Welcome to the Big Careers Small Children Podcast. My name is Verena Hefi. I believe that no one should have to choose between becoming a CEO and enjoying their young children for much too long. Amazing people like I'm sure you listening right now have found themselves stuck on the career ladder when they have children and that leads to gender inequality in senior leadership because those people don't progress to senior leadership and the same stale, often male middle class people leading our organizations. We must change this together and I hope that many of you listening right now will progress to the most senior leadership roles that you like where you can make the decisions that make our world a better place. Outside of the podcast, I am the CEO and founder of the Social Enterprise Leaders. We exist to help working parents progress their careers to senior leadership in a way that works for you and for your families. We have free events and resources on leadersplus.org where you can download helpful toolkits such as on returning from maternity leave, share parental leave, securing a promotion, dealing with workload challenges, or managing as a dual career couple. We also have an award winning fellowship community which is global for working parents who have big dreams for their careers but don't want to sacrifice their family. You'll join an absolutely wonderful group of people, a very tight knit, supportive group of parents who have your back together. You'll explore what your career aspirations are and you'll get advice from senior leaders who are also working parents about how to achieve those aspirations. You'll get new ideas to combine your hopes for your careers with your hope for your family and and you are supported by people who are experiencing what you're experiencing yourself. I'm really delighted that a larger majority of our fellows have made tangible changes following the program, be that becoming more senior in their roles, working shorter hours, having better flexible working arrangement, they always impress me so much with the courage that they instill in each other to do what is right for them without apologizing for having a family or apologizing for wanting that top job. Details are on leadersplus.org Fellowship. Today I'm chatting to Whitney Casares. She's a pediatrician and she argues that for child's health and wellbeing it's actually really, really important that we look after our own health and well being as working parents. And she's done quite a lot of research on how to actually do that in the context of a big career and young children. I really hope that you take something from it and enjoy the conversation. A very warm welcome Whitney to the Podcast. It's great to have you with us.

Absolutely. So I am a pediatrician by training. I did my training at Stanford and had a great experience seeing all kinds of zebras of the world of medicine when I was there, but then practiced in private practice for 12 to 13 years, seeing a lot of bread and butter, pediatrics and working with a lot of families. And then I also have a special degree in maternal child health. It's a public health degree. And that degree is all about the synergistic relationship between a mom's wellness and a kid's wellness. And it's what I care about the most in life. And I have all that experience from seeing lots of patients and being at big academic institutions. But also I have experience because of my own family. I have one daughter who is 11 who has autism and severe anxiety, and I have a second kiddo who has adhd. So our household is very neurospicy. And I have learned how to really figure out how to divide attention and to triage my focus and my energy every day and how to really redefine what matters for me, what matters for my kids, and how to place a lot more of my attention, my focus on those things, while trying to get everything else done. Because I've learned in real world and by talking to a lot of families, that it's easy to get distracted. It's easy to allow to let a lot of those messages that come in kind of overwhelm us. So my job is to help families refocus.

And can you tell me one thing that you used to believe about combining a big career with young children that you don't subscribe to anymore?

Absolutely. I used to believe that I could be everything to everyone. I used to believe I could do it all. I also used to believe that I had to be someone else. I had to pretend in order to get ahead. I had to be like a man in a man's world, or I had to lean in fully, or I had to not be so emotional. And what I've learned is that the unique parts of me are actually my superpowers and that when I'm more of myself, my authentic self, I'm actually able to do a lot of things and contribute in a way that is really special and that actually inspires change.

