Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Good morning and good
afternoon.
My name is Jacob Catalano, andwelcome to another episode of
Admins of Tomorrow.
The first week of 2024 has comeand gone, and the topic that's
really been on my mind is aboutwork-life balance.
My theme of 2024 is all aboutgrowth and professional
development, and I'm constantlyreminded that finding the time
(00:36):
to work on everything I want tois a lot harder than it really
seems.
Trying to balance work and apersonal life while also making
sure I'm not burnt out, is a lotmore overwhelming than I
originally anticipated.
In this week's episode, we talkthrough just that what it means
to find your balance in theecosystem and how to keep an eye
(00:56):
out for your mental healththrough everything you're going
through.
Today we sit down with KateGodley to talk through their
journey from working at a callcenter to becoming a Jumpstart
Program Manager.
Now I've had the pleasure ofknowing and working with Kate
for a couple years, and it'sbeen an amazing journey to see
how she's able to find balancewith her work and home life.
Getting to sit down and talkoutside of a normal work setting
(01:20):
with Kate was an absolute blast, and I can't wait for you all
to listen along.
So, without further ado, let'smeet Kate.
Kate Godley has been in theSalesforce ecosystem since 2015,
and has worn many differentSalesforce related hats,
including Salesforce admin,PARDOT admin, SalesOps manager,
consultant and now JumpstartProgram Manager.
(01:42):
She is three times certified amarketing champion and co-leader
of the Atlanta SalesforceMarketer Group.
When she's not working onsomething related to Salesforce,
she can often be foundtraveling to various states to
see some of her favorite bandsor hanging out at home with her
husband and two very cute dogs.
So let's not waste any moretime and dive in.
(02:04):
So that's always a silverlining in that regard.
Also, appreciate you forreaching out to be a part of the
podcast.
I love that.
(02:24):
I've had a couple people nowfill out the Share your Thoughts
form on the website and ask tobe a guest, and so I love that.
It's a matter of don't be shyto fill that out and come on if
you want to share your story,and I knew you had an
interesting story, but I'm putuntil our email threads didn't
realize how fascinating yourstory actually was, so very
(02:46):
excited to dive on into it alltoday.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, I've been
really enjoying listening to all
the episodes of the podcastthat have been put out so far.
It's really been interestingand it's sort of raised these
somewhat philosophical questionsin my mind.
In the interview you did withJordan and Jason, they both
(03:11):
talked about how Jordan was anaccidental admin, whereas Jason
was kind of an intentional admin, and I think that I kind of
fall somewhere in between bothof those, which I don't think we
hear a lot of and I don't knowthat there's necessarily a
correct term for that.
I refer to myself as anaccidental admin because one day
(03:36):
the director of marketing at mycompany left and I went to the
COO and said, hey, can I be theadmin?
And they said, sure, but I didnot know how to do Salesforce
admin stuff.
It was all like, all right, letme learn from there, but it was
with an intentionality.
I knew that this was kind ofthe path I wanted to go down.
(03:59):
I was just sort of sitting byand waiting for the right
opening, I guess.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
No, I love that and
that is something, you're right,
that doesn't really get talkedabout because I know for me it
was more truly accidental.
They said, hey, we need thisthing, you game.
And I said, sure, yeah, let'sgo for it.
And then Jordan had a similarstory and Jason was very much no
, I'm going to learn this beforeI get the job.
So I like that kind of middleground for that, so kind of
(04:29):
kicking it off and diving inhead first.
Would love to hear a little bitmore about that story, about
how you got started in theecosystem.
What was that background thatled you into that accidental
intentionality?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, so I was
working for an online call
center for a major retailcompany and I was working
specifically off the phone lines.
I had done phone line stuff forabout eight months.
It caused my generalizedanxiety disorder to just run
rampant.
It was not OK.
So I was in this position whereif someone needed a replacement
(05:07):
part for something they'dpurchased on the store, they
would send an email to mydepartment and we would take
care of getting that done.
There was a lot of manual taskwork that got done for
assignments and everything else,and I was in charge of that
process.
So the company decided toimplement Salesforce throughout
(05:28):
the call center and one day Ilog in to my desk and my boss
comes over to me and says hey,Kate, I need you to go ahead and
shut down your computer for theday.
We need you in the conferenceroom about some stuff that were
changing.
And I had no idea what I wasgetting into.
It was an eight hour crashcourse and what we can do inside
(05:53):
of Salesforce to make ourcurrent process fit the
structure of Sales Cloud at thetime, which was just an
incredibly amazing experiencefor me because I immediately
started having conversationsabout well, what if we were able
(06:14):
to do X and the Salesforcearchitect was like that's not
possible, but here's what wecould do instead, and was able
to open my eyes to all theseamazing possibilities.
