Climbing the corporate ladder: Watch your step

0:00Good day, welcome to the Midday Report on the America Out Loud News Talk Radio Network. The counter momentum of spin. I am your host, Dr. Franco Museo. To our friends listening in the United States and around the world, I say this each time, there is no lack of hard news items to keep our adrenaline going. Our aim, though, is to dissect out the nuances and underlying causes and foundations of the events with which we come into contact continuously. So today's show, this is another pivot. I like to pivot a lot. That's one of one of our themes in martial arts. But I'm calling it climbing the corporate ladder. Watch your step. So we have that wonderful person who enlightened us about women's struggles, adversities, and thriving in the workplace. I am thrilled to reintroduce for the fourth time to the show, Jacqueline Jackie Jones. Jackie, welcome again. Thank you so much.

1:00It's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to have you. So, yes, she is a senior technology and media executive who recently had a promotion. She's almost up there at the very, very top, I think. But it's a large scale, large tech media firm, which everyone in the world knows. Anyway, she has executive leadership roles or had a Disney Plus, a Disney Streaming. I'm sorry. And Bam Tech, and where she led global product strategy, launched Disney's ad-supported tier and managed high-value partnerships with major brands, including MLB, major league baseball, HBO, and Verizon. So and she does many other things. She, at her part time there or on her off time, which I don't think she has any, but she provides mentorship to other women in tech and also services aboard advisor to the Children's Science Museum of Virginia. So this time, we're going to gear our topic to all human beings, males, females, the

2:01wallages, all locations globally, all stations in life. And we're going to talk about parallel topics such as burnout, parallel to climbing the corporate ladder. So, I did an experiment here as an introduction. It didn't work, but I was playing a song with my cell phone over the microphone. And I didn't, I have to figure out how to do this. But anyway, I was playing for Jackie. She couldn't hear a word, which wasn't working, peace of mind. It was featured on Boston's self-titled 1976 debut album. And boy, if I could figure out how to do that. But anyway, Tom Schultz, who is the brains behind Boston, I think similar to what's his name, was the act for Apple. But nonetheless, I'm going to read to you some of the lyrics. So if you put the guitar, put the rest of the band in the background. And he wrote here, I can't sing like him.

3:01I understand about a decision, but I don't care if I get behind. People live in competition. All I want is to have my peace of mind. Yeah. Now, now you're climbing to the top of the company ladder. Hope it doesn't take too long, like I can't see. They'll come a day when it won't matter. Come a day when you'll be gone. Whoa. Okay. That's my introduction. So, I'm not a good singer. I thought I was before, but so what I did was I went through a compilation of scholarly articles, mainly psychology and psychiatry journals. And I have a bunch of points, and I'm going to read them to you. And these are my experience, but I want you to put your experience to which you have a ton. So what do you think about this? The traditional concept of climbing this, this rigid, linear ladder is kind of dying. So today, they're saying it's more like a corporate jungle gym that the structures are

4:03flatter, company structures and tech disruption means entire departments may vanish over a night. So moving sideways, meaning laterally, to learn your skills is often more valuable than moving. I put in quotation marks up because up may not necessarily be what people want. So what say you? Well, definitely. I like to refer to my career as more of parkour than climbing a ladder. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Okay. That's good. I've made so many different civets in my life, fit in my career. And the most important thing for me is waking up and wanting to do whatever I'm going to do that day. And it also means that obviously there's reasons why people want to climb the ladder, and that's to make more money to have more freedom, to be able to afford the nicer things in life.

5:04But there's also periods in your life where you don't want that or need that. I remember when my son was born, and I took a job that I knew that I could do in my sleep and that would keep to nine to five so that I had as much time as possible with my young son. So I absolutely agree with you. I think it's not a straight up anymore. I've gone up. I've gone down. I've gone sideways. I think the most important thing that I've learned in my career is that it's who you work with, not your position and not how much money you make that makes the difference because at the end of the day, you want to feel that you're making an impact and that those nine, 10, 12 hours you're working a day away from your family and away from the other things you like to do are valuable.

