 
  • Do their passions, match their ambitions?  
  • Help employees make a list of the pros and cons of a career path they are aspiring to; talk through what that list will look like from both a personal and professional perspective over time.

In all my work with many employees through the years, there have been some that have left a corporation for different passions and some that have decided after careful consideration to choose another path but stay with the same company.  None of these decisions that they made were ever a surprise to me, it was my job to help them see the trajectory of their dreams and what “having it all” truly means to them.  The result for me are ex and current employees that are happy and fulfilled, on the path that they have consciously considered and chosen. 

They are in the “season” of having it all and all at the same time too.

I CANNOT DO THIS ALONE

“Sometimes we go through what we go though, to help others go through what we went through.” Kathe Wunnenberg

Since I started this blog and support sight back in February, I have posted 30 total blogs; 29 I have written, and one graciously offered anonymous post. I have taken off 1 week in 30 weeks due to some desperately needed family time. Behind the blog scene, I have continued to work a full-time job, joined the advisory board for the Sigmund School of Business and also taken on a leadership role with the global women’s ERG at Glanbia where we will be proudly launching our first ever women’s global mentoring program in a couple of weeks.

There have been 1,400 visitors to this blog site and nearly 3,700 views in just 6 months. I feel like some of the content is resonating and I do believe that there is a need for this type of real, raw and honest discussion. I have kept this site ad free and paid for the domain out of my own pocket all in an effort to make it easy and enjoyable to navigate. Ads distract from a place that I want to be simple, organized and peaceful.

At the same time, I am struggling with whether or not to this blog should continue. I have a writers’ block that has been haunting me week after week. What do I write next? What topics can we all benefit from? Instead of something I look forward to, this blog has become something that is hanging over my head and another large item on my “to do” list week after week.

I have always been honest, vulnerable and real in these posts. I have shared intimate details about the struggles that very few are willing to share. It has been my passion and hope that by sharing these stories and vulnerable moments that I am making a difference for those that are struggling with similar challenges. This week, I am asking all of you to be vulnerable with me. I need help moving through this writers’ block, I need help to continue to build what I believe could evolve into an interactive and safe support space for all those seeking fulfillment and sucess in both their careers and their personal lives.

If you have enjoyed the posts and you want the content to continue, I am asking all of you for help. Please comment with subject areas that we should explore or send an email via the website link with your personal story (which will be kept confidential). If you would like to contribute to the community with a guest post (either anonymous or otherwise); please contact me. I have never claimed to have all the answers, I only have experiences. My experiences are only my perspective, this space should share all experiences and all perspectives. For this space and vulnerable conversation to continue, I cannot do it alone.

IT IS NOT WHAT YOU KNOW

“Talent will get you in the door but character will keep you there.” Unknown

Way back in 1994 when I attended college, I studied endless days and nights to cram my brain full of knowledge.   Knowledge that I had been told I would need in order to be successful in the business career I was pursuing.  At the time, I was under the impression that the knowledge and experience would be the most important factor in my success throughout my career.  I now know 29 years later that although knowledge is fundamental and important, a successful and more importantly fulfilling career is not based on what you know but rather who you know.

The past couple of weeks with the recent changes in my organization, I have had the pure pleasure of hearing from friends and colleagues that have all had an impact on my life throughout the years.  Previous managers that I have considered mentors, customers that have become friends, friends that have become colleagues as well as champions and supporters of me.  A good friend recently joined our organization, and she said it well when she stated, “We are all going through it, I prefer to go through it with people I enjoy.”

As a middle manager, I am often in a position where I do not have all the answers.  The knowledge I have worked to stuff into my brain is not nearly enough to know all the answers all by myself.  That is where the WHO you know comes into play.  I will often reach out to others that have an expertise in the area I am seeking, but even more often I will encourage my employees to reach out and connect with someone that can share their expertise.  The thing about having knowledge is that it serves you for the time that you are able to retain it and only for the purpose it serves at that time; however, a personal connection, well that is one of the gifts that can keep on giving and growing and evolving. 

It is also important to remind your employees (and yourself) that the WHO you know does not mean your personal rolodex is only valuable if you know CEO’s and VP’s and CFO’s.  Your connections at all levels are important, relevant and changing.  As I connected with previous colleagues, employees and connections this past week, I was struck by the paths that they have all taken.  The CEO’s and CFO’s that they have become, the mothers and fathers and grandfathers they have also become.  These connections and the WHO I know started with a common interest, a common goal, a genuine joy in “going through it with the people I enjoy”. These connections started at the bottom, not at the top.  They are the connections that are the most valuable and the ones that I will always help out first.

