85. Abby Davisson ︱ How to Make Big Life Decisions — Without the Stress! - Grand Slam Journey

Episode Transcript
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Abby Davisson (00:00):
I'll run through the framework quickly and I'll
maybe use a couple of the C's tohighlight the steps that were
most meaningful for me.
So the first C is to clarifywhat's most important to you.
The second is to communicatewith the person or people most
involved in the decision.
The third C is to consider abroad range of choices.

(00:21):
Consider a broad range ofchoices.
Few decisions are either or,and by expanding the
consideration set you have ahigher likelihood of making a
good decision.
The fourth C is to check in withfriends, family and trusted
resources.
And the fifth C is to examinethe consequences of your
decision across different timehorizons the short-term,

(00:44):
medium-term and long-termconsequences.
And it so speaks to your pointabout decisions being so
personal and everyone's processis so different, because I am
famous for being good at thecheck-in step, and so sometimes
I think I've over-indexed on thecheck-in and let other people
dictate a little bit too much mydecisions, and so some of the

(01:05):
things that I've had to learn alittle bit too much my decisions
, and so some of the things thatI've had to learn a little bit
more is to check in with my ownintuition more than with trusted
mentors or published studies.
So I think it's very personal,but when it comes to all of
these big life decisions, Ithink the hardest part and the
most important is the clarifystep, and for me, you know, it
wasn't one clarifying moment,but there was a series of

(01:28):
moments that helped me clarifywhat was important to me.
One was I ended up gettingrecruited for a similar job at a
bigger, more prestigiouscompany and went through the
whole interview process.

Klara (01:42):
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Grand
Slam Journey podcast, where wediscuss topics related to sports
, business and technology,underlined by leadership.
My today's guest is AbbyDavisson.
Abby is a social innovationleader and career development
expert.
Most recently, she spent nineyears at global retailer Gap Inc

(02:05):
, where she served as presidentof Gap Foundation and co-founded
the company's employee resourcegroup for parents and
caregivers.
Abby is the co-author of Moneyand Love an intelligent roadmap
for life's biggest decisions.
In this conversation, we covera variety of topics mainly
related to navigating ourcareers and framework for making

(02:29):
some of the life's biggestdecisions.
For context, this conversationwas recorded last fall.
I apologize to you, my listenersand Abby for releasing it just
now.
There has been a lot going onthis past year and I'm trying to
find a new rhythm, to get backto releasing episodes regularly.
I may have a plan, but I haveto test how executable it is.

(02:51):
If you enjoyed this episode,please consider subscribing or
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review on wherever you listen tothis podcast, or perhaps you
may decide to share this episodewith someone you believe may
also enjoy it.
Thank you for tuning in andenjoy the listen.
Hello, Abby, Welcome to theGrand Slim Journey podcast.

(03:14):
So great to have you.

It's wonderful to be here, Clara.
I'm excited for ourconversation.

Klara (03:20):
I am too, and I'm so thrilled you accepted my invite.
I have came across your workthrough Annie.
She organized a workshop, oryou organized a workshop in
partnership with Annie, and thenI was able and privileged to
join your class, making big lifedecisions with more ease and
less angst, and so I'm supercurious to dive into even your

(03:44):
journey.
What led you to this vast andin many ways, complex field of
decision-making that we have tonavigate through our life and
potentially even your own careerand decisions, and maybe many
more things that we'll uncoveralong the way.
And so quick introduction frommy side you're co-author of the

(04:06):
book Money and Life anintelligent roadmap for life's
biggest decisions.
You founded and currently leadthe Money and Life Institute,
which helps people make betterdecisions that lead to happiness
, prosperity and purpose, andyou have a fantastic background
that seems quite diverse, and solet me just stop there and I'll

(04:28):
give you an opportunity to addor introduce yourself anything
you want to bring up for justthe context of the conversation
you would like listeners to knowabout you.

Well, thank you for that introduction and thanks
so much for having me.
The only thing I'll add is thatI am also an aspiring tennis
player.
Well, I am a tennis player.
I aspire to get better.
Right now I'm fairly mediocre,but I know we share that with
each other and with Annie Dukeas well.
I just listened to yourwonderful interview with her,
and so I am honored to be amonggreat company.

Klara (05:00):
I had a lot of fun talking to Annie especially.
It stood out to me quiteclearly that practice that she's
taken from poker and decisionmaking and how it applied to
tennis.
So I'm curious if that is truefor you as well, because you
have studied this field quite abit.
What does your tennis game looklike, abby, or what do you

(05:21):
enjoy about it?

Well, it's interesting, I have dabbled in
tennis throughout my life, but Iwould say it was not until
about a year ago that I got veryserious about it and that was
actually coincided with mystarting the Money and Love
Institute.
I had a many year you know, twodecades plus career before that
, all around helping people indifferent sectors.

(05:46):
So I've worked in all threesectors, most recently in the
corporate sector, leading thefoundation of the company Gap
Inc.
Which we can talk more about.
But when I left to publicize mybook and then launched my
company, I really wanted to dothings differently than I had in
my career previously, where Iwas very relentless, frankly,

(06:11):
about work and did not givemyself a lot of room to play and
rest during the work week.
A fantastic book called Rest byAlex Pong and it really changed
the way I looked at how to be anentrepreneur and have really

(06:33):
deliberately incorporated restand active rest, so not just
passive that's one of the thingsthat he talks about in his book
into my business plan, and soevery week I force myself to
take a break at lunchtime and goto my tennis class.
I'm fortunate to live a 10minute walk from an amazing,

(06:53):
world-class facility and I getto go play tennis in the middle
of the day and learn somethingnew, and it's really been
transformative.
It's helped me be a much morecreative leader, a better
decision maker, and has justbeen a really revolutionary way
to approach my work.

Klara (07:12):
Wow, I love that beginning and we can dive into
so many things, because restingis one of the things I suck at,
including the quitting, which iswhat Annie and I talked about
and I was so curious about,especially her last book, quit.
And so tell me a little bitmore about resting or the book,

(07:36):
how you applying it even intoentrepreneurship.
I find it is so hard to plugyourself away, even maybe
particularly for me, it'sliterally on point, as I started
a new career journey threemonths in now yeah, minus one
day I feel like a little bitdrowning, and so especially the
beginnings are very much timedemanding, and I actually do
have a quote that I wrote Paceyourself, life is not a sprint,
and I'm hoping reading it everymorning it will remind me.

(07:58):
Just don't get locked into thiswheel, and I still struggle
with it so much.
Anything else you want toinspire us with?

Yeah, that resonates with me too.
I'm really bad at resting andat pacing myself as well, and I
think that's what spoke to me somuch about this book the idea
that rest is not something toearn, that it is not something
that you get to do after allyour work is done, because,
frankly, that you get to doafter all your work is done,
because, frankly, your work willnever be done.

(08:27):
And I work full time for myself.
I also have two young sons, andso there's really not a lot of
time for rest if I don'tdeliberately make it.
And so what Alex talks about inhis book it goes through a lot
of examples of really amazingpeople throughout history, from
Nobel Prize winners to SupremeCourt justices, to inventors

(08:50):
that you've heard of you knowthey use their products every
day who really prioritized restand were deliberate about
incorporating a walking practice, a sport, into their lives or
something that gave them anoutlet besides their work, and
that they really dedicatedsignificant time to it.
They didn't say, oh, what I'vedone in the laboratory will turn

(09:13):
my attention to rest.
It's really something that theydid alongside their work, and
it actually made them thepowerhouse creatives and
successful leaders that theywere, and so I've really been
adopting that and leaning intoall the evidence that he cites
to really run my own life, verydifferently from the way I was

(09:34):
taught in my.
I was a management consultantin my first job out of college
and we literally had to trackour hours and there was this
notion of you know, this degreeof excellence that you couldn't
rest until you know every Excelspreadsheet was finished and it
just has been ingrained in me somuch and I've had to unlearn so

(09:57):
much of that training in orderto be the type of leader that I
want to be.