Your work really struck me because. So we have, I should probably say for context, we have a community of working parents who we call fellows, who we support with their career progression. And very often the topic comes up in our discussions that they work hard in their career, to work hard for their children, but there's absolutely nothing left for themselves or for their partner if they happen to have one. And then there's often takes a really long time for people, people to give themselves permission to put themselves first ahead of their children. And I just wonder whether you have any, any data or any knowledge that shows why it's okay to focus on your own wellbeing. I would quite like to get some official reassurance from the expert.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that the US Surgeon General report put it really well in terms of the data of what happens when you don't do that, because I think it's pretty hard to find data that if you put yourself first, if you take care of yourself, here's the amazing things that are going to happen with you and with your family. We do know that from a neurochemistry standpoint, when a parent is in a regulated state, they're more easily able to help their disregulated child, for example. So with my kids who have ADHD and autism, if they're having a meltdown, if I am really stressed, maybe from my work or from cleaning up on the house or feeling resentful and giving myself to my kids all the time, I'm really not going to be able to attune to their needs in a powerful. So there is evidence that that is important. But what I think is even more compelling is the US Surgeon General's report that just came out that Talked about how 47% of parents are so burnt out and so overwhelmed that they feel like they can't function. And so that points to what happens when we actually don't take care of ourselves. What are the really severe consequences? And to me, that's enough. I mean, to say, like, because I know if parents are feeling that way, there's no way that they could actually be effective in their work or with their kids. And similar to what you're saying about your fellows, what I hear from working parents is this concept of I feel like I don't have anything more to give and yet I constantly feel like I'm never giving enough. Like that feeling of I'm doing every single thing that I can and somehow I'm still not measuring up. Somehow I still feel like a failure and that's a terrible place from which to operate is that feeling of not enoughness.

So I understand in theory, but in practice that is so challenging. What have you learned about overcoming that?

So I agree with you. I think it's really difficult when really as an industry, as like a self care industry. Because there's lots of people that talk about self care when we talk about self care as pockets of time or specific things that we need to do in order to check off the list that we've taken care of ourselves. So I think that when we tell parents who are already really busy, what you need to do is take an hour for yourself, what you need to do is go on a spa retreat, what you need to do is go on a vacation or not work so hard. I think that that's really difficult because parents are saying I don't have the money to do that, I don't have the time to do that, I don't have the help to do all those things. So I really think about self care in a different way. I think of it more like less chocolates and bath salts and spa vacations and more. How do I create a life that I don't regularly want to escape from? How do I set up my work life integration schema so that it doesn't feel like I need so much restorative repair time and instead that I'm living in a way that feels like, oh, I feel pretty good today, I'm not running myself ragged every single day. I think that that's a more realistic approach for a lot of families and it's one that doesn't cost as much money and it's one that doesn't require as many coping skills over time. Here's one example of that. I was recently about to take on a full time position at a telehealth company. I've been doing contractor work with them and I've been choosing some of my own hours and it worked pretty well for me and they offered me the full time position and I said yes because I am a recovering do it all-er. And of course my initial reaction was of course I can take on more, no problem. Well, once I finally got the schedule for the hours that I would be working, I was going to have to be up at 3:00 in the morning, be up at 4:00 in the morning. Some days I was going to have to work in two hour little shifts. I was going to have to go pick my kids up from school and then come home and immediately start working while my kids were here in their rooms on screens when I didn't have any time with them. And after I saw the schedule, I thought this is not going to be sustainable for us. This is going to be a life that I want to escape from. I Can't do it. And I had to make a choice for my family to say, am I going to subscribe to this? Is this what I'm going to do? Or am I going to decide that? Nope, I will find other ways to make money. I will find a different job. I will find a different situation that actually works better for me and my family. And I had to tell this organization. They were very mad at me that I backed out. But I knew that this is the right thing for my inner peace, for me to not have a stomach ache in the middle of the night, for me to be able to not create even more problems with my neuro spicy kids, where now they would feel more anxious, where now they would feel more emotional, where now I'd have to pay more money for them to go to therapy to take care of this issue, of me abandoning them in the middle of the day, you know? So to me, that's what it's about, is making choices that are in alignment with you, feeling at peace with yourself, at peace with your values, at peace with your decisions over time.

Interesting. I guess the tension that comes to my mind is that the listeners of this podcast, I think many of them are really passionate about their career progression and will want to excel at work. And I sometimes I might cut this out because it might come out wrong, but I think sometimes there is a tension between working really focused on that career progression goal. There's almost a feeling of guilt of why are you not just prioritizing, making sure that you are nicely balanced by the time the kids are at home and not checking emails at the school gate just before the kids come out?

Yeah.

What's your reflection on managing that tension between your ambitions and your hopes for your career and looking after yourself enough so that you are present?

