Podcast Archive
2022 Season: Pandemic Clarity
Toxic Gratitude
Episode 107 | June 2, 2022
We’ve spent the past few months deep in a series on pandemic clarity—hearing intimate stories about people whose relationships to work have changed dramatically over the past two years. But the more we listened to others’ stories, the more we realized…it was time to tell our own.
In today’s episode, Sara is joined by Active Voice operations manager and Strong Feelings producer, Emily Duncan, to talk about their own reckonings with work. From the founding of Active Voice during the pandemic to confronting exploitation in the music industry, they offer glimpses into the reality of being leadership works-in-progress.
What we do is really tech and UX and UI focused. But I do think that there's a ton of overlap in multiple industries. And I see myself as having the ability to take some of what I've been learning here and bring it back, take that fire from the Greek gods and bring it back down and share it. If I can come and help educate even just one person on their rights and what they deserve, I think that it will have all been worth it.
—Emily Duncan, Ops Manager at Active Voice
Links:
Fix Systems, Not Women
Episode 106 | May 19, 2022
What would you do if you found out you were being paid $25,000 less than your peers, and that while they were allowed to work from home, you were expected to show up in person?
Kate Rotondo had both happen while working at one of the largest and best-known tech companies in the world, and the experience profoundly changed her relationship to work. Kate joins Sara to tell her story of institutional betrayal—and how it took her from working in code to working in clay.
I had to let go of the responsibility of providing for my family. I had to let myself become expensive. I also had to shift my sense of what's important to me from getting my career back and earning that money to reclaiming my time—to becoming rich in something else, if it wasn't going to be career accolades, and it wasn't going to be respect at my job, and it wasn't going to be the money that came from that. I kind of had to shift and think, ‘What I'm asking for here at work is to have the same lifestyle as my colleagues.’ My colleagues wake up in the morning. They don't drive three hours to get to work…So how do I get that? How do I get the quality of life that the men around me have? How do I regain a sense of entitlement to that time? That I'm entitled to have free time. I'm entitled to have passions.
—Kate Rotondo, founder, Equal Clay
Links:
The Four-Day Workweek
Episode 105 | May 12, 2022
Joann Lee Wagner used to feel pretty guilty for taking breaks—until her organization decided to experiment with a new way of working: the four-day workweek. In the process, Joann had to do more than change her calendar. She had to rethink how she thought about work itself.
Today we share the story of one person’s, and one organization's, experience trying out a four-day week: Joann Lee Wagner, the VP of people operations at Common Future. They tested a four-day week in 2020, and have since made it permanent. Listen in as Joann walks through how their experiment came together, what they learned in the process, and how it changed Joann forever.
I think of my grandmother who was an entrepreneur in San Francisco in Fisherman's Wharf, selling her candles and working so hard to make a living for her family and the health challenges that came after that. I think about how she wouldn't want me to be in a place of such constant stress and hardship, where I'm working myself to the bone just to live now. I think that she would really have wanted something else for me. And so it took a moment of reflection to really think about, "Where is that coming from?" in order to be able to even come into work in a four-day workweek context. Because at the end of the day, we are really challenging the assumptions around work that we as organizations carry, but also we as individuals.
—Joann Lee Wagner, VP of people operations at Common Future
Links:
Future Julie
Episode 104 | April 28, 2022
A year into the pandemic, Julie Threlkeld met with a leadership coach to talk about building her confidence in stakeholder meetings. And she left deciding what she actually needed was to retire early.
Today on the show, Julie shares her story of leaving the tech workforce at age 56—and how keeping Future Julie in mind helped her get there.
Sara also chats with Eugenié George, a financial wellness specialist and educator who specializes in helping women of color understand their money and their ancestry. She shares tips on how to manage your money to align with your values and financial goals.
When I started working for myself, I had this vision of myself that I always called Future Julie, and Future Julie is the older version of myself…the person who's probably not going to get hired as a freelancer after a certain age, because that's just the reality. Or because she's too sick of trying to keep up with technology, or she's literally sick with something, or she just has other things to do with her life than meet other people's goals and trade your time for money. And that was always the person I was working toward supporting.
—Julie Threlkeld
Links:
The Thunderdome of American capitalism
Episode 103 | April 21, 2022
Who are you beyond the bio on your LinkedIn profile? In today’s episode, we tell the story of Alison Taylor—a designer and strategist who went to great lengths to find that out.
After being hospitalized due to extreme burnout and a toxic workplace, Alison knew that she needed a change. So she started a journey of healing and self-discovery spanning five years and three countries. And that’s just the beginning.