Klara (10:02):
I love that.
And so what are you findingincorporating these breaks in?
It seems like it's related tocreativity.
Are you more productive?
Do you look forward to theworking sessions more, that you
know you have these hours sortof built in, or you force
yourself in many ways to buildthem in, to step away and think
about something else, even fromyour own practice?

(10:22):
I'm curious what are some ofthe key benefits?
Something else, even from yourown?

practice.
I'm curious what are some ofthe key benefits?
Yeah, absolutely, I haveactually very creative thoughts
on my way to and from my tennislesson.
I've made connections actuallythrough my class because, as you
know, tennis is very socialthat have helped me in my work
actually, and so I didn't gointo it because I thought this

(10:45):
will be a great networkingopportunity.
But I live in San Francisco.
There are a lot of amazingpeople who also live in the Bay
Area who also play tennis, andso it's had these wonderful
benefits that have helped from abusiness perspective.
But really it is the chance tobe outside, to move my body, to
give myself a chance to stepaway from my screen.
That also is something I lookforward to, and I signed up for

(11:08):
the lesson and paid, you know, ayear ahead of lessons as a
commitment device, you know, asa way to actually remove the
ability to have to make thedecision every week.
Do I want to sign up for aweekly class?
No, that decision has alreadybeen made once I signed up for a
whole year and therefore I haveto go.
I've already made thatcommitment.

Klara (11:28):
Yeah, you decided, you committed and now you're just
executing on already having thatpart of your plan.
I love that.
I often find especially thethings that we know are
beneficial are really importantto automate in life and then
test it out for a certain amountof weeks ideally months and

(11:49):
then measure success.
One of my habits maybe now thatwe're sharing is recently I
started implementing is addingsome book reading in the morning
, because I've had the worsthabit that you wake up first
thing and you check your thisapp and that app and what's on
your calendar and your mail andit's automatically start driving

(12:09):
my blood pressure up.
I guess you already startthinking about things, and so my
latest routine and I've beenonly doing this the past about
five days minus actually acouple days I traveled.
I didn't take a book with me.
I should have is when I get up,I set my phone away, I kind of
look at it just briefly, butthen I put it away and then I

(12:30):
read book for 30 minutes with mycoffee and I find it's been
just such a nice way to get yourbrain going with the book.
But don't be as stressed aboutsort of what the day brings.
I've been experimenting withthat and maybe I guess, now that
I say that a lot, I haven'tconsidered it as my way of
building a little bit of earlyrest in the day before I dive

(12:53):
into the back-to-back calls andschedule.

Yeah, reading definitely counts as rest and I
love the idea of removing thechoice of just saying I read for
30 minutes when I wake up.
I have a meditation practice andI read for 30 minutes when I
wake up.
I have a meditation practice andI meditate for 10 minutes when
I wake up.
And I was also, because I use ameditation app on my phone to do
that, falling into the trap of,okay, I'll meditate, but then

(13:17):
I'll sit on my cushion and checkmy email and write on sub
stacks or check my sub stack,and I didn't like the fact that
my meditation was this gatewayinto starting to check all these
other things.
And so I started usingsomething called a brick, which
is a device that you can use totouch your phone to it and it
you set it and it can remove theaccess to certain apps removes

(13:39):
these distractions again, takingout the willpower.
I don't have to resist activelychecking those, my email or
checking the apps, because brickdoesn't let me, and so I'm a
huge fan of removing the needfor willpower, just having
something that you know you setonce and then you know, now I
just meditate and I go off andyou know, then start my morning,

(13:59):
you know rest of my morning andI agree it can be really
empowering not to start your daywith email.

Klara (14:05):
I love.
That makes me think abouttechnology, and I've been sort
of part of technology the past15 years in various ways and
it's fantastic.
But it can be also so energydraining and just, I guess, so
addictive in many ways that wehave to put a real thought into
creating time without thetechnology and sort of
disconnecting from it Absolutely.

(14:27):
And so let's dive a little bitto your upbringing.
I'm always curious about myguests, where they grew up, what
set them on a path and thepassions that they have later
uncovered themselves on thisjourney, and so curious about
anyone who influenced you, eventowards various breadth of
experiences for your career, butnow even the entrepreneurship

(14:47):
Tell me about it.

I grew up with a mother who was a librarian and a
father who was a public healthexecutive, and so I always say I
was born with a book in myhands and a desire to help
people increase their well-being, because that is very much who
my parents were, and I grew upin New Jersey.
They were both from Wisconsin.

(15:10):
They met in high school.
Their first date was the seniorprom, and they moved right
before I was born.
We lived close to New York City,so I spent a lot of time with
my parents going into the cityto go to museums, to see
performances, to take classes,and I love cities, and ever
since I've gotten to choosewhere I live, I've been drawn to

(15:32):
cities, and I think this ideaof being a curious person
pursuing things that you want tolearn more about was very much
in my DNA.
And so you know my parents.
We didn't have a ton of moneygrowing up, but I could always
get any book that I wanted, andso I remember, you know, going
to the bookstore and my momwould say, you know, pick out a

(15:53):
book.
We went to the library a lot,of course, but she also used to
run book fairs for the schoolswhere she worked, and so often
that would mean, you know, Icould get a bunch of books at
the book fair.
And I think that I just becamethis voracious reader because
there were so many books aroundand books were really worshipped
at my house as a source ofinformation, as a way of

(16:16):
pursuing curiosity, and so thatwas really ingrained in me
throughout my whole upbringing.

Klara (16:22):
And then did that inspire you then later on to writing
your own book?
Has that been ever top of mindas you were going through your
different business careerexperiences, or that it sort of
came later?

Well, it's interesting, I went to college
and majored in history and thenworked in the nonprofit sector
and the public sector and Iwouldn't say that I aspired to
write a book.
But at one point after graduateschool, when I was kind of
trying to think about a lot ofbig life decisions whether I

(16:56):
should start a family, whether Ishould look for a new job I
hired a coach because I washaving trouble getting out of my
own way and I kept my thoughtswere kind of swirling around and
one of the exercises she had medo was write about a day in my
life 15 years from that moment.

(17:17):
And as part of that exercise andyou know, be very specific
about you, know what are youdoing in the morning, you know
walk me through every step ofyour day and the idea was just
to dream big, be veryunconstrained about the way that
you describe your future, don'tthink about how would I
practically get there.
It's just this thought exercise.
And the first thing that Iwrote in that journal entry was

(17:42):
I grabbed a copy of my book tobring to a friend who I was
meeting for lunch because Ithought it would be helpful for
her, and so at that point Ididn't know what book I would
write or how I would go about it, but it was definitely a dream
of mine.