They also gave me Salesforceaccess at that point in time
because I needed to be able totest things and make sure it
worked.
And then I found Salesforcereports and dashboards and fell
(06:35):
in love.
A quick backstory I'm an onlychild and about the time I hit
middle school and high school ifI wanted to go on one of those
really big yearly chorus tripsor whatever, I'm sure, being a
theater kid, you're used to them.
Oh yeah, my parents would committo paying for half the trip and
(06:57):
I had to pay for the other halfmyself and before they would
sign any form saying that I wasgoing, I had to present to them
an Excel spreadsheet that brokedown how I was going to get my
half of the money and where itwas coming from and prove that I
had thought it out.
I also worked in Excelspreadsheets helping my mom who
(07:18):
was on the chorus board, so Iwas in and out of spreadsheets
my entire life.
Like this was part of mychildhood.
I also will add in here becauseit will pertain to some later
things my mom's career wasteaching adult education and
(07:40):
writing and designing trainingmanuals for manufacturing plants
.
So dinner table conversationwas like what's the right way to
train people to do things?
What do you need to think aboutwhen you're doing this stuff?
That's a major thing thatimpacts my career today.
(08:00):
So I feel like it's worthbringing up while we're talking
about my childhood, just reallyquickly.
But back into that call centerjob.
Suddenly seeing thecapabilities of reporting on
different aspects of things washuge.
I very quickly there was notrailhead.
Back then I was just it wasSalesforce classic.
(08:23):
I was clicking around figuringstuff out, because I figured out
pretty quickly that Salesforcewould give me a pop-up if I was
about to do something that couldbe dangerous.
Like it would say like, hey,are you sure you want to do that
?
You can't undo this one.
And so I just started clickingaround and I wasn't afraid of it
(08:43):
.
So I figured it out and soonthe entire department relied on
me to figure out how to set upand run reports and things like
that as they were gettinglaunched into using Salesforce.
Maybe about three or four weeksafter all this stuff started,
they came to my team and said,hey, we're going to put you back
(09:04):
on the phones.
And I was like, actually you'renot.
Like, what if that wasn't whathappened?
And unfortunately, like Italked to HR about it and the
only thing that I could do atthe time was like, essentially,
take a demotion.
And so I didn't want to do thatand I found a job at a company
(09:27):
there was a small softwarecompany as an inside sales rep,
had absolutely no interest insales, did not want to do it.
The company used Salesforce andI knew that and I figured it
was a small enough company thatif I could at least get in there
I could finagle my way intolearning more about Salesforce
(09:50):
and doing something.
I didn't have access toSalesforce setup.
I didn't know what any of thatstuff was.
I knew reports and dashboardsand I knew that I mean we'd
relabeled it at the company, butit was essentially cases was
what we were dealing with, andbut I knew I loved it.
I knew that that was somethingthat was really intriguing and
(10:13):
interesting to me and I wantedto know so much more.
And so my very first day at thatsoftware company as an inside
salesperson, I walked into thedirector of marketing's office
because I'd been told that shewas the person who was the admin
for the Salesforce account andI said hi, my name is Kate.
(10:35):
I don't want to be an insidesales, I want to learn more
about Salesforce.
Will you please give me anywork that you don't feel like
doing, like just data entrystuff.
I got it Stuff that is boringand annoying.
If you tell me how to do it, Iwill do it for you and you can
just give me all that work, andI'm fine with it because I want
(10:57):
to learn more and in thatprocess that's what I'll do.
She it was Aaron Duncan, whoyou and I know and work with
frequently and proved to be avery valuable person to know in
the ecosystem.
She also asked did I want tolearn about partot?
And I said I have no idea whatthat is or does or means, but
(11:19):
sure, give it to me.
So you know, like I spent thenext nine-ish months doing
quasi-inside sales stuff, butprimarily like just helping out
in the Salesforce org andlearning more about Salesforce,
about partot and what needed tohappen.
(11:42):
Like I said, maybe nine, 10months after I started at that
job, which I started in Decemberof 2015, aaron the director of
marketing left and I, the dayshe left, went into the COO's
office and said hey, Iunderstand there's a need to
fill here as a Salesforce admin,as a partot admin.
(12:04):
I don't know what that entails,but I will learn.
Can I please take on theseresponsibilities?
And so she said, yeah, sure,like, if you want to take that
over, that's great.
I then looked at like aSalesforce admin course taught
(12:25):
by Salesforce and got them toapprove me attending that
virtually, which was greatLearned all about Salesforce
administration came back to theoffice the week after and they
decided they were moving toDynamics, but the company sort
of the owners of the companywere married and were at, or
(12:47):
approaching, retirement age, Icould tell they weren't super
interested in doing sales stuff,and at that point in time I was
a sales operations manager wasmy official role, because I sort
of bridged the gap betweensales and marketing.
