Great to have you tune in to this episode, which is a special episode to celebrate the end of this series. I wanted to share some of my reflections on managing the mental load in this incredibly busy pre-holiday season time and some of the highlights and things that I personally have taken away from the previous episodes and things that have changed my view and my thinking. I hope you enjoy the conversation. I find from my experience that Christmas period is quite intense for many of us working parents and especially if you live in a country that does have Christmas plays, Christmas activities, Christmas performances that you need to attend and schedule and at the same time you want to make the Christmas period magical. I have to say though, my youngest definitely thinks that Christmas equals chocolate, so I'm not sure he gets the meaning yet. But there's sometimes a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves during this time and I think I just wanted to hopefully send a non patronising supportive message to say it's absolutely okay to prioritise yourself and also to make brave decisions. So for me, I always love doing podcast episodes. I hate having long breaks, but I have taken a brave decision to finish a few weeks early before Christmas so we can finish some exciting planning and get the brilliant CEO series ready for you to start in January again. And I think sometimes that that those are the decisions that that matter and that makes work exciting. Mental load is a big topic. I don't know if you are buying Christmas gifts or Hanukkah gifts or any other gifts at this time of the year. There's a lot of work and thinking. It's quite often invisible. It's one of our fellows says it's the stuff that I'm keeping in my mind that needs to get done. And it is, it is. Actually it's really important work. If that resonates with you, you're definitely not alone. Research shows that the mental load disproportionately falls on women, especially in dual career households, although I'm sure that many of the men listening also carry a significant role. If you might want to have a look at episode, My episode with Anna Catalana Weeks where she shares about the research on the mental load and how actually in dual career households that are in a hetero relationship, men have taken a lot more time to do actual practical work over the last few decades, which is amazing. But the mental load still sits disproportionately with women. And so this I would say is a clear message that it is absolutely okay and also recommended to have a discussion about who leads on which aspects of the family administration. One really practical tip that was shared in our episode with Sally and Matt Ham was the need to have almost like a family admin meeting to go through what's coming up, what do we need to do, and how do we deal with it so that the responsibility doesn't just sit with one partner. That's episode 193. And Sally and Matt have four children, one of them being a toddler, and they both are Harvard academics and practical clinicians. So I found it really helpful actually to hear their story about how they make that mental load work. Actually, if you are looking for resources around the mental load, there's plenty on our website, leadersplus.org/mentalload, there are checklists, tick lists, further podcast episodes, and hopefully some very helpful strategies to help you share the load equitably at home and work. Setting boundaries can be quite important at this time of the year. And we in our fellowship, we use a framework called the STAR Framework, which I want to share with you. And this is very much focused on requests that you receive because you will receive opportunities, requests to get involved in things. And it involves star. So analysing does this does your gut tell you that this request aligns with your ideal North Star, what you're trying to achieve? And if it doesn't, do you have to say yes to it? Or could you actually delay it? Tomorrow, If this opportunity was tomorrow, would your future self be grateful if you said yes? Opportunity cost - What are you giving up by saying yes? And pause- Can you bide time to respond? Because we are all hardwired and I've done an interesting podcast with Vanessa Bones about this. We were all hardwired to say yes and we're actually twice as likely to say yes to things than we think. So just putting small breaks into before you respond to an opportunity that can help, especially if you are someone who always is the first person to jump in. And you might remember from the episode with Lori Ann C. Cart that the. Sorry, Laurie Ann Weingart, that the people who take on a lot of the office housework or the community housework, let's say organising the Christmas party and so on, that if those are the same type of people and you just take on these extra tasks that aren't going to help you to develop your career, it's something you have to keep an eye on. I'm not saying of course you do need to. You know, we all need to work together as a community to make life beautiful and to have a Christmas tree. For example, if you do celebrate Christmas but at the same time, we need to make choices about how to spend, spend our time and make sure that it's fair. There's some really, I guess podcast episodes have really changed my thinking. One of them was with Tom Shaw, who's also senior leader mentor on the Leaders Fellowship program that we run and you're welcome to apply to. He is talking about making tough decisions to prevent burnout. He shares very openly about having caring needs for a child with additional needs and how at different points in his career he actually did decide to prioritise his family. And yet he still managed to get to a very, very senior, very impressive role at the Economist. And I think his story really made me think about seeing a career in waves and embracing that. There are moments where it is absolutely okay to not be on the gas pedal and then other moments where you say, actually I'm going to give everything. And I do want to have that executive