Klara (17:57):
Wow, it's so interesting how sometimes we need this
outside people to help usnavigate our internal journey
desires, maybe, or even thingsthat we consciously can't
comprehend, and the differentareas of, I guess, your dreams
that you're able to get to.
So, from that point on, you'vediscovered writing a book as

(18:21):
something that I would want todo.
What was that path unfolding?
This is something I actuallytruly want to do one day to help
me connect the dots.
I'm curious.

Well, first it was just like I put it out there
in the universe and I didn't doanything with it.
It wasn't like I said, aha, Iwant to write a book, let me
write a five year plan to figureout how to get there.
And that was a little bituncomfortable Because as a
consultant, I was very used todeveloping, you know, five
clients and those habits diehard.

(18:54):
But it was just like it was outin the universe.
And then, once you start to putsomething like that out in the
universe, you start to I don'tknow like.
There's this wheels in motionthing.
That is not even a consciousdecision.
When I was in graduate school, Ihad studied with a professor

(19:15):
who I had stayed in touch withafter graduate school so that
this is a spoiler alert you knowshe is my co-author for the
book and she and I had stayed intouch.
My husband had actually studiedwith her as well and in fact in
her class we ended up writing apaper all about how we would
deliberately combine our livesso that we would have a

(19:35):
relationship that feltfulfilling and didn't require
any of us to compromise ourcareer aspirations and our
future dreams, and so she hadinvited us back as guest
speakers for several years 10years almost and we were both
working in different jobs and wehad navigated job changes.

(19:56):
And I think at that point wehad had children and, again,
didn't quite know what the bookwould be about or what it would
look like.
And I remember actually veryclearly she had retired from
teaching the class in 2018 and Ihad lunch with her about a year
later and she had told me backwhen she retired that she was

(20:17):
planning to write a book aboutthe class and it was a class
called Work and Family, allabout how to make big decisions
about your career and your lifeoutside of your career.
And I had said at the time likethat's so important.
Yes, more people should getaccess to this information.
It really changed my lifebecause of the time that I took

(20:39):
it.
And when we had lunch, I askedher how's the book coming?
And she told me that she hadn'twritten a word.
And I said, well, maybe youneed an accountability partner,
because I had just started theemployee resource group for
working parents at Gap Inc,where I had been working for a
number of years, and I did itwith a lawyer, a working dad on

(21:01):
the legal team, and it was sohelpful to have a partner in
getting a big project off theground.
So that was really whatinspired me to tell her that.
And then she looked at me andshe said that's a great idea,
but I need more than that.
I need a co-author, and youhave been putting all of this
work into practice in your ownlife, in the trenches, over the

(21:21):
last decade.
You'd be the perfect person towrite it with me, and so I
immediately said yes, eventhough one of the tenants of our
book is to never make a biglife decision in an instant.
I violated that premise byaccepting on the spot, but we
had known each other for adecade.
She was a mentor of mine.
It wasn't an impulsive decision, but it was that moment that I

(21:43):
knew okay, this is the book thatI'm going to write, and I did
it alongside my day job for manyyears, for several years.
And then it just became clearthat I was not going to be able
to put the energy into promotingthe book that I would like if I
continued on with my day job,and at that point the book was
pulling me more than the job waskeeping me.

(22:05):
And so I decided to take theleap and actually applied my
framework for making big lifedecisions to my own life, which
we could talk more about ifyou'd like.

Klara (22:15):
Gosh, I love that and thank you for describing it.
I want to dive all into thebook and, before you do, want to
touch base on your career, butjust to connect.
What really stands out to me isI often say, even on this
podcast, steve Jobs quote wenever know how our dots will
connect, but they eventuallyconnect in some ways.

(22:35):
So it seems like everything youjust described and even you
mentioned.
Well, there was a long timebefore I wrote the book, when I
sort of knew I want to writesomething one day, but you
didn't actively started thinkingabout, okay, what do I need to
write now, didn't activelystarted thinking about, okay,
what do I need to write now?
It's almost like you trust itthat at the right point it will
appear and the right time willcome, and at that moment you

(22:59):
knew that was the right decisionto make.
And so I love sometimes thesebig decisions and maybe we can
also dive into the framework isthat often, or at least from my
experience, I feel like we justwant to decide and force it, but
there's some decisions in lifewhere you actually need to give
it a space, and so the older Igrow, the more I realize well,

(23:23):
this is a really good thing.
I would love to decide, but Iknow it's not the right time to
decide on this now.
And so, giving yourself alittle bit of the freedom, you
know I'll trust that I'll makethe right decision at the right
time.
But I just don't know now when,sort of putting it not
completely on a back burner, butlike parking with the trust

(23:43):
that will appear in the futurefor you.
I feel it's so important.
Let me just pause there.
I don't know.
If there's anything you want toadd.
Abby is so important.
Let me just pause there.
And if there's anything youwant to add, abby to your story
or again, the framework you'vedeveloped, on decision making.

Yeah, no, I think that's a lovely way to put it
that you have to trust that whenyou know there's the phrase
when the student is ready, theteacher appears right.
And so there is this sense ofokay, I want this for someone.
Just admit to myself that I do,which is a big part of it's
vulnerable right To admit you'rea deep wish or a desire, and so

(24:19):
part of that is just admittingto yourself that you have it.
And yeah, I think that I am notsomebody who is very connected
to my intuition by nature.
I live in my head a lot and Ithink my academic and work
training has even enhanced thatnatural tendency.
Like I have really had to workto get in touch with my

(24:40):
intuition and other ways ofmaking decisions, but I've
gotten better at it.
And so there was something aboutthat step of letting myself
admit it but not holding sotightly to that desire and
letting it unfold.
But then, in that moment, whenwe were having lunch at this
beautiful cafe and it was a warmautumn day, and she said you

(25:02):
know, would you like to writethis book with me?
I had this full body, yesfeeling that was so hard to
ignore and it was like, yes,this is it, this is the moment
that you have been waiting for,and so I think that those of us
who live in our heads can do alot of things to tap into that
intuition, and one of them isjust by doing some of that
unconscious writing.

(25:22):
Just let it all come out.
I'm a big fan of journaling.
I've been journaling since Iwas seven years old.
I think it really helped me getthrough a lot of setbacks and
traumatic events in my life, andso I think that practice has
really served me well.

Klara (25:37):
Yeah, journaling, I've had it for a while now.
I stopped, but I go back to it.
It's like a thing that I addwhen I know I need to, but I'm
always impressed what can comeout on the paper when you just
give yourself a little bit ofspace.
I'm like what I just wrote this.
Where is this coming from?
It seems like there's someconnection between the pen and

(25:57):
the paper and the deepersubconsciousness that we're not
able to always get to if wedon't create that space for
ourselves.
And so, going back maybe toyour career, briefly, you have
worked in consulting, you'veworked part of the New York
public education system, youworked in the corporate gap.

(26:20):
What was that transition like?
And even as you were lookingfor different steps, I think
hindsight is always smarter.
So I'm curious how do youreflect on your career before
you decided to take on thisentrepreneurial journey?

