#7 Navigating Burnout: Story of Triumph and Renewal

Welcome to this episode. Where we debunk myths surrounding women's 's experiences with burn out, share effective strategies for overcoming it and the importance of supportive work environment. Today our guest shares her journey of recovery from burnout not just once several times offering authentic insights and a bold lesson learned along the way get ready to challenge the status quo discover resilience and find Inspiration to rise stronger beyond burnout. Let's dive in. Laura, would you like to introduce the guests?

Absolutely. Here we are, another episode with the fabulous guest. Today we have Carrie Mah, Founder, Principal Product Designer at Carrie M Designs. Welcome, Carrie.

Hi. Thanks for having me, Laura. Christine, it's really great to be here. Thank you.

So let me tell you a little bit about Carrie. She is a purpose driven product designer with over five years of experience launching digital products for startups B to B SAS companies and global brands. She brings a versatile approach by leveraging her skills and development and design. Carrie is also the founder of Carrie M Designs where she partners with startups and large companies to deliver user centric digital experiences and products. During her free time, she thrives on curiosity and tries new things to better understand the world. She's an avid hiker Outdoors, she travels the world. She climbs the walls. I don't really know what kind of walls, but she climbs walls, recharges with indie games, and drinks a ton of bubble tea. Over her career, Carrie has experienced many types of burnout. So serious topic today, and she actively wants to share topics on mental health. And career tips to help others on a similar journey. So without further ado, Carrie, we're so grateful to have you here with us today. Do you want to share a little bit why you agreed to do this podcast on this topic with us?

Yeah, Thank you again for having me. So again, I'm Carrie Mah, founder and principal product designer of Carrie and Designs. And like many women, I learned the value of hard work and dedication and focus on these contributions for most of my life and in the last years. It's really caught up to me and I'm here to really share my journey, help others through this journey and feel like they're not alone because although I've gone through this so many times. And I've gotten a lot of help in different ways. You don't really fully understand it until you've lived it and hopefully. These experiences will allow others to actually understand what the nuances of burnout really means, other than just being tired.

Right, so let's get started. Let's start busting the myths once and for all and shine a spotlight on the true experiences that women are having with burnout. Christine, did you want to get us started in the conversation?

Yeah, Carrie, I know Carrie because we work in the same company and I'm been following her journey and I have found it's very inspiring and I know there's a lot of growth coming from your experience. Carrie, can you share with us your journey first when you first burned out and until now?

Yeah, so like I mentioned, I I've been really focused on work pretty much my whole life, wanted really high grades, and then when I finally figured out what I wanted, which was to be in tech, I wanted to compete with pretty much everyone else. So I was in computer science and studying. I was at the University of Calgary studying computer science and noticed that there's a lot of other women who were in computer science as well. Not at the University of Calgary, but actually globally. This was when I started going to a lot of conferences and realized, ohh, my goodness, these women are amazing and they do so many great things. I have to somehow contribute as well and I decided to volunteer for a lot of things while also trying to build my career and work with a lot of nonprofits. And trying to balance them, social life and joining a lot of social clubs. But the problem with stretching yourself in is that you can barely do everything while balancing your studies. So there was a time where I just had to say no to a lot of things and I felt pretty bad because I said yes to a lot of it and then I had to kind of. Say ohh, never mind. And that was that was the first of my burnouts where I recognized OK, you know, say no to more things. Cool. Great lesson. A few years later, I volunteered with one nonprofit and I was really dedicated with them. But I actually burnt myself out, spending a lot of hours into a social media strategy to help them during their biggest conference of the year. And it was super rewarding. Great team, but I just poured so much of my energy into that. And after that I I had so little energy to give to my personal life, to others and to the organization. And they were really understanding . We figured out other ways to manage  workload, but that time. It left me socially isolated because I just had a hermit pretty much the whole year. I didn't have enough energy to socialize or network. I still with friends and family, but my mind wasn't fully there. I was always thinking, OK, what else can I do or how can I do better? And despite those burnouts, I just thought I was a failure. And that was the time where I was very much a perfectionist and figured, OK, if I couldn't do this, then I'll try something else. So. I figure out a bit more about managing my energy and saying no to more things and started working more.