6:05Oh, yes. Oh, yes. So as time goes on, I've learned what is one of the most valuable things in life is time because you can't replace time. Okay. Here's another one. Success is being redefined by the younger generations, meaning Chen Z and millennials, who practice quiet ambition. So what is quiet ambition? So a growing number are turning down management roles. And because of the marginal increase in pay, sometimes it's marginal, sometimes it's much more than that. It, according to them, doesn't offset the spikes, the massive spikes in stress in longer hours and managing people. It's like a kindergarten, you know, like the White House. I'm told that in the White House, it's like a huge kindergarten. And that could be anywhere when you get people around. So they're valuing more peace, mental health and time over maybe a fancy job title. Yeah.

7:06Well, I think that that's changing as well. I think, you know, AI is going to allow for more individual contributors because you can build five agents for yourself and not have to hire people and therefore not have to deal with the administrative side of that. But I think it also just depends on the person. You know, I've had periods in my career where I really enjoyed being an individual contributor. That's true. But I tend to be, I tend to get a lot more value out of managing people and helping them with their career and putting people in the right positions for success. Been one of the things that I've leveraged the most in my career. So I think you enjoy that. You enjoy it. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Because I feel like I'm doing something other than building widgets, right? I'm investing in people. Yeah. And that's really, really important. So what others say, you know, working with kindergartners or the headaches of, you

8:11know, human relationships or the headaches that come with that, that you take kind of the bull by the horns and, you know, work at it your own way. And so what about this and are very successful in that, by the way? So people say you can grow your bank account without growing your team. So companies are building this dual career track. And they're saying that it used to be historically the way to really make a lot more money is to become a big boss. But not all the time. So or differently now. So what other companies are now doing, they're offering is called individual contributor track. So it allows specialists to reach kind of executive level pay entirely based on their expertise without managing even one employee. What is your thoughts, are your thoughts about that? Absolutely. I mean, I think it's actually that's how I've been managing my own career.

9:15Yeah, that's how I've been doing it for a long time. I think companies are just starting to realize the benefit of that. And again, with the augment of AI that, you know, helped from even further. I think there is inherently people that are, you know, more interested in being an absolute expert in a field than being a jack of all trades and managing multiple divisions, right? Sure. And I think, you know, I do. Yeah, people will gravitate to one of the other. And so for companies to recognize that the value of an individual contributor might be as high as a manager of multiple teams, that's a really important course correction for corporate America or the CEO himself or herself. Yeah. Ah, that's a brilliant look. Yeah, I said, I'm sorry. Not good. Not good. And there's also this tendency now towards what called a one team environment.

10:15And there's a bunch of trainings on it out there in corporate America, but essentially what it comes down to is you don't have the CEO creating and determining the course of the company. The CEO is going to rely on his or her executive leadership team to make decisions together. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I think companies are starting to realize that the best leaders surround themselves with people that are smarter than them, that have completely different views and how they work and have different strengths. And that makes companies much more effective. Yeah. I mean, it does make sense. Well, here's one. Some people say the higher you climb the harder you fall. So middle and upper management are often the most valuable positions, particularly during layoffs. So when you have economic downturns and then now we talked about AI, it's being introduced,

11:21companies often look kind of flatter in terms of their organizational structures and kind of what you're saying. So the middle managers or upper middle managers spend their days in meetings and translating directors, all of that, they're the first to go. Now AI adds a whole new, my goodness gracious, a whole new dimension to this. Yeah, but it's absolutely true. I mean, but I think, you know, most companies or at least mine are looking at it completely differently and that is that AI augments productivity that's not so good for people from being, from being, you know, coders, just coding to being architects, right? So that makes sense. That makes sense. So that makes sense. Yeah. And that's going to provide them up with mobility, right? It does. It makes sense. Well, okay, here's a word I've never heard before, solopreneur. So, so why climb somebody else's ladder when you can build your own ladder?