And so I started looking forother jobs and I realized that
(13:08):
if I wanted to stay withDynamics, I needed to know how
to code and how to develop.
Like all of the Dynamics jobsrequired an extra skill set that
I just didn't have, and so Idecided I wanted to switch back
to Salesforce.
At that point in time, Ireached out to Aaron Duncan, who
got me in touch with the personin charge of contracting people
(13:34):
at Sercante, and I startedcontracting for Sercante in
January of 2020.
I lost my job at the softwarecompany on February 28th of 2020
, which is Excellent time tolose a job real cool.
Thankfully, it was hired againas a sales operations manager
(13:56):
about two months later and was asolo admin at this small
manufacturing company, againjust managing myself, figuring
out what they needed, designingsales processes in their system
to match what they werecurrently doing and then slowly
improve upon them.
(14:18):
I enjoyed it, but I didn'treally enjoy the people I was
working for.
I also didn't have a whole lotto do during the day and I found
that that was also verydetrimental to my mental health.
Just sitting there with nothingto do gave me too much time to
think and overanalyze and workmyself up into these fits of
(14:40):
anxiety about essentiallynothing.
That was an interesting timeperiod.
Sir Kante had stopped doingconsulting work during the peak
of the pandemic and then acouple months later came back
and said hey, we're taking on afew more contract work.
(15:00):
Excuse me, he had stopped doingcontract work.
They came back a little bitlater and said we're starting to
do some contract work again.
Would you want to join thecontract pool?
I said yes, please.
But the entire time that I'dcontracted for Sir Kante it had
been very clear that I wanted todo contract to hire.
(15:22):
I reached a point at thismanufacturing company where I
knew I was miserable every day.
I just started persistentlyfollowing up every two to three
weeks with Mike Fasio at SirKante, just checking in.
(15:43):
Still really want to work foryou guys?
Is there a time?
Is there?
a place, just keep me on theradar.
And eventually, one of thoseemails aligned perfectly with
the time that they were ready tohire.
I started being a consultantfull-time in August of 2021.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
One thing you touched
on that I found was very
interesting was at the job youhad before going to Sir Kante.
You had a lot of free time.
You were lost in your ownthoughts.
So often do I hear from peoplethat and I've said it on the
podcast the work we do is hard.
It's not like Dr Lawyer hard,but it's still really hard work.
(16:24):
There's a lot of not onlyaround the technical management,
but there's a lot of peoplemanagement when you come into
this admin space.
So what would you find as theright balance of work?
Not only balance of work, butwork-life balance as well?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah.
So for me we chatted brieflybefore we started recording
about right now it is currentlywhat I term liminal break, that
weird period between Christmasand the beginning of the new
year.
That doesn't think it's the endof something but not quite the
beginning of something else.
(17:04):
It's always weird to me, but Ihave not signed into Slack.
I have not opened my work emailat all since Friday, the 22nd
of December.
If I am done with work for theday or I'm taking off or
something else, I'm veryintentional about completely
(17:26):
exiting out of any programs likeSlack or Teams or anything like
that.
If I do have a reason to openup my work Chrome profile, it's
set to automatically open to myGmail account and I will
immediately open a new tab andclose the Gmail one Because I
(17:47):
know myself and I know that Iwill get sucked in to.
I have a notification.
I need to make sure I addressthat notification.
But the reality is I've put upan out-of-office message.
I've said I'm not availableduring this time.
If someone sends me a message,they should be pretty aware of
the fact that I'm not going torespond.
(18:09):
I feel the same way about a 5 pmcutoff.
That, for me, is because Ifigured out over time that if I
am doing work after 5 pm orwhatever the end of my work day
is, I start to resent my job.
It doesn't matter what I'mdoing.
I just start to get mad aboutthe fact that I'm spending time
(18:32):
in the evening doing somethingwhen that is supposed to be time
for myself, whether that's justbinging a TV show or spending
time with my husband, whateverit is.
I am now missing out on timethat I would have had to do
something I wanted to do, to dowork which I may or may not want
(18:57):
to do For me in my own mentalhealth.
I figured out you need tostructure your day.
Anything that has to get doneis done before 5 pm, if at all
possible.
Obviously, there are times whenthat doesn't work out.
Earlier this summer I wasbuilding a flow for a client
(19:19):
until 10 pm because thecommunication between that issue
was terrible.
It was just like I got to bedoing this.
Yeah, that really sucked.
But then I think I took offearly that Friday because I was
like I need a mental break.
I devoted four hours of mynight to building this flow.
(19:43):
So I will devote four hours ofmy Friday to not building a flow
.