I just want to be me. I don't want to be "Alison: business designer/strategist, helping creative freelancers, early-stage startups, and folks design sustainable, unique products and systems that scale sustainably." I don't want to just be that. I'm so much more than that. And I felt like I was losing who I was….And then I realized, "Yo, you can unsubscribe from all of this.” Who's making up these rules? Everything is made up. And you don't have to subscribe to any of this. You can decide to be the person that you are, you can decide to use your voice.
—Alison Taylor, founder, Augur
Links:
Introducing: Pandemic Clarity
Episode 102 | April 14, 2022
We’ve all heard about pandemic burnout. But that’s not the whole story. This season on Strong Feelings, we’re focusing on pandemic clarity: how the past two years have changed people’s relationships to work…for good.
In February, we gathered detailed survey responses from 236 people working in tech and design. Our central question: How has your relationship to work changed in the past two years? The results of our research were just released in a new report called “Work needs to stay in its place”—available for download now at activevoicehq.com/research.
We found that the pandemic didn’t just upend people’s daily routines. For many, it triggered a dramatic rethinking of their priorities and values at work. So that’s what we’re talking about this season. To kick things, Sara sits down with researcher Dr. Urszula Pruchniewska, who worked on the report, to discuss some of their findings.
I think the pandemic set the stage for us being able to talk about stuff that we might have been feeling for a really long time but we didn't share with each other, or even share with ourselves. The idea of work being your passion and doing what you love is so prevalent throughout society that it's weird to say, "No. Work is just work." Especially in design and tech fields…where we are taught to have so much personal feelings around our work.
—Dr. Urszula Pruchniewska, research consultant
Over the next two months, we’ll be sharing intimate stories with people who’ve experienced major changes to their mindsets, motivations, and relationships to work. You don’t want to miss it.
Links:
This episode features clips from KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco, Fox Business, NPR, and NPR.
2021 Season: Real leadership in tech and design
Solidarity in Action with Nora Keller
Episode 101 | December 16, 2021
Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity, equity, and respect at work. The best way to do that? Unionize! Tech worker and organizer Nora Keller tells us how to get started.
”You’ve got this” challenge
”If you're scared about speaking up at work, don't you think that's messed up?”
We loved this sentiment from Nora—because it aligns so well with pretty much everything we’ve been talking about this year: unlearning productivity culture, creating more trauma-informed design practices and organizations, rethinking ambition, reshaping our businesses. Over and over, we’ve returned to this idea of questioning our defaults—questioning the beliefs we have about work, the way we go along with the status quo, the harms we’ve accepted as just “the way it is.”
So for our last “You’ve Got This” challenge of 2021, we invite you to take a moment, zoom out, and ask yourself a few questions:
What have you been tolerating this year at work that’s actually intolerable? What has tolerating it cost you? What would it look like if you stopped tolerating them in 2022?
What default beliefs or assumptions have you been carrying around about work? Try writing down your gut definitions of terms like productivity, success, leadership, and business. Where did you learn those beliefs? Which of them don’t quite hold up when you look a little more closely?
How might you challenge those defaults next year? What do you want to unlearn or re-examine?
What new beliefs about work or definitions of success might serve you better in this moment?
A Soft Place to Practice with Danielle Barnes
Episode 100 | December 2, 2021
Design and tech events need more diverse lineups. But getting on stage? That's a big hurdle. Women Talk Design CEO Danielle Barnes joins us to talk about how to get over it by giving yourself “a soft place to practice.”
“You’ve got this” challenge
This week, we’re tuning in to this concept of “a soft place to practice” because so many of us set the bar incredibly high when we’re learning something new—we want to be perfect speakers at our first talk, or think we ought to know how to support our teams through difficult times on day 1 of being a manager.
But that’s not how learning works! Instead, we all need practice—preferably amongst peers who can cheer us on, give us helpful feedback, and practice their own work, too.
So how can you find a soft place to practice new skills? Try asking yourself these questions:
What do I need to feel safe practicing this skill? Think about the people you’d like to be around and the formats that might work for you.
Do I already have a network of peers for this? What would it look like to convene or organize that group? You could set up a working group—or even just a group chat.
Is there an internal group at my company where I could practice this? For example, many companies have great employee resource groups or affinity groups—such as a group for LGBTQ+ employees, or a group for Latinx employees.
Is there an external program or course that might help me practice this skill? Some examples might be Women Talk Design for public speaking, HmntyCntrd for having difficult conversations about bias and harm in design, or our very own group programs designed to help you feel more courageous at work.
Where’s a low-stakes way I could start experimenting with this new skill? For example, if you want to be more vocal in meetings, start with a small session where you know everyone well. Remember: if the bar feels too high, it’ll be easy to talk yourself out of it. So keep the bar low as you get more comfortable with a new skill!