My career in product design was accelerated by starting at ATB Financial and doing some redesigns in their products and it gave me an opportunity to work with IBM consultants, which is where I met Christine and. I had this opportunity to build things from the ground up and that was really amazing, but to be honest, I didn't really know what being consultant really meant other than like doing the work and working with clients and school all this great stuff and when you're in it for about a year doing some projects. Bring some leadership opportunities and realize that there's a lot of things that are out of your control. But you feel like they're in your control and so you figure ohh, I can do it all and I went into that same. Pattern of saying yes to too many things. And that was because I was still early in my career and I wanted to prove something to myself, to other people, because I was in an environment where everyone wanted to do that. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I realized at the end of my career at IBM, I wanted to do something different. I loved consulting and helping people, but I also wanted to work in a product driven culture, and that could only happen at a product company. And so during this time I burnt myself out trying to prove myself to something that was totally out of my control. And that hurt a lot because that was really close to my identity. I was this Go getter who could do so many things, and I contributed to a lot of things and I felt like I couldn't do that anymore when I left IBM, actually a lot of the friends I made there. They wanted to know why I left, which was great, but they never really checked in after, and friendships at work can be very different than the friendships you have in your day-to-day. to day And So what I learned there was really to cherish the people around you, and not just the people in your current environment, but in your entire life. And so I stepped back and I figured, all right, well now I can go to a purpose driven company and really commit myself to it. But I think I jumped into that role a bit too quickly. I didn't really understand startups and so I thought, hey, going to a startup that was really close to my heart, which is helping improve climate for. Improving sustainable tech for companies was going to be great because one of the other issues of burnout is doing something that you're not as passionate about. And so when I went here, I actually didn't fully understand. The expectations of the startup and so their approach of design was very different than the approach that I was providing, which was more strategic and a lot of startups, they wanted to just push forward and release quickly, which is another approach and there's nothing wrong with that, but when you had two conflicting approaches, that can be very difficult to move things along. And so that opportunity didn't work out for me.

It was very short lived for about three months and this was around the pandemic when I decided to move to Montreal and there was so much going on. When you're moving, starting a new job, there's just so much that's going on that is really easy to let yourself go. And my health took a hit and my focus and obviously my identity, like when I wasn't working and I felt like I was pouring. Everything into this. So I moved back home and was with family who was super supportive, and I still rushed into the kind of the next thing. I was moving, I was traveling, and I needed to figure out what's my next opportunity because I still felt like I had a lot to prove to the world that I wasn't just this person that couldn't design. That was my identity for a while. Whereas like, I'm this designer and yeah, that's a part of my identity, but I'm also like an avid hiker. And I love bubble tea and I love being with family and. I forgot about that. And when I went into my next opportunity, it was also with the startup, which was something I was passionate about. I wanted to help entrepreneurs fulfill their dreams. And during this time. I did a lot like I decided, hey, this is. Startup and they really need committed people and I wanted to make this. Awesome. And so I committed a lot of time and energy into. By work I think I worked way too hard and. It's important to do good work, but it's not great when you're putting everything into it. And so when I was with family, I would still think about work and I ended up having insomnia and I couldn't really sleep because I was thinking about my endless To Do List. And finally my body said, OK, you really can't do this anymore. Now keep in mind I didn't listen to my body the year before during the pandemic when I was not staying healthy. I was being more sediment. I stress ate and had a lot of chocolate and that was not great. Because now I couldn't stomach anything. Like just my stomach wouldn't be happy with anything. So I went with the bland diet for many months and my doctor said I had IBS and I was like, Oh my gosh, I can't eat things I love. And I've learned that I do distract. Well, it's induced by stress, but there's a lot of other factors. And so I just had to stop. But no one actually knew I was burned. At this time. I until I asked for a sabbatical and so I spent a lot of time just reflecting and stepping back and realizing ohh my gosh this is. It's really serious and when I actually let myself take a breather. And realize, yeah, maybe a chaotic environment has something to do with burnout, but ninety percent of it was really What I perceived of myself. And how I was contributing to this world and who I was as a person. And once I learned that and discovered my confidence again. Everything felt lighter and I felt like I was able to take on more and kind of create my own consultancy. So that's kind of a long winded story, but I really wanted to emphasize that burnout can happen in many ways, in many stages, and you can learn a lot, but you can also fall back into similar patterns. But it's all OK as long as you're learning something.

