But let’s look at what’s really happening here when a tiny human is working their way through this universal process:

Stage 0: I’m very uncomfortable and unhappy. I don’t know why. Everybody needs to know and Somebody needs to fix this.

Stage 1: I’m very uncomfortable and unhappy. I think it might be related to this soggy feeling. It doesn’t matter how it happened. Somebody needs to fix it.

Stage 2: I’m very uncomfortable. It is definitely this soggy feeling and I felt it happen. I know if I yell, somebody will fix it.

Stage 3: Oh no, this soggy feeling is starting. How do I make it stop!? Can I? Help!

Stage 4: The soggy feeling is about to start. I think I can keep it from happening. Victory!

Trust me, this progression is very relevant to Grownups, too. We can use it as a way to step back and see what’s really going on when we’re correcting behaviors or developing new skills for ourselves, as well as facilitating these kinds of transitions in other people. Let’s take a look at both.

For Our Own Growth

When I apply this concept in my everyday life, I’m thinking in terms of horizons of awareness. Because changing behaviors is never a step function, and seeing a slowly evolving shift in real time requires a different perspective. I’ll share a very recent example:

My husband and I are both strong-willed, smart, and accomplished people. We’ve been together for ages (no really, almost 45 years!) and sometimes I might be guilty of not wanting to listen to his advice. Maybe more often than just ‘sometimes’.

Recently I’ve started looking for ways that I can continue growing in our relationship. The last time he mentioned this ‘resistance’ that I have to his advice, I decided to sit with it and think about it. Is he right? Am I missing out on some good advice, just because it bugs me if he has a better idea sometimes? I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that when he IS right, he is delighted to point it out. I digress. Back to the point. What if there’s some value here?

So the other day when he offered up some advice, as per usual, I quickly said “nah, I don’t think that will work”, and moved on. But then I heard those words echo back to me like a replay. And I stopped and asked myself why that was my first response. And then I asked myself if maybe what he suggested would work. And then I decided to try his suggestion. And it actually worked. Damn it. (Not really).

The next day I decided to ‘fess up, and let him know that I tried his idea. I thanked him for the input, thinking it would make him feel good that I actually listened to him. Instead, he wanted to poke on the fact that I initially dismissed it “like you always do”, he said. Ugh. My first thought was “why even bother”. But then I thought of the horizons of awareness. OK, yes, I didn’t prevent that ‘soggy feeling’ from happening immediately. I didn’t consider his advice up front without any pushback. However, I did recognize it after the fact. That’s progress! I moved out of Stage 0!

He knows I love this potty training analogy and I use it all the time in both personal and client settings, so when I said to him “Wait a minute. Give me some credit. I’m making progress in my potty training!”, he immediately started laughing, and the tension in the room was gone. I didn’t have to explain any further. He knew that I meant my horizon of awareness had shifted. I had made progress.

It still annoyed him because it was after the fact, but even while being annoyed, he was able to acknowledge that if he’s patient with me, I might be able to move that horizon of awareness over time. It was a surprisingly calm and positive discussion. He felt heard. And being heard, even after the fact, is better than not being heard at all.

Working with the Growth of Others

I worked with a woman many years ago who was incredibly smart and talented. She was strong technically and an amazing, caring leader. She was also pretty vocal about her ambition, and her desire to get to the next level. In fact, she talked about it all the time.

This was such a well known behavior that it was discussed at the executive levels when we gathered to decide on promotions, growth assignments, etc. It frustrated me that the executive she worked for wasn’t actually giving her any feedback about it, just talking about it as a roadblock to her growth, and hoping she would figure it out.

So when we had a reorganization and she came to work for me, I had already heard about her. I highly respected her as a leader and I was glad to have her on my team. I also wanted to let her know that this behavior was something she should probably consider working on. I prepared well for the discussion, so I could be both fact-based and also empathetic. It was hard for her to hear, but she took it well and committed to working on it.