Remaking the World with Samira Rajabi
Episode 99 | November 18, 2021
The pandemic broke our understanding of the world. How do we put the pieces together again? Samira Rajabi joins us to point the way—and it all starts with getting comfortable “sitting in the shit” with each other.
"You’ve got this" challenge
A theme that came up so strongly in Samira’s interview was how important it is to really listen to someone who’s struggling—not to fix them, not to tell them it will be okay, but just to acknowledge what they’re going through.
So this week, let’s talk about how to do that. And it all starts with listening—really, deeply listening.
Levels of listening
Lots of people focus on “active listening,” but I’ve found it helpful to actually think about four distinct levels of listening:
Judgmental: listening to critique or compare. Focus is on whether the speaker is right or wrong.
Reactive: listening in order to respond. Focus is on the parts of their speech that are interesting or useful to you.
Attentive: listening to understand the facts. Focus is on fully grasping the information being shared.
Holistic: listening to the whole person, including what’s left unsaid. Focus is on being fully present to the other person’s feelings and experiences.
Many of us are pretty good at attentive listening at work—it’s an essential part of gathering information and making decisions. But many of us have less experience with the deepest level of listening, where we drop our own agenda, and are instead fully present with another’s experience.
So how do we get better at it? Here are three skills to practice:
Self-management: This is the practice of keeping your agenda at bay, so you can be fully present with another person. This means noticing what's happening in your brain when you’re listening to the other party—such as getting distracted, thinking judgmental thoughts, or having your own feelings come up—and then learning to set aside all those reactions for the moment.
Acknowledgement and validation: When people are sharing their experiences—especially painful, traumatic ones—it’s important to acknowledge what they’re sharing. This doesn’t mean agreeing with them. It just means communicating that you’re truly listening. You might say things like:
It sounds like that's been really hard
I can hear how hurtful this has been to you
I can see how much pain this has caused
I'm sorry you're going through this
Affirmation: Finally, part of building trust and safety is to let people know that it’s okay for them to talk to you about difficult topics—that they deserve to be able to share these feelings. This is important because otherwise, people so easily can feel ashamed or embarrassed for having opened up (Brené Brown calls this a “vulnerability hangover”). To help avoid that, you might say something like, “I'm so glad you're telling me about this,” or “thank you for trusting me with this.”
Want to keep practicing?
Download this tip sheet for listening and acknowledging!
Feeling Ourselves with Alla Weinberg
Episode 98 | November 4, 2021
Take a moment to check in with your body—yeah, right now! Do you feel tension in your shoulders? A clench in your jaw? A heaviness in your chest? Those feelings have something to tell us—and it’s time we tuned into them at work, says Alla Weinberg.
"You’ve got this" challenge
This week, we walked you through a simple body scan—a one-minute exercise meant to help you check in with your body, and process whatever feelings are there.
Did you try it? If not, go back and give it a shot! It starts right at the 45:00 mark in the episode.
Still haven’t tried it? Feeling resistance to the idea? Yeah, we get that, too. This article includes a personal (super-relatable!) story about how regular body scans changed the author’s relationship to themselves, their feelings, and even the people around them. It also includes a 30-minute body scan (we’re still working our way up to that!).
And this resource from UC Berkeley includes a nice guided 3-minute scan, plus more links on the science behind this practice.
Once you’ve tried it out, reflect back:
Where did you notice tension, pain, or other feelings?
What changed when you acknowledged those feelings, and then released them?
What surprised you? Where were you holding onto things that you hadn’t realized?
What was hard about this activity? Where did you lose focus?
What felt different afterward? What felt lighter, clearer, or more available?
What did you learn about yourself?
And like anything, know that this technique gets easier the more you practice. So keep on feeling yourself!
Take a deep breath. Feel that breath fill your lungs all the way up. And now exhale, releasing that breath back into the world.
Keep on breathing, slow and steady, and draw your attention to the top of your head. Start working your way down slowly pausing and noticing each part of your body. What's your forehead doing? Your eyebrows? Maybe you notice tightness, or pressure, or pain, buzzing behind the ears, a clench in the jaw.
As you notice any of those different sensations, take a moment and acknowledge them specifically. And then allow yourself to release whatever it is that you're holding onto there—to unclench and unfurrow.
Now release your attention on that body part and move on. Keep working downward, through your neck and your shoulders. Are they hunched? Down into your arms, and hands, and then the tips of your fingers. What do you notice as you go?
Now go on to your heart, and your gut. What's there? What weight do you notice? What are you carrying? Keep on breathing as you work downward and explore each of those sensations. What's happening in your legs? All the way down to your feet and your toes. And as you go, stay curious. What's present here? What am I carrying here?