Wow, what a story. Thank you Carrie, for being vulnerable and sharing all of it. It's very interesting. It seems like every time you had a burnout, you learned something and you kind of fall back into burnout. But it's a different kind of level. You learn something. A couple things I want to ask is like. If you go back. If you can kind of bring a couple teas of what you learn for next time, because I'm pretty sure burnout comes also because you know, we are so passionate about something, we are so care. We want wanted the best, we care about something. What are those key things that? I know you've been posting a lot of on link LinkedIn about these issues. What are things that can help someone to first identify oh I'm burnt out before they get into you know the the where they cannot get up in the morning or where they cannot sleep and what are questions you ask yourself along the way as you kind of experience like you're on the edge of it. Now that's an amazing question. I think it's really easy to get carried away with what you're doing and so if ever you're so passionate about something that you forget the basic things like eating or sleeping or saying hi to someone or reaching out and ask for help. That's one of the signs is. You're so hyper focused on one thing. They ought to recognize there's more than just what you're doing right now. And it's so easy to get caught up because when you're thinking about one thing, when you talk about it with your friends all the time. That's so easy like. As. A entrepreneur? I'm sure you face that all the time as well. And the other part of it is. If all you're doing is talking about one thing, that could be a sign that your brain is really just focused on that. On that thing, and there's nothing wrong with having a goal and nothing wrong with being passionate about it, but if it's distracting you from other things that you care about. And I'm sure you have passions that you care about. Then that's another thing to think about. I think the most important thing during all these stages of burnout is there was nothing wrong with going through it other than hurting my body. So if you're feeling like maybe your body is not at an optimal. , performing cycle? It's. It's probably another sign. But I think the most important is when you're feeling so exhausted, like every single day, and you have no idea why. Possibly it's the food you're eating. Possibly it's your sleep schedule. But maybe it's a thing that you're working on.

I've talked to a lot of people, especially earlier in their career, who are really unhappy with what they're doing. And it's really hard because when you're starting out your career, you want to make sure that you're contributing to something, but it's really important to know your value and to respect yourself. Would you tell a friend to do something? They. Don't really like. Perhaps if they need some money and maybe they know the end date of that, but if it's something, they're in it for so long. The misery of doing something that you don't want to do will. Really build up? So if you're if you're sensing that something you're doing is super unfulfilling. You can try to find other ways to be fulfilled. Work isn't everything. Work is important. I think contributing something and putting energy into something and helping people is really important. But I think it's also important to figure out who are you as a person, What are your values, what brings passion to you? Who brings you energy and what takes away that energy? And a bit of self reflection is required for that. But I think everyone has. Like if you if you listen to your gut you'll kind of figure out OK, something might be wrong here.

I'm interested in. Are there other signs like depression. Can you become depressed in a moment of burnout? Like, do you start to procrastinate when you're the early signs of burnout? Like what are some of the other things that you might have experienced or you hear others experience that would might be warning signs of something's going on?

Absolutely. So I did speak with one person who actually faced depression, and that's when you're at the highest stage of burnout, when you may not have listened to your body, when you're so hyper focused and when you've let all the anxieties build up. One of the things that I learned from a mentor was that burnout makes you feel like you're not good enough. And that can really add to that mentality, that. Like, wow, maybe. This rut that I'm in is all that I know. And it could also be like how you lived, if it's been very tumultuous for you, if you're used to chaos and stress in your body that that's the norm, that you go to that. You’re so used to a situation where your mind is not optimal. That you think that's normal. And I think that's when you really need to reach out to someone professional who understands that it can be really hard to reach out to a friend and. Share these things. And I think it's really important to know that your friends care about you, and that's the first step. And I think it's also really important to recognize when it's OK to reach out to the professional at that point. And then on the other side, when you're procrastinating there, there's a lot of different levels of procrastination. If there's something you really don't want to do. The key to that is just because it's like as much as you hate it, if you're showing up every day and you're doing something, even like ten percent of it at least you're doing it and procrastination doesn't have to be OK i'm doing something or i'm not doing something that's there's no black and white in in the world so why are you treating your to do list Get back and white. But if you're thinking, OK, can I break this problem down into smaller steps? Or hey, can I reward myself for just even thinking about it? Because putting mental energy in something is a lot of work, and I think it's really important to reward yourself for those things. And let's say taxes like that recently came up. And I'm sure many people hate doing taxes and perhaps everyone leaves it to the last minute and becomes stressed and maybe they reach out to an accountant friend and like please help me and then they are obviously working like completely overtime. That when there's a deadline, I think trying to figure out, OK, let let's work my way backwards and even do the most minor things of like OK. What's one thing that I purchased like yesterday? And does it contribute to a tax benefit? No. Cool. And then maybe that becomes easier. So it's totally OK to procrastinate. But if it becomes a point where you're like, oh, I'm just going to do nothing in the sense where it's like, oh, I've eaten chocolate today, so I'm going to eat chocolate for the rest of my day because I ruined my diet. It's pretty, it's pretty harsh on yourself if you use those type of blanket statements or blanket mentalities of like, OK, I'm not being protective today at all. So I might as well just relax for the entire day and maybe that's OK, like maybe that's what you need. But I've read where you can think about your day in quarters and if your morning wasn't very productive, maybe your afternoon will be a little better or maybe your definition of productivity can be redefined. Because you're pretty hard on yourself, and that's a hard lesson to learn as well. You know, like, ohh, yeah, that's OK.