Yeah, exactly. I am a tremendously ambitious person. I have so much ambition. I want to write more books. I've written three books. I have like another book that's coming down the pike, you know, this next year. I have ideas for one after that. Like I want to be successful career wise. So I think there's nothing wrong with that at all. And I think the word that you use that I think is problematic is balance. I think that when people are striving for that perfect balance at all times at the same moment, that's really where that tension comes. Like, I know that again, going back to this job thing, if I had been trying to be fully focused on my patients as I was seeing them in a telehealth setting and my kids were home, and I was supposed to be keeping my kids off screens and paying attention to their art projects and all that. At the exact same time, it would never work. So what I teach women to do and what I want to encourage women to do is to think more about how do I have integration. So how do I know when is the right moment to push really hard into work and to say to my kids, you know what? Mommy's going to be gone. I'll be on a work trip. You're right. I won't be here with you guys, and I'll miss you tremendously. Here's how I'm going to set you up so that that way, people who love and care about you will be with you. And then when I come back, you use the other word, presence. I will be present with you because I will have, like, I'm going to dive into work for this moment, and then I'm going to come back and I'm going to dive into you for this moment, and then I'll dive back into work in the other way. So to me, that's how I found a lot more peace, is choosing strategies that allow me to really be more present with my work or with my children. The other thing I want to say, and I know this is going to sound a little bit controversial, but sometimes I kind of resent my kids for holding me back from my career ambitions. Sometimes I feel like if these kids weren't here, I would be able to be the CEO of this company and I would be able to rise to the highest ranks. And you guys are annoying me, honestly, that you're here and you're taking up kind of my time and my brain space. And this isn't true for everyone, but it is true for most people that, who are working moms and working parents, that I chose to be a parent, I chose to have kids. And so whenever I feel that way, I remind myself of that. Like, I chose this. It's because I wanted the joy of family, I wanted the joy of connectedness. And so the world is probably not going to set up all of its systems and its policies in 2024 to fully support me in that endeavor. I wish that they would. It would be awesome if they would. I advocate with my vote and with my petitions that I sign for it to be more that way. But in the meantime, like, I have choices to make about making sure that I prioritize my kids and my work in an integrated fashion. And it's my own choice that I chose to do both things. So I know that that might come off as a little bit controversial, but I think it actually is important that we remember that like that. Of course there's tension. We're trying to do two jobs at the same time. Of course there is. And we live in a world where we don't have the support or the structure that we need to do it well. Like we haven't caught up to what our needs are of working moms.

I agree. Now, you've trained for a number of years on how to make sure that children are healthy and well. I know you're not child psychiatrist, but I'm just interested for those moments where you do want to prioritize work. What is your reflection about how you best set boundaries with the children? Because the children may. They might not quite subscribe to this idea of work life integration. They might want you when they want you.

Yeah, 100%. And actually in my most recent book, I talk about this as one of the six ways that you do prioritize your kids. Because I don't think you need to be with your kids 24, 7 and that you need to be like holding their hand for every school drop off and all that. Boundaries. Setting boundaries is a really important part of helping our kids to grow and thrive and also for us as working moms to grow and thrive. And so a lot of setting boundaries with kids is setting expectations beforehand and giving our kids expectations and an understanding of what's going to happen. It's always tempting to me to want to run out the door and go, I'm leaving for a work trip because I don't want to deal with the emotions or deal with all the feelings that I have and that my kids have and the guilt. But the reality is my kids know well in advance where I'm going, for how long I'll be gone, what's happening, who's going to be taking care of them. That makes a huge difference. They also, at this age, they're 8 and 11. They, I think, deserve to understand the why behind what I do, what I do. You know, why I do what I do. They need to understand. So Mommy is an author. Mommy sells books. Mommy speaks. The only way that I sell books is to get in front of audiences is to go and sign books with other people. We live in a house. They don't want to move from this house. They love this house. The way that we live in this house is that Mommy has a job. Mommy makes money at that job. That money pays for your little ride on car that you got the other day, you know, like for your birthday, like this is the way kind of that the world works in terms of work. So I think that at this age that's important and that's boundary setting for me is like to have them understand this is what it is. When I'm at home, in the office, I try to set really clear visual boundaries. And this is important for my kids who are neurodiverse because a lot of times they can kind of feel emotional or kind of not be paying attention as closely to what my verbal instructions are. So I have a stop sign that's on my door. So they know that if I was recording a podcast, for example, that this is a time not to enter. Mommy is busy at work. I do a lot of that. I'll even write them a note before I go into a meeting saying I will be done in 30 minutes. Until then, my expectation is that you don't come bother me because afterward I'm excited to be with you. I also really strongly advise for parents in terms of setting boundaries, that when you're going to do that, that if you can, that you front load your attention and your energy on your kids before you go to do your work thing. So if you're working from home and you have a meeting, that you are with your kids playing, giving them a lot of one on one time, fully present with them as much as possible for five minutes doesn't have to be a super long period of time, but that your kids aren't waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for your attention. That instead that you've given them a lot of attention and then you go and you do your work thing. That tends to work better, especially for younger kids as they get older. You can explain more about how you're going to go do this fun thing afterward or they're going to have your attention afterward. But when they're young, that helps to kind of fill their buckets, as we like to say in pediatrics, so that they're not waiting and waiting and waiting for mommy to be with them or give them some time. And if you can make it something that's active and that allows them to run around and do all kinds of things, that's that's even better. The other way that we teach our kids boundaries is by helping them be a part of community in our house, that mommy doesn't pick up all your toys, you pick up your toys. So while mommy's in this meeting, this is your job. Mommy's going to her job, you're going to your Job, which is to your room to go pick up your toys or to go do your work. You're giving me the. You're giving me the eye. Like that doesn't work in your house.