And as you reach the soles of your feet, take another deep breath. Exhale, and finish letting whatever you're feeling move through your body. Now check in with yourself. What feels different? What feels lighter? Where are you now?
Nice White Ladies with Jessie Daniels
Episode 97 | October 21, 2021
When do white folks learn they’re white? And how do they start to understand the scope of benefits that whiteness affords them? For Jessie Daniels, these uncomfortable questions are only the beginning.
"You’ve got this" challenge
This week, we’re following up on Jessie’s interview with a difficult but important question: Where are you holding on to whiteness at work? Some common ways we’ve seen play out in the design and tech fields specifically:
Standards of “professionalism”—often ideas about what professional dress, hair, or communication looks like.
“Niceness” culture—the idea that to be a professional means to always be polite, which includes avoiding topics that make people uncomfortable (like racism!).
The concept of “culture fit,” where employees are expected to conform to a previously established—and typically very white cis male—culture.
A belief in our own “objectivity.” This might look like believing there’s one definition of what “good design” means, or it might look like a user researcher believing that we’re objective and neutral, instead of looking at the ways we’re subjective, and understanding our own positionality—what perspectives and experiences we bring to a situation, and how that might help—or harm—us in our work. A great resource for this: Jasmine Stammes talk, “The Subjective Researcher.”
To dig even deeper, check out the updated 2021 version of the White Supremacy Culture at Work guide from Tema Okun.
As you reflect on these concepts, notice where you feel resistance to them, or find yourself wanting to justify your beliefs. Ask yourself:
Where is that resistance coming from?
What am I afraid of losing if I let go of my beliefs about “professionalism,” “niceness,” or “objectivity”?
What does that say about how my whiteness has benefited or insulated me?
If you’re ready to dig deeper on this, two trainings we’ve attended and recommend are The Adaway Group’s Whiteness at Work series, and Creative Reaction Lab’s How Design Thinking Protects White Supremacy.
Life-Affirming Productivity with Paloma Medina
Episode 96 | October 7, 2021
What if spending a few minutes each day touching a plant or staring into space could change your life? Paloma Medina has seen it happen—and tells us why it’s the first step toward radical, equitable change.
"You’ve got this" challenge
In Paloma's interview, she asks us to spend time doing nothing—just staring at a plant, or looking off into the sky. But this is hard for a lot of us! If that’s you, check out Desiree Adaway’s post, “Sense of Urgency Keeps Us Disconnected”:
One of the tools of white supremacy is busy-ness. The sense of urgency makes it so we do not connect on a deeper level. It allows no time for discernment, reflection, or real repair.
We're busy all the time.
We're busy holding pointless meetings. Busy planning for next quarter. Busy overthinking things and not trusting our decisions.
White supremacy loves that.
White supremacy knows that when we're exhausted, we remain obedient. And when we're overworked, we tend to stay quiet. It rewards us for our silence, for not pushing back, for not questioning.
You hear that? There's a direct line from being busy all the time to staying obedient and quiet in the face of injustice. Ok, so how can you give yourself more space to do nothing? Here are a few resources that might shift your thinking:
Do Nothing: How To Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving by Celeste Headlee
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny O’Dell
“You are beloved and worthy of rest” by Anne Helen Petersen
Himpathy with Kate Manne
Episode 95 | September 23, 2021
Why do so many people mention Brock Turner’s promising swim career, or the many Oscars Harvey Weinstein won—instead of focusing on the stories of their survivors? Why do women often feel guilty telling a mansplainer to stop? For Kate Manne, the answer to both comes down to a single concept: entitlement.
"You’ve got this" challenge
This week, Kate shared a crucial concept: being “entitled to speak up,” versus “obligated to speak up.” As Kate said, just because you are entitled to speak up about something—like shutting down a sexist joke or demanding equal pay—it doesn’t mean you are obligated to do it. After all, there can be significant risks to speaking up and advocating for yourself. On the other hand, she noted that we are obligated to speak up when we’re in a position of privilege and can use that privilege to support someone more marginalized.
But if you’ve been on the receiving end of bias and harm in the past, it can be easy to see yourself as powerless, and speaking up as too big of a risk—and stay quiet as a result. It’s a common problem for white women in industries like tech—where they’ve certainly experienced sexism, but where there’s also a big spotlight on supporting them.
If that’s you, try reframing the questions you ask yourself:
Instead of: Do I have power?
Ask: Where do I have power?
Instead of: Is it risky for me to speak up?
Ask: How risky would this be for me right now?
Instead of: Will this hurt my career?