What didn’t happen was a re-calibration on my part to start looking for progress. I didn’t realize I had missed that opportunity until about 3 or 4 weeks later, when I was talking with another exec and her name came up. He immediately said “She’s great! Well, except for talking about getting promoted all the time”, and I was nodding right along with him. I think I even started to say “Yeah, she really needs to wor-”, and then stopped myself. Wait a minute. She hadn’t been doing that as much, but I wasn’t actively watching to see that the behavior was tapering off. So there I was, ready to jump on the old status when it wasn’t true anymore. I felt so bad. I was the one who gave her the feedback, for goodness sake. If anybody should have been positioned to watch for improvement it should have been me.

As observers of other peoples’ behaviors, like in this example, and even my husband’s perspective in the first example, if we aren’t actively watching for progress, when there’s a failure in those painful middle stages, it can feel like there isn’t any progress at all.

So what can we do about this?

Potty Training → Horizon Awareness

Let’s look at the Stages again, but in the grownup context of horizon awareness:

Stage 0: oblivious

Stage 1 & 2: awareness is after the fact, starting well after the occurrence but getting closer to the occurrence over time

Stage 3: awareness is during the occurrence, with the option to interrupt the pattern

Stage 4: awareness is before the occurrence, with the option to prevent it entirely

You may be wondering why I have a combo Stage 1 & 2, and that’s fair. Why complicate the concept, right? In using this viewpoint for myself, I have found it helpful to have a “graduation” of sorts in those stages. Stage 0 to Stage 1 is pretty obvious. You used to not be aware at all, and now you’re aware of something. But being aware is still a far cry from knowing what to do about it. That’s the evolution of Stages 1 and 2.

At the start of Stage 1, when the awareness is super new, it rarely comes with any tools or solutions for dealing with it. OK, great, I see it now, but what do I do about it? And the time lag between event and awareness, is likely a bit long as well, which means more time for consequences. That can be really frustrating.

I don’t have a mathematical equation for determining what constitutes Stage 1 versus Stage 2. I just know that it has been quite useful for my own sanity to give myself credit for two things: (1) the awareness coming sooner and sooner, and (2) for working through thought processes and decision-making that help me build tools or solutions that will eventually get me to Stage 3. Calling all of that a single stage was just too sad, so it helps me to have a mini-graduation, somewhere along that line.

Now once you get to Stage 3, you can celebrate, right? Well, sort of, but a different set of problems shows up. Because there is nothing more conflicting than opening your mouth and starting a sentence, that you then realize you shouldn’t finish. A part of you that is comfortable with the pattern says keep going! It’ll be too embarrassing to interrupt yourself and explain yourself and bare your soul. And the part of you that really wants to become a better person has to decide how bad you want to become a better person.

Our Job, When it Comes to Horizon Awareness

We’ve got to stop looking for instant correction or instant perfection in ourselves. No matter how committed you are to changing, that’s just not realistic. It takes children years to go from Stage 0 to Stage 4, where everytime the situation arises, they make the choice to prevent the occurrence, and really don’t even think about it anymore.

Even for the kids that potty train fast and don’t have any setbacks, or those people who can start a new habit pretty quickly and not struggle: Progress still takes time. A steady slope in the right direction takes time. It is never a step function straight to Stage 4.

And for the rest of us, well, there’s a reason people joke about “two steps forward and three steps back”. Sometimes we move to Stage 3 and then regress back to Stage 2. As long as you don’t give up, you are still making progress. It’s just the hard kind of progress that’s impossible to see while you’re in the middle of it. This is where patience and compassion come into play. For yourself and for others. Without it, I think we would all be tempted to give up.

With my husband and listening to his advice, I’m still at Stage 1. I’m not even going to try to pretend I’m at a Stage 2 yet. But I am giving myself credit: I have moved from completely unaware that I was doing it, to denying I was doing it, to realizing I did it after the fact and doing nothing, to realizing it after the fact and actually considering his advice. It still looks to him like I’m ignoring his input, which is why it was important for me to circle back and let him know. I wanted him to see the slight progress that I saw and ask for his patience.

Ready to Try it Yourself?