Oh, and I've had to work out,just through my own mental
health journey, of what I canactually take on versus what I
think I can take on.
And it's going to be differentfor everyone, right, oh, 100%.
(20:06):
But for me it's been very muchlike recognizing okay, this is
as much as you can realisticallydo today.
And one of the ways that I dothat is I use Asana.
Like I make tasks foreverything that I'm going to
have to do.
In Asana, I assign due dates orstart and end ranges.
(20:28):
If it's something that I havetime to work on, that'll help me
assess how urgent a task is aswell.
And then I spend a coupleminutes every morning at the
start of my workday doing dailyplanning.
I have a calendar set up undermy work account that is not
shared with anyone.
(20:48):
That is a completely separatecolor than my regular calendar
color and it is just for dailyplanning.
So I'll go in and I'll look atAsana and I'll say like, okay,
you've got three tasks that areabsolutely due by X time today.
Let's make sure that on yourcalendar you've blocked out
(21:09):
enough time in your dailyplanning calendar to get those
things done by whatever timethey do, and then I will go
through and fill in other gapsof time.
I usually leave 15 to 30 minutechunks, about two or three times
a day, just to account for ADHD, and I get done with a meeting
(21:32):
and I think that I'm going toimmediately be able to dive into
sending out these three emails.
But really it's 15 minuteslater and I need to allow for
the fact that I'm not going toadhere to that schedule strictly
.
But at least I've narrowed downmy scope of here's what is
realistic for you to accomplishin a single day.
(21:53):
And if I see that I haven'tprioritized something that I
need to, then I realize, okay, Igotta shuffle things around,
what can be moved to later on,and I'll move time blocks to
other periods of the week andthen on Friday come in and say
(22:14):
like all right, I gotta movethis around or whatever.
But it's very much a case oflike, all right, I'm looking at
a sauna, what's overdue, what'sdue today, what's coming up and
how can I structure my dayaround?
Whatever meetings, I have tomake sure I get everything that
I want to get accomplishedaccomplished.
And the reason I keep thatcalendar private is because if I
(22:37):
were to make it publiclyavailable.
Then no one would have time tomeet with me ever, and I don't
want that.
My position is managing alightweight implementation
program and I want the peoplewho are running those
implementations to be able toschedule 15 minutes with me on
(22:58):
the fly to troubleshootsomething.
I don't want them to see mycalendar as it completely booked
, and does that mean I have toshuffle things around as the day
moves on?
Absolutely it does.
But because I've reallynarrowed down like these are the
things that I have toaccomplish, it helps me to say
like all right, well, I spent 15minutes with Joe here, so let
(23:21):
me move this into this othertime period or maybe push a task
to tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
No, I love that and I
mean that kind of.
It hit the one of the nexttopics I wanted to touch on,
which was all about, like, timemanagement, because so much of
what we do as an admin is we.
I mean, if you're not managinga team like you are, you are the
person who is either workingwith a company or, if you're at
that company, you're gettingrequests and tickets in from
(23:50):
your sales team, your operationsteam, your marketing team,
whoever it may be, and you'rehaving to figure out.
How do I plan out whether it'sAsana Jira, you name it.
Bringing all of this back,though, to kind of the premise
of the show the admin oftomorrow.
For these new admins who areeither accidental, accidentally
(24:12):
intentional or fully intentional, as Jason had a term coined for
it how do you kind of recommendnew admins, figure this
strategy out?
Obviously it's gonna bedifferent for each person, but
when you are young into theecosystem and you're hungry and
you wanna learn and you want toprove your worth and show that,
(24:35):
hey, I can be a team player,give me more admin work to do.
What kind of recommendationswould you give to that new admin
to find their balance so thatthey're not all of a sudden so
burnt out, and then they resentworking in the ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Right.
Yeah, I think it's somethingthat it took me a long time to
recognize, and there are timesthat I still screw up that
balance for sure.
But for me it's been a lot oflike honesty, like really
getting honest with myself aboutwhat I can do and when I can do
(25:15):
it.
So I've learned that rightbetween four and five o'clock in
the afternoon my brain is justsort of not working very well.
It's not at top notch.
It's been a while since lunch Ihaven't had coffee in a couple
of hours, like it's justunwilling to do a lot, and so I
(25:36):
have a focus block from four tofive PM on my calendar every day
and that's for wrapping uptasks, that's for those emails
that I know I need to send but Ijust didn't want to send, and
some days I've sent everythingand I've done everything and
that's just an hour of mehanging out and catching up on
Slack messages that I've missedor something similar.
(25:58):
I have figured that out throughthe process of trying to force
myself through to work, like towork through that block, and
just realizing how ineffectualit is If I have things to do
which, like we talked about, I'mreally careful about not
working after work times.