This week, reconnect with the WHO’s in your life and career.  Seek out a conversation with someone you enjoy “going through it” with.  Encourage your employees to build their network of knowledgeable resources and connections, not at the top but instead from the bottom.  These are the people that really know what is going on, these are the team members that truly have the expertise to assist, and these are the people that 20 years from now will be the CEO’s and the CFO’s; they will grow and evolve in your personal rolodex. They will forever be the WHO’s that you call on when the WHAT is just not sufficient enough.

SEPTEMBER CHAOS

“With organization comes empowerment.” Lynda Peterson

September is a beautiful month for great weather in New Jersey.  The shore towns are quiet, and the temperatures start to go down to an enjoyable 70 to 80 degrees during the day.  Anyone who does not have children in school and also a full-time job probably truly loves September.  Since I am a Virgo and my birthday falls in September, I should enjoy it as well.  However, for the most part I hate September!  School starts back up, fall sports are in full swing and the endless school paperwork and back to school events pile on my calendar like the used wet towels on my kid’s bedroom floors.

A middle manager in a corporation is also somewhere along the path of the end of the fiscal year planning… or panic, depending on how your performance is looking and the exact close of the company’s fiscal year.  Most companies close their fiscal years somewhere between end of October and end of December.

If you have elementary and/or junior high students then you are dealing with the medical forms, the school supply lists, the back-to-school nights, the bus times, and the never-ending school lunch demands.  For example, my teenage sons prefer to bring lunch to school.  This leads to the need of an endless supply of fresh turkey, cheese and bread… and I am not talking about just any turkey, cheese and bread…  they require the freshest, most premium turkey, cheese and bread.  Not the kind that you can stock up at Costco for the next 2 weeks.  They need the turkey, cheese and bread that is refreshed and supplied nearly every two days from the local deli and Pepperidge Farm bakery.  So in between conference calls I am running into grocery stores, on hold with doctors’ offices for the most recent shot records, emailing the bussing company to complain about my sons 3 hour round trip bus ride, picking up my youngest from tennis practice and arranging medical care for my oldest who is getting his wisdom teeth out before school starts.  In between all of that, I am leading a commercial sales team.  As you read this blog, I know you want to raise your hands to the heavens and say, “THANK GOD I AM NOT ALONE!”.

The chaos and never-ending list of “to do’s” is simply overwhelming.  I was speaking with a colleague recently that has much younger children than I and she summed it up very well, “I need an organizational overhaul”.  I always feel more capable when I am organized.  I will spend a couple of hours on a Sunday just clearing my emails, sorting through my paper pile on my desk and planning out my week just so that I can start Monday FEELING organized.  When my brain is in chaos, my work reflects it.

I have followed nearly every organizational program; I am a “The Home Edit” and “Marie Kondo” method fan!  Netflix binging on organizational programs is one of my most favorite things to do; however, I feel the need to produce my own new Netflix organizational show called “Organizing your Corporate Career with your Real-Life Demands”.  Not a very catchy title, but I welcome suggestions in the comments for a name of this new Netflix series!

In the meantime, while I try to come up with a catchy name for my Netflix series, I am fairly confident that I have learned a few organizational tips and tricks throughout my 24-year corporate career and 18 years of being a parent.  I share those with you in bullet point below, I also welcome you to share your tips and tricks in the comments and use this site to support each other.

Managing in the Middle:

  • Set aside an hour each Sunday to write out your schedule for the week and clear any emails that need immediate attention the first thing on Monday morning. 
  • Use a notebook with the day at the top of each page.  Write your schedule for the day on the right side of the page; also include things like “workout”; “eat lunch”; “Drive Nick to tennis”.  On the left side list your “to do’s” for the day.  As the day goes by if some things become less important, move them to the following day.  As new things come up for additional days in the week, add them to the list for that day.
  • Set up family text groups to help with easy communication and schedule changes.
  • Have a central family calendar set up in an area that everyone can see with sporting activities, school activities and other commitments.  Some prefer to have this on the wall, some prefer an electronic version that everyone as access to.
  • Block out an hour each day in the early afternoon to get through your emails and clear up any immediate concerns that need to be addressed prior to the end of the day.
  • Schedule routine catch up calls (touch bases) with team members and colleagues while driving.  Assuming these are just routine and nothing that would require a face-to-face discussion.