12:28So many are choosing to stay at a comfortable day job, doesn't drain them. They use their left over, left over energy to build their own, their own brands, their freelance businesses or content channels and such. So, so the company ladder is no longer the only vehicle for, for wealth, if that's what individuals are looking for. Well, definitely, I mean, you think, you know, of how the younger generations operate right now, right? Yes. They have multiple side gigs that they're doing. And in fact, one of the women that I'm mentoring right now, she, she does the tech role because that pays the bills, but where she is happiest and where she wants to be successful is in her business. But when I'm helping her, yeah, what I'm helping her do is take all of the things that

13:28she's so good at that she loves from part of the art side to integrate that into her current role, potentially get her, you know, get her promotion based on those additional capabilities that she had never considered before as something that she could turn into business impactful things. So you helped her with that. I would suspect quite a bit, quite a bit. So yeah, the paradigms, the paradigms are different. So here's, here's kind of the opposite. Now to reject the ladder entirely could be a privilege. So it still may matter for some people for financial freedom and systemic change. So I'm playing devil's advocate, but for some people who are entrapped in generational poverty, it's really the fastest way to escape that or close the gender wage gap or gain power needed to change. Let's say there's a toxic workplace culture from the top down and that individual has to

14:33drive the energy to change that. So if you really want to make major, major decisions, you still need to be at a certain level if in fact what motivates you is the things that I was saying or are the things they were saying. Well, you know, I think that I think there is, you know, issues for some people that are trying to climb the ladder because they need to get to a certain level or pay scale to, you know, have a healthy home environment. I'll give you another example like so my case, right? I was Canadian. I was here on visas and those H1D visas required me to be at a certain level offering a certain specialization in order for me to get that visa. And in addition, the rules around that visa were if I lost my job, I had six weeks to

15:33find another one or you had to go back to Canada. So I was highly incentivized probably for the wrong reason to climb that ladder, but I had to do, you know, to keep going. You used to pass to you work in Indian. You still are Canadian. I still am. I still am. I'm Canadian and now American as well. Oh, you got your citizenship. Yes. Congratulations. Congratulations. Oh, it's been a, I think 2013. Oh, oh, oh, I misunderstood. Well, so that was 2013. So we're talking about 13, 13 years ago. Well, congratulations to 13 years ago. So I'm going to mention just some negatives, but there's some positives and I just mentioned okay, maybe a positive. So, but you know what, we're going to hold on that because we have a heart stop coming

16:36up. So on the other side, we are going to go into a little bit more on this and we're going to talk about something that I've never heard about the hedonism, but there's the hedonic hedonic treadmill in the trap of wanting more. So hold tight and we'll be right back. During treatment, the structure of tap water gets messed up. Yes, we have to purify water, but what are we doing to fix the water structure so the body can actually absorb it? That is why we created our lab certified structured water devices. These devices restore water molecules back to their natural structure, just like a mountain stream, making them highly absorbable. It's not how much you drink. It's how much you absorb that counts better hydration, better energy all day. Get one for your home or on the go at chemicalfreebody.com, forthslash out loud for an exclusive discount. It's chemicalfreebody.com, forthslash out loud. Well, I challenge you to find a broader array of great voices, a deeper bench of experience

17:36or a more dedicated collection of passionate patriots than here on America out loud dot news. Now is our time for my fellow Americans, America out loud dot news, liberty and justice for all. Welcome back. Welcome back. We are with our Jackie Jones and we are in the middle of talking about in the middle of the ladder or going up the ladder and should we or should we? So the negatives, the negative, there are just start negatives. I think we were kind of dovetailing on some of that. Now, lost a personal time. I'm going to name these and you tell me your experience here, but it's kind of obvious here, lost a personal time, longer hours if you're at the top or near the top. So with this constant communications and weekends spent working, you told me you were working

18:38today and it crowns that. Yeah, but but you're balancing that because you have a pizza party for your son about less than an hour. So you're balancing your you're juggling health impacts. Now there are health impacts and believe me, I can speak to this like chronic stress or sleep and neglected nutrition. They trigger believe it physical and exhausted. You know this and mental health struggles like anxiety or depression. And then how about this lower effective hourly pay? So in fact, the money that you really make at the top and if you divide that with the amount of hours that you truly spend, you may be making less per hour than you were before. It's true. So what about that? I mean, I can tell you that in my practice. I mean, over was it 40 hours now? It was like 120 hours or whatever.

