February 18, 2024 • 17 mins
When faced with the unimaginable, how do leaders navigate through the storm and avoid burnout?
This episode dives into Heather Watt's tenure as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Premier of Ontario and Minister of Health during the pandemic, showcasing the critical blend of resilience, strategic foresight, and adaptability required at the forefront of government during an unparalleled global health crisis.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to strengthen their leadership skills and emerge stronger from adversity. We'll delve into practical strategies for avoiding burnout and prioritizing well-being amidst intense leadership demands. Heather also shares her profound belief in the power of daily discipline over fleeting motivation, offering a refreshing perspective on sustained leadership excellence.
What You'll Learn:
Strategies for Decision-Making Under Pressure: Discover how to master the art of making prompt, informed decisions when the stakes are highest.
Building Resilience Against Burnout: Uncover key strategies for maintaining well-being and preventing burnout, even under intense leadership demands. Heather shares her approach to stress management, effective delegation, and avoiding burnout.
Navigating Complex Communication: Learn the importance of clear, empathetic communication for managing expectations and leading in crisis situations. Heather reveals her tactics for honest dialogue and building mutual trust.
Understanding the Dunning-Kruger Effect in Leadership: Delve into how recognizing and mitigating cognitive biases, like the Dunning-Kruger Effect, can enhance self-awareness and team performance, fostering a culture of continuous learning and humility.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Joining us today is Heather Watt.
From 2018 to 2022, she servedas the Chief of Staff to the
Deputy Premier of Ontario andMinister of Health.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The challenge was that if you were making
decisions based on currentcircumstances, you were too late
.
She always had to be ahead.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
In this episode we discuss the key lessons she's
learned from leaving through apandemic, explore strategies for
avoiding burnout and delve intoher core belief that daily
discipline surpasses the pursuitof motivation any day.
Let's get started.
Welcome to the podcast everyone.
(00:42):
Heather, thank you so much forjoining us, my pleasure.
Would you mind just giving us abit of an arc of your
professional career and some ofthe kind of leadership roles
that you've held?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, I graduated university I had full intention
of applying to medical school,so I decided to take some time
to study for the MCAT and doapplications and in that period
I ended up being offered anopportunity to work as a
legislative assistant at QueensPark.
(01:13):
I ended up really falling inlove with politics, worked on a
couple of campaigns and comingout of that.
Unfortunately we wereunsuccessful.
But I met an individual whosuggested maybe my skills would
be well-suited to consulting.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So I ended up applying for a consulting job
and that ended up working out.
Really enjoyed that.
But then fast forward aboutseven years and I had my first
child and the industry isgetting better now.
But at the time there wasn'treally a lot of options for
(01:53):
remote work so at the time justdecided it wasn't the best
choice for my family.
I was doing about 125 flights ayear.
Ended up, though.
Then back in politics, got aphone call from Christine
Elliott once she won her seat inNew Market Aurora and she was
appointed as Minister of Health,and the Premier and Christine
(02:18):
both asked if I would serve asChief of Staff.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
On the timeline here.
What year are we now in?
We're in 2018.
So you held that position fortwo years, four years?
What is the day-to-day of theChief of Staff?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Really, you're responsible for the entire
portfolio for which yourMinister is overseeing and
you're the most senior advisorto that Minister.
So in the case of health, whenI joined the Ministry of Health
in 2018, our budget was in thelow $60 billion, which is about
(02:53):
$0.43, $0.44 on every governmentdollar.
It's obviously an importantpart of the spend.
So you need a big office tooversee that kind of portfolio.
And when I joined in 2018, Ihad no staff.
It was a new government, so Ihad a big binder, a budget and a
(03:15):
Minister and that's pretty muchit.
So then it becomes a bit ofhunger games of you know find
the staff you want, to find yourbest staff.
Starting with zero is a bitdaunting.
Once we got to steady state,that was a little bit more
manageable, but it's a big HR.
There's a big HR component tothe job obviously making sure
that everybody is not onlyperforming well but also able to
(03:36):
develop themselves.