So now this is very interesting because I'm, I'm very interested in what you're saying about you know, it's most of it is about our perception. And even what you said about productivity is like what is productivity for me? So it seems like there are a lot of opportunities to get to know yourself in the case of burnout. The questions what's your value, what you believe? What you believe about you yourself? Of how you value yourself and what is the voice that in your head when you eat one chocolate and that like basically when all the all the you know the whole day and stuff like that. Would you be able to kind of I'm pretty sure you've done a lot of reflections along. Longer path because of these What are what? What do you find that really kind of change what you believe about yourself? And how you're moving forward now? Yeah, change is super hard and it's super scary. And it comes in a lot of stages. But the most important thing in growth is to work with other people is to not be isolated. And it's really hard to say that, especially when you're really scared to reach out because maybe you've struggled for so long and you've carried the torch. And for a long time, I thought I had to. I thought I had to do everything and. Be this person who was so amazing because I felt like that was my identity when people kept complimenting me. Like, wow, Carrie, you can do so much. How can you do it all? I was like, ohh, thank you, thank you. I can. But actually, like, it's OK to change your identity. Because this is your life. It's not someone else's 's life it's not other people's perceptions of you it's who do you believe you are as a person Because at the end of the day, you're you're spending the most time with yourself, so maybe you're with a friend one day and they're like, hey, I've really noticed we haven't hung out a lot. Like, are you OK? Fear turning point and. One of the things that really helps with the change is to recognize it. So maybe you're voicing a lot of your concerns and your friend says, hey, are you like this seems really abnormal of your behavior. Are you OK? And then that might make you think, wait, you're right, actually, something's wrong here. Or. Recently like I've been going through a lot of job hunting or or looking for more clients and kind of putting myself in that like ohh, not good enough. Like there's so many people who are laid off and they are so much better than me. But honestly. To minimize those anxious thoughts, I just have to do something like, OK, let's reach out. Let's see what people think. Like, maybe there are better people and that's OK, but maybe there are people who really value me, and that's awesome.

And, sometimes when you're sharing these things and other people are noticing, they can let you know gently, like, hey, maybe maybe you're going through this again, like, how can I help? And as you learn more about your own internal cycles, you kind of catch them quicker and. To get that, you may recognize that from your friends, but a professional may also help you with that. As you share your stories and they figure out these loops. But the baseline of all of this is that you actually have to be willing to change. And that's the most difficult part. And not too long ago did I think I needed to go through a similar job hunt cycle feeling successful. I needed to be like, OK, I need to have ten offers and fifty interviews to feel successful. But I realized at the time I didn't really know what I wanted, and now I really do. So maybe having like two interviews, this is my success and I'm still going through that. But I think it's really important to recognize what you were as a person may not be true to today. And that's totally OK, because if you want to be better, if you want to keep improving what you knew will no longer be true to what you want to happen in the future.