But, as we discussed, sometimesstuff happens I'll come back at
(26:20):
like six or seven o'clock, likeI will have eaten dinner, I
will have spent time away fromthis desk and then I can come
back with sort of a refreshedmindset and get some stuff done.
As far as taking on work, Istarted small with just like
here's how to import data intoPart-Ot.
(26:42):
Here's the process that we'regonna use every time we go to an
event, go ahead and do it, andso I started out pretty small
like that.
And then I was the solo adminlike very quickly after that was
the solo admin in a company andfor me I found that I didn't
(27:06):
have a lot of oversight, likethere weren't people with
setting deadlines for me andthings like that.
So I had to set my owndeadlines.
I had to figure out for myself,like okay, I'm gonna tell
people that this is going to bedone by X time.
A lot of what I was doing inthese roles was figuring out
what is the existing process andhow do I need to change that
(27:29):
process to make it better, makeit more efficient, but also not
do it so suddenly that all ofthe salespeople will revolt and
stop using the program or ifthey do revolt, then have I got
buy-in from the sales managementteam that will say if this deal
isn't in Salesforce, it doesn'tcount.
(27:51):
Salesforce is the source of ourtruth period.
And then have I writtenvalidation rules et cetera to
make it so that they can't justskip things around, like I am so
good at like narrowing it down.
So you have to do X, y and Z toget the data that we need,
because, at heart, I love data.
(28:12):
Like it gets back to thatreports and dashboards is how I
fell in love with it, because Ilove data and I love seeing what
we can do with that data oncewe have it.
So I guess, to get back to thelike, how to find that balance,
it's a lot of being, like I said, very honest with myself about
(28:32):
what I am truly capable of.
Recognizing you and I havetalked socially about the fact
that I have anxiety anddepression issues and
recognizing that like there aregonna be days where I am not
gonna be able to get stuff done.
Like I will be there, I'll bepresent and I'm going to send
emails and I'm gonna do somethings, but I'm certainly not
(28:54):
gonna be building a flow.
That is too much brain power.
It is not gonna happen that dayand I need to be able to
account for that.
And learning the fact, likelearning my own limits, was
really important.
I had to figure out, like,where my limits were when I
needed to say like, all right,today's not a flow building day,
(29:17):
and allowing myself to say thatwithout then beating myself up
about the fact that every daycan't be a flow day.
I guess, if we're gonna takebones or no bones, the sales
force are out right, like.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
I love where you're
going with that and I find it
interesting because we do haveto get introspective with our
work.
I'm not a huge fan of gettingall therapy like, but at the end
of the day, so much of thetechnical and I've said this
before is all searchable,google-able, some things maybe
around data cloud and AI.
(29:55):
Right now you there may be afirst time issue that you're
gonna find, but 80% of what youdo inside this ecosystem,
someone's found it and someone'sdone it.
And the whole reason I createdthis podcast, this community I'm
wanting to develop, is allabout how can we help each other
(30:16):
grow, how can we help the nextgeneration grow, and thinking
about how are we balancing ourworkload, how are we balancing
the personal and theprofessional, and really taking
a step back to say, hey Kate,hey Jordan, hey Jason, hey, all
these people, how are you doing,how are you growing in this
(30:37):
ecosystem?
So one thing that you mentionedabout you kind of took that
step back.
You figured out for yourselfwhat that balance was.
How many times did you have togo through like crazy amounts of
burnout?
Did you finally kind of realize, oh, this isn't repeatable.
(30:58):
I can't just fall into thedefinition of insanity and do
the same thing over and overagain and expect a different
result.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I mean years, like,
honestly, years.
I officially started mySalesforce career in 2015, late
2015, and it was probably2022-ish when I really started
(31:28):
like okay, you can't keep goingon the way that you have been,
and a lot of that was like it'sbeen a journey, right, and I
recognize and understand likenot wanting to get like so
therapy-esque, but, as you know,my own mental health is a huge
(31:49):
part of me and who I am as aperson, and it impacts my career
in a lot of ways.
And so I just and I also think,speaking to the admins of
tomorrow the generations youngerthan us are even more in tune
(32:09):
to their own mental health and Ithink they're going to be
better at it by default, becausethere have been there's been a
larger push on like hey, hold ona second.
Mental health is real, you know, but I think it went through.
I went through differentperiods in different types of
burnout, so I got burnt out ofnot having enough work to do,
(32:32):
which seems crazy when I saythat I don't feel like anyone
ever talks about that and I'mactually like I want us to come
back to that.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
but like that
fascinates me because, partially
out of ignorance, because I'venever been in that kind of
situation, I've always beenmoving at a thousand miles an
hour.