Then you know there's makingsure that your Minister is ready
for everything that she or heneeds to be ready for, and if
the house is sitting, that meansquestion period in the morning,
that means potentially cabinetcommittees, that means
potentially cabinet meetings,depending on the day of the week
, then that means stakeholdermeetings that your boss is
(03:56):
taking, and also media.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
You have to manage dual stakeholders and appease
multiple people at the same timewho might not have the same
opinion or views.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Rarely, yes, the same opinion or views yeah, I'm
curious.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Let's just go back to the moment.
How did life change for you theday before COVID and, like I
think we all kind of rememberthat March timeline?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, absolutely life changed.
I was quite pregnant when wehad our first case in January
25th Wasn't clear exactly howpregnant women would be affected
the immense feeling ofresponsibility.
You know there are lives on theline and we needed to make
(04:43):
decisions quickly, responsiblyand that would benefit, you know
, the greatest number ofresidents of Ontario.
When you have over 14 millionlives to think about, certainly
I remember feeling thatheaviness in the beginning.
Luckily we had a lot of amazingexperts.
(05:06):
I think when you are faced withmaking those kinds of decisions
, the challenge was that if youwere making decisions based on
current circumstances, you weretoo late, so you always had to
be ahead and it's very difficultfrom a policy making
perspective, but also from acommunications to the public
(05:28):
perspective, to explain why thedecisions were being made and
really bring the public along,because without that cooperation
the whole thing falls apart.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Are there any sort of basic principles when you go
back in time and you go?
I really had to apply thisskill in this moment to be able
to do this.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Looking back, it's really important to rely on
experts.
You and I had been talkingabout the being aware of the
cognitive biases that mightcreep in in the beginning and
level of confidence on the Yaxis.
So you see, in the verybeginning it's shooting up
because you're learning about atopic and you say, oh my gosh, I
(06:11):
know so much about it.
Now I feel really comfortable,I feel really fluent, I feel
prepared to make decisions, butin fact you actually don't know
about the topic.
And then, as you continue tolearn more and more about it,
you actually see the curve comedown, because the more you learn
about it, then the morequestions you have and the more
you realize you don't know.
(06:32):
And if you're in the beginningpart of that curve, I think
that's the really dangerousplace to be, because you have a
blind spot.
I think if you're everabsolutely sure about the answer
and you don't understand theopposing view, I think that's a
signal that you have a problem,that you're not seeing the full
picture.
I'm all about picking sides.
(06:53):
I think it's important in lifeto pick sides, but if you don't
understand what the other sideis saying, I think then you're
in trouble.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
For all of us.
Let's put ourselves in theshoes of you.
Have to come up withcommunications.
That land clearly for 14million people.
What lessons do we learn fromthat moment in time, through
your journey?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
You have to think about it like distilling complex
ideas into a governing thoughtand then really decide what you.
The top three things that youneed the public to understand at
that time and really take awayare and also being prepared to
admit a level of uncertaintyamong the decision makers and
(07:37):
preposition that things aregoing to change.
It's not.
They might change, they willchange, and so let's prepare for
that.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And how complicated was the behind the scenes in all
of this, with multiplestakeholders, multiple different
points of view and decisionmaking through that landscape.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Very complicated, I would say.
One lesson that I do reflect onquite often is that I did see
the goodness in a lot of people,particularly, I would say, in
the first year, willingness towork together and so on.
(08:14):
So that, I think, is incrediblyimportant in a crisis.
But I will say that the key isopen communication, constant
communication.
You would have seen governmentleaders of all jurisdictions out
very consistently deliveringmessages, even though the
(08:36):
substance would change from timeto time, and then also it was
up to staff to make sure thatall stakeholders were well
informed along the way.
So that means daily meeting,sometimes of very large groups
of stakeholders, to make surethat folks are being given the
information that they need andthat government is receiving the
(08:56):
information that it needs.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
The stamina to keep to that pace, to keep to that
level of clarity of thinking,decision making and feeling that
level of pressure.
What did you have to lean on sothat you could operate at that
level?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Honestly, it was really just the enormity of the
task.