It seems there are a lot of self expectation that play roles in. How we see or perceive the situations that maybe cost us more pain or you know burned out. So I'm curious about this burnout among women. Is there any societal expectations and gender norm that prayer role is in bringing this high expectation I think that's from what I listen to you that seems like the key point that. We need to reflect back what is our expectation to ourselves. And how our expectation player roles in our experience in seeing what's happening outside. And it is an amazing question and you are spot on. There is a lot of research where women take on a lot of duties and there's also a lot of research saying that. A lot of minorities and marginalized groups do so much more, but are not recognized and. A lot of that does have to do with how we grew up and what we expect from people, what we expect of ourselves. Like I learned about hard work and ethic through my parents, and that comes from generations of hard work because our parents had to go through survival, like literal survival. So much immigration happened because they were not safe where they were. And so sometimes that comes back onto us. And because we're not living in a perfect world, but we live in a very privileged state where we can choose what we want to do, we have the flexibility. To be. Like prioritizing happiness or balance or flexibility, we're not just trying to survive. And so as we grow up living through those experiences, we feel like, ohh, maybe we have to feel like we have to survive. I've talked to a lot of people who are also burnt out and the common response I get was I can't take a break, my team needs me. Or I feel bad if I take time off because what if like everything explodes and I thought the exact same when I took my sabbatical I was like, ohh my gosh, are they going to be OK? I did so much and now I'm going to just drop everything and honestly? Maybe I should feel insulted, but they were totally OK and. That speaks. Measures to yourself because. How you left things off was better than when you came and that's totally OK like that's awesome. I think that that's really successful and when you wanna perform the best for your team, it's not when you're coming in at like thirty percent it's coming in at like one hundred percent And I totally deviated from the original question of of our societal expectations. But it's really important to recognize that this pressure, whether it's perceived or external, you have to figure out how does it align with you. Because you have to learn how to set up boundaries.

Let's say your manager is dealing with five other people who are struggling as well. How will that manager try to manage everyone's time and make sure the team is still moving along? And there was a time. When most of my team was burnt out in the way that every single week someone said I'm sick today or I need time off. And I noticed this pattern and it was really concerning to me and my manager wasn't actually aware of that and he's like, oh wait, you're right, this is happening and I'm also getting sick. So just raising it is also one thing that you can do. Because a lot of people may not recognize these societal expectations of hard work or hustle culture, and it's OK to raise these questions. Now you may be in a situation where it doesn't feel safe, and so that may require some external advice or talking to someone else that's not directly in your team. But I felt like, you know what? What can I lose here? I'm already suffering health wise, so I gotta just go for it all. And what I learned was actually people didn't realize that I was suffering. And I was like, I thought I was making it obvious when I was stating that I was facing these issues. But if there is no request or question or anything around your statements, people may just assume that they needed to just listen to you, that you may just need to rap. And so recognizing what your needs are and asking for help and saying hey. I've let you know the situation and what we need is a break. Or can I take a break? And that goes so much farther than just seeing all of these statements and situations and raising your concerns and voicing these issues is does not come naturally to us. We grow up. Kind of avoiding conflict. We think that's actually a really bad word. That. I think. Maybe we're learning. We're supposed to think that's bad because once you actually bring something up, people have to change. Companies have to change, and that's scary. And that's OK. Like it's it's scary. But that's OK. You can be scared, but you can also want to change. You can be happy and sad and angry. You can feel all the things at the same time. And that's totally normal. That's also something we don't grow up learning. And once you recognize those things as, as people say, once you self actualize, that's when life really just opens up and you're like ohh forget it like this. This this thing in your brain tells you like everything's 's going to be OK nothing is perfect but that is also OK your emotions may be everywhere but that is also OK

I really like that you like what you're saying and your perspectives. And I think you know we're fortunate to be living in a time where we can talk about these things. We can ask for breaks. If nothing else. The pandemic helped us do that right. To say to my manager I need to take a break. Um, or to even just have the conversation with somebody? But what can what can be done in the workplace? What can managers do? What can companies do to help make people feel more safe talking about these things or asking for time off or, you know, really getting ahead, like preventing any option of burnout, right? What are some things that you've seen maybe? Or do you think you would like, like to see? Happen. That's a great question. I would definitely lean on your expertise here, but some of the things that I've noticed is just trying to prevent burnout. So one of the companies that my partner works for, Epic Games, they're really good at minimizing that crunch time. That is really normal for game studios. So typically when you're trying to release, obviously you may have to put in a few more hours, but. There will be some downtime and that's when you can, kind of. Called that like give your employees a break. They worked really hard during this time and you probably don't need them when things are a bit more calm. So actually just preemptively give it to them. And as an employee, for me, I used to hoard all my vacation days so I could have long breaks. But actually it's OK to take one or two days of doing nothing, like maybe you need to do chores or maybe you don't want to watch TV. Like that's OK. If that's your way of taking a break, then do it. It doesn't have to be this big vacation. It can be as little as writing in a journal or reconnecting with a friend that you can only see. During the day when you're usually working. So one of the ways is preventing and giving more time off. That being said, if you're at the height of burnout and stress, I think being proactive as a manager and recognizing, oh, is this normal of my employee or? , maybe I have recognized Ohh, my gosh, they are doing a lot. So maybe they want to be recognized. And I know my manager had tried different methods to figure out what was really going wrong. And for some people they just want to be recognized and maybe that's just giving a small employee recognition or an award. Which which isn't actually small because in the end it's like speaks measures to their efforts or giving them what they actually want, which is when they ask for time off, like figuring out how do you slot that in into everyone's busy schedules.