LEADERS LISTEN

“Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who don’t speak.” Andy Stanley

I have decided that the single most underappreciated and yet most difficult skill to develop as a manager is the skill of listening.  Listening is more important than speaking, more important than negotiating, more important than leading.  Without the ability to listen, none of the other skills truly matter.  A leader that does not listen, leads with only their own thoughts and ideas instead of cultivating the needs and inspiration from their team members.  It is like an orchestra conductor conducting from a faraway balcony with noise cancelling headphones and a blindfold.  The orchestras sound, feeling, speed, noise level and individual contributions just don’t matter.  The result is an off key, out of balance, unenjoyable symposium.

My personal confession is that I find it very challenging to be a great listener.  I am naturally a talker, a fixer and I become very impatient with conversations or presentations that are not straight forward and concise.  When someone takes 10 minutes to answer a single yes or no question, it sounds like nails on a chalkboard in my head.

Listening is outside of my comfort zone and it is something I continually need to work on.  When one of my sales managers has an issue, I so quickly want to just jump in with the answer or the action that will lead them to the answer.  It takes me consciously reminding myself that I have one mouth and two ears for a reason. 

I have worked with all types of leaders in my 25 years.  The ones I have respected the most are the ones that have taken the time to listen.  I am sure there were times that they found it challenging to just sit and listen but when a leader listens, the employee often finds a solution on their own through processing out loud.  As challenging as it can be, the most effective listening skill I like to use is asking probing questions.  Listening to the problem and then asking probing questions that will lead my team in the direction of a potential solution but also to allow the space for them to discover that solution on their own.

In the next week I am going to challenge myself to listen more and listen better.  It is a skill that I need to continue to refine.  I may even ask some of my colleagues, “How are my listening skills?”  My employee reviews have often included the feedback that I need to listen more and talk less.  I can see now that this critique is very true.  For those of you that would like to join my listening challenge this week, I include for all of our benefit an active listing checklist to use as we work to improve on the most important leadership skill a manager can master.  If at the end of my career if my team says about me “she was a great listener”; I know I will have made a difference.

Managing in the middle, easy steps to improved listening:

  • Ask thought-provoking (probing) questions.
  • While the other person is responding, give them your full attention.
  • Reflect back on what they have stated; “my understanding of what you just said…”
  • Acknowledge and empathize if needed.

GROW AS WE GO

“Few people wake up suddenly feeling prepared to lead or create.  They become prepared by taking the leap anyway.” Adam Grant

This past week at work has been exhausting, chaotic and honestly emotional.  It was a week filled with unknowns, changes, promotions and tough discussions.  Late on Friday afternoon, I received a text from a supportive colleague and friend that read as follows:

“Never fear or shy away from any challenge.  You have much more strength and skill than you may even know.  Experience comes only when you reach forward.”

There have been a few different posts on this site that have spoken to the fear of taking on an unknown challenge.  In the past, the changes that were made this past week would have likely led me to question if I would be capable in the new role I will be assuming.  But the past is not now, and any internal questioning of my own capabilities is no longer a conversation I need to have with myself.

It is incredibly true that experience only comes when you reach forward and I have experience in spades.  That experience is written word for word in this 39 page litany of posts, stories, learnings and mentoring.  As I reflect back on the last 25 years of my career and re-read the experiences I have shared, it is clear to me that we all grow as we go. 

I spoke with a mentee this past week that is a young new mother struggling to achieve the balance in life of being a “good” mom and a “good” and productive employee.  The heaviness of her breathing over our Zoom call was a direct reflection of the heaviness of her heart.  I try to not just tell her that everything will be okay.  “Okay”, is not what she wants to hear.  Instead, I try to listen and pull only from the experiences I can share.  I encourage her to “reach forward” and say out loud what she needs.  To share her struggles with her manager and provide solutions that will meet her needs as well as the companies.  The answers she gets will not always be the ones she wants to hear, but “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter to us.” Martin Luther King.

This mentee will grow as she goes, she is starting from a different place than where I am on my path but I will reach back and lead her while she reaches forward to grab a helping hand.