Ask: What risks can I afford to take without threatening my own safety and stability?
Here’s why: when we ask ourselves if we have power, it’s easy to assume it’s a no. There are tons of places where we don’t have power! But when we ask ourselves where we have power, that opens up creativity—it helps us come up with ways to take action that are possible. Same with looking at the risks: it’s always risky to speak up! So looking for no-risk ways to effect change will shut you down immediately. Instead, slow down that fear response by asking yourself how risky something truly is—and also, how much risk you can afford to take right now, based on your level of privilege, safety, and economic security.
Finally, remember that you have limited energy. Not every fight can be yours. The clearer you are on your values, where you have power or influence, and where your expertise lies, the more effective you can be in making change.
Design for Safety with Eva PenzeyMoog
Episode 94 | September 9, 2021
We’ve all heard about unethical tech products that track and surveil users. But there’s another kind of harm happening in tech: abusers co-opting apps and other digital products to control and hurt their victims. Eva PenzeyMoog explains this growing problem—and shows us how to fight back. (Content warning: This episode features discussions and specific anecdotes of tech-enabled abuse and interpersonal harm, including domestic violence.)
"You’ve got this" challenge
This week’s You’ve Got This is all about the need for control. Humans often look for things to control when they feel powerless—that’s normal. But some ways of seeking control can be unhealthy. One of the big ones we see at work is micromanaging.
Micromanaging is a major problem for two reasons: first, it’s harmful to the person who’s being micromanaged. And second, it doesn’t even work! Because no matter how hard we try, other people still end up behaving in ways we didn’t expect. So while we micromanage to gain a sense of control, we end up still feeling powerless. This can create a vicious cycle where we then respond with even more micromanaging.
Not great, right?
So, how do we avoid these toxic behaviors? If you are struggling with feelings of powerlessness right now, here is my big tip: find something that truly is in your control, and focus on that.
A great way you can find something in your control is to reflect on your own boundaries. Here are some questions that can help:
When do you say yes when you wish you’d said no?
Where are you holding back an opinion that your colleagues really need to hear?
Where are you regularly spending time on things that make you feel used, undervalued, or resentful?
When do you struggle to “turn off” work?
Look at your calendar for the week. What’s the first feeling you have? Now, look at your answers. Where could you use more boundaries in your work life? Even identifying a small shift in when and how you work can help you feel a greater sense of control. A few techniques I’ve found helpful:
Designate a “no meeting day” each week
Block weekly time off for deep work
Take a walk each day at the same time
Have a shutoff time for work emails or devices altogether
Whatever you use to remind yourself that there are some things within your control, make sure that it is actually yours to take ownership of. Setting boundaries can do wonders for our sense of wellbeing without impacting the autonomy of our teammates.
Become a More Courageous Leader
Fall Trailer | August 26, 2021
Strong Feelings returns September 9th, but in the meantime, we wanted to share something with you: the Courageous Leadership Program, Sara's six-week group coaching program. It's all about stepping out of self-doubt and into your power as a leader, and it's designed specifically for people in design and tech who want to be bold, inclusive, confident leaders—but maybe need a little bit of help shaking off some of the societal messages they've absorbed that keep them playing small. If this sounds like you, head over to https://www.activevoicehq.com/group-coaching. Groups run Tuesdays starting September 21, or Wednesdays starting September 22, and enrollment is open now.
Tuning Inward with Rachael Dietkus
Episode 93 | July 1, 2021
Most of us think of trauma as the capital “T” kind: war, natural disasters, serious abuse. But day-to-day life is full of smaller traumas, and those need to be processed, too: bullying, work stress, the aftermath of the pandemic. Rachael Dietkus of Social Workers Who Design is on a mission to help us do just that.
"You’ve got this" challenge
This week’s You’ve Got This is all about breaking out of comparison mode: that feeling that you shouldn't complain because other people have it worse, or that you shouldn't feel stressed because at least you have a job.
Those “shoulds”? They’re not going to help us. Because the truth is, we feel what we feel, whether we believe we deserve to feel that way or not. The more we try to judge our feelings instead of understand them, the likelier we are to end up feeling worse—because in addition to whatever the original feeling is, we now we’ve added a layer of shame or guilt on top.
So, how do we get out of that comparison mode? It starts with something really simple, yet a little bit challenging: acknowledging what you're feeling without judging it. Because when you stop judging yourself, it helps you stop judging others too.
A lot of us aren’t great at naming our feelings—especially at work, where we’ve been taught to reduce everything down to “I’m just stressed.” When we do that, what we don’t acknowledge is the deeper feeling, like being afraid that we’ll fail, or that we’re actually angry.