I'm just saying. Well, either you are just a super parent or I don't quite believe that it's always exactly like that.

Oh, it doesn't always exactly work like that. Absolutely not. But I have found that even the saying, mommy is going to do her work. And so this is your work right now. And once we do all those things, we're going to have a lot of fun together. Even if they don't pick up any of the toys, it stops the whining in my house to have it be like, oh, okay, I have an understanding. This is what this time is for, is for either playing or for doing my work as a kid. And this is what my time is for, is for working. I don't expect my kids to have a perfectly clean room when I come out of a meeting. And they don't always. But I do think sometimes when they have a task that they have choices of doing that that helps significantly. And it does in my house, for sure.

Interesting. I just want to go on a side tangent, which is you're writing books. And in my mind, that's something that requires deep work. And for many working parents, it's really tough to get that deep work time because there's more stuff crammed into it. You get all these messages about how you're a super multitasker and so you feel you should be multitasking all the time. I'm just interested. How do you practically carve out time for deep work? Because for me, that is self care. If I don't have deep work, I get really jittery.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Me too. So I think there's one important caveat here for me, which is, and hopefully for most people, their deep work or things that they love. But I love writing, so writing doesn't feel like a chore to me. So when I get to do it, I actually feel like, oh, I'm in the pocket, I'm in a flow. I love what I'm doing. I don't always like editing, but I love writing. So it doesn't feel like something that I have to pull myself out of bed to do if given the opportunity. I would always love to do that type of deep work. So I have to say that first. But I actually have a very practical solution for this. The way that I divide my time and this is on anything. Every single day is I divide my day and my calendar into projects and into responsibilities. And I consider deep work a project versus responsibilities are things like I need to do the laundry or I need to answer that email or I need to pay that bill or I need to make a quick phone call to somebody. That's the thing. So the little like to do's on our to do list and I always will pick one or two projects that I want to make sure that I make momentum on in a day first and then I will schedule those on the calendar in larger blocks of my workday and then I will have other responsibilities that I'll fit in in between those projects. And I find that I am much more efficient with the responsibilities once I've done the deep work and once I feel like I've gotten something meaningful. Meaningful accomplish. Because to your point about feeling jittery, I also feel very jittery if I don't do anything that feels meaningful in a day. So if I'm like, oh my gosh, I feel so accomplished. I just wrote a chapter, I just reviewed someone else's manuscript for the day. Wow, I feel so great. I can really cross that off my list. Then it's easy for me to go pay that bill, call that person, do all those little things. And in your mind you have to, I think, have a realistic expectation that most of us have too many things in our to do list. They're probably not going to get done in a day. So that's how I, that's how I organize my days. And there are some days where, okay, I've worked on deep work on projects for two days in a row. I have some responsibilities that have piled up that need to get done that haven't. And I'll say, okay, this is not a project day. This is a straight just going through my checklist, getting every single thing done. That's a responsibility so that I can knock all that stuff out and get back to the deep work. But that's how I do it.