You do have to find ways tokeep your energy up, make sure
that you or yourself are notburning out.
I mean, obviously we saw,particularly with healthcare
workers, such a high level ofburnout, incredibly challenging
to deal with, yeah, so you can'trely on that kind of adrenaline
(09:38):
.
You just have to get up everyday and say this is the job,
we're going to get through theday.
We're going to save as manylives as possible.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
You talked a little bit about burnout in that
chapter and this is coming up alot in the culture right now
today burnout I've beenfascinated by just really trying
to understand it a little bitbetter.
Do you have any just thoughtson, you know, burnout as a whole
for yourself, or what you haveto do to just self-navigate a
little differently?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
In my recent years, I've become obsessed with
learning about the importance ofsleep.
I was somebody who growing upnever, and I am naturally a
night person.
I'm a night owl.
I can work until 4 am and notget tired, but try to get me up
at 7 am and and did you prideyourself?
On that too A little bit,because I remember being that
type of a person too.
(10:30):
Totally, I was like I don'treally need sleep and this is
fine and, honest to God, I don'tknow if it was getting a little
bit older, having kids, youknow pandemic pressure but I
started having some verychallenging sleep issues.
Sleep is the basis for physicalhealth, mental health,
(10:52):
emotional health and so on.
It is so important, yeah, and Iknow it's a real challenge for
a lot of people.
It's not, you know, I wasn'tunique in having some sleep
issues, especially women as theyage and going through menopause
, and it's something that peopledon't talk about very much.
But it's so foundational and soincredibly important that I
(11:13):
really have started toprioritize it, and I did so
during the pandemic as well.
So, of course, we were workinglate.
Of course we were working early.
That said, I think you need tobe really disciplined about kind
of getting as much sleep as youcan.
That's what's going to makeyour brain work properly.
The studies are incredible thatshow, you know, cognitive
(11:34):
impairment on the level of, youknow, alcohol consumption from
lack of sleep.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
What you're bringing about is it's actually hitting
the mainstream in a verydifferent tone right now and the
other thing that I'm noticingthat's changing too.
The grind culture is startingto question, like what we're
thinking.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I think there is a shift going on in the broader
conversation, probably a littlebit propelled by the pandemic, I
think for two reasons.
Maybe one is just theperspective that I mentioned
before.
All of a sudden, people wake upand say, oh my gosh, we only
get one life and it's not verylong, and what am I doing?
And then you know.
I think the second reason isjust because of COVID.
(12:16):
It generated a lot of flexibletypes of work, and so not to say
we should be working less orworking less hard necessarily,
but it's a bit more flexible.
Yeah, it's difficult for me, asI guess I'm an elder millennial
.
We're just programmed to pushaway any notion of rest and
(12:40):
relaxation, especially women.
We're programmed that we're thegeneration that can have it all
right, and so I do have anallergic reaction to that kind
of notion.
But it does start with sleep,it does start with getting there
and exercise.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I will say Exercise too, but also continued to work
hard, because no one's going todo that but you, we're putting
pieces back together in a newway, and so when we think about
this kind of architecting yourfuture, I know you have a great
deal of perspective as itrelates to how to think about
this within leadership.
What would you mind speaking alittle bit about that?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, I think what I've learned over time.
So I'm an only child and I hada bit of a challenging.
Some aspects of my childhoodwere pretty challenging and so
from kind of very early on Ireally learned that I had to
take the initiative if I wantedto be successful.
(13:36):
So that meant, you know,studying for a test late at
night when no one was telling meto do that.
That meant, you know, I decidedthat I really wanted to apply
to school in the United States.
But finding, you know, the SATprep course, finding the books,
(13:59):
and those were all kind ofdecisions that I made and I kind
of said to myself, like this isthe goal, let's go get it.
Not to say you can't besupported by family and you
can't be supported by mentorsand sponsors and people who are
going to help you.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
But I do think maybe it sounds a little bit harsh,
but nobody is really going tohelp you get up that hill, but
you yeah, and I think to yourstory because I think you know,
foundationally it depends on thecircumstances in which we grow
up, but you had to find yourvoice for yourself early.