You're absolutely right that everything makes
sense.
When you look backwards and youwalk through the resume it's
not always as clear as you'reliving through it, but the
through line for my career hasreally been helping people and
that's been done from differentvantage points, but that is the
thing that has maintainedthroughout all of the twists and
turns, and I'm really gratefulto that first consulting

(26:59):
opportunity.
It was actually a very newventure that bain and company
spun out a non-profit consultingfirm called bridge span, and it
was there that this historymajor got a crash course in
data-driven decision-makingthrough Excel, through all the
analytical tools that you learnin a consulting role, and also

(27:20):
got exposed to some amazingmentors who had been growing
their career alongside theirfamilies and kind of showed me
what was possible.
I had a mother who paused hercareer to raise kids where my
father was the very clearbreadwinner, and I didn't want
that model for myself.
I really wanted to blend theidea of being a parent and

(27:43):
having a full career, but Ididn't see an example of that in
my own family.
So I was really fortunate tohave some early career role
models who showed me that it waspossible and how to do it.
But I was very interested ineducation and young people and
so when I had the opportunity togo from consulting into the New

(28:05):
York City Department ofEducation assist with some
school reform efforts that wereunderway there, I jumped at the
chance to do that, got to workin a huge system moving the
needle for 1.1 million kids andscale.
At that point my career wastremendously important to me and
learned so many lessons and sawthe power of partnerships,

(28:26):
multiple sectors coming together.
A lot of the schools were beingrun in partnership with
community institutions ormuseums or law firms, and I saw
the power in that.
And at that point I had hadnonprofit experience from my
consulting firm.
I had had public sectorexperience, but I hadn't spent
any time in the corporate sector, and so that's what brought me

(28:47):
back to get my business degree.
I did a joint degree with theeducation school at that time as
well, and that's where Iactually first connected to Gap
Inc.
I did an MBA internship inbetween my two years of business
school there and got to knowthe amazing work that was being
done by the corporate foundation, and so I joined a couple of

(29:10):
different other organizationsafter school because there
wasn't a full-time role for meat the Gap at the time, but I
had kept in touch with the folkswho I met in my internship
there and when there was afull-time role, they reached out
to me and they said are youinterested in applying?
And it's so funny, clara.
I was so.
Remember I had described how Iwas conflicted about having a

(29:33):
kid or changing jobs.
I actually happened to be sixmonths pregnant at the time that
they reached out to me and so Isaid you know, I'm very
interested in this role.
But, in the spirit of fulldisclosure, I am going to be
having a baby and will be onmaternity leave and won't be
able to start right away.
And, to their credit, they saidwell, if you're interested, put

(29:54):
your application in.
And I did, and I ended upgetting offered the role.
I sort of.
The way it happened was veryhead spinning.
I was interviewing all the wayup to 38 weeks pregnant.
I got the offer on a Wednesday,I accepted it on a Thursday and
my son came two weeks early, soI had him on a Wednesday.
I accepted it on a Thursday andmy son came two weeks early, so
I had him on Friday.

(30:15):
So I didn't even have time toquit my old job before I
suddenly had a new job and ababy, and it was all a lot, but
that's what I, you know.
I ended up staying there foralmost a decade and it was a
really tremendous learningexperience for me.
I scaled a workforcedevelopment program and then I

(30:36):
had the opportunity to lead thewhole foundation, and it was a,
you know, an amazing experience,and one that really reinforced
the importance of everything Ihad learned in my professor
turned co-authors class, becausethe company was 70% women, so
it was a very, you know, familyfriendly environment.

(30:56):
But I saw so many people makingdecisions about stepping back
from their careers, about notbeing able to, you know, in
their mind, combine a career anda family, and I felt like, if
they had access to theinformation that I had by virtue
of taking this course, theymight have made different
decisions, and so that was oneof the reasons that I started

(31:18):
the employee resource group forparents and decided to spend so
much energy working on writingthe book and getting the
information on how to make biglife decisions out to a broader
audience.

Klara (31:31):
Wow, I love that description and there are so
many different ways that I wantto dive into.
Maybe it was the first onebecause of your beautiful
breadth of experience and, asyou mentioned, the different
industries and sectors, throughconsulting and nonprofit, the
public education being part ofthe gap and driving some of the

(31:51):
missions, obviously of thecompany part of that foundation,
but also really thismission-driven purpose that
seemed like you found to helpother women grow their
leadership in the corporateworld and understand how to
balance, it seems like, the workand personal life and still
achieve their goals.
What are some of the key thingsthat you want to describe, or

(32:15):
even, from your own experience,things that you would want to
add that you feel like are maybemissing and people might be
focusing or could be focusingmore on in those specific
pillars and industries?
And I know that's like a reallybroad question and we probably
can have three, four hoursconversation just on that.
But I'm curious if there'ssomething that really comes to

(32:37):
mind as you kind of look at yourbreadth of experience and
expertise.

Yeah, I think that something that is just
increasingly clear to me at thisvantage point in my life is
that you know your career fitsinto your life, not the other
way around, but it will take upas much time as you give it,
because employers are greedy andnot just other people.
I am greedy as an entrepreneurright, I am, you know, in some

(33:03):
ways my own harshest bossrelative to some of the other
people I've worked forthroughout my life.
And so, first, the idea of justprioritizing things outside of
work and that nobody's going toprioritize those for you, you
need to do that yourself.
I think that's something thatI've really learned.
I also learned that who youchoose to partner with in life

(33:26):
can either be a careeraccelerant or really a career
roadblock, and I've actuallypersonally experienced both.
I'm fortunate that the personwho I've been married to for
almost 15 years is very much acareer supporter and accelerant,
and I think that, because wehad the good fortune to take my

(33:49):
co-authors class at the sametime, we started very early on
in our relationship.
At that point, we'd been datingfor less than a year, having
really tough conversations aboutwhether we were going to accept
jobs in the same city if wewere going to live together in
the same city.
If that happened, how much wewere going to contribute to our

(34:09):
rent, because while I went to gowork for a nonprofit after
graduation, he was going to workfor a hedge fund, so we were
earning dramatically differentamounts.
So we had to touch on all ofthese third rail topics very
early on in our relationship.
And it is a muscle, right.
It's sort of hard but it doesget easier over time, and we've
now built that muscle up throughlots of different conversations

(34:32):
through the years that, eventhough they never get super easy
, you start to get morepracticed at having them and,
more importantly, you try tofigure out how you can support
each other in all the twists andturns of your career, as
opposed to having this sense ofwell, you're the person holding
me back from all these things Iwant to do, and so I think a

(34:54):
supportive partner is very makeor break for career success of
you and your, I guess, boyfriendat the time, being forced to
talk about things and figure outearly on on what is important

(35:17):
and even the style ofcommunication.

Klara (35:20):
I feel like that's the one thing that differentiates us
, or scientists say,differentiates us from animals
in ways they communicateprobably differently, but I feel
like we still so suck at it,even though we have the words.
I feel like often it's exactlywhere things get caught up, that
we just can't figure out how tocommunicate with each other

(35:40):
clearly, and that's either it'sa personal life or a business
life.
I think it goes to all areas ofour lives.

Well, I also think that we learn over time,
and so I don't want to paintthis picture that my husband and
I have these like very calmconversations where we're very
measured and we never get upsetwith each other, like that's not
the case at all.
We've just learned how to workthrough them and we've learned
the conditions that work bestfor us, and so one thing we know

(36:09):
that works best for us is tohave these, have big life
conversations on hikes, becausewe both like being in nature.
It's one of the reasons we livewhere we do, and there is
something about walking side byside, next to someone where you
don't have to look deeply intotheir eyes.
That allows you to be a bitmore vulnerable.
When you're outside theconfines of your house, you're

(36:31):
away from the stress of thedishes piled in the sink and the
laundry that needs to be folded, and you can think more
expansively and creatively.
And so, after a lot of trial anderror, we've learned don't have
the conversation when thethought strikes you Say hey, I'd
love to talk to you aboutsomething, let's plan a hike
this weekend or in a couple ofweeks.