I've talked to a lot of really empathetic leaders and they kind of use the analogy that we're not brain surgeons, we're not in the ER. We don't have lives at stakes here. So why are we treating it like we are? And I've learned from a lot of tech talks that even if you're in those situations, there are ways to mitigate the stress. And that's kind of. Prioritizing that level of work because not everything is immediate or urgent, but we treat it like it is, and so when you're being transparent about what's happening. And this is both as an employee and a manager and helping. Figure out, OK, what needs to be done first, what can be put on the wayside. Then you can all work collaboratively together to figure out how do you manage the workload. And also sometimes the perception of certain stakeholders when they have input makes it feel like what they're saying goes to higher priority. I think it's also giving them the recognition or letting them know that all right? Is it? Is this actually more important than the second initiative which you mentioned earlier? I think transparency and awareness will help as well, and this is not a very easy, straightforward topic, so I apologize at my. Strategies may mitigate that, but I'm hoping with. The. Values of speaking out and being confident and being aware and. Trying to just work collaboratively together will spark something with other organizations or people, and it just takes one like one Slack message, one like poke on the back, and just two Ignite change so. Hopefully you're in a situation where you can do that.

Don't apologize. You're offering some really good insight and some ideas.

You know, as you're talking, I'm thinking of things I've seen. I've seen my spouse has a company policy at his company that that everybody's mandatory lunch break. There's a mandatory twelve to one PM, no meetings, everybody's off. Don't try to contact anybody. I think that's pretty good. That gives everybody a nice break in the day. Don't do what you want with it or Christine. We worked at the same company that had a mindfulness movement. Right.

So there were actually people taking time out of the day.

Sometimes as little as fifteen minutes to go meditate. Those little things and creating the space for that really helps to protect somebody’s mental health and avoid burnout.

It seems there are two things that we all can do as leaders and people who are in the team as well. Is more a little things, There's little things that leaders can help and little things that we can do, for example taking a break. But also a bigger in the work that we all need to do which is our self expectation and ability to. Express what we need and create boundary and I think that's something. There's no school for that. You know you go to your degree, but there's nobody teaching you about expressing your need and setting boundary. And I think I hope by just having this podcast we can empower women to speak up about their experience with burnout and advocate their for their needs in the workplace. 

Ready to move to lightning round questions. Yes, we're shaking our heads. Yes, let's go. OK, so these are four questions. You get one to three word answers. They go pretty quick, so let's start.

So Carrie, where do you go for your inspiration? Stories traveling in everywhere.

What is one habit you adopted that has greatly improved your career? Building resiliency, consistency, and self-awareness. awareness.

What is the one thing that keeps you moving forward each day? Gratefulness and positivity.

And what is the most valuable piece of advice you ever received? Gift giving requires no expectations. Be kind and generous simply because.

Awesome. Anything else, Christine, you'd like to ask a question or you wanna share today? Yeah, I we just like to thank you Carrie, for speaking up, for being vulnerable, for being open, for being the way you are openly and for being an advocate for preventing burnout and sharing your stories. Not just in this podcast I know, but also out there and being a mentor to younger generations. Women who works and need some support as well. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me and the space and platform. I'm really happy to share my experience and it was honestly really scary. I'm like, ohh my sharing too much. But then I realized, wait, I have nothing to apologize for. And if people are shocked or ashamed for me, you know, that's OK. We can talk a bit more if you're curious. Or hey, that's maybe we're not the right fit, that's OK. But hopefully this helps someone and honestly, both of your works are amazing and they really impactful. So I'm just really happy to be here, so thank you.

Thank you. Very welcome to find Carrie. We'll have all of her information in our show notes. And I'm going to be a follower from here on out. So thanks, Carrie.