director role. And I think if we do want more people with caring responsibilities in senior roles, we must make, make it possible to have that non linear squiggly career. So definitely listen to Tom shaw in episode 194. Can't believe we've done 200ish episodes. I mean, that's quite, quite a lot now I think of it. There's another one which you might enjoy reflecting on, which is with Brigid Schulte on overcoming overwork with strategies for a balanced life. And she shares very practical, actionable advice around reducing overwork and finding that balance. And one of the most powerful pieces of advice there was to identify where is it that you make you've added the most value in the last three months and consequently, where are you going to add the most value in the next three months? And possibly those things are not the ones that are keeping you busy in the hamster wheel. So really focusing on the value add, we've had a really powerful workshop, a CEO Club as part of the Senior Directors Fellowship program. And it was powerful for me actually, because I'm a CEO and I used the excuse to hear from other CEOs and we had the CEO of Varian, you might know them as Kantar Public, CEO of the NCT and the CEO of London Partners all share their experience of combining a big career with young children and what they've learned. And I think the big shift in my thinking this year, which was consolidated in that CEO club, was that everyone or most people do feel guilt about combining a big career with young children. Even CEOs and even people from the outside look like they are the perfect parent. Which, spoiler alert, I've never met a perfect parent and I definitely am not one myself. But I, I think just understanding that that's part of your, it's, you know, it's just part of how, how we're built. And Brigid Schulte said in her episode that guilt is often a sign that we deeply care and it's absolutely okay to sit with it without letting it to define us. And I absolutely love that. And the other thing that came out of a really powerful insight from the senior director workshop day was around the setting boundaries. So just to shifting, shifting the thinking from saying no to lots of stuff and therefore just being a mean person. But actually it's about saying yes to what truly matters. One fellow really brought it to the point by saying, I realised when I say no to things that aren't aligned with my values and my priorities, I'm saying yes to more meaningful opportunities. And that's exactly it. If I think the flip side to the mental load is also thinking about the people in your team and many of you listening are leaders. I've recently written an article on addressing the line management lottery. So this problem that we have, it really depends on if you have a good line manager or not and how supported you feel. And there were two really important principles in this article that received quite a lot of feedback. As in positive feedback. I'm almost about responding right in the moment because it's that response in the moment when a tree has just fallen onto the nursery and you have to pick up your child, that's what makes you feel supported, not necessarily the policy that is buried somewhere on the Internet. So if someone on your team mentions a family commitment, show them that you're willing to help to make it possible. And then secondly, to always consider the impact that you modelling work, life balance or the lack thereof has on the rest of the team. So the way I do that is I try to be open about my own boundaries. For example, leaving to go to a child's nativity. And the team is much more likely to feel empowered if you do the same. Just being a parent is not going to make other working parents in your team feel more at ease. But you sharing how you manage it might do that. So before we wrap up, I know I'm always asking my guests to come up with a small five minute challenge for you. So this week I will encourage you to say no to two things that you wouldn't usually do and to replace the time that you would have done that you would have used to deal with those things with something that is good for you personally and that gives you rest in this busy period. And you could use our STAR framework to decide what aligns with your values, what you can let go. As one of our facilitators said, saying no is a muscle and the more you use it, the stronger it gets. So as we wrap up, I want to thank each of you for being part of the big Career Small Children community. Thank you so much for your stories. Thank you for sharing your reflections on LinkedIn. I always read your comments and I always enjoy them. If you're looking for more tips and resources, especially also on the mental load we are releasing today when this newsletter when this podcast goes out, we're also releasing the newsletter with a real theme of the mental load and how to manage it so you can sign up to that on leadersplus.org newsletter. We also for those of you who like to have a real life community of people to support, we always have different programs running regardless of what level of seniority you're at. If you're unsure which program might be right for you, if you head to leadersplus.org and go to fellowship, there's a quiz you can do to find out which program be right for you. And thank you so much for supporting us and being part of this journey and I really appreciate it and I can't wait to share season 14 with you. We have another CEO series with amazing senior leaders to share with you. We have we're going to kick off with an episode that is all about applying for jobs that are full time but making negotiating for them to be flexible during the job hunting process. And I'm hoping that we can give you as much valuable support as possible. And thank you for listening. And also let me know what you think about having the solo reflection episode. This is the first time I've done it, so I always value your feedback. Have a wonderful Christmas if you're celebrating or other holidays if you celebrate those and see you in the new year.