(36:52):
We let our kids run up ahead ofus and then we talk about.
You know the thing that's onour mind and you know we've
again, we've learned this overtime.
So it's not to say that youknow those first efforts, or
even the first 10 years ofefforts, you know aren't going
to be painful, efforts aren'tgoing to be painful.
But yeah, I think over time youlearn what works for you both.

(37:13):
Some people love to haveconversations over cocktails at
their local taco place.
It really varies, but I thinkthe key my co-author likes to be
by bodies of water.
She always found walking on thebeach or by a lake very calming
.
So your mileage may vary, butthere are conditions that
support communication betterthan other conditions.

Klara (37:35):
Yeah, and so before we dive full into the book, I do
want to touch on one more thingthat is also very personal for
me is the women in leadershipand that combination with being
a woman leader and having afamily.
So it's something you mentionedin your gap role.
I've grew up in the tech worldand I have seen very few women

(37:58):
in leadership roles, or the oneswho have been in leadership
roles eventually have theirhusbands take care of the kids,
so they kind of switch the rolesand I think in life you can't
have everything.
I mean, people say, yeah,eventually you can, but you got
to figure out how to sort of getthere.
So I don't think there's such athing making your cake fully

(38:20):
and eating it all at once too,like you got to space it out.
So what are some of the keythings that maybe this could
lead to the book that you haduncovered?
That maybe even us women haveour own biases that are holding
us back from being in leadershiproles and having families at
the same time Because, I have tosay, that's my own bias as well

(38:43):
.

Yeah well, and I don't think it's just
coincidental.
I think there's a lot of datathat supports how challenging it
is.
And I agree with you that it'snot about having it all.
It's about making thetrade-offs so that you have what
you want most when you want it.
And I remember very vividlybeing in a women's leadership
event at Gap and having one ofthe CEOs of the brands along

(39:10):
with another very powerful womanin conversation.
I raised my hand and I saidyou're both very high-achieving
women with children.
I'd love to know what it lookslike behind the curtain in your
personal lives that have let youlean into these roles.
I remember very distinctly oneof them said basically, her
husband, after she startedgetting more and more advanced

(39:32):
in her career, left his careerto be the primary parent of
their children, and the otherone was divorced.
And so I was like okay, sothese are the options here.
It's not looking good Because Ihad a husband I very much
wanted to stay married to twoyoung kids.
He wasn't going to give up hiscareer, nor would I want him to,
and we were sort of like, well,how is this possible?

(39:54):
What is this going to look like?
I mean a couple of things.
I would say that again Ilearned from my co-author and
from other women role modelsalong the way that have helped
me is number one to outsource asmuch as possible and to not
feel guilty about that.
I remember lots of friends whohad so much angst about hiring a

(40:18):
nanny when it was almost asmuch as their salary and they
would say, well, I'm barelycovering the cost of childcare
with my salary.
And again, my co-author is alabor economist and she would
say very clearly in her classyou don't take the child care
expenses out of one partner'ssalary, you add the salaries
together, you subtract the childcare costs and it's an

(40:41):
investment in your careers.
And so I always saw it that way, as this was an investment in
our careers to have full-timechild care, to outsource the
house cleaning, all the thingsthat we didn't want to be doing
ourselves in our limited timethat we had available.
And so I have long been anadvocate of throwing money at a
problem to make it go away.

(41:04):
I'd say the other thing thathelped is to be really clear
about when it makes a differenceto be a very present parent,
and for me I felt like I gotadvice from older parents that
it really wasn't the baby yearsthat mattered so much.
There is a lot of physicallabor, you know, in terms of

(41:27):
changing diapers, in terms ofnursing.
Certainly some of that ishelpful for bonding.
I did nurse my kids and did alot of pumping on work trips for
a lot of time after I had themGot advice that really it's the
middle school years and theteenage years where they're
actually forming values, whereschool gets more complicated,

(41:49):
where friendships and socialnavigation gets more tricky,
that it's helpful to be around.
And so the way my husband and Ihave designed our careers partly
, we're both doing anentrepreneurial pivot now in
order to have more ability to bepresent parents compared to
when we were executives in thecorporate world, and that may

(42:12):
change in the future.
I don't think it's a one-waydoor to become an entrepreneur,
certainly not for me but it feltlike this was a really critical
time in my kids' lives, more sothan when they were in infancy
and toddlerhood and preschool,even in early elementary school,
and I wasn't willing to give upthe ability to show up for them

(42:34):
now.
And so I'm very discerningabout the times that I travel.
I'm discerning about what Igive my energy to, because I
value showing up for them in adifferent way now than I did
earlier in my life and in theirlives, in a different way now
than I did earlier in my lifeand in their lives.

Klara (42:52):
I love that.
And you write a lot about sortof the different ways of
parenting in your book.
I mean, that book covers somuch it seems like really all
the life's key decisions, andwhen I took your class I
actually was trying to rememberthe number.
What's the amount of decisionsthat we go through Abby per hour
of life?
It seems like it's growingbecause we live longer.

(43:14):
Is it somewhere around 35decisions that we make during
our life?
I remember there was a numberthat stood out to me that was
quite higher than I expected.
Actually, are you?

talking about the research on life transitions.
Yes, yeah, well, it's atransition every 12 to 18 months
.
So, yeah, it's very frequent.
In terms of the major and theseare not decisions about moving
a few doors down, but these areeither decisions you make
voluntarily to change jobs ormove cities or have a child.

(43:51):
But this is coming from BruceFeiler's research on lifequakes.
He calls them these majorupheavals in our lives and, yeah
, we experience them as adultsevery 12 to 18 months and either
voluntarily meaning we chooseto make a decision that turns
our lives upside down or they'reinvoluntary, meaning we get

(44:13):
laid off from a job, or weexperience the death or illness
of someone close to us, or ourown diagnosis, and I think that
it is very common and I hadexperienced my own share of life
quakes.
I'd say they were compressed ina period of time in my 30s and
early 40s, and those allcontributed to me doing some

(44:35):
more soul searching andintrospection around how I
wanted my career and my life tounfold that led me to the
decisions today.
So I think it can be veryhelpful to examine those and to
do the reflection, even thoughthey can be very painful, but
they can also have some reallymeaningful lessons for us if

(44:56):
we're willing to listen.

Klara (44:59):
I love that you're sharing that, because it's
actually been exactly the sametime.
That's been important for me.
I stumbled somewhataccidentally on a coach and I've
had that coach on and off forseveral years and I think that
was right around I'm going tosay maybe 32, 33.
And I'm still actually in touchwith her, like it's a lady that

(45:21):
I found a connection and I feellike she's the one who can help
me tap into my gut Cause.
Like you, I just feel like I'mvery head oriented person.
I find these biggest lifedecisions are not a head
decision, they're actually gutdecision and I always give this
example like for different roles.
I've actually had a spreadsheetand I calculated the options,

(45:41):
because it's never just one jobyou have to choose from, they
always align and I have like two, three or four to consider and
I have like criteria and Icreated like a ranking and see
what is the number that comes upand I feel like it never worked
.
So at some point I was like youknow what the spreadsheet, a
decision making for jobs,doesn't work for me.

(46:02):
I gotta make a differentdecision.
Then I read Malcolm Gladwell'sbook Blink and he actually
argues look, spreadsheets aregood for some things, let's say,
like buying a car, but when itcomes to big life decisions, you
have to more decide on how totap into your gut, and so that's
actually a lot about your bookthat you and my rec write about.

