Episode 35 - The Power of Partnerships: Getting Personal

Welcome to the women's career mastery podcast. I'm Laura. And before we dive in, let me give you a quick preview of this special episode. If you've ever wondered about the story behind this podcast, you're in for a treat. My co-host Christine and I pull back the curtain to share our personal journeys that led to creating this show.

We'll take you through how our paths crossed our individual experiences, navigating the corporate workplace, and why we're passionate about helping women overcome career challenges. You'll discover how our different work styles create.

What we think is a unique dynamic that makes this podcast special and learn about the shared purpose that drives us forward. This is an intimate, short episode designed to help you get to know us better. And we're excited to get to know you too. We believe every career story matters and we're here to listen to yours. By the end of this episode, you'll understand how our combined expertise enables us to create experiences that support women, just like you. So, grab your favorite drink, get comfortable or put on your sneakers and get walking and join us for this behind the scenes look at the women's career mastery podcast.

Welcome to the Women's Career Mastery Podcast, the show that's dedicated to empowering women to redefine success and break through barriers. I'm your host, Christine, and my co-host, Laura, along with our amazing guests and experts. We are here to shatter the myths that has been hindering women's careers.

Women's career fulfillment for far too long. So, if you're ready to master your career and take your life to the next level, join us in our journey together. The Women's Career Mastery podcast starts now.

Hello listeners, we're back for another episode . This time it's Christine and I talking. So, Christine, let's get started.

Yeah, and you all listen to us and it's like with podcasts, we don't see you, we don't know you.

And it is my wish to be able to get to know you all as well. And we'll probably get to know each other, get to know us and please do reach out to us if you have any comments, and we'd love to hear from you. And, just as a disclaimer, I am recovering from sore throat. So, my voice is going to be a bit deeper.

Laura, you want to start with your story. Yeah, I'll be happy to. So, first of all, Christine and I met through a former colleague and friend when we worked at the same company together.

We didn't know each other when we were working at that company. We met after through the friend and, we've been working together now, like three years, Christine. Over 3 years. Over 3 years. We've never met in person. So, I'm based in the United States in Connecticut and Christine's in Toronto, Canada. We did talk about meeting in person this year, but we just didn't do it because there's a lot going on.

Christine did her TEDtalk and she's working on her book, and we just couldn't do it. Anyway, we have not met in person, but we still plan to do that. But we really love working together virtually. And I feel like you're like a best friend, Christine. Like I, can't imagine not working with you and being with you.

And she's also taught me a lot. So, I came into this project and working with her. I was like a type A personality working in corporate roles in leadership and learning development in the HR organization in, several companies. And I was a doer, meaning I was like, give me that project. I would attack it like nobody's business, create a project plan and ‘get her done.’

Like the, the slang term ‘get her done.’ Like I would get it done and I would get it done expertly. And, on time within budget, like I was driven by doing things and it also was part of my personal life. Like, I enjoyed a challenge, right? And I did take myself, over the years through different challenges in life.

I'll never forget the one, I decided to do a bike rally race and was going to ride 25 miles. And although I rode my bike around town, I never did a race. So, I practiced, I took spin classes, I bought a bicycle, like I went all out, and I did the race, and I came in fourth. I still have the bicycle.

I'm going to do it again, but it was a goal that I wanted to accomplish. And I did it. Like I, created a project plan. I did it. So, I'm a doer, but you know, after I lost my job at, the one company, I had to reevaluate myself and really see what was going on. And was I really happy doing that work?

What did I really enjoy of all my work? And I did a big reset, and so I started to do different things and focus on the type of work that I really like to do, which I still do in terms of consulting and contract work besides like the podcast and some coaching engagements that I have, but that came from working on it and working with Christine.

And really learning to reset myself. So, my perspective here, I'm coming at this always like, is this a feasible thing we're telling our listeners to do? Is this real? Is this like, is this real? Like, could I, could someone really apply this, get it done and learn how to deal with burnout? Like, so I'm always trying to be really practical about what our guests might be saying and what they might be offering in terms of advice or recommendations.

And Christine, I'll let you share how you come at it and then maybe our listeners will understand how that kind of balances out. Yeah, well, I didn't know about the bike things, Laura. , so, we work at the same company, but we never met. And we met because a friend of us.

So that we, hey, here's something similar in a similar journey. Why don't you meet? And I came from, I guess. You would say a year of a very toxic, workplace, I don't blame people there, but it just the systems and the processes that make people feel always be in survival mode. So, I left.

My career and I have some longing of I would like to find out What is it like to have a different kind of work environment? What is it like to really work and collaborate with? people where we can bring our inner genius our strength without judgment without fear and just create things and I think one of the, the beautiful thing from that question is to meet with Laura and thanks for our friend, Vicky who, introduced us together.

And when I left my corporate career, I had also found a word that basically has been guiding me through now and the future, which is Coddiwomple. Coddiwomple is an English word, which means to move purposefully towards an as yet unknown destination.

So, I. unlearned what I knew, which is, you know, outcome is the most important thing. What results means, and, you need to know, 10 step ahead. You need to have the strategy. So what I did after I left, I just said to myself I'm going to let go the need to know till the end and just be curious So when I met with Laura, it's like, oh, why don't we and then we start meeting and feel like there's chemistry, hey, let's do this workshop or let's do this event and that event leads to another one, leads to another one.

And, what we found, our things in common are we are in transitions, as women, in our career transitioning. So that's, that's kind of the shared focus that we have. And then why don't we create this? Why don't we create a program? So, we had, a program Women's Career Mastery. And then we create a podcast, which we never done before.