But before we dive into likethe traditional burnout, like I
want to talk a little bit onwhat you mean by burnt out, by
not enough to do.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah, so I was at
this small company where I mean,
literally like I was my ownboss, essentially, I reported up
to executive leadership andthey told me, like, what they
wanted to have done, but I wasthe only person who knew
anything about Salesforce really.
So, like, what was Salesforcecapable of?
(33:18):
That was up for me to determine.
You know, and it was dauntingand incredibly scary at first,
especially because, like God, wehave three releases a year and
how is that going to impact thisorg that I am now in charge of,
which was terrifying.
But after like six or sevenmonths or so, I realized that,
like, no one ever asked me aboutwhat I was working on.
(33:40):
Like I would just work on stuffand as long as the reports they
needed were done in the way andtimes they needed them, they
didn't question what I was doingday to day.
And so, like, I made smallimprovements to the Salesforce
(34:00):
org and stuff and I made changesto their business process as
needed and as planned on when Iwas hired and stuff.
But I reached this point where,like there was maybe doing
eight hours of work a week, and,yeah, it was, and it was
miserable.
And I think back to that andsometimes I'm like man.
(34:23):
I wish I could do that Like.
Jacob, when I tell you, my housewas never cleaner.
It was never cleaner.
But the reason my house wasnever cleaner was because I went
through three months of likeintense anxiety and depression
over the fact that I wasn'tbeing useful, helping people to
achieve things, doing it Like Ijust felt so bad that I was like
(34:47):
well, you know what, if I'm notgoing to have a lot of like
actual work that needs to getaccomplished, I need to make
sure I'm busy every day.
So I like structured choresaround every day of the week and
like, all right, it's Wednesday, now we clean all the bathrooms
and you know, whatever else,because I needed to be doing
(35:08):
something in order to notlanguish in this like anxious
depression which not everyone isgoing to have right, like you
know, but for me, that was myreality, so I had burnout of not
enough stuff to do.
It was making me miserable onthis very intense level.
(35:32):
Now, the transition from workingmaybe eight hours a week to
like, hey, you have a billabletarget and you have to track all
of your time and you areexpected to work Like that was a
huge shift.
And I then had to like, okay,what do I do?
And at the time that I started,one of my coworkers had to go
(35:56):
on Mat Lee very suddenly and Itook on, like most of her
clients, and then, like that wasvery quickly a realization of
like, hey, maybe doing likeeight to 12 implementations at
once is a bad idea.
Maybe you shouldn't say you cando that in the future, maybe.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, no Right.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
So, like that's what
I mean when I say like it is a
journey, and it's really beenuntil like 2022 ish where I've
started to really define theseboundaries for myself and find
the right balance.
And, like I said earlier,sometimes the balance is great.
Other times the balance is offin some way or another, whether
(36:40):
it's writing a flow until 10o'clock at night because, like
well, it has to get done and I'mthe one who can do it, or
something else, like there aregoing to be times when things
aren't balanced, but I foundthat the important thing is it's
going to shift, you know, andI'm going to have a counter
(37:00):
balance to to it, I guess.
So you know, like, yeah, Istayed up until 10 writing a
flow, but then I took, you know,like a three day weekend.
Basically, yeah, so I love that.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
That's fantastic.
So I want to transition.
We have two more questions left.
We've talked about findingbalance in the workplace,
finding your balance with timemanagement, avoiding burnout,
and I want to talk a little bit,though, about for some folks in
the ecosystem who are dealingwith constant burnout, constant
(37:36):
stress, finding that balancewith their mental health.
And I know earlier youmentioned you have a diagnosed
anxiety disorder, so I'm curioushow have you learned to balance
that stress that comes with theanxiety disorder within the
ecosystem, within your day today?
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Yeah, I think it's
been a learning experience for
sure.
I got diagnosed withgeneralized anxiety disorder
when I was in college.
So I entered the workforceknowing I had this, but I also
entered the workforce likereally wanting it to not be my
life.
You know, like I, I recognized,yeah, I have problems with
(38:22):
anxiety for sure, but I alsolike kind of wanted to separate
it and pretend it wasn't there.
And I did a lot of pretendingthose problems weren't there,
which led to a lot of burningout, you know.
So I, like I said, I've hadthat anxiety diagnosis for a
(38:43):
long time.
Within the past couple years Iguess the major depressive
disorder diagnosis got added, Idon't remember when, but they
they go hand in hand for meright, like I get.
If I get too anxious, it willhit me into.
Just being depressed is sort ofwhat ends up happening, and
(39:03):
that's a whole ordeal.
And so, as I've, like I said,started to become very honest
with myself about what I'm ableto do and when I'm able to do it
, it has been only because I'verealized that when I'm not
honest with myself about thosethings, I fail in some, some
(39:28):
capacity.