19:38And I was making like what minimum wage almost. So yeah. So what's it you on these and at least to burn out, obviously, we're going to talk about that in the next segment. It does. So you know, you have to you have to know where your boundaries are and where your red line is. And you know, that that required you to have a lot of self awareness and be open to hearing from your family, hey, like we haven't seen you in a couple of days. You know, in my case, I'm a fair and believer in work, smarter, not harder. That said, I put in the extra time on weekend so that during the week, I can be smarter and faster. And so I call that like that preparatory time for me that actually reduces my anxiety

20:38come Monday morning because I'm prepared for the week. Good point. So I don't I don't really consider that like, you know, something that they should pay for. I'm investing in my, my own development during that time. Well, it's pre-emptive. And I used to do that all the time. I had to. And it's pre-emptive because if you do, you know, you take the time off your weekend, well, it is your time off. Yes. But then on Monday morning, you're barrage with, and then the anxiety level, the cortisol level goes way, way, way up. And that's not exactly right. That's not helpful. Yeah. So we're trying to make cramming for an exam, right? And so I teach my fund this all, but all right. If he's got an exam coming up, I say, study 10 minutes a day for two weeks. And you will be not stressed going into it. You will feel confident. And it's only 10 minutes versus cramming, you know, for three hours the night before.

21:41Jackie, they've done many studies on this and the studies, not only for exams, but for, you know, business or what have you and other outcomes and other fields of life. And when you do something within a very concentrated period of time, typically the results are not good or not nearly as good as you parse out over the course of time. Yeah. And as you say, your stress level is so much less. And that that in and of itself leads to more flexibility in terms of your brain. The neuro, neuro humoral chemical pathways. So yeah, okay, what about politics? So and I'm not talking about Republican Democrat independent. I'm talking about politics and the upper tier is there. So you have to navigate the internal, oh my goodness, internal rivalries, the posturing, the all of that stuff. And you know, in the hospital, I was in a number of committees and I'm convinced it doesn't

22:47matter what field you're in. Whenever you get a group of human beings together, there is politics. There are politics. It doesn't matter. But of course you have to deal with all those if you're climbing that ladder and then the last lack of autonomy. So you got upper tier roles and they're defined by you got pack calendars you have constant oversight. You got fear of appearing weak or vulnerable. So what are your thoughts of that? Well, you know, my experiences that, you know, the more the politics in the organization, the less effective the organization will be. That said, everybody has their, you know, everybody comes out of a problem from a different direction. I think the important thing to try and understand when you're experiencing it or sensing it is, okay, what is that person trying to accomplish with this?

23:51And I would I tend to do that I didn't do in my early career. My early career I was always looking for where the gotcha was and, you know, what negative things they must be thinking about me or, you know, whatever. And as I'm older, I've doubled down on a more exploratory perspective. And trying to understand from a place of good what they would be trying to accomplish with this. And I found what that does for me is it makes me much more of an empathetic reader. And by being an empathetic leader myself, I draw out empathy and others. So that's, that's a great point. And that would lead I think to let stress on you yourself that you put on yourself and seeking the best and other people and they can read that. They can see that. I don't think it would take very long for them to understand that.