(46:24):
Look, there's not just onething to consider, it's not an
equation, and that's across thefull scale of important things
that we're considering as we gothrough our life, whether it's
moving to a new place, finding anew job, deciding who we marry,
if we should have kids, in manydifferent areas.

(46:46):
So I know I'm super excitedabout it.
I'm already leading in, but Iwant to give you an opportunity
to dive deeper into the book andyour collaboration with Mara.
What would you like listenersor people to know about it and
take away at its core?
Before we dive into some moreof the context?

Well, first of all, I would say I am right
there with you with thespreadsheets, and what I have
found over time is it's mostinstructive to see what the
spreadsheet says and then to seehow I feel about that answer,
because that's how I get intouch.
It's like I see what the datais saying and if I'm
disappointed because I wantedthe data to spit out something
else, that is very informative.
And so it's the old flip a coinand then see how you feel about

(47:30):
the answer, which I try toteach my kids about that way of
making decisions.
It's like, yeah, see what thedata is telling you and then
play that against your gut andyour emotions to see if you
actually are really hoping thatthe coin lands on the other side
.
So, yeah, that resonates.
But I think in terms of our book, I mean we really wanted to

(47:52):
develop a framework that peoplecould use.
That it was, you know, sturdy,meaning you could rely on it
again and again, but flexible,meaning it could apply to a
whole range of life decisions,because we are constantly facing
them, as we just talked about.
Everything from you know isthis person my person, and so

(48:12):
our book is laid out in this waywhere every chapter is devoted
to a big life decision, fromdating and mating all the way
through the elder years aroundsenior living facilities,
divorce and, along the way, lotsof choices about where to live
and when to move, combining acareer and family, and so on and
so forth.
And so the framework that wedescribe is called the five C's.

(48:35):
It wasn't actually a part ofthe class originally when she
taught it.
It was something that she and Ideveloped together based on all
the research aboutdecision-making.
I have historically had a reallyhard time with decisions, and
so I think that's why I havealso devoured all the
decision-making books andresearch and kind of learned

(48:56):
myself.
It's not our fault that we'renot good at it.
We're certainly not taught inschool how to make decisions.
We're not taught, as women, howimportant the decisions we make
in our personal lives will beto our careers and vice versa,
and so the goal of the book isto give people a resource, a
tool, lots of data and storiesto use as they navigate their

(49:20):
own big life decisions in a waythat will help them find
whatever is meaningful andfulfilling to them, because,
again, we can't purport to saywhat everyone should do, nor do
we want to do that?

Klara (49:32):
Yeah, and decisions are super personal.
That's the one thing.
What might be right for me maynot be right for the person next
to me, and they can be alsodifferent than one year ago or
two years later.
So I think as we go throughlife, things change and catch
different perspective andmeaning, which makes me think

(49:53):
about what's your view on makinga decision, versus the mindset
we carry after that decision ismade.
Because maybe, just to even putit perspective, I recently made
a choice to go on a new carjourney and I had two options.
Actually, both options werefantastic.
It's like the best situation tobe.

(50:14):
In.
Either one you take, you createa path.
I felt like they could maybetake me different paths, but
again, you never know.
Let's see in a couple moreyears what the next point will
be.
But I also find, once you makethat choice and commit, if you
make that decision andcommitment with a bad judgment
or you have a bad attitude aboutit, it's not going to help you

(50:39):
then take you in the right place.
So the execution on thatdecision and the mindset that
you carry from making thedecision going past the next,
you know, whatever it is one,two, three years until the next
decision needs to be made ismaybe equally, if not more,
important than the decisionitself.
What's your view on that, abby,or just your experience in

(51:02):
studying this field and howpeople react?

in graduate school who talked about love
being a decision, and I think weare often, you know, expecting
and sort of seeing the storiesin the media and Hollywood that

(51:29):
will be, you know, struck bysome like Cupid inspiration, and
just know, when you know theperson for us shows up, that you
know that might happen as ainitial moment where you like
lock eyes with someone and feelthis lightning bolt, but that's
certainly not the way youmaintain a multi-decade
relationship, right, it's.

(51:50):
You know you get very quicklyfrom that lightning bolt to like
whose turn is it to make dinnerand you know, take out the
garbage If you aren't committedto making that decision over and
over.
This is the person I've chosento be with.
We're going to figure out a waythrough this disagreement, a
way through this that doesn'tinvolve my husband, and I like
to say there's no off ramps.

(52:11):
Right, love has no off ramps,and so we are making this
decision repeatedly that we arechoosing to be with one another,
even when that is very tough,and so I think that's similar to
know, similar to a job.
Of course, there's going to bethings that you don't know about
when you're making a decisionabout joining one employer
versus another, but know thatthe grass is always greener.

(52:32):
And of course there were thingsabout the path not chosen that
you didn't know.
You know you certainly couldn'tfactor into that choice.
So at some point it is aboutsaying, well, I've made my
decision and now I need to makethe decision right.

Klara (52:46):
And so, in connection to that, how do you think about
regrets?
Personally, I'm actually alittle bit familiar with Daniel
Pink and I know you brought itup in our class as well.
I'm reflecting on some of myregrets, or maybe the one
biggest regret I've had,actually in one of my other
podcasts.
But how do you, with much moreexperience again around decision

(53:10):
making, think about it?
Or you would like?

people to think about it.
I love the book the Power ofRegret, as you noted.
I think it's fantastic and Ithink this idea of knowing what
the most common regrets are canbe really instructive and
knowing that people don't regretthe chances they took.
They regret the chances theydidn't take right.
And so always this idea of yes,and I'm somebody who's not

(53:34):
necessarily a risk seeker, I'mnot risk averse, but making the
leap from the corporate world tothe world of entrepreneurship
was super scary.
Right, I gave up healthinsurance, I gave up a stable
paycheck, you know status, likeall of this stuff, but I knew
that if I didn't do this, that Iwould always regret not giving
it a chance, and I knew that theresearch backed me up on that

(53:57):
and that, plus using myframework, feeling good about
the process that I followed tomake the decision has helped me
take that leap in a way that Ican really say I don't have
regrets about.
So I think regrets are veryinstructive.
I certainly don't think weshould all strive to live lives
of no regret, because I thinkthat's impossible, but I think

(54:18):
the idea is how can you learnfrom the regrets you've had,
plus the research out thereabout regrets for the next
decision you have to make.

Klara (54:25):
I love that and love you mentioning just that transition.
Somebody smarter than me saidthere's like the addiction of
the corporate world, like theworst track is to seeing that
money come in and then, whenit's not there and you get on
their entrepreneurial path,there's even like the mindset
shift associated with that.
Can you share a little bit more, if you're open to it, the 5C

(54:46):
framework and then how it helpedyou to jump into the
entrepreneurial world, becausethat decision is super hard for
many, including myself.
I've always have so many ideasof what I could create and, for
whatever reason, I haven't fullyunleashed, I guess, my
entrepreneurial spirit.
Maybe one day I will grow outof it and take a leap and be as

(55:09):
courageous as you are, abby, butI'm curious sort of how that
helped you navigate yourdecision.

I'll run through the framework quickly and I'll
maybe use a couple of the C's tohighlight the steps that were
most meaningful for me.
So the first C is to clarifywhat's most important to you.
The second is to communicatewith the person or people most
involved in the decision.
The third C is to consider abroad range of choices.