Is there someone in your life that is currently frustrating the daylights out of you because they are supposedly working on an improvement, but their pace of progress is ridiculously slow? Or maybe you don’t see any progress at all so you’re assuming they aren’t even trying? Consider this horizon awareness concept and see if you can spot a move from Stage 0 to Stage 1. Depending on the relationship and the issue, it might even be helpful to let them know that you see the progress. They might be feeling too stuck in their own ‘soggyness’, and a little encouragement from you could be exactly what they need to keep from giving up.

And what about you? Are you frustrated because you can’t seem to stop a bad habit or get any traction on a new one? Take a moment to figure out what you’re trying to change and identify your current Stage (no shame in starting at Stage 0!). Now - really watch to see glimpses of a Stage 1 after-the-fact realization. I know for me, even when I hit Stage 3 and sometimes even Stage 4 of a behavior I’ve so-called mastered, there are still times when I don’t make the pattern-breaking choice. Maybe I’m tired, in a bad mood, or just plain ornery. That’s also called being human. Even that kind of behavior is all part of the process. Give yourself the time and the grace to keep trying.

Tell me in the comments: What change are you looking for in yourself or someone else and what Stage are you in that suddenly feels a little bit better after reading this?

Love and Light,

Pat ❤️ ✨

Crossroads Guide | Former Technology Executive

Human Design Coach | Compassion Key Facilitator

Have you ever heard that phrase? Well, I’ve got news for you. Even without bullets in the proverbial Genetic gun, the Environment can still clonk you upside the head with that empty gun. I’m proof of that.

My ZERO Risk Factors

I am probably in the lowest of all genetic risk categories for breast cancer:

No family history

No BRCA genes (and in fact they checked 70 other genes for rare mutations - all clear).

So that’s the genetic piece.

Now for the other typical risk factors they always ask about:

Never been overweight,

Had my one baby when I was older than 20 but younger than 30,

Breast fed her for 2 years.

Never smoked and don’t drink much alcohol

And I have always eaten pretty healthy. My mom didn’t let us eat sugary cereals or drink sodas growing up. (I loved the rare occasion when I was at my cousin’s house for breakfast, because my Aunt bought Fruity Pebbles and Captain Crunch!).

I started eating more organic 15+ years ago, and switched to mostly gluten free and dairy free 10+ years ago to manage auto immune inflammation due to Hashimotos.

Regarding monthly self exams, well, I will admit that I always felt a bit weird about “feeling myself up” once a month, so I was not doing my monthly checks. Instead I relied on my yearly mammograms, especially since I had no risk factors. I just sailed along with a false sense of “not me!” when it came to cancer.

AND YET -- HERE WE ARE.

Check ‘Em! (And everything else. Really.)

Fortunately, I AM very good about keeping up with my yearly physicals and mammograms. Early in my career I had a peer (one of my favorite peer 2nd-line managers I mentioned in a prior post) who ignored some symptoms and issues because she was so focused on her job.

She ended up being diagnosed with colon cancer, which was (and still is) one of the most survivable when found early. But hers was too far advanced for them to save her. In one of my last conversations with her, she told me to always keep up with those yearly appointments. That nothing is more important and she so regrets that she didn’t. She was hoping to live long enough to at least see the birth of her first grand child, and that wish came true. But the passed away the following year.

Her words stuck with me, and so I always kept up with my annual appointments. Which meant we caught it early.

That didn’t make it any easier though. Especially in those first few days and weeks when I didn’t know what I was dealing with and what the treatments would entail.

When I first noticed the little lump, I didn’t think much of it. I thought it was a cyst we had checked out previously. But the more I thought about it, the more I decided not to wait. Just go ahead and make sure.

When I asked my doc to move up my mammogram, she sent me to a new imaging place, where they actually have a doctor look at your scans while you are still there, in case they need to do any more. And they did.

First they did the normal scans and sent me out to the waiting room to wait for the doctor’s review. Then they called me back into the mammogram room to repeat one of the scans. Back to the waiting room. Then they called me to the ultrasound room. Then the doctor sat down and explained what she saw, and said she wanted to do a biopsy.