Thank you so much for sharing. Self care is sometimes easy when everything works as planned. But the problem is all too often there are things outside of our control. There's perhaps the workplace that suddenly calls everybody back to the office for three days a week. Or perhaps a child who suddenly has a long term additional need or a long term disability where they need tons of medical appointments for. What are your reflections on looking after yourself in those situations?

Yeah, well, I'm intimately acquainted with this idea of things not going perfectly. I think One of the things that I really find troublesome in kind of the self care world and also in the women's empowerment movement I guess would be the right thing to call it is this idea of like manifesting or envisioning your absolute perfect world and then going out and getting it and believing in yourself and doing other things. I think I'm too grounded in reality for that to be how I live my life. You know, my kids have meltdowns every single day. My house inevitably, like the dishwasher breaks as you're, as you're trying to clean up the kitchen. Like things just aren't perfect and I don't expect them to be. So I think that's one thing is that getting your expectations in line with reality when it comes to how much time you're going to have for self care or what life looks like is really important. A lot of psychologists call that radical acceptance of like this is how my world is. These are the people that surround me. Okay, deep breath. Now I can kind of go into the world and do what I need to do. The other thing is of course I try to make time for things like yoga. That's one that really grounds me because I'm moving and I'm also like getting a little more quiet and being outside that's really helpful to me. I find that for both of those things, even if I only have 10 minutes of it, it makes a huge impact on me. So I don't need a huge time commitment for it. And I can do it even if my world is kind of going crazy. So even if my kids are acting a fool, as long as there's somebody who can watch them for 10 minutes or I can throw them on a screen for 10 minutes and I can go do that, it brings me back in a much more regulated state and I can kind of handle things a lot better. But I think the other deeper parts of self care that we don't always think about are actually what's the most restorative to me and does more of that preventative work. So one is mindful self compassion and tuning into what my feelings and needs are. So when I start to feel really anxious, really agitated, really jittery in my mind, I try my hardest to stop and catch myself and try to identify what is the feeling that I'm happy having right now? Is it guilt? Is it I'm anxious about something? Is it I feel sad, is it I feel regretful? What is it that's going on? Okay, so name the emotion, validate it because usually there's a pretty good reason why. Okay, there was just a huge election yesterday and it didn't go the way I wanted it to go. Okay, well, that makes sense. I'm probably going to feel pretty anxious today and pretty down today and then have some common humanity around it. So I bet I could fill a coliseum full of people that feel the exact same way. I bet that in this moment when I feel anxious because even though I had the stop sign on the door, my child did walk in during the podcast interview and interrupted me. And I feel like agitated and guilty that I'm not paying attention to her and kind of embarrassed with this person who's interviewing me. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And a lot of other people would feel that same way. And what that does when we give ourselves that mindful self compassion, is it slows our nervous system down. So it allows us to go from fight or flight where everything we do in our lives is really reactive to being much more responsive. And so it allows us to take care of our needs in a much more effective manner. So, for example, if my kiddo was coming in here right now and interrupting and doing all the things, I can then make a much more mindful decision about what needs to happen in that moment. And that decision might be different depending on the situation. So it might be if you and I are having a friendly chat and it's a meeting and we're not recording something, we wouldn't have to redo this later. It might be that I say, hey, you know what? My kiddo, she's been sick. This has been a thing for like three days. I'm sorry, I gotta reschedule. This is just not working, you know, for me today. And it's not on you, it's not on me, this, you know, kids, hey, right? Or it might be that I say to my child, who is doing perfectly fine, I've given her tons of attention the whole morning. She just really wants my attention. Now that I say, okay, pause, I go talk to her and say, I've told you already that I'm doing work. I will be back to you. I love you very much. I'll be back with you later. And I close the door and I lock it, right? Like that might be the decision that I make or the thing that I need might be. Okay, I'm just going to pause and take a deep breath and drink a sip of my coffee before we keep on talking because I feel agitated. So to me, that is the ultimate in self care is like paying Attention to my needs, paying attention to my feelings, and that allows me then to decide in that moment how am I going to respond, and also to make the best decisions possible for work, life integration in the future. It might be that I say, you know what, that didn't work well to have it be on a day off of school that my kids were here and I decided I was going to schedule a podcast, but never again. I'm not doing that again. That's a decision I'm not going to make. And it doesn't solve every single problem. You might have kids, that they're sick, you get called from school, like life happens. But it does make it so that, let's say, 70% of the time you can make better decisions about your time management, about how you're going to arrange things in a way that doesn't constantly put you at odds with your kids and your work.