Like you had to access that.
(14:37):
You had access.
Hey, I want this for me.
These are my goals, myambitions, and I think that just
harnesses a certain level ofwork ethic and self back to the
discipline versus, you know,motivation, and it started there
.
Yeah, I can relate to yourstory like I had to do that for
myself at 16 to.
I talked to some people andthey have great wisdom that you
(15:00):
know they can lean on in theirfamily, but for some it's not
that case.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, it's not the case, yeah it's great to read a
book or listen to something andsay, okay, now, like I'm really
motivated to go after and get it, but you'll see that like those
are spurts over time.
Yeah, like the way that you'rereally going to be successful is
it's consistency, it's notthese spurts of advancement.
(15:26):
Really that's that's going tomake you successful.
It's showing up every day,putting in the work.
It's not very glamorous, it'snot.
I think we live in this culturenow of such a desire for instant
gratification that I think isactually detrimental to young
(15:46):
people to expect and I see it inmy kids sometimes too like they
, they have Netflix right, sothey will never know it's such,
a such a small example, but theywill never know the feeling of
having to wait, to wait a weekto watch your favorite show.
It's like everything's there,it's on Netflix, they get it
right now, but that's not howlife works.
(16:08):
I think it's really important.
You know, the reason mostpeople fail is because they
sacrifice what they want mostfor what they want now and and I
am very aware of that, as I am,you know, parenting my own
children have had it instillthose values of just showing up
(16:32):
every, every day, beingconsistent and, and of course,
you're always going to hearabout the one in a million,
right, you're going to hearpeople who got lucky, or you
know it's usually not, thoughit's usually not luck, it's
usually you think it's luck, butit's actually hours and hours
and hours and years, in fact, ofhard work.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Listen, heather, we talked about so much kind of
some unplanned topics here too,which were really fun.
First of all, I just want totruly thank you for making all
the tough calls and doing whatyou did through that pandemic,
in the sense that all of us hugeteam, I know, but I'm speaking
to you and you know them onbehalf of the team, on behalf of
(17:11):
everyone, yeah, and I thinkhopefully all we can do right
now is learn from the hindsightof it and use this time and
chapter to kind of really thinkabout where we go from here, and
so thank you so much for comingon and sharing all of your
wisdom.
Great to chat with you, mypleasure.
Well, that's a wrap.
Thank you for joining us.
Don't forget to follow us onInstagram and LinkedIn, where we
(17:34):
transform the wisdom from ourpodcast into practical tips,
tools and takeaways for yourleadership journey.
Find us at gritgracepodcast.
See you next week.
Joining us today is Heather Watt.
From 2018 to 2022, she servedas the Chief of Staff to the
Deputy Premier of Ontario andMinister of Health.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The challenge was that if you were making
decisions based on currentcircumstances, you were too late
.
She always had to be ahead.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
In this episode we discuss the key lessons she's
learned from leaving through apandemic, explore strategies for
avoiding burnout and delve intoher core belief that daily
discipline surpasses the pursuitof motivation any day.
Let's get started.
Welcome to the podcast everyone.
(00:42):
Heather, thank you so much forjoining us, my pleasure.
Would you mind just giving us abit of an arc of your
professional career and some ofthe kind of leadership roles
that you've held?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, I graduated university I had full intention
of applying to medical school,so I decided to take some time
to study for the MCAT and doapplications and in that period
I ended up being offered anopportunity to work as a
legislative assistant at QueensPark.
(01:13):
I ended up really falling inlove with politics, worked on a
couple of campaigns and comingout of that.
Unfortunately we wereunsuccessful.
But I met an individual whosuggested maybe my skills would
be well-suited to consulting.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So I ended up applying for a consulting job
and that ended up working out.
Really enjoyed that.
But then fast forward aboutseven years and I had my first
child and the industry isgetting better now.
But at the time there wasn'treally a lot of options for
(01:53):
remote work so at the time justdecided it wasn't the best
choice for my family.