She didn’t use the ‘c’ word, and the blessed interwebs informed me that 75-80% of breast biopsies are benign. So I managed to not be too nervous while waiting to get that scheduled and get the results.

But the day came when I got the call. I am so grateful that my husband happened to be home. We were having lunch and watching a show when I motioned for him to mute the TV so I could take the call. He couldn’t hear the other end when she said they found a malignancy, but he watched my face, and when I said “well, shit”, he was there. I didn’t have to call him at work or wait until he got home, and agonize over how to tell him. He was already there. Holding me. And ready to do whatever he could to help.

Looking Good

I’m now 18 months down the road. We started with a lumpectomy, 4 weeks of radiation, and then endocrine therapy (which basically keeps my estrogen down in case there are any stragglers, since my kind of cancer loves estrogen). I was able to get into a trial for the endocrine therapy which has much milder side effects than the standard care. I’ve been on it for over a year now and it hasn’t been too bad at all. Which is really great because I need to be on it for a total of 5-7 years to achieve the best long-term survival rates.

I also opt’ed to have a hysterectomy about six months ago. This wasn’t a requirement. I did have a problematic fibroid that needed to be removed, but I decided I didn’t want to be worrying about uterine, ovarian, or cervical cancer down the road.

Because even though I didn’t have any of the genetic risk factors.....yeah, well, we know how that played out with the breast cancer, don’t we. And those other cancers are quiet until they’re much farther along. So for peace of mind, I decided to yeet the ute, and all the rest of the baby factory.

Given everything I’ve done over the last 18 months, I have a very excellent chance of not having to deal with this ever again. Something will eventually kill me, but it probably won’t be this.

But I want all of you who think you are somehow immune, exempt, or bullet proof, to take a moment and rethink. At the very least, please prioritize your monthly self-exams. Get those mammograms on time. And Pap smears. And guys, start testing your PSA so you’ve got a baseline to track against, because the velocity of change is actually more important than the actual number. If your score jumps up, but is still “normal”, that’s a red flag you won’t see if you aren’t tracking. And everybody get your colonoscopies when it’s time!

The S-Factor

Let’s circle back to the risk factor discussion, and the one thing that I COULDN’T claim when I was making my low risk list above. It is the thing that most likely contributed to this. Because only 5-10% of cancers are caused by inherited mutated genes. The rest are related to all the other factors in the Environment, including this biggie: STRESS.

I already suspected that my work stress contributed to my autoimmune condition. Well - it likely contributed to the cancer as well. From some of what I have read, given the size and growth rate of my tumor, it probably got its start 10 years prior, which is right around the same time as my autoimmune diagnosis.

And the wild part is that 10 years ago I was in a job that I was loving! I was building a new team, putting in place new processes and metrics. And having a blast. But stress is stress, even if it’s stress that you’re enjoying.

I was loving the work so much that’s all I was doing. I wasn’t taking care of myself. And I think the piece that really hurt me was this cool new job had me away from home three nights a week, so I didn’t have my husband to gently remind me to get off the computer and eat some dinner or come to bed. Which meant that I regularly lost track of time in my hotel and kept working until well after midnight. I wasn’t making sure I was sleeping, I wasn’t getting any exercise, I wasn’t eating healthy.

When I got the autoimmune diagnosis, that was a huge wake-up call. I immediately started making changes to how I managed my calendar, making the time to exercise, making healthier food choices. Even changing the way I traveled. And I was able to reduce my inflammation and medication, while still continuing to contribute at a high level. In fact, a year later I got an executive promotion!

But I guess for me the damage was already done. The seed was planted. Literally. Some tiny little seed that slowly grew until I noticed a lump and moved up that mammogram.

Not a Fluffy Ad-on

Even though I was oblivious to that seed growing, I saw the benefit of managing my own work stress in the last 10 years of my career. Benefits to my productivity as well as my health. So when I stepped out of corporate to focus on coaching, I was already including stress management in my coaching and mentoring. I created my own assessment to determine satisfaction levels across four domains of our life, and get under burnout symptoms to figure out root causes. I created a program to use that assessment to build out recovery plans and go-forward plans to address those root causes. It was already clearly a need in my mind.