24:54Now, people say that it can be lonely. It can feel a decision making can be very lonely. And so often it can be maybe a company by an imposter syndrome or lack of space, safe spaces to speak freely, meaning you yourself or somebody near the top of the ladder. So that, I mean, it comes with it, it comes with the territory, I guess. It does. It comes with the territory. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Yeah, it does a little bit, I think, though, you know, again, going back to this one team environment and something that I'm trying to incorporate at the level I'm at with my colleagues is that we're all in the same boat. We're rowing with the same or you know, we're all here together. So how do we solve this? Right. Right. But in times when I don't have a healthy environment that I'm working in and sometimes even when

25:57I do, I will rely on my personal board for guidance. So I advise all of my mentees to develop that personal board over time. And it's a group of people, varied backgrounds, different points in your life, not necessarily all professional. But they're my advisory committee. And when I'm struggling with something, you know, those are the people that I rely on me. Perspective. Let me, let me share a story here. One of my colleagues. So we work together extremely well. It's another physician. You know, medicine is not always a hard, you know, direct science. It's not so many times. There's so much gray zone. So he looked at me one day. This was a long time ago and he says, you know, what I ask myself when I have these difficult situations or quantities, I said, what Bob? What he did? So he says, I asked myself, what would my mother have done in that situation?

27:02And that kind of speaks to your board, to your advisory board. I don't think his mom was alive at the time, but my mom passed away not that long ago. So but she was definitely part of the big bar. I think she was chairman of the board, actually, my mother, my advisory board. But she's not, she was not a professional, so to speak. But sometimes these individuals, you know, education, formal education does not always translate hardly into common sense. And the people would have a, and in fact, I did some shows on common sense, have the least amount of professional education, but the greatest amount of common sense. And then vice versa, those who are maybe the most accomplished, you would think, may have the least amount of common sense. So yeah, yeah. So now here's some other negatives. It depends on your prism. So diminishing returns on happiness. Some say that or the illusion of security or absolute, here's one, obsolete skill sets.

28:04And I've had a number of people tell me this that, and this is, oh, this is definitely in the military, but this isn't so many other fields that if you, you have to focus on so many other things. And ultimately, ultimately get away from your skill set. I mean, you do because you're not practicing either if you were a technician, a scientist, engineer, but you're managing people now. And you have so much of your time. So I know some heads of healthcare systems who are physicians, but they're so overwhelmed that they don't practice anymore. So what they do practice is managing people and they have a tremendous amount of responsibility. But they feel very uncomfortable that their identity, if you will, as physicians are kind of lost. And I'm sure this is, oh, my God, fighter pilots. I guess there's a certain range that you really can your peak performance.

29:08And that's typically in your late 20s, mid to up to mid 30s. Then as you get older, you know, you become commander in such, but you don't fly anymore. So obsolete skill sets. Yeah, I mean, some people are upset with that when they're applying the ladder. Yeah, you don't, you don't practice or can't practice what you've done for many years or are trained to do. So yeah, it's a, yeah. It's a player versus coach thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. But that's where I believe to though that people get to a certain place in their career and they deliberately choose to go more with the management because they feel they have something to offer and to teach and to invest in versus the continue, you know, your fighter pilot example goes into a commercial pilot, right? It can. Yeah. So I think it just depends on, you know, I think you have to know what it is that where

30:14you're strengths play and where you're most comfortable and where you're most confident and pick that path. I don't think like even for me, right? Like I, my background was, um, my, I mastered my, my, you know, masters program was focused on finance, but I never went into finance because I can't understand it now. And I probably wouldn't, you wouldn't enjoy it. I don't think. No, I wouldn't enjoy it. I needed to get that skill set in order to go to the thing I wanted. I say, yeah, I see. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm going to shift a little bit to being happy or not being happy, being fulfilled or not being fulfilled. So climbing the corporate ladder, does it lead to self fulfillment and happiness? And most people would say no. Now, we're going to get into society, society, especially American society. They, they quake career advancement.

31:16And these high titles and salaries with success. And, but a lot, a lot of research, in fact, the vast majority of that show that professional status is only one of many paths to meaningful life. And in fact, if you really get to the bare bones of what's important in life, yes, it, it provides identity sometimes maybe too much reliance on identity. I'm going to share a story with you. So I did this on one of my shows and I think on, on envy. So there were two people. One was my patient and he, and real patient and he was very, very, very driven and he was doing very well. He was an executive VP and his colleague, although his colleague was just a couple. He was a year's older. He outshined in a way, my patient and he, although there should have been about equal, but he

32:19was given a promotion to president very quickly. Now my patient was upset about that. He was upset about it. And he would talk to me about it, even though I had nothing to do with medicine, but he talks to me about it. And guess what happened? The president, who was his colleague, left. He left after several months and I mean, my patient was so well respected and rightfully so he was offered that job and took it. He became the president. So I would see him every few months and after third month, he came to me with this big smile, but not really. He hung his head down. He said, guess what? I said, what? He says, well, within about several weeks in that role, I was not happy. And ultimately, ultimately I asked for my old job back and I got it.