The new role I have assumed within the organization does not scare me, there is no fear in my heart.  I will continue to grow as I go.  I will reach forward to gather even more experiences and I will reach behind to mentor and lead those that want to grow as we go together.

HERSTORY

“Be honest, follow your instincts, work really hard, and just be yourself.“

Final and fourth post in a series featuring “Getting Further with Honey” An Oral History of a Successful Female Vice President.  Recorded and dictated in 1997……  

The last three weeks have detailed the “herstory” of the first ever female Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Hershey Entertainment and Resort Company from 1997.  Her honest and vulnerable stories still ring true today.  I hope her bravery and brutal honesty have made you laugh, reflect and consider…  “What will my story be?”.

In this final reflection on her thoughts from 1997, she shares advice for a woman pursuing a career and family.  Her words could be considered as slightly controversial in this day and time, but I cannot help but share what we may all be thinking and only she was brave enough to say all those years ago.

“Be aggressive with class and with poise and don’t try to talk louder or faster than the next person, just be yourself.  The biggest thing people do is try to be something that they are not, but you always have to back it up with your homework… always take that extra time to deliver over and beyond what they are expecting. 

For a woman in the business world in 1997 it helps to be attractive, that will get you in the door but from there you have to prove yourself from that point on.  You can use attractiveness as long as you use it to the point before it becomes something negative, there is a fine line, don’t go over the edge.  Having sex appeal is great, being sleazy is not.

Be honest, follow your instincts, work really hard, and just be yourself.  It all sounds very Pollyanna but it is not, it really has worked for me and I think that it would work for you.

I wish I would have known that eventually what comes around goes around.  I wasted a lot of brain power over why are they still here and why did they just get promoted when I knew that they were not all about the right things.  I wish I would have believed and known that eventually, whether it is ten years or ten months from now, it will catch up with them.  The way you behave, there is consequences, you can’t behave a certain way and not expect consequences.” 

As I revisited this paper from so many years ago, I thought about where this 64-year-old woman is today.  What was the trajectory of her career?  Did she make difficult career and family decisions along the way?  Did she know that she was brave all those years ago?  Is she surprised that not a whole lot has changed in 24 years?  A short search to locate her was unsuccessful.  In just 17 years, I will be wherever she is today.  What difference or significant impact will I have made? 

 In my final question to her during our interview, I asked her how she was different now versus when she had graduated from college.  Her answer has stuck with me, I believe it will stick with you too.

The difference between what I am now and what I was when I began is that I was naïve, but yet no one would have ever described me as naïve.  Wizard of Oz is my favorite movie, like Dorothy I really went in wide-eyed and hopeful and now I am very much no longer like that.

All these years later, I am also no longer naïve, wide-eyed or hopeful either.  I have become determined, driven, passionate and slightly exhausted.

NEVER HAVE I EVER

“It is not going to come to you, you have to go after it.”

Post number three in a series featuring “Getting Further with Honey” An Oral History of a Successful Female Vice President.  Recorded and dictated in 1997……  

The last two weeks of posts have entailed the sharing of the “herstory” of the first ever female Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Hershey Entertainment and Resort Company interviewed in 1997.  Her honest stories changed my life forever, many of them still ring true today.  Her vulnerability has caught me by surprise.  Her bravery has inspired me.

This week, I am featuring her direct quotes and thoughts on managing people (dictated in 1997).  Her slightly controversial opinion on the difference between men and women will make you laugh and yet the differences do exist.  It seems ironic that all these years later, I would find a similar passion in management and mentoring.  As a junior in college, I could not have ever known that our personal and career paths would end up being very similar.  For anyone in management, her brutal honesty will ring true.  Time has not changed the struggle or the rewards.

“The difference between men and women, I find that I enjoy men and I really enjoy the relationships I have with men.  I also enjoy women too, but I find that women are just better workers and they have this need to prove themselves but they get caught up sometimes in shit that just totally counteracts their productivity.  Whereas, I think men are less productive, men can’t find their way sometimes, they can’t figure stuff out but they don’t seem to get caught up in the nonsense that women do.  Sot there are pros and cons with both.

Although men and women both have their pros and cons, I would not for one minute want to be a man, I absolutely love being a woman.  Being a woman leader.  It is perfect time to have broken this good old boys’ network within our company and with the industry in general.  In ten years, it won’t be as unique or out of the ordinary to see a woman in a top position, and right now I like that it is unique, I like being unique.  Never have I ever thought, it is a man’s world and I wish I was a man, never.”