So when you find yourself thinking something like, "Oh, I shouldn't feel angry," or conversely, justifying all the reasons you should feel angry, that you do deserve to feel angry, try asking yourself these questions instead:
What's my anger telling me?
What triggered it? Where's it coming from?
What can I learn from this feeling?
What unmet needs do I have here?
The more curious we can be about our own feelings, the easier it is to hold space for others without comparison or judgment. And when we do that, it’s easier to see that many things can be true at once. We can be both privileged and struggling, lucky and traumatized. We can be so many things at the same time—and we don't have to deny the one in order to acknowledge the other.
Practically Radical with Rachel & Travis Gertz
Episode 92 | June 17, 2021
Most work environments prioritize profits over people. But there are other ways businesses can look—if we’re willing to imagine them. We talk with Rachel and Travis Gertz of Louder Than Ten, a cooperative company on a mission to democratize the workplace through project management.
"You’ve got this" challenge
In this week’s You’ve Got This, we’re talking about…talking: being transparent about issues that are often taboo. As Rachel and Travis noted, we get systems that work better for humans when we’re more open and less isolated. But actually doing that can be scary—because it’s vulnerable to share information.
The thing is, it can also be really freeing—because worrying about what everyone else will think can really weigh us down. So as you reflect on Rachel and Travis’s interview, challenge yourself to consider one place in your life where you—and the people around you—could use more open, transparent conversation.
Where do you want to start having conversations with your peers about the systems that you're working within and whether you're okay with them? Who do you want to sit down with and explore other ways of being—other ways of working?
Identify one person or one situation where more real talk might open up your world, and give it a try. How could you open that door, even if it's just a crack? How could you experiment with transparency and honesty around something that maybe makes you a little uncomfortable? Commit to experimenting—you might be surprised how freeing it feels.
Platonic Longing with Kat Vellos
Episode 91 | June 3, 2021
Even before the pandemic, Americans were experiencing a devastating loneliness epidemic. We talk to UX designer-turned-connection coach Kat Vellos about the longing for deep and meaningful friendships that so many of us experience, and how we can build deeper, more substantial connections in our adult lives.
"You’ve got this" challenge
We ended the conversation with Kat by talking about joy—you know, that feeling so many of us have struggled to find through this pandemic.
Well, let’s start finding it again, ok?
Here are some questions to ask yourself to start reflecting on where you might cultivate more joy in your days.
When is the time when you really leaned into joy? What did that feel like? What conditions allowed you to do that? For example, I remember leaning way into joy on a vacation in Portugal, where I worked up the courage to jump off a (small) cliff into the ocean (and then promptly retire to the sand with a beach cocktail). Remembering that sandy, salty, exhilarating day reconnects me with the way joy feels in my body.
Where are you holding back from allowing yourself to have joy right now? Where have you told yourself that you shouldn't feel joyful—that there's not space or time for joy? What's that costing you? For me, this helped me remember the small joy of plating food nicely at dinner. Nothing fancy—just taking a moment to arrange and garnish and feel like a person worth fussing over.
What would be different in your life if you were operating from a place of joy? What would shift, what would change? For example, what’s on your to-do list right now? What if you approached a mundane task with a touch of joy—like dancing your way through a household chore to starting a meeting with a moment of laughter?
What’s one small thing you can do in the next week to create a small moment of joy for yourself? It could be simply picking up some fresh flowers, turning off email and taking a midday walk, or sending a card to a friend reminding them of a time when they made you laugh out loud.
Linguistic Distortion with Suzanne Wertheim
Episode 90 | May 20, 2021
Last year, we saw the media regularly call Black Lives Matter protesters “rioters,” “violent,” or “thugs.” Yet on January 6, those who attacked the U.S. Capitol were often described as “passionate protestors” and “Trump supporters.” Linguistic anthropologist Suzanne Wertheim explains why these language disparities matter—and how biases like these show up in our workplaces, too.
"You’ve got this" challenge
Doing self-care about our opinion of ourselves is one of the most difficult kinds of self-care that we can do.
—Dr. Suzanne Wertheim
Do you find it hard to keep your confidence up in a world full of biased feedback? Yeah. You’re so not alone. But it’s not because impostor syndrome is something you gave yourself. It’s actually a rational response to a world that has routinely policed your voice and presence, and demanded you to fit into a teeny little box to be “acceptable.”
In other words, it’s a systems problem, not an individual one.
But as an individual who has to live in this world, there are things you can do to take better care of your own self-worth.
Name your strengths and values
The first step is to simply start exploring who you are at your core—the things that are simply true about you.