33:19So it was a demotion to where he had been before, but he says, guess what? I said, what? I'm a lot happier now. I said, okay. Good. Good, because that's what really matters in life, doesn't it? That's what really matters. So you know, your competence, your autonomy, all of these things, competence, you know your competent. You know that you have a sense of belonging or feel connected to people, especially if you're successful. And does it mean that you have to be the boss of everybody? And again, climb that ladder, just like the song, the Boston was singing. And ultimately, well, what he says, and he was actually the singer was working in a Polaroid. And he was really just had it up to here with the rat race he described. And he translated that into his song. And ultimately the rat race, you know, I compared it to like me, a treadmill.

34:22You're off the treadmill when you sign out your patients. And then that next day, if you're not on call that night, you get back on 100 miles an hour, 200 miles an hour, you know, like the light, one of my colleagues described it as a light switch. You just turned the light switch back on. I said, oh my god. So now that I left my practice, I'm a lot, lot happier. So the psychology of status versus happiness, what say you about that? Well, it's a hard one. I will admit, you know, like in my earlier part of my career, you know, I always said when, you know, what they said, well, what do you want to be, you know, with the position you want to be in? I always said CEO, you know, I didn't know that. Oh, I didn't know that. But I think now that I am, you know, at this point in my career, I think I enjoy more being a person behind the CEO than being the face of the CEO.

35:28And you know, I think it, for some reasons, it's because of that happiness factor, right? Like how much of my time am I willing to give up? And but I also think it's just more about my personality type. And I really enjoy fixing problems and doing the work that I'm doing. And it doesn't really kind of matter to me anymore what level that is. But as I said, I'd rather be the person behind solving the problems than out front talking about the problems we thought. That's what ultimately leads to fulfillment for you, which is important. So hold your thoughts, Jackie. We're going to come right back and. I'm feeling off since COVID, try the wellness company Spike Detox trio packed with nato kinase, bromelain and turmeric to help boost your immune system and fight off harmful spike proteins bounce back with energy and clarity. Go to TWC.health forward slash out loud and use promo code out loud for 20% off your

36:32first order. You know, this time of year, the windows closed, the furnace kicks on. You're reading the same recycle there at home, in the car and at work all winter. You can't control the air, but you can control your routine. Clear nasal spray with saline plus silatol, blocks bacteria and viruses and keeps your nasal passages moisturized. It's not a drug. It's not habit forming and it's safe to use morning and night. That's it. Learn more at clear.com. That's x-l-e-a-r.com. Clear. Breathe better. Live better. Welcome back. Welcome back with myself. And in me. Now you really know Jackie. Jackie, I'm going to talk about something really interesting. It's called the hedonic treadmill and the trap of more. So, there's the concept that's a psychological phenomenon where people quickly adapt to positive changes. So, like a promotion or a raise, they adapt to that.

37:35And they return to a baseline level of happiness. But you get the promotion, you feel a temporary kind of rush euphoria. And then immediately you look to the next run on the letter. So it's a cycle of chronic maybe dissatisfaction. We're happy. This is always treated as like a future destination. So I'll be happy. I'll be happy, er, when I become the director. I'll be happy, er, that when I become, I mean, I'm happy now that I got the promotion, but I'm going to be even more happy when I become the CEO, when I become the CEO. Had you ever had anything like that? Or are no people like that? Not like, definitely no people like that. I thinkfully, I'm not like that. Because I live by, I have eight rules that I live by in life. And when I say life, I mean, my personal and my professional.