We said like, hey, let's do this. And I think Laura also complete the part of me that, so Laura is doing, and she's really good at it. And from my perspective of where I came from, I'm came from more about, looking at the patterns, finding out why behind things going deeper, more like self-awareness and allowing, creativity or intuition to come in and really focus on, because my background is user experience.

So for me, the growth that I experienced from my career is I become more curious about what is the transformative human experience, how we can create transformative human experience and what does it mean to be human together and work together and create something different. And so, with Laura, I felt there's this space where we can trust one another. There's no judgment. There's no expectation. We don't tell like, you know, you need to do this. I need to do that. We just like, oh, let's do this. And then Laura would just take on what she loved to do. And I take on what I love to do. And we don't feel like, oh, I'm not, I'm not doing this or that.

Like, there's nothing of that. We just doing it because it joyful and their share understanding of our missions. And, I would say, Women's Career Mastery Podcast is Laura's brainchild because she has a very deep, passionate, caring for women in transitions. And, and I, I felt I want to do that with her because of that dedication and kind of commitment, because for me, yes, the women transitions career, but in general, I'm more interested in that again, like human experience, how good can help others, overcomes and bring back their power so that when we become more authentic, when we become more powerful in our own things, then we can help others, and inspire them to do the same.

 And you know what? It's so much fun to work differently, and that's my story.

I love that, Christine, you explained it really well. And as you're talking, I'm like, and here's how we connect when we work. Like I'll say to Christine, oh, I heard this the other day, or I saw this article or there's, you know, there's a lot going on social media about X, right?

People are asking questions about something, let's say it's imposter syndrome. And I think we should do an episode on imposter syndrome. And, and then Christine right away will say to me, okay, Laura, but what's the intent? Like, why do we want, what about imposter syndrome needs to come out? Like, what do, what do people need to hear when it comes to this?

And she takes it a little bit deeper and make sure we're really focusing on something. Just so you all know, every guest we meet with prior to the recording because we want to get to that. What is the intent? Like what is, what is that thing that we really want to talk about that we think is coming from both angles, right?

Is it something practical? People can relate to it. And is it deeper so that we could really understand what's going on when these things are happening? So, it's Christine and I always back and forth with these two perspectives and the way that we work together and then working with the guest on that too, before we even get to a recording session.

Yeah. And, beside the podcast and what Laura and I work together, we also have our own things. So, it's a freedom of, you can do your own thing, but when we're together, it's not because we should, but we want to, because it's fun. And also, for you all that, are thinking about changing your career or doing something different.

I would say make sure find alliance, make sure find people who has a shared understanding, the shared purpose where you can kind of collaborate, , once in a while, but also, having your own space where you can be free to be, and then go back to different, basically have a flexibility of having different spaces.

And as Laura said about, we meet with our guests beforehand, I think, it’s clear, even though we never talk about it, Laura, we have similar or at least share value. That connection is important. And this is what I always find, with Laura as well. And I think with the way we work is as if we bring, other women in this, conversation, even between Laura and I, or with our guests, what our listeners wants, or what are they challenged?

We always bring that with us, because we experience it all. We have those challenges. , we have the journey, and we know why we're doing this. Is because we want to lift out others. And when we lift all of us together, then a new possibility would arise. Beautifully said, Christine.

And I would just like to add, if you're struggling with something challenged or you're even just trying to get ahead, right, to get advanced. I mean, I've heard recently people have gotten promoted, but are waiting six months for the actual promotion and salary increase to come through .

There are some serious challenges out there in the corporate space. Find a place, a person that you can trust where you can talk about these things and get support. If you can't, and trust me, I had time in my career. I had nowhere to go to for support. I listened to the podcast. I have best friend podcast hosts now, because I've just listened to so many of their episodes. I know, I can trust them and their advice. And I hope you can trust our show as well. You can certainly trust us. You can trust our guests. We've all come through the challenges.

We are trying to create that safe space for people to come and talk together and support each other.

And as women, especially, cause. It's needed.

We want to see if something we did helped you share it with someone else who you think might need help, right? Share the episode. I know the episode on, I think it's number four on experiencing grief with career transitions. That's been a pretty popular episode. Even today, people are sharing it, especially with the layoffs.

And I've heard firsthand that that episode is really helpful. So, share it, spread the word. If you have a story to tell, join us on an episode, be a guest. We'd love to have you, join us. So, we're going to continue to grow. We're going to continue to bring more episodes. Just let us know you're listening.

Let us know what more you want to hear and connect with us in any way you can. We're trying to push out many ways for you to connect with us through the comments, through the feedback, through readings, like all those things really matter, um, and help spread the word. Yeah, and we are in this journey together, and you may be in different countries or different roles, um, in whatever journey you are in, know that, you know, together, we have shared hope, and that hope is by moving together, by keep doing what we're doing.

What we believe we want to see instead of, feeling in despair, or hopeless, and  I just want to ask for all your support. The support could be, just connect with us sharing this, knowing that this is going through different people, different, Women from walk of life is really mean something to us.

Yeah. I mean, that's a big one, Christine, hope we could do a whole episode on that. And the timing here, we just came off the U. S. 2024 election and we had a woman running for president and I've been doing women's leadership development a lot of my career and I was really hopeful that we were going to have a woman for president in the United States didn't happen, but I'm not giving up hope. I am not, you know, hope is not a strategy. I'm not going to just hope I'm going to actually try to do something to be more active, to make that a reality someday.

I have hope for all the women out there trying to get to where they want to go, and together, like you said, we could do it together. Yeah. And it's always start with us ourselves, because that gives others permission to do the same. Absolutely. So that's about us listeners. It was a quick episode. We just wanted you to know where we're coming from, where we're going, why we do this.

Hope you got to know us a little bit better. Bye for now.

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