That's very true. One thing I've been thinking a lot about is this tension between mastery and taking rest. Because a lot of our fellows, and I'm sure quite a few of our listeners, have always enjoyed excelling and they like to be some really good at their job and they want to thrive in their career. But I think especially when you're used to doing this, it's hard to make a decision. So even if you notice, I am exhausted and actually all I need is just an afternoon where I lie down. It is really tough to make that decision without feeling that you are failing. I'm just interested in. Sorry. I feel like I'm asking you all these psychologist questions, but...

No, well, the book ends up being a lot of psychologist questions. Here's the reason why. And I am that same exact way. Okay, so part of it might be our wiring. People who want to excel tend to be people who are a little bit more Type A. They may be a little bit more nervous energy. Like I have anxiety myself, of course. Like, it's hard for me to rest, is hard for me to slow down. Also, we have all the conditioning from society, especially American society, that says the more you do, the more valuable you are. So, of course, the more you do, the more accolades we get, the more we want to do. Lastly, we've been exercising that muscle of doing, doing, doing. And so when we slow down, it feels really uncomfortable. Like it feels like an attack on our body almost to slow down. My husband and I used to joke that when we went on vacation that I became like the worst version of myself. I would pick fights because I needed some type of input. And so I would get it positively or negatively. However, it just made me feel terrible to be on vacation. I hated it. Like in Hawaii, sitting on a beach. I could not do that. So the way to help yourself with that very normal feeling of wanting to go, go, go, go, go, feeling guilty about rest, feeling terrible when we're resting, is to exercise it in small quantities, just like you would if you're starting to exercise. So if you were starting to lift weights, you wouldn't go with the 50 pound weights first you would lift a 3 pound weight and then you would go for a 10 pound weight. If you're trying to exercise this muscle, you might practice. Okay. Instead of moving on to the next meeting without a break, I'm going to practice going and getting a glass of water in between and having five minutes in between instead of moving quickly to the next meeting like that is exercising that muscle. It might be. I'm going to close my eyes for 10 seconds before I jump on that next call. So I think that's the way that you start to get more comfortable with taking breaks and then again giving yourself so much compassion for when you do feel like, I feel terrible when I'm resting, I feel like I shouldn't rest. I feel like I haven't done enough to rest as you practice and as you get better and better and better at the skill of resting. The other thing for my competitive type A fellow moms and parents who are out there, is if you think about it also as you're building a skill and you want to have mastery over rest, sometimes that helps too. So sometimes if I'm like, oh, I'm going to get so good at rest, I'm going to be like the best at rest. Sometimes that helps me because, you know, it's like a reverse psychology where you're actually doing the thing that's really great for you, but you're still using that competitive edge that you have to do it and it ends up with the same result.

That's a really, that's a really good reframe. I couldn't agree more. I think there is something also to be said about the fact that when you do make those choices and rest in particular, and taking breaks, it's shown to create better output. So I know I'm coming back to the productivity argument, but actually, if you want to excel, if you want to be a Nobel Prize winner, you definitely need to to do something that isn't connected to your field of research that makes you think in different ways.

Exactly.

And I think the Rest is a gender. I mean, I can't remember where I read this. I'm sure maybe it was on a different podcast episode, but actually there's a gender issue, isn't there, with men and women not having the same amount of time to rest?