I am going to make a decisionor do a thing that I probably
shouldn't have done.
I'm going to like not be ableto perform up to that 100% level
or something, and it has onlybeen through like I hate this
term, but through like radicalhonesty with myself over like
(39:53):
what is real, like what can youactually do, that I have been
able to find some sort ofbalance.
It has included years and yearsof not telling the people I
work for that I have clinicallydiagnosed anxiety and depression
.
Earlier this year, I was alsodiagnosed with autism, which has
(40:13):
been just mind blowingexperience for me.
Like completely it hasrestructured the way that I
think about the past 36 years ofmy life, but also the way that
I think about, like my day today and and what is going to be
too much.
And like, if I'm out at aconference, like I am very
(40:38):
likely to have FOMO and be like,yeah, go to every single thing
and don't go to bed untileveryone else is going to bed.
And like realizing that that'ssomeone else, you know, like
someone else can do that and itdoesn't need to be me and it
shouldn't be me.
Like I can go out and I canhave fun, but I need to
(40:59):
recognize, like at a certainpoint I need to cut myself off
and be responsible for myselfand go to sleep, because I don't
function well if I stay up allnight and then sleep for three
hours and then have to go, go,go the next day.
Like that is just going to sendme towards a meltdown of some
sort, whether it be like anxiety, depression, like sitting in a
(41:23):
room by myself and crying fortwo hours, whatever it is, like
that's a that's highway to badtown there, you know, and it's
been a lot of learning and andjust kind of going through the
process of recontextualizing howI work and and how I talk to my
(41:47):
coworkers about the way I'mfeeling, how I talk to my
leadership, about how I'mfeeling and and what I need and
like honestly being truthfulwith leadership about like this
is a problem that I'm facing andyou know like sometimes it's
not a flow day Exactly, and likeI will make up for that.
(42:11):
But I need you to understandthat there are going to be days
where I am just not capable andthere's I have an understanding
of like my work is going to getdone, and so I know that I hold
myself accountable to gettingthe work I've promised done done
and if I have to like take amental health day or something,
(42:32):
that's fine.
But I know I need to make upfor it and yeah, it's just spent
a lot this this past year, forsure.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
We're ready for for a
new year of fun and 2024 is
going to be a good year.
I can, I can feel it.
But I love your kind of,because a lot of people have
talked about and I've talkedabout kind of how are you
learning?
Hey Haley, in our first episodewas wonderful about.
The biggest thing is there's noshame in which way you learn,
(43:04):
but you have to know how youlearn and we talked about that
in the technical aspect.
But I'm loving theunderstanding of the learning,
how you just learn aboutyourself.
What are your triggers?
I've never taken like I getintrospective, but never to that
level because I'm very I canrelate to the whole going to I.
(43:27):
We know we're talking aboutdream force.
We don't have to sugarcoat thatwe're talking about dream force
and you are out all night longand then you pay the price and
then you just there's thisunwritten rule of that's just
what you have to do to tonetwork properly and have that
experience properly, and youjust have to suffer through and
(43:48):
it's amazing that you've youlearn what, what those triggers
are for affecting your day today, for affecting your
networking, for your social life, personal life, everything, and
so I really am hoping that thishas been helpful for someone to
kind of take that step back andrealize maybe I need to take
(44:11):
that that pause to recognizewhat that burnout looks like,
whether it's personal burnout orprofessional burnout.
So I appreciate you for comingon and being open and talking
about this.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yeah, definitely I
think I had a bit of a leg up.
My degree is in psychology.
I've always been veryinterested in this.
I'm also an only child, whichmeant there was tons of time to
just sit around and like, thinkabout thinking.
But you know that that's justsort of the my framework of how
(44:48):
I think about everything.
It comes from that.
I want to plug KatieVillanueva's community group.
She's someone who I think wouldbe excellent to bring on the
podcast.
She's had a really interestingstory as well, but she has a
community group that is themental health and illness
awareness group.
It is all virtual.
(45:09):
They meet roughly once a month.
It is really incredible.
None of the meetings arerecorded, because it's meant to
be a completely safe space foryou to be able to talk about the
mental health struggles you'regoing through.
In line with the Salesforceecosystem, there's also a newer
group for disabilities thosewith disabilities in the
(45:33):
Salesforce ecosystem.
I cannot remember the name ofthe group, but I will send you a
link to it so you can put it inthe show notes or whatever.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
I absolutely want to
plug as many of these groups as
possible because, again, I wantto do my part in the sense of
I'm not the person to talk aboutthese things in an educated
standpoint.
I want to learn with thelisteners about these things, so
absolutely want to plug as manyof these groups as possible.