I was doing about 125 flights ayear.
Ended up, though.
Then back in politics, got aphone call from Christine
Elliott once she won her seat inNew Market Aurora and she was
appointed as Minister of Health,and the Premier and Christine
(02:18):
both asked if I would serve asChief of Staff.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
On the timeline here.
What year are we now in?
We're in 2018.
So you held that position fortwo years, four years?
What is the day-to-day of theChief of Staff?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Really, you're responsible for the entire
portfolio for which yourMinister is overseeing and
you're the most senior advisorto that Minister.
So in the case of health, whenI joined the Ministry of Health
in 2018, our budget was in thelow $60 billion, which is about
(02:53):
$0.43, $0.44 on every governmentdollar.
It's obviously an importantpart of the spend.
So you need a big office tooversee that kind of portfolio.
And when I joined in 2018, Ihad no staff.
It was a new government, so Ihad a big binder, a budget and a
(03:15):
Minister and that's pretty muchit.
So then it becomes a bit ofhunger games of you know find
the staff you want, to find yourbest staff.
Starting with zero is a bitdaunting.
Once we got to steady state,that was a little bit more
manageable, but it's a big HR.
There's a big HR component tothe job obviously making sure
that everybody is not onlyperforming well but also able to
(03:36):
develop themselves.
Then you know there's makingsure that your Minister is ready
for everything that she or heneeds to be ready for, and if
the house is sitting, that meansquestion period in the morning,
that means potentially cabinetcommittees, that means
potentially cabinet meetings,depending on the day of the week
, then that means stakeholdermeetings that your boss is
(03:56):
taking, and also media.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
You have to manage dual stakeholders and appease
multiple people at the same timewho might not have the same
opinion or views.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Rarely, yes, the same opinion or views yeah, I'm
curious.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Let's just go back to the moment.
How did life change for you theday before COVID and, like I
think we all kind of rememberthat March timeline?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, absolutely life changed.
I was quite pregnant when wehad our first case in January
25th Wasn't clear exactly howpregnant women would be affected
the immense feeling ofresponsibility.
You know there are lives on theline and we needed to make
(04:43):
decisions quickly, responsiblyand that would benefit, you know
, the greatest number ofresidents of Ontario.
When you have over 14 millionlives to think about, certainly
I remember feeling thatheaviness in the beginning.
Luckily we had a lot of amazingexperts.
(05:06):
I think when you are faced withmaking those kinds of decisions
, the challenge was that if youwere making decisions based on
current circumstances, you weretoo late, so you always had to
be ahead and it's very difficultfrom a policy making
perspective, but also from acommunications to the public
(05:28):
perspective, to explain why thedecisions were being made and
really bring the public along,because without that cooperation
the whole thing falls apart.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Are there any sort of basic principles when you go
back in time and you go?
I really had to apply thisskill in this moment to be able
to do this.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Looking back, it's really important to rely on
experts.
You and I had been talkingabout the being aware of the
cognitive biases that mightcreep in in the beginning and
level of confidence on the Yaxis.
So you see, in the verybeginning it's shooting up
because you're learning about atopic and you say, oh my gosh, I
(06:11):
know so much about it.
Now I feel really comfortable,I feel really fluent, I feel
prepared to make decisions, butin fact you actually don't know
about the topic.
And then, as you continue tolearn more and more about it,
you actually see the curve comedown, because the more you learn
about it, then the morequestions you have and the more
you realize you don't know.
(06:32):
And if you're in the beginningpart of that curve, I think
that's the really dangerousplace to be, because you have a
blind spot.
I think if you're everabsolutely sure about the answer
and you don't understand theopposing view, I think that's a
signal that you have a problem,that you're not seeing the full
picture.
I'm all about picking sides.
(06:53):
I think it's important in lifeto pick sides, but if you don't
understand what the other sideis saying, I think then you're
in trouble.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
For all of us.
Let's put ourselves in theshoes of you.
Have to come up withcommunications.
That land clearly for 14million people.