Since my cancer diagnosis, I’m even more convinced that stress management is the key. Managing your calendar, getting your sleep and exercise, choosing healthy foods. These are not just optional add-ons to my leadership and career coaching. I don’t only ask about someone’s physical and mental health if I think they might be open to discussing it. Those questions are built into my THRIVE Assessment. This is required as a fully integrated approach to helping people figure out how to not just survive but thrive across all dimensions of their life.

While I was still in the middle of my treatments, I had a client tell me that she hadn’t been taking her vacation days and had been delaying medical appointments because of her very busy, very stressful job. I immediately interrupted her. I hadn’t told anyone outside of family yet about my diagnosis and treatments. But I broke that silence to tell her what was going on, and strongly counseled her to schedule those exams and take some time off! (Which she did!)

According to one of the books I read on this topic (Breasts: The Owner’s Manual, by Dr. Kristi Funk), it is never too late to start addressing some of those environmental factors, including stress. If you start now, you can significantly reduce your risk of getting clonked like I did. And if it does happen, you will be much healthier heading into treatments, which I think made a huge difference in my recovery.

What about You?

If you made it this far into my story, I want to ask you to do something for me today. Actually NOT for me or for my coaching business, but for YOU, and for the people who sit on the couch next to you watching TV at night.Take a completely honest look at these three things:

• Are you taking time off so you can give your body and brain a break from your work stress? Or are you banking the days, waiting for that fictitious time window when things will “calm down” at work?

• Are you keeping up with your medical appointments, annual physicals, etc? Or are you putting them off “just until this project is over”?

• And what about that job stress? Are you eating right and putting yourself to bed on time? Or does your calendar hold you in an iron fist that you can’t escape?

I’ve lived both pieces: the work stress (even happy stress) and the health crisis. Because of that, I refuse to leave health out of career conversations anymore. It belongs at the center. I do this work because I want folks to thrive in their lives, not just white knuckle through each day.

If you are currently staring at a calendar that just won’t quit and feeling the exhaustion in your bones, and if you honestly have no idea how to change it, let’s chat. You don’t have to figure it out by yourself.

But more than anything else? Go schedule that vacation and those appointments!

And let me know in the comments one thing you’ll try to do in the next week to take better care of yourself.

Love and Light,

Pat ❤️ ✨

Crossroads Guide | Former Technology Executive

Human Design Coach | Compassion Key Facilitator

Unless you’re retired or about to retire, there’s a good chance you’ll have to evaluate a job offer and decide if you should say yes. And of course you should make your pros and cons lists, and ensure you ask about salary, and travel expectations, and work hours, and whether or not it is remote or in the office, and a dozen others.

But I’ve got one more question you should ask yourself.

I’ve used this numerous times when considering a job change, and it comes up all the time in my career coaching discussions. For folks I’ve been working with for years, we’ve had this conversation more than once! It even came up in a discussion at a pool part this weekend, so clearly it continues to be very relevant.

Note: Even if you aren’t currently looking to make a career move at this moment, tuck this in your back pocket, so you can use it the next time you are. And bonus -- I have even used this with folks after they make a big change, and also with folks who’ve been in a role for awhile. I’ll touch on both of those scenarios as well in a bit, so there’s really something here for everybody!

Concept

Here’s the idea: Each of us, regardless what stage we’re at in our career, has a collection of knowledge. It might be book knowledge, maybe a degree or a certification, and we have experiences. If you’re new in your career you may only have a few. If you are later in your career, you may have more than you would like to admit to! And this collection is something you have with you all the time. Like a tool box with all the things you’ve learned along the way, that you are constantly drawing from as you do your job.

As you consider this next opportunity, ask yourself this question:

What will I Bring and what will I Get?

What is in your toolbox right now? If you take this job, that’s how you will earn your keep while you learn the ropes. And what will you get? What will you take away with you in that tool box when you leave the job?

Since I’m an engineer, I like to turn it into a simple mathematical equation.

» The Bring / Get Ratio.

The reason this is such a powerful question to ask when considering a new job is because Bringing 80% and Getting 20% is a very different situation from Bringing 20% and Getting 80%.