“I used to think that I hated managing people because there are so many problems with managing people.  People are a pain in the ass, they are babies, they whine and they are waiting for things to be handed to them.  And then one day, I really don’t know when it changed but then I really started to love it because I realized that if I really had good people around me than that was less work for me… I think good people make me look good and so then I really started to love good people and I to work with a good team around me.

I have had to fire people, I have had people sitting here crying, a situation a couple of weeks ago where I had to eliminate a position, a single mom.  Those are the things I lay in bed at night thinking, isn’t there another way?  But there isn’t.  I know where we are going and in order to get there, I have got to have strength all around me.  You give someone as many opportunities that you can and then you have just got to say, this isn’t working.

I also think you have to communicate, that is yet another battle.  I don’t have enough time to communicate as much as I would like but I think it is very important.

Don’t think that things are just going to come to you, that also drives me crazy.  People think that it is owed, like I owe you an opportunity and I don’t.  If there are opportunities that are created, and you create those opportunities than you be right there and ready and willing to jump in.  It is not going to come to you, you have to go after it.”

I HAVE SACRIFICED

Post number two in a series featuring “Getting Further with Honey” An Oral History of a Successful Female Vice President.  Recorded and dictated in 1997……   

“If you do not sacrifice for what you want, what you want will become the sacrifice” Unknown

Last week’s post was an introduction to the “herstory” of the first ever female Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Hershey Entertainment and Resort Company from 1997.  Her honest and vulnerable stories changed my life forever, many of them still all ring true to today.  I hope her experiences and expertise that I will share over the next few weeks will pull at your heart strings and inspire you as well. 

This week, she shares an incredibly vulnerable side.  As I was retyping her words from the only copy I have of the direct dictation, I became teary eyed as I typed.  When I was a Junior in college and interviewed this woman, I had such a different perspective than I do now.   I took her words for very matter of fact.  I now read these words 24 years later as a working mom of 2 boys and I am amazed by how incredibly vulnerable she was with me at the time.  I was not in a place in 1997 to appreciate or even receive that vulnerability, but now in 2022, I am emotionally enthralled.  I believe we will all find a part of ourselves in her words, you will feel her emotional struggle and will recognize that even today, the struggle continues.

Below is a direct quote excerpt from the subject of the paper in her exact words:

“Can you have it all?  You can’t, it is so hard to juggle it all.  I used to say I am going to have it all, but now that I have eased up on myself it is all I can do.  I can just do the best that I can do, but you get and expectation for yourself.  And I have just kind of let go of that and it has made things a lot easier.  Something has got to give, I can’t be a super subordinate, a super boss, a super mom, and a super friend.  I mean something has just got to give.  It hurts me because I know I disappoint my friends who call and I can’t find time to call them back.  I look at my relationship with my daughter which is great, but my relationship with my husband is definitely strained because I don’t give him the time or commitment that I do my job.  I don’t believe that on all fronts it can all be clicking.  I think that something is going to give, something will not click at all times.  I think it is something, you just have to get comfortable in your own skin and know that you can’t deliver all the way around, not that it is okay, but you have just got to let up on yourself because you will just keep beating yourself up all the time and you can’t keep doing that.  My husband wants more kids, we only have one and I don’t feel like I am even able to give her enough, how am I going to give another one enough?  So then I think, does that make me a bad person and I think ‘no, it is just not what you want’, and then he says, ‘well I don’t want to sit around at Thanksgiving dinner 20 years from now with just one child’ and I’m like you know, I understand, and I do feel bad.  I never said that I just wanted to have one child and I still can’t believe I am saying that, but he is 44 and I am 39, we have been married 18 years and I just can’t find time to have another one.  If you would hand me a 6-year-old right now, that would be great, but I have a real problem imagining myself going through being pregnant again.  Just the way people will view me differently.  I had my daughter before I was “this”, and I think, ‘Oh God Karen how shallow are you?’; but will I have the same impact and the same influence if I am walking around 9 months pregnant?  That is a really heavy load to carry.