Oh, well, yes. I mean, for sure. Yeah. The mental load and the fact that we are doing it all in our families. I mean there's a whole thing about the like married single mom phenomenon and how a lot of women are divorcing their, their husbands because they're like, why? It's just an extra child who I basically have to take care of. I'm doing everything anyway. Right. Like moms are, I think, wired to overcompensate and do as a, from a societal standpoint, just because that's how our very patriarchal society is set up, that a lot of women are working and doing the second shift of taking care of their homes 100%. The other thing I wanted to say to your point about it, building productivity, I want to just like invite people also to do this whole rest and work thing on their own terms because I think a lot of times people say like, oh well, don't push too hard because then you're going to burn yourself out and then you're going to have to take rest at a time that's inconvenient. Sure. But there are times where I want to go take a red eye to get to a conference to sign books and then go have a meeting with somebody important and then fly immediately home so that way I can be with my kid to take her to her camp send off thing. And then for the next two days I'm gonna do like nothing. I'm gonna be on the couch, I'm gonna watch Taylor Swift eras tour concert videos on Netflix. Like that's gonna be what I do. And that's okay. If that's your version of rest is like work really, really hard and then play really hard. Like that's okay too. I, I think we have to throw out some of these rules of it has to be that you're only nine to five and you set really specific hours around when you respond to your emails. Like I love getting caught up on emails at 11:00 at night. That's my favorite thing to do. But that's because then the next morning I want to go take a walk and not have to do any work in the morning. Like it's all about when is your energy the best and what allows you to function at your optimal speed and efficiency. You just have to remember to not always be go, go, go, go, go to give yourself some of that rest in a way that works for you.

Yeah, that resonates. I have now got a very strict on work off work life also because I do work from home quite a lot. But I actually absolutely love working late at night. It's a secret pleasure of mine and I very rarely allow myself, you know, when you just. Sorry, I shouldn't be saying this but it is so true. And my partner is brilliant at holding me to account and will even now we're recording this podcast between five and six and usually I finish a quarter to six or something. It's like, why are you working until six o'clock? I was like, it's, you know, a US podcast. You know, I don't want to make them get up so early in the morning and. And I think there is something. Yeah, but there is something beautiful. Like I might give myself permission to do some of those. Especially if it's the deep work that you enjoy.

Yeah, exactly. The deep work. Yeah, like, because then your brain isn't full of other things. I write a lot at night. Like I write. I love writing at 10 o'clock at night or midnight or 1 o'clock in the morning. Like that's when my brain works. So why deny ourselves that pleasure? But I think it is about like you're saying then you have to remember to take the break later because it's easy I think for those of us who over function to then just keep on going and never take the break. You know, just keep on working then a 9 to 5 the next day. So.

Yeah, yeah, that's very true. And remind me of the title of your most latest or next book.

Yeah, the book is called Doing it All. Stop over functioning and become the mom and person you are meant to be.

Lovely. I think the bit there that really resonates with me is to stop doing and I think that in a way that is the hardest thing because also again I'm. I love excelling. I really, I want to excel. I'm super ambitious still. But I think it's the choice on what you focus on because anyway that's what sits behind it, isn't it? You have to choose. Like for you, it sounds like it is the books you have decided to become an author and you are an author. But how do you make those choices that then allow you to let go of other stuff? Do you have any reflections on that?

Yeah, great question. Yes, I actually think this is the crux of the book, I think, especially for women, again, because of all the conditioning that we talked about, because of the polls on our attention, because society is not fair, we have a tendency to do it all. And we have a hard time saying no to anything, to setting those boundaries. And so what I know is that women have to say to know what they want to say yes to first. So in the book, I actually help people define what are the five core, what I call center points that you want to say yes to in your life? What are the things that align with your personal values, with your personal giftings, with your personal things that light you up, that give you joy, that you feel so happy with when you're doing deep work? What are those things? And they're a mix usually of career things and of personal family things and of individual things. Like, I have on my list travel and music. I get so lit up. I'm so happy in a Jazz Club at 1 o'clock in the morning in New Orleans listening to, like, live music, that I could be there for one hour. And that fills my soul for a whole month. I'm like, happy just thinking about it or watching a Vince Vaughn film, like a comedy thing. Like, that's the other thing that, like, lights me up, right? So everybody has their things that they want to say yes to, but we have to understand those things deeply. And not just on a surface level. Like, I love travel and I love music, but more like the thing that I want to invest my time and money in is traveling to amazing places, seeing the best artists in a live music capacity. Or my career thing is I want to contribute to women via speaking and writing about work, life integration. Like, that's a very specific thing that I'm always saying yes to. If someone comes at me for an interview and says, hey, I want to talk about potty training for kids, because you're a pediatrician, like, sure, that goes along kind of with kids thriving and moms thriving. But unless it's the New York Times that wants to ask me about that, I have absolutely no interest in spending my time answering interview questions about that. Like, that's a total waste of my time. And so I help people to figure out what are those things they want to say yes to so that way they can get the rest of it done without it defining them. And I think that really is the difference. It's about triaging kind of in your mind these things I have to give my attention to. Because otherwise, when I'm 80, I'm going to look back on my life and feel so disappointed that I didn't do what I was put on this earth to do. I don't want that for anybody because I know that's kind of the ultimate in a mess in our lives.