Knowing which is which can mean the difference between a successful career step and a disaster.

The 80/20

If you are Bringing 80%, that means you already know most of the job. So that other 20% that you’ll be learning and adding to your tool box should be something really critical that you need, in order to position yourself for something else further down the line.

This is pretty straightforward, and not high risk, aside from the risk of not fully taking advantage of all the experience you are Bringing, to negotiate for anything you might need to ensure you land that other 20%.

In some cases they want you so bad for your 80%, that you can not only get that new 20%, but you can negotiate the next move up front or some other perks you’ve been wanting!

The 20/80

If you are Bringing only 20%, the 80% you’ll be learning is a huge growth opportunity. But it also has the potential to be really dangerous, and you shouldn’t go into it without ensuring that the right things will be in place to support your success. There are specifically three things that I recommend people look for.

I’m going to use two 20/80 examples from my own career to illustrate this concept.

Example 1 (aka I got lucky)

When I was early in my management career, I made a big jump from being a first level manager in a hardware organization to being a second level manager in a software organization. I didn’t know any of the people. I didn’t know the difference between managing a team of 15 and a team of 120. Heck, I didn’t know what it meant to manage other managers. I had only managed individual contributors before. Oh, and I didn’t know the products, and I didn’t know their development process. Other than that, what could go wrong? 🤷🏻‍♀️

This was a 20/80 Bring/Get for sure, but I hadn’t yet developed that way of looking at things, so I didn’t know it at the time. I just knew that I was super excited to go learn all the new things. I also knew that I had a lot of respect for the Director of the organization who would be my boss, and I believed she would fully support me in making this transition. I even had a discussion with her prior to accepting the offer and said “I’m a hardware engineer. Are you sure you want me to come lead a software organization.” And her answer was “Once you’re over here, you’ll be one of us.” Cool.

It was after this role, looking back, that I realized that this was a 20/80, and I also realized there were three key factors that made this 20/80 an amazing growth opportunity for me, and not a flaming failure.

Success Factors

Obviously there are more than just 3 success factors when heading into a new job. But these are the ones that I believe are critical, especially for a 20/80 Bring/Get.

(1) The Boss Has Your Back

Not only did she have confidence in me, but she was also crystal clear where she wanted me to focus, and how she was going to measure me in those first 6-12 months. I had a ton to learn, but I also knew which piece she needed me to learn first so I could have an impact. And that allowed me to take my time learning the other pieces. (This one I knew I had going in. I had no idea until after the fact how fortunate I was to have the next two.)

(2) My Team Could Mind The Store

I had a team working for me that was experienced enough that I could depend on them to do their jobs and do them well. They didn’t need me to provide detailed direction or jump into intervention mode, except for the one area that my boss said she wanted me to really dig into and show some improvements.

Not that I ignored them and their day-to-day work. I spent a large chunk of time ensuring I was learning about their work. But if they had needed a lot of guidance and decision-making from me while I was still on that learning curve, the risk of a mis-step would have been much, much higher.

(3) My Peers Were Also On My Team

This was one of my favorite peer teams of my entire career. There were several other second-line managers and several deep technical experts, and these folks put those words my boss spoke -- “you’re one of us” -- into action. They each took turns teaching me how they did budgeting, how they managed the schedules, how the personnel cycles worked.

And in those personnel discussions, they didn’t take advantage of me being the newbie. They willing volunteered if one of my people was more ready than theirs for one of the limited promotion slots or salary increases for the whole org. (And sadly, I rarely saw that level of cross-team collaboration the rest of my career).

Looking back at that first big transition made me realize how lucky I had been, but once I knew those three success factors, I was able to apply them going forward.

Example 2 (aka Leveling the Playing Field)

A good number of years later, after changing companies, getting promoted to Director, and getting seriously burned out, I was considering a new opportunity. I needed a big change, so I was exploring leaving product development and taking a job in operations.