I had the pleasure of seeingKatie speak at Southeast Dream
(46:02):
Inn last year I believe it wasand fell in love with their
talking points and theirsessions, so I definitely want
to add more of that messageinside of this podcast
environment, obviously in a safespace.
By no means do I want anyone tofeel uncomfortable.
That being said, I thinkthere's a lot of value that can
(46:24):
come from shining a light onthis topic.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yeah, and I love so
much that Salesforce community
groups are now sort of embracingthose of us with these
struggles or with disabilitiesand things like that.
It is becoming such a great andwelcoming space in a way that I
didn't see when I first startedin the ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
It's absolutely
fantastic.
So I very much appreciate youcoming on sharing your story
from start to finish.
It's been a blast.
I thoroughly enjoy working withyou on a regular basis, so I
know that I know all of our coworkers and all of our community
are going to love to hear yourstory as well.
I always like to end thepodcast with one of two
(47:14):
questions, just kind of mylittle thing.
And it's again getting back tothe topic of admins of tomorrow
and the journeys they areexperiencing.
Knowing that you kind of wentinto that accidental,
intentional admin and you'vegone through so much in just
from 2016, I believe you said itwas in that time you've had ups
(47:37):
, you've had downs what would bethe one kind of either regret
you had that you wish you couldchange, or the one thing you
wish you did differently so thatfuture admins can kind of avoid
that pivot?
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Yeah, you know it's
funny because I obviously
listened to the podcast, so I'vebeen thinking about these
questions right, like evenbefore I filled out the form to
be on the show.
I think some of the things thatI regret would be like not
(48:12):
getting involved in the actualSalesforce community until
really the 2021 timeframe.
Like if I had been more pluggedinto either user groups or just,
like you know, the Ohana coffeespaces or I'm sure there's a
similar like low key Atlantahangout situation.
(48:36):
Right, if I had been pluggedinto those earlier, I think I
would have found my way intopositions that I really enjoyed
sooner.
I think I also would have spenta lot less time agonizing over
like oh God, I'm the only personwho knows anything about this
at this company, which means I'mresponsible for everything,
(49:00):
which is a lot of weight to bear.
You know, like and not havingany connections during that
timeframe was just, it was bad.
You know, like I shouldn't havesiloed myself that way, but you
know, I also try and really begentle with myself.
As part of that, I was not inthe right headspace to really be
(49:24):
going to those sorts of eventsand to really put myself out
there the way that I have donein the past two to three years.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
Yeah, and we all go
through our own unique journeys
and you don't know you didsomething wrong or there's
something that you missed out on, until you experience either
the letdown or the failure orthat, that thing that needs to
make you make it click.
And so I love hearingeveryone's kind of what I wish I
(49:54):
did differently or what's onething I really think I did well,
because I'm hoping it may notbe something that clicks
immediately for someone, but I'mhoping someone can go back and
say, oh, I'm in that situationright now.
It may not click, but it'sgoing to click hard in just
about like one, two, three daysfrom now, kind of a thing.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
So, I.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
you have to go
through that experience yourself
forward to fully click.
But, that being said,everyone's journeys are
differently.
So if we can provide just alittle bit of help for the admin
tomorrow, that's I can know andsleep well, knowing that I have
done something that'sbeneficial in this ecosystem.
So, kate, thank you so much forcoming in and sharing your
story, sharing your journey.
(50:38):
We will make sure that all ofthese groups get plugged.
We will make sure that you getplugged, and thank you again and
have a wonderful 2024.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Thank you so much,
Jacob.
It's been a blast talking toyou.
I love what you're doing withthe show and I am looking
forward to future episodes.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
And that concludes
another episode of admins of
tomorrow.
A special thanks to our guestKate for sharing their journey
through the ecosystem and howthey've learned how to find
their balance as a Salesforceadmin.
Now, as we mentioned in theinterview, we have included
links to the Salesforce mentalhealth and illness user group
and the Salesforce Ohan abilityuser group in the episode
(51:27):
description.
Thank you again for taking thetime to listen and support our
podcast.
If you have any feedback,questions or topic suggestions,
we'd love to hear from you.
So please don't hesitate toconnect with us on LinkedIn or
Twitter or email us at info atadminsoftomorrowcom.
Also, if you or someone youknow would like to be on the
podcast or would like to givesomeone a shout out, please go
(51:50):
to our website,adminsoftomorrowcom.
Forward slash, share yourthoughts and fill out our form
to be on the show or give ashout out.
If you've enjoyed this episode,don't forget to subscribe,
leave a review or share it withyour fellow trailblazers.
Once again, I'm Jacob Catalano,your host, signing off.
We appreciate you for listeningto Admins of Tomorrow
(52:13):
trailblazing the next generation.