There’s a concept in social psychology called self-affirmation theory, and what it says is that when we have a set of self-affirmations—positive beliefs about our strengths and values—it gives us something to hold onto when we’re faced with a threat to our self-integrity, like being called “abrasive” in a performance review. Instead of needing to either refute or agree with that feedback, we can instead turn to our self-knowledge. It doesn’t make the world fair—but it takes away some of the power those biased assessments hold.
To start developing those self-affirmations, you want to get reflective, and start identifying real traits you know you have. Ask yourself:
What do I know is true about myself?
What strengths do I have?
What traits am I proud of?
Asking yourself those questions can really help you retain some positive grounding, and when external feedback comes in, you can look at it with some distance: does this align with what I know is true? Does this feedback serve me?
Understand your inner critic
Once you’ve gotten a clearer sense of self, it’s also helpful to look at your inner critic, and understand where it’s coming from—so you can respond to it more effectively, versus letting it run the show.
I found this guide to 7 types of inner critic super helpful for exploring the space. I also made these inner critic worksheets for my group coaching program. Use them to explore your critic and understand where you learned those messages.
Again, it's all about learning to care of your opinion of yourself—so you can exist in (and work to change!) a biased world, without it totally burning you out.
Studying Harm with McKensie Mack, Caroline Sinders, and Yang Hong
Episode 89 | May 6, 2021
It’s no secret that the shift to remote work during COVID-19 has been stressful and isolating. But according to a new report from Project Include, for many, the online workplace has also led to increased harassment, hostility, and harm. Coauthors McKensie Mack, Caroline Sinders, and Yang Hong join us to talk about it.
“You’ve got this” challenge
How and when you do intervene when you see harassment or harm taking place at work, instead of just being a bystander? Way too often, people from marginalized groups are interrupted or talked over—and no one says anything. Or someone uses sexist or racist language—and no one says anything.
Speaking up is hard, and you might not feel safe doing so in every context. But remember: "What you tolerate defines your community.”
The worst things that we tolerate are the things that ultimately shape and define our culture. So if you're a bystander to racist microaggressions as a white person, and you don't do anything about it, you're normalizing racist microaggressions. If you're not saying anything, you're saying, "This is fine."
So today, let’s look at the harmful behaviors that you've been tolerating in your team or in your company. What's stopping you from speaking up about those? For a lot of us, the answer is fear—fear of getting it wrong, fear of being ostracized, fear of making people uncomfortable.
One way we can prepare ourselves to take this risk in the moment is to get more comfortable with our own beliefs and boundaries—so you’re not feeling like you have to speak for someone else. You can simply speak for yourself. For example:
"I don't think that's funny.” Instead of, “That’s offensive to Sam.” That way, you’re not putting it on Sam without knowing how they feel—you’re putting it on you.
"I'm really interested in Lisa's ideas. I'd like to go back and hear more from her.” Instead of, “You didn’t listen to Lisa,” which attacks the other party and is likely to lead to defensiveness (and make Lisa feel responsible for smoothing things out).
Using I-statements like these let you stick to things that you can know with certainty: what you feel, what crosses your boundaries. They don't make assumptions about the other person's intentions, and they also don't make assumptions about what the person on the receiving end of the behavior is thinking, or feeling, or wants.
This can be harder than it sounds—because using an I statement requires putting a stake in the ground. You’re telling the world what you think and feel. This can threaten our sense of belonging—because what if people disagree with our perspective? A whole series of doubts can spring up:
Am I the only one who feels this way? Will I be ostracized? Will they tell me to shut up? Will they tell me that I'm making too big of a deal about something? Will they say I'm too sensitive?
That’s normal. But you can more easily quiet those voices and speak up in the moment when you’ve prepared and gotten comfortable with the idea. So spend some time with this:
What behaviors have you been tolerating?
What beliefs and boundaries do you need to get comfortable owning so that you can intervene next time?
More reading:
To Combat Harassment, More Companies Should Try Bystander Training
Sexual Harassment Training Doesn’t Work. But Some Things Do.
Courage Over Comfort with Vivianne Castillo
Episode 88 | April 22, 2021
Vivianne Castillo left counseling to become a UX researcher. What she found was an industry that talked a lot about empathy—but wasn’t very good at practicing it. Now she’s building a company dedicated to changing that.
“You’ve got this” challenge
Vivianne’s resignation from Salesforce got us thinking about how we can leave a toxic workplace. So often, even if a workplace is extraordinarily harmful, we still end up focusing all our attention on the costs of leaving. We worry about having to find a new job, we worry about the next place being even worse, we worry about it looking bad to “give up.”
It's normal to feel fear when you're looking at making a change. It is risky! But when we only listen to the fear, we tend to stay frozen—and we don’t look at it from the other perspective: what are the costs of staying?