By this time in my career, I was well aware of the dangers of a Bring 20 / Get 80, and I was at a company that did not give you credit for how fast you learned in a growth assignment. You were compared to your peers. Period. And going into operations as an executive, competing against other operations executives who had decades of operations experience would be foolish.

But I really needed and wanted that kind of change. So I voluntarily dropped a level. Yup, I gave up that hard-earned Director promotion. I was burned out and needed a change and I wanted to be able to successfully ‘compete’ in the new org, without feeling like I had to watch my back. I knew that was better done at a lower, non-exec level, where my decades of leadership experience from product development would shine, while I learned the world of operations.

I also had a great boss (a retired admiral and one of my favorite bosses of all time!), along with a whole circle of folks who welcomed me into the operations world and helped me get established.

By recognizing the 20/80-nature of the new job, and evaluating the best way to support that 80% learning curve, I was able to make that transition and learn from a fabulous leader, without risking an unfair comparison against much more experienced operations execs.

Other Ways To Use It

Today as a coach, I use this to help folks decide on job offers, but it is also very helpful for other scenarios.

I recently worked with a woman who had already made the leap into a very different role. It probably wasn’t a 20/80, but it was at least a 40/60 and maybe a 30/70. I knew she was likely experiencing a bit of trepidation and maybe even overwhelm, so, as part of our work together, I mapped out an actual inventory of the skills she was Bringing into that Role and the skills she could expect to Get while she was there.

This inventory, written down on the screen in front of her had a double-impact: it grounded her in a solid confidence that she was well-prepared and had plenty to offer to this new organization up front while she was learning, and it gave her a strategic checklist of things to intentionally explore so that she takes full advantage of the growth potential of this assignment.

And I’m about to use this with someone who has been in her role for quite some time and is probably on the cusp of planning her next move. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect when I ask her to evaluate the Bring/Get of her current job she would be 95/5. Or maybe even 100/0.

Now I’m not saying you should immediately bolt when there’s nothing left to learn. Sometimes that’s a lovely place to be for a time. But it should be a choice, made from knowing that’s where you are. As opposed to a default from being a bit blind to it and plugging along on auto-pilot.

Let’s Wrap It Up

Next time you’re trying to figure out if a job offer is the right next step for you, or if you’re trying to decide between two different opportunities, and need to figure out which one is “better” -- sure, go ahead and make your pros / cons lists. Check the salary, the benefits, etc.

But before you decide, check out the Bring vs Get ratio. Make sure you have a clear view of the situation you’re going into, whether or not you’re Bringing enough to contribute during the early days while you’re learning. And if it’s a big growth curve, look carefully for the three success factors: a boss who has your back, a team that can mind the store, and peers who are on your team.

And even if you’re not actively considering a new job offer, testing the Bring/Get of your current role could be very revealing.

Are you drowning in a 20/80 split and realize you don’t have the boss, team, or peers to support you? Can you take action to effectively address any of those? Can you put in place other support to compensate for that?

On the flip side, if you’ve been in your role for a while and realize that all of the Getting is sitting firmly inside your toolbox and you’re operating at a stagnant 100%, it might be time to move on.

I’m curious - what does your current role look like right now? Are you running an 80/20, a 20/80, or something in between? Let me know in the comments below!

Love and Light,

Pat ❤️ ✨

Crossroads Guide | Former Technology Executive

Human Design Coach | Compassion Key Facilitator

During the conversation, this person said to me “no offense but...”

(stand by for offense, right?)

“...maybe women just weren’t designed for these kinds of corporate jobs.”

And friends, I will tell you I am so proud of myself. While internally I was feeling some very unprofessional feelings, externally I remained open to a dialogue. And we did end up having a good discussion.

Obviously, I do NOT agree with that sentiment, but it got me thinking about something that I had already started noodling on. I recently saw a commercial on television showing a woman connecting some kind of hose between a big truck cab and the trailer it was pulling. It appeared she had to approach it from a different angle to get extra leverage in order to manipulate the connection. And I realized she is having to adjust to a system that was built with assumptions about who would be performing that task. Assumptions that she doesn’t match.

Which got me thinking in general about how everything in our life is that way. What if humans were all 50% larger? Our homes, cars, appliances, even recreational equipment would reflect that, right?