What lessons do we learn fromthat moment in time, through
your journey?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
You have to think about it like distilling complex
ideas into a governing thoughtand then really decide what you.
The top three things that youneed the public to understand at
that time and really take awayare and also being prepared to
admit a level of uncertaintyamong the decision makers and
(07:37):
preposition that things aregoing to change.
It's not.
They might change, they willchange, and so let's prepare for
that.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And how complicated was the behind the scenes in all
of this, with multiplestakeholders, multiple different
points of view and decisionmaking through that landscape.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Very complicated, I would say.
One lesson that I do reflect onquite often is that I did see
the goodness in a lot of people,particularly, I would say, in
the first year, willingness towork together and so on.
(08:14):
So that, I think, is incrediblyimportant in a crisis.
But I will say that the key isopen communication, constant
communication.
You would have seen governmentleaders of all jurisdictions out
very consistently deliveringmessages, even though the
(08:36):
substance would change from timeto time, and then also it was
up to staff to make sure thatall stakeholders were well
informed along the way.
So that means daily meeting,sometimes of very large groups
of stakeholders, to make surethat folks are being given the
information that they need andthat government is receiving the
(08:56):
information that it needs.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
The stamina to keep to that pace, to keep to that
level of clarity of thinking,decision making and feeling that
level of pressure.
What did you have to lean on sothat you could operate at that
level?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Honestly, it was really just the enormity of the
task.
You do have to find ways tokeep your energy up, make sure
that you or yourself are notburning out.
I mean, obviously we saw,particularly with healthcare
workers, such a high level ofburnout, incredibly challenging
to deal with, yeah, so you can'trely on that kind of adrenaline
(09:38):
.
You just have to get up everyday and say this is the job,
we're going to get through theday.
We're going to save as manylives as possible.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
You talked a little bit about burnout in that
chapter and this is coming up alot in the culture right now
today burnout I've beenfascinated by just really trying
to understand it a little bitbetter.
Do you have any just thoughtson, you know, burnout as a whole
for yourself, or what you haveto do to just self-navigate a
little differently?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
In my recent years, I've become obsessed with
learning about the importance ofsleep.
I was somebody who growing upnever, and I am naturally a
night person.
I'm a night owl.
I can work until 4 am and notget tired, but try to get me up
at 7 am and and did you prideyourself?
On that too A little bit,because I remember being that
type of a person too.
(10:30):
Totally, I was like I don'treally need sleep and this is
fine and, honest to God, I don'tknow if it was getting a little
bit older, having kids, youknow pandemic pressure but I
started having some verychallenging sleep issues.
Sleep is the basis for physicalhealth, mental health,
(10:52):
emotional health and so on.
It is so important, yeah, and Iknow it's a real challenge for
a lot of people.
It's not, you know, I wasn'tunique in having some sleep
issues, especially women as theyage and going through menopause
, and it's something that peopledon't talk about very much.
But it's so foundational and soincredibly important that I
(11:13):
really have started toprioritize it, and I did so
during the pandemic as well.
So, of course, we were workinglate.
Of course we were working early.
That said, I think you need tobe really disciplined about kind
of getting as much sleep as youcan.
That's what's going to makeyour brain work properly.
The studies are incredible thatshow, you know, cognitive
(11:34):
impairment on the level of, youknow, alcohol consumption from
lack of sleep.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
What you're bringing about is it's actually hitting
the mainstream in a verydifferent tone right now and the
other thing that I'm noticingthat's changing too.
The grind culture is startingto question, like what we're
thinking.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I think there is a shift going on in the broader
conversation, probably a littlebit propelled by the pandemic, I
think for two reasons.
Maybe one is just theperspective that I mentioned
before.
All of a sudden, people wake upand say, oh my gosh, we only
get one life and it's not verylong, and what am I doing?
And then you know.
I think the second reason isjust because of COVID.
(12:16):
It generated a lot of flexibletypes of work, and so not to say
we should be working less orworking less hard necessarily,
but it's a bit more flexible.
Yeah, it's difficult for me, asI guess I'm an elder millennial
.