I don’t get to spend enough time at home, I feel like I do a good job with my siblings and parents, but I haven’t been a good friend and it is a horrible bull shit excuse, but it is time.  I don’t send friends birthday cards.  I have a friend whose mom just recently had a bout with cancer and died and I wasn’t there, I think to myself ‘I have to call Ann today’, and something will come up and I just won’t call.  I just haven’t been good with keeping in touch and that just really bothers me.  The minute I get home I just totally focus my attention on my daughter so that being the case, my relationship with my husband has just…. I mean we are great friends, but I haven’t given him the attention because there have just been other things.  He has been my biggest supporter and has picked up and moved for me and does everything for our daughter.  He takes her to school and picks her up, does the grocery shopping, he just the other night referred to himself as Mr. MOM.  So, I then sit there and think, gosh I wish he was more aggressive like I am on a career but then I realize that if he was then I could not have done all this.  So I have put an expectation on him that really hasn’t been fair, and it is definitely a difficult situation.  Those are the things I feel bad about because I have sacrificed those things for this.

When you are on your death bed, it is your family and friends that surround you, it is not your work and that is a constant underlying thing for me.  I really am not doing anything that is helping anybody, that makes me feel bad too.  I just hope that maybe I am making an impact on this company which is making an impact on the employees and their families, I have to think about it that way to just try and justify it all.”

24 YEARS HAS COME AND GONE

“Sometimes it takes an overwhelming breakdown to have an undeniable breakthrough” Unknown

I am spending this week vacationing at our family cabin in Northern Minnesota on the Canadian border.  It is a place that you cannot access without a boat and the loons sing me to sleep as the sun sets each evening.  My great grandfather built this place and now the fifth generation is occupying this cabin in the woods that I call home.  The history of this home is depicted in piles and piles of black and white pictures in drawers and boxes.  There are also old files left here by my parents and grandparents and great grandparents too.  As I was digging through a file last night, I found a college paper that I wrote in 1997.  My parents had decided to keep this one paper, not sure why they kept this one but as I read through it, I was very happy they did.

The name of the paper is “Getting Further with Honey” An Oral History of a Successful Female Vice President.  Keep in mind this paper was written 24 years ago.  As I began to read what I wrote, I was sure that the paper would quickly detail all of the changes that have occurred with women Executives in the workforce compared to today.  I was excited to feature those changes in this blog and reflect back on where we had been and how very far we had come.  However, reading through the paper, I was quickly reminded that change is hard. 

I feel like I was meant to find this paper again exactly when I did.  There are so many “ah ha” moments in her 14-page oral history.  So many nuggets to learn from and reflect on that are still so very relevant even 24 years later.  I do not want to rush this reflection on this woman’s inspiring words.  Therefore, this blog will be the start of a short series of her history (herstory) where she provides a first-hand detail of the joys and challenges of her executive career path up to 1997.  This executive had recently accepted the position as the first ever female Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Hershey Entertainment and Resort Company.  Her honest and vulnerable stories changed my life forever, many of them still all ring true to today.  I hope her experiences and expertise that I will share over the next few weeks will pull at your heart strings and inspire you as well.  24 years has come and gone since these stories were told, what will your story be?

Below is a direct quote excerpt from the subject of the paper in her exact words:

“Right after I accepted my new job with Disney Imagineers on NASA property in Houston, I had people coming to me asking me about all these questions that I had no idea what they were talking about or how to answer their questions.  That really freaked me out because I thought, oh my God, I have sold these people a bill of goods.  I have sold myself so well that they think I am something I am not, they think I am so much more experienced than I am, it was awful.  So I said, just use your instinct and I didn’t trust my instinct.  I thought, this is what I think but I had never been in a position where people actually listened to me and were doing what I said.  So I called my friend and said, ‘I am way over my head.’  He said, ‘Listen, it is called the great imposter syndrome, it is something that people at our level go through, it is a very common syndrome, you strive and strive and strive and then all of sudden you find yourself in a position you have always wanted and it scares the shit out of you, because there you are and you are an impostor, you are sitting in the seat and you are an impostor.’  So once I put a label on it and once I knew this was normal, I started to then go, okay here is the answer and then it would work and I would be like, ‘I do know what I am talking about, and I can trust my instinct and I am not incompetent.’  It was an amazing thing, my friend literally in one conversation changed so much for me.  I knew that I was not alone, this it happened before and in a career cycle that it is very common.  From that point on, I don’t think there is anything I can’t do.  Some calls I made were totally wrong, but I learned from them, so it is an interesting thing, I know now, it’s okay to be unsure.”

24 years from now, what do you want to be remembered for? What do you hope your story will be?