Everything in our life was initially designed around assumptions about who’s doing the thing or using the thing. What if that changes?

So let’s take this back to the workplace. Way back before there were ever any office or factory jobs, work vs home wasn’t even a thing. It was just life. Completely integrated: running the family farm or the ranch or the orchard, along with the tasks of cooking and childrearing and laundry and such were all just integrated 24/7. And from my deep ‘research’ (as a young girl reading Little House on the Prairie), the only real differences among the seven days of the week was getting a bath on Saturday, so they could go to church on Sunday. Other than that, all days looked the same.

Now let’s jump slightly forward to the emergence of offices and factories.

In most cases, the man of the home went to those locations to perform a given set of tasks for a set period of time and then went back home. That work environment was designed with the expectation that the worker would focus solely on those work tasks for that duration. And it was true! The rest of the ‘work’ that this man had left behind at home, was handled by the folks back home.

Jump to today, and the work environment expectations are the same, but the workers aren’t.

So I’d like to flip the statement.

Instead of “maybe women weren’t designed for today’s corporate life”, how about:

Today’s corporate environment wasn’t originally designed with today’s workers in mind.

And yes, I dropped the gender reference because, while women do tend to have more on their plate outside of work than men, that’s not a universal truth, and, really -- the current structure isn’t serving anyone well, including men who can’t leave work for a sick kid without it drawing attention. Or who retire and don’t know what to do with themselves outside of that job.

OK, so what do we do with this? Two things.

First, we need to develop new ways of dealing with work that don’t require you to sell your soul, or sacrifice your health and your relationships, in order to have a successful and fulfilling career. This is something I’ve got a lot of experience with, unfortunately the hard way. I burned out twice in my career, and the healing and recovery process was painful enough that I’ve made it something of a personal mission to help others avoid it.

Second, we need to find ways to model and encourage changes in these work environments that allow more people to contribute in different ways, while acknowledging that each person is more than just their job assignment.

As I pull together more of my thoughts to share with you, I’d love to hear from y’all as well:

Are you seeing things shift in your world? Are you able to influence any shifts yourself, and if so, how? And most importantly, are you taking care of yourself in the middle of the grind?

Love and Light,

Pat ❤️ ✨

Crossroads Midwife | Former Technology Executive

Human Design Coach | Compassion Key Facilitator

But that didn’t faze me. In junior high a bunch of the girls were going out for the basketball team. I said sure! Again, zero clues regarding how to play basketball. In the tryout the coach asked me to shoot a layup. A what-up? I watched another girl do it. And my feeble attempt was to just move to a position close to the hoop and standing there with both feet on the ground bankshot it off the board. <Cringe> I had no idea how lame I was. But that was fine. I was a straight A student and I did eventually go to State! In marching band. And typing.

All that to say, I’m not a cool kid. Never have been. And I’m not starting my Substack because all the cool kids are. (Although, if you’re a cool kid and want to be my friend, that would be such a relief!) I’m starting my Substack because I keep having important things I want to say. More and more the older I get. My ‘not cool but willing to work’ energy stayed with me through a crazy career, climbing the exec ladder at multiple companies, learning tons of lessons and tools. And I have so much I learned that I want to share.

For the last couple of years I’ve been trying to say them on LinkedIn. But everything I wrote was way too long for their 3,000 character limit. So I would use AI to help scrub it down. I felt like it lost some of the message, and I also lost my voice in the process. My most recent piece was better, but it started out at nearly 7,000 characters. That’s not a little bit of surgery. That’s an amputation.

So I’m coming here to Substack because I believe I have wisdom and substance to share. Actually, I don’t just ‘believe’ that. It is hardwired in my Human Design. I’m here to tell stories and share logical solutions with the collective. With my people.

So here I am.

Stay tuned for the “unfiltered original” versions of some of those LinkedIn posts, as well as some new ideas I’m working on.

Love and Light,

Pat ❤️ ✨

Crossroads Midwife | Former Technology Executive

Human Design Coach | Compassion Key Facilitator