We're just programmed to pushaway any notion of rest and
(12:40):
relaxation, especially women.
We're programmed that we're thegeneration that can have it all
right, and so I do have anallergic reaction to that kind
of notion.
But it does start with sleep,it does start with getting there
and exercise.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I will say Exercise too, but also continued to work
hard, because no one's going todo that but you, we're putting
pieces back together in a newway, and so when we think about
this kind of architecting yourfuture, I know you have a great
deal of perspective as itrelates to how to think about
this within leadership.
What would you mind speaking alittle bit about that?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, I think what I've learned over time.
So I'm an only child and I hada bit of a challenging.
Some aspects of my childhoodwere pretty challenging and so
from kind of very early on Ireally learned that I had to
take the initiative if I wantedto be successful.
(13:36):
So that meant, you know,studying for a test late at
night when no one was telling meto do that.
That meant, you know, I decidedthat I really wanted to apply
to school in the United States.
But finding, you know, the SATprep course, finding the books,
(13:59):
and those were all kind ofdecisions that I made and I kind
of said to myself, like this isthe goal, let's go get it.
Not to say you can't besupported by family and you
can't be supported by mentorsand sponsors and people who are
going to help you.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
But I do think maybe it sounds a little bit harsh,
but nobody is really going tohelp you get up that hill, but
you yeah, and I think to yourstory because I think you know,
foundationally it depends on thecircumstances in which we grow
up, but you had to find yourvoice for yourself early.
Like you had to access that.
(14:37):
You had access.
Hey, I want this for me.
These are my goals, myambitions, and I think that just
harnesses a certain level ofwork ethic and self back to the
discipline versus, you know,motivation, and it started there
.
Yeah, I can relate to yourstory like I had to do that for
myself at 16 to.
I talked to some people andthey have great wisdom that you
(15:00):
know they can lean on in theirfamily, but for some it's not
that case.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, it's not the case, yeah it's great to read a
book or listen to something andsay, okay, now, like I'm really
motivated to go after and get it, but you'll see that like those
are spurts over time.
Yeah, like the way that you'rereally going to be successful is
it's consistency, it's notthese spurts of advancement.
(15:26):
Really that's that's going tomake you successful.
It's showing up every day,putting in the work.
It's not very glamorous, it'snot.
I think we live in this culturenow of such a desire for instant
gratification that I think isactually detrimental to young
(15:46):
people to expect and I see it inmy kids sometimes too like they
, they have Netflix right, sothey will never know it's such,
a such a small example, but theywill never know the feeling of
having to wait, to wait a weekto watch your favorite show.
It's like everything's there,it's on Netflix, they get it
right now, but that's not howlife works.
(16:08):
I think it's really important.
You know, the reason mostpeople fail is because they
sacrifice what they want mostfor what they want now and and I
am very aware of that, as I am,you know, parenting my own
children have had it instillthose values of just showing up
(16:32):
every, every day, beingconsistent and, and of course,
you're always going to hearabout the one in a million,
right, you're going to hearpeople who got lucky, or you
know it's usually not, thoughit's usually not luck, it's
usually you think it's luck, butit's actually hours and hours
and hours and years, in fact, ofhard work.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Listen, heather, we talked about so much kind of
some unplanned topics here too,which were really fun.
First of all, I just want totruly thank you for making all
the tough calls and doing whatyou did through that pandemic,
in the sense that all of us hugeteam, I know, but I'm speaking
to you and you know them onbehalf of the team, on behalf of
(17:11):
everyone, yeah, and I thinkhopefully all we can do right
now is learn from the hindsightof it and use this time and
chapter to kind of really thinkabout where we go from here, and
so thank you so much for comingon and sharing all of your
wisdom.
Great to chat with you, mypleasure.
Well, that's a wrap.
Thank you for joining us.
Don't forget to follow us onInstagram and LinkedIn, where we
(17:34):
transform the wisdom from ourpodcast into practical tips,
tools and takeaways for yourleadership journey.
Find us at gritgracepodcast.
See you next week.
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