(55:38):
Few decisions are either or,and by expanding the
consideration set, you have ahigher likelihood of making a
good decision.
The fourth C is to check inwith friends, family and trusted
resources.
And the fifth C is to examinethe consequences of your
decision across different timehorizons the short-term,

(56:00):
medium-term and long-termconsequences.

Klara (56:03):
And I've actually used it for my last job decision.
I was pretty good on theclarify, communicate, the
choices and sort of theconsequences, and for me it was
the check-in that then decided,which I haven't much used
historically, but I've checkedin with a few and mentors and
that actually swayed me in thedirection that I'm at now.

(56:25):
But how has that worked for you?

It's so interesting.
Well, and it so speaks to yourpoint about decisions being so
personal and everyone's processis so different because I am,
like, famous for the being goodat the check-in step, and so
sometimes I think I'veover-indexed on the check-in and
let other people dictate alittle bit too much my decisions
, and so some of the things thatI've had to learn a little bit

(56:50):
more is to trust myself likecheck in with my own intuition
more than with trusted mentorsor published studies.
So I think it's yeah, it's verypersonal, but when it comes to
all of these big life decisions,I think the hardest part and
the most important is theclarify step, and for me, you
know, it wasn't one clarifyingmoment, but there was a series

(57:13):
of moments that helped meclarify what was important to me
.
One was I ended up gettingrecruited for a similar job at a
bigger, more prestigiouscompany and went through the
whole interview process and thenfound out I was one of two
finalists.
I didn't get the job and,interestingly, instead of being

(57:34):
disappointed, I was veryrelieved, and so that was a
moment to check in with my gutand say, like that's interesting
information.
It's not about continuing onthis path.
I had also long held anentrepreneurial aspiration.
In fact, I wrote about it in mybusiness school essay many
years before and so it was thisidea of this risk that I, you

(57:55):
know, had kept putting off.
I mentioned these differentlifequakes I'd been through.
Well, one of the things thathappened as I was writing and
publishing the book is that mymom ended up passing away, and
that was a moment where she hadan accident many years before
and her last day of work beforeretirement.
And so I think for us, we're sotrained to think about well,

(58:19):
maybe I'll do the responsiblething and work really hard and
then, after I retire, I can dowhat I want.
And I just saw this experiencewith her, where she actually
loved her career.
She would say I can't believethey pay me to do this, to work
with kids and help them foster alove of reading.
But she did not have thisopportunity to pursue all the
things she was interested inoutside of her job until after

(58:42):
she retired because she had thisaccident.
And that was a clarifyingmoment to say I don't want to
wait until it's too late to takethis risk.
And there were some othermoments, but the clarify step.
It started to get very clear tome that I wanted to pursue
something entrepreneurial.
Interestingly, my husband alsowanted to pursue something
entrepreneurial at the same time, and we first felt like, well,

(59:06):
that's not really financiallypossible.
We live in an expensive city,we have two kids, a mortgage,
etc.
But we communicated with eachother, we did a lot of math
we're both MBAs, so we couldcrunch the numbers and we
started to expand our set ofchoices and rather than think,
oh, we have to do thissequentially, we started to say,

(59:26):
well, what would this look likeif we did this simultaneously?
What would the trade-offs beinvolved?
How would we know what ourrunway was for our respective
businesses?
And that gave us a little bitmore information to be more
creative about what our livescould look like.
And I think in my mind I alwaysthought I wanted to have more
flexibility when my kids were inmiddle school and they are now

(59:48):
there, and so it felt like thistime was approaching, that we
were going to want thatflexibility and I wasn't willing
to only have my husband have it.
I actually really wanted toshare that and to be an equal
participant in that parentingjourney, and so I think that the
biggest thing that was holdingus up was the consequences, you

(01:00:10):
know the financial consequencesand so we took some steps to
kind of mitigate that.
I mentioned the check-in stepand I didn't actually talk to a
ton of people about this, butwhat I did was do small
experiments.
And so I started to say, okay,well, what would it look like if
I left my YouTube job?

(01:00:31):
I would want to do more paidspeaking, I want to do teaching
and I would want to do coaching.
And so I took on manyexperiments that were low stakes
experiments to.
I taught a class throughStanford with my co-author.
That was again while I wasstill fully employed through the
career center, and I loved thatexperience.

(01:00:52):
I took on more speaking, youknow engagements in my day job
and outside of my day job onthis topic, and so through those
experiments I got moreinformation that gave me the
courage to say, okay, I think Icould do this.
Yes, I do want to do this.
And then, you know, my husbandand I had had a lot of
conversations and did a lot ofmath and found ways to reduce,
you know, the risk as much aspossible.

(01:01:14):
I gave lots of notice.
I stayed until my bonus hadbeen paid out, kind of all of
these things that let us reducethe risk.
We didn't eliminate thefinancial downside, but we were
very clear on the runway we had.
I had saved a lot of years ofbonuses to be able to have that
cushion, and so at some point Iknew I had to take this leap in

(01:01:34):
order to take the next step.
The phrase I use is you have tolet go of one trapeze to catch
the next one, and I felt like ifI didn't take that leap, I
would forever regret it, and soI did.

Klara (01:01:46):
Gosh, I love that.
So how is the entrepreneurialjourney?
And I love you sharing that youactually both dove into it at
the same time, because I findthat so rare for people to do it
.
What do you want to share about?
Either the excitement and orthe anxiety of being
entrepreneur now and not havingsort of the corporate cushion.

Abby Davisson (01:02:06):
Well, it's both.
It's both the excitement andthe anxiety, and I would say it
is a roller coaster like thehighs are higher, the lows are
lower, and when you're doingthis with a partner, you're both
kind of buckled in to theroller coaster at the same time,
and so we both tend to not haveterrible days on the same day.
So that's a good thing.

(01:02:26):
And he's, you know, working ina very different field.
He started his own investmentfirm, and so we're not doing the
same thing, but we're both, youknow, in this sort of risky
working for ourselves thing.
One of the things that I havefound very helpful is because
you mentioned the idea of anoutside party.
We started doing some work witha financial advisor.

(01:02:47):
Actually, it's a firm thathired me and my co-author to
speak to their clients.
They have a one-day universityand they loved our framework.
They loved our book.
Their financial advisors workwith clients all the time to
make big money and lovedecisions, and so they reached
out to us and I got to know thefirm through that process and

(01:03:07):
loved that.
They took a veryvalues-oriented approach to
thinking about your financiallife.
I'm very different from some ofthe other approaches that I had
heard.
I've been on a lot of financialpodcasts and sometimes they're
much more straightforward, andso we started working with them
and doing a bit more deep divesinto our financial needs, wants

(01:03:31):
and wishes.
We've crafted our family'sfinancial mission statement All
of the things that I think havebeen really clarifying for us,
as we've already made the leapto get off of one conventional
way of working.
That itself leads to a lot ofother decisions about why are
you committed to making moremoney than you absolutely need?

(01:03:52):
What is the reason behind that?
What are the motivations?
What do you really care aboutspending money on?
What are you willing to tradeoff?
And so we've done a much deeperdive into all of that
introspection than we had evenearlier in our relationship and
in our lives.
And so we've done a much deeperdive into all of that
introspection than we had, youknow, even earlier in our
relationship and in our lives,and that's been tremendously
helpful as well.