Very philosophical. So we're coming towards the end of our podcast time together, sadly, and we usually finish with some practical things. So I'm interested- You've obviously spent quite a bit of time writing, researching, thinking about this book, and I'm wondering if there are any practical things that you have changed in your own life as a result that you would like to pass on to the listeners.

Yes. So one is decluttering, one is trying to think about where in your physical space and on your calendar too. But let's talk about physical space. For practical reasons, you can get rid of things that you have to take care of because that is the ultimate time and energy suck is having it so that you're constantly picking up, putting away, cleaning, that type of thing. So that is one total life hack that I live by. Like a Marie Kondo. You can do whatever method you want. I don't care. I talk about a method in the book, but it doesn't matter what method you use to just basically simplify your environment so that you have less you have to take care of, because we all have enough we have to take care of. So if I was to give you one practical piece of advice, it would be once a quarter, go through with a trash bag or a couple trash bags, throw some stuff away, give it to Goodwill, give it to a friend. Like just get rid of stuff, because the stuff is what you're going to drown in. So I think that's number one. Number two is deciding what things you can give away to other people. People, what things you can delegate to other people on your to do list. That also takes away a lot of the stress and strain. And as a practical strategy, I want to invite people to focus on technology first because I know that feels like it's not a person, but hey, the more AI comes around it kind of as a person. So what are two things that you could give to other people or to technology that would take the stress off you? Mine is grocery shopping. I love to go to a grocery store and pick out fun little treats, but I hate to go to the grocery store and pick out milk and orange juice. So I use Instacart. I order all that stuff online. I have a running shopping list and I just order it and they come bring it to me. Yes, it costs an extra $10 but it gives me a lot of peace of mind, a lot of time, a lot less energy spent. So that's a great example of using technology. There's also a great app called Maple Grow Maple and I don't like getting the affiliate money for them. It's just a good app that helps people to organize what are their to dos and helps with calendar reminders and things like that. So anything that you can offload to apps or to technology that will help you get things done faster and without you putting in as much effort, those are the two major strategies, decluttering and delegating.

Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing. And if people want to find out more about you or if they want to read your books, where should they go? Can you just. Sorry for my memory, but can you just remind people of the title again?

Of course, yeah. So the title is doing it all. Stop over functioning and become the mom and person you're meant to be. It's available wherever books are sold. Amazon is the easiest. It's on audiobook, there's an ebook and there's also a paperback book. And in the back of the book I put a working mom discussion guide. So if you want to talk about it with other moms, which I think is an amazing way to do it because as we're saying, there's lots of struggles. You got to figure out kind of the strategies that work for you and that don't work for you. And then I'm@modernmommydoc.com is my website and the easiest place to find me on the Internet is odurnmommydoc on Instagram. I hang out there a lot. And then Whitney Caceres is my LinkedIn profile and you know, I do more academic researchy things on LinkedIn as we do and we have a lot of fun on Instagram just to keep it a little bit spontaneous over there.

Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

I really appreciate you listening. Thank you so much and I always love to hear from our listeners. If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, just go to Verena Hefti and I'd be delighted to hear your feedback and your suggestions or just have you say hi. Likewise, if you do feel par passionately about gender equality and you want to support a female led podcast, then please do leave a review and share it with a friend. Just because at the moment podcasting is still a very, very male dominated environment and most of the top charting podcasts are led by men. I really love all the people who've joined from the podcast our fellowship program and if you want to do the same, then please head over to leadersclass.org/Fellowship in order to get access to a community of support to help you combine ambitious career with young children together with people who have your back. See you next week.