What am I risking if I continue down this path? What new opportunities am I closing myself off to? Where will my growth stall?
What impact will staying in this job have on my psyche? On my emotional state? On my health?
What might you gain by leaving? What are some of the benefits of leaving that you haven't explored yet?
If you're feeling burnt out or unsafe at work, but you're scared to leave, set aside some time and ask yourself some of these questions. Write down your answers—because it’ll slow down that fear response, and give you some space to think. From that space, it’s a lot easier to compare your options, understand your tradeoffs, and get to the right decision for you.
Being Vulnerable with Margot Bloomstein
Episode 87 | April 8, 2021
Margot Bloomstein wanted to find out how companies can beat cynicism and build trust in this moment. Years of research and a new book later, she has the formula: voice, volume, and—the scariest for all of us—vulnerability.
“You’ve got this” challenge
This week, Margot reminded us that “we get so stuck in our own heads that we worry about making the thing perfect, when you should just make the thing.”
But breaking that cycle can be challenging—we have to face our fears of rejection and let our work be seen. That’s exactly when perfectionism loves to show up and shut us down.
So this week, let’s look a little more closely at perfectionism. First up, while caring about quality can be a great thing, there are serious downsides to perfectionism.
The dangerous downsides of perfectionism — BBC Future
There has been some suggestion that, in some cases, perfectionism might be healthy and desirable. Based upon the 60-odd studies that we’ve done, we think that’s a misunderstanding. Working hard, being committed, diligent, and so on – these are all desirable features. But for a perfectionist, those are really a symptom, or a side product, of what perfectionism is. Perfectionism isn’t about high standards. It’s about unrealistic standards. Perfectionism isn’t a behaviour. It’s a way of thinking about yourself.
—Andrew Hill, York St. John University
White Supremacy Culture in Organizations—Dismantling Racism Works (adapted by The Centre for Community Organizations)
Perfectionism is closely linked to a culture of blame. It relies on guilt, fear and shame as motivators for work, which contributes significantly to employee burnout and stress.
If you struggle with perfectionism, write down your answers to these questions:
Where did you learn to be a perfectionist? Who taught you this? How did they teach you? What else did they teach you?
What tends to trigger your perfectionism?
What are you afraid might happen if you let people see you and your work before it’s “perfect”?
Where does shame crop up for you? When does shame keep you from sharing?
What is perfectionism keeping you from? What is it costing you? How is it keeping you stuck?
Now, zoom out and look at what you wrote. What are you noticing? Where might you start letting down your guard and iterating instead?
Going Rogue with Nandini Jammi
Episode 86 | March 25, 2021
What if you built a movement powerful enough to defund hate groups online, won one of the most prestigious awards in advertising, and then had your co-founder tell you to stop taking credit? If you were Nandini Jammi, you’d get even louder.
“You’ve got this” challenge
This week, Nandini told us to “practice having a perspective and having a point of view that you put out into the world.” Here’s an activity you can try to help you start doing just that:
Think about an issue that really matters to you. It doesn't have to be a “big,” world-changing thing (though it can be!). It could just be a belief you have about how you do your work, or what good collaboration looks like.
What would you say about this issue if you stopped self-censoring? No watering it down! What is the boldest, most in-your-face thing that you believe about this topic? If it feels scary to say it out loud, that’s a good sign.
Imagine yourself actually saying it: how does that feel? What’s it costing you to keep quiet about this topic? What's exciting about the idea of just saying it? And, what feels scary about it?
Look back at your answers: what jumps out at you? Where is your perspective stronger than you thought? When you stop watering yourself down—even to yourself—you might notice that you have a lot stronger opinions than you thought. What really fires you up and brings you life?
Pick 1 thing you can do to start speaking up about this topic. Look for a small risk you could take in the next week. Maybe it’s posting one social media post about it. Maybe it’s mentioning it in a friendly group chat. Whatever your first step is, commit to it.
Say it. See what happens. What response do you get? How did it feel to get it out there? Where were your fears unfounded? How might you be a little bolder next time?
More resources
Spiky point of view: Let’s get a little controversial — Wes Kao
A spiky point of view is a perspective others can disagree with. It’s a belief you feel strongly about and are willing to advocate for. It’s your thesis about topics in your realm of expertise…The best part? You already have it in you.
Don’t feel like an expert? Share anyway. — Sara Wachter-Boettcher
There’s no magic amount of experience that will suddenly make you worthy of sharing your ideas with the world. Anyone who tries to make you feel otherwise probably has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo—which is to say, more of the same overrepresented groups on our stages and bookshelves, and at our meetups and conference tables.