Klara (01:04:09):
I love that and it seems like the dots continue to
connect for you because youreally seem to live and breathe,
even through, as you shared,the MyRisk class, obviously
writing the book but nowapplying even the lessons that
both you and your husband havetaken from how you manage your
finances and reflect on what'smost important and helping other

(01:04:31):
financial institutionsunderstand the framework and
empower them to guide othersthrough that decision.
It seems like that could be acompletely different, just a
venture path, abby, like that'san aspect of your business that
could apply to like a wholesection of financial industry
and teaching how to help othersthrough making the big life

(01:04:52):
decisions.

Yeah, well, I think it's been great to hear
you know, see the frameworkresonate.
The other place where theframework has really resonated
is with career coaches,particularly folks who work with
, as you mentioned.
Maybe the coach that reallyresonated is with career coaches
, particularly folks who workwith, as you mentioned, maybe
the coach that you've workedwith high achievers, people who
have graduated from prestigiousbusiness schools and other

(01:05:14):
institutions, have gotten on apath and have just continued to
climb higher and higher and then, at some point, you know, look
around and say, wait, do I wantto keep climbing this ladder?
Is this, you know, the path Iwant to be on?
There are other things I want inmy life that are not
necessarily in my life right now, and how do I realign my career
with some of those thingsoutside of my career that I

(01:05:37):
might've been ignoring, whetherit's my health or my
relationships or something else,and so doing more work, both
with my own coaching and toshare the framework and the
tools with those who coachothers?
Because I think, to your point,there are a lot of frameworks
out there, but it's such anindividual approach to make a
decision and no one framework isgoing to resonate perfectly

(01:06:00):
with everyone.
I think what we've heard aboutour framework is that it's
really helpful for couples andso much of the coaching world
it's.
You know you have one clientright unless it's a therapist,
and so the tools and exerciseshave, it sounds like, been very
useful for folks who are makingcareer decisions in the context
of a long-term relationshiprelationship, because two people

(01:06:24):
are very affected by even oneperson's career decision in that
case.

Klara (01:06:29):
Yeah, and that also seems to me I mean my hypothesis on
this whole COVID and people nowbeing stuck at home, and the
pandemic obviously creates fears.
I think people reevaluate theimportance of health and make
them more realize the finitethat we have, because maybe
things may have happened totheir friends or family who were

(01:06:52):
impacted by this, and so thiswhole mental crisis, I think is
one because we're locked in thehouses and so when we get
constrained between walls, Ithink we humans don't like to
still be put in boxes that wedon't know what to do with.
So that's for sure one.
But I think, again, it madepeople re-evaluate a little bit

(01:07:12):
more of what's important andwhat they want to create next.
So it seems like the timing isquite impeccable.
Did you time it that way?

I mean no, we did not orchestrate that pickable.
Did you time it that way?
I mean no, we did notorchestrate that.
My co-author taught her classfor almost 50 years at Stanford
and then she retired and then westarted working on this and
then, yeah, it did come out at atime where people were
reevaluating all their bigpriorities.
Maybe they had a gruelingcommute that they no longer had
to take and then when thatcommute came back even a couple

(01:07:42):
of days a week it felt like, oh,maybe this is not what I want
to return to, or maybe I got totake a moment to think without
being on, you know, planestraveling all the time, and that
moment to think is causing meto reevaluate things.
So I think you're right, and Icertainly know the importance of
you know.
I think that health is wealth,and when you have a moment where

(01:08:05):
you don't have health orsomeone that you love loses you
know some of their abilities orhealth, it is very stark and
it's a big reminder to rearrangeyour priorities.
And so that's also a reason thatI made the shift, that, when I
did, I really believe that yourbody is going to talk to you

(01:08:25):
louder and louder if something'snot in alignment until you
listen, and so I've had minorexperiences with that.
I ended up getting shinglesbefore I was 40 because there
were things that I could notaddress with yoga, and you know
the occasional massage alone,right Like there is accumulation
of stress that you know youneed to start to address head on

(01:08:47):
if you really want to changethings.
And so I feel like I've been onthis own personal journey and I
know lots of others to yourpoint who have been on that at
this time, so we did not time itthat way.
But I'm really glad that ourbook is a resource for people
right now who are making some ofthose big decisions about
realigning their lives.

Klara (01:09:09):
Yeah, maybe I need to go back and write down my list of
priorities.
Abby, I could talk to you forhours.
I think this is a superinteresting topic, but I know
you treasure your time.
I know we're already over, butmaybe last few questions.
Closing the world seems to bein turmoil.
Hopefully we can get thingsunder control even with the wars
and the economy stabilizing,but there's lots going on in the

(01:09:34):
world.

What would you want to inspire people to be
doing more of or less of.
I mean, I think that that listof what's important to you is so
critical, just to know right,because it's so often we get on
autopilot.
There are times in your lifewhere you have to just put one
foot in front of the other.
I've certainly been in thosetimes when all you can do is get
out of bed and do what you needto do and like drag yourself in
bed at the end of the day, notto say that there's not moments

(01:09:57):
where you have to put your headdown and do that, but especially
when there's so much turmoil inthe world, I think we owe it to
ourselves to be crystal clearon the values that are important
to us and to be taking actionto get closer to those values.
And I especially feel the weightof that now as a parent to help
my kids identify their values,to make sure that some of our

(01:10:19):
values actually get passed on tothem, and so we've started to
do more in our own communitiesto show our kids that it's not
enough to just show up and paytaxes, that you have to actually
take steps to help the worldbecome the kind of place you
want to live in.
So I think that, in order to dothat for anyone else, you first
have to get clear on what worldis the kind of place you want

(01:10:40):
to live in, and then think aboutwhat can you do to help shift
that Love it.

Klara (01:10:46):
And so, last but not least, people who want to
contact you or follow you.
What's the best way to reachyou?

I have a newsletter that I write
regularly on Substack it'scalled Practically Deliberate,
and so that's a way for peopleto read more of my writing and
new insights, and then Igenerally share tidbits of that
on LinkedIn, as well as otherthings that I'm up to.
So following me at Abby Davisonon LinkedIn is another great

(01:11:12):
place to stay connected.

Klara (01:11:14):
I'll add those two links as well as the link to the book.
Is there a specific website youprefer for the book to be
purchased, or ideal place?

I love independent bookstores so I'm
always a fan of trying to findit there.
If you go to our book website,which is moneylovebookcom, there
is a list of bookstores,including one that will allow me
to personalize it at my localbookstore, so you can list that
link and people can buy the bookwhere they like to buy books.
Excellent, thank you so muchagain for the book where they
like to buy books.

Klara (01:11:44):
Excellent.
Thank you so much again for theconversation.
This has been super fun.
Thank you for your time.
Likewise If you enjoyed thisepisode.
I want to ask you to please dotwo things that would help me
greatly.
One, please consider leaving areview on Apple Podcasts,
spotify or any other podcastingplatform that you use to listen
to this episode Spotify or anyother podcasting platform that

(01:12:05):
you use to listen to thisepisode.
Two, please share this podcastwith a friend who you believe
might enjoy it as well.
It is a great way to remindsomeone you care about them by
sharing a conversation theymight be interested in.
Thank you for listening.

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85. Abby Davisson ︱ How to Make Big Life Decisions — Without the Stress!

Episode Transcript

Host

Klara Jagosova

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}85. Abby Davisson ︱ How to Make Big Life Decisions — Without the Stress!