38:37And I have these sitting on my desk. And once a month when I'm doing my bills and doing all those things, I also have a reflection to look at these things. And if any one of these rules is not happening in my personal or professional life, then I have to reconsider that thing. Aha, aha. It's like the same commandments. These are the eight commandments, kind of. These are the eight commandments for Jackie's happy life. And the first one is, people you love, that you have people that you love and who love you back. And so the professional version of that is, you know, the people that you work, you respect, and you enjoy being around in day respect and enjoy you back. Right? Number two is someone or something that needs you. Pretty easy in the personal life. It could be a dog, a cat or a human, right? Right.

39:37And in the professional, in the professional, it's the same thing. Like, do you feel seen professionally? Do you feel valued professionally? Do people genuinely rely on you? That's part of that rule. And then the third is, the third is meaning and purpose. Do you feel like you have meaning and purpose? And that's more of a, I wouldn't say so much an actual thing, but more of a feeling, like, do, am I feeling like I'm contributing to the world or to my job in some way? And do I feel like that's creating good things? And then the fourth, which is the thing that trips me up the most often, both professionally and personally, is agency. Agency. Agency. A lot of, so take responsibility for what I have the ability to take responsibility.

40:41Or am I carrying other people's things? And like personally, right? Am I carrying my partner's problems? Yeah. Instead of feeling like I can say no, these aren't my problems, they're yours. Yeah. Jackie, that's hard. That's really hard. It is. And yeah, I mean, it's not like black and white, all these different things. And so you know, you may be putting more stress on yourself. I think these are excellent, actually. They are excellent. The what about agency? No, they're excellent. You have a few more left to say, but yeah, yeah, because we're all wrong. But it doesn't have to be, I'm not going to carry those things anymore, right? It could be I'm acknowledging that I'm carrying nothing. It definitely necessarily means change. It means self-reflection. Jackie, there's nothing wrong with. So if you're in a relationship, work relationship, friend relationship, loving relationship,

41:44it's part of being a human being. In other words, now if it drags you down, if it really causes you psychological energy, right? Negative energy. If it's negative energy, that's something different. That's something different. That's exactly right. Yeah. So can you make the change? Do you have agency enough that you can make decisions about whether or not you need to carry that stuff or not? Yeah. So here's an example. I'm going to play Devils advocate on this one, because I think it's important. You have a son. I met your son. He's a lovely, lovely, lovely son. He's wonderful. But he, like me or you or any human being, are going to have struggles in life. That's part of life. Now you're there to support him psychologically as a mother.

42:50You are there to support him also financially right now. But how can it be that you can't bear his life? This struggles as well. Yes, there's a line. There's a line. You don't want that to interfere with your work or what have you. But again, you're a human being. We're only human. Now, it becomes a problem. It becomes pathological, if you will, if one is codependent on someone else. Then it's different. It could be really hurtful. But I like it though. I like it though. You said even recognizing that you may be bearing some of the stress or the heaviness, but even understanding that is one of your points.

43:51One of your points. That's right. That's right. Exactly. That's a good one. Good. Number five is knowing when you've had enough. What I mean by that is to be able to in the day-to-day things that we go through that you say, but I do have enough. I'm good with what I have. That is really important. Stopping yourself at one time a month and saying, yeah, there's all this stuff and I could have this and I could be going there. But is it enough where I am right now? That is a really important thing that you should do professionally as well. I like that. I like that. Yeah, I like that because look, we can always do theoretically.

44:52In quotation marks, we could always do more. The more is in quotation marks, right? We could always do more. But what about the quality of that more? In other words, if you push yourself to being unhappy, then that more, whatever that more is, it is not going to be quality, I don't think. It's not. Here's an example. I don't know how many people would like this example, but writing papers. I really enjoy writing papers. It's kind of like you write one paper. You go through the whole struggles of having it published, which believe me, is. Then, what does my mind say? I need to write another one. I need to write another one. How many do I want to write? How many do I need to write? How many do I need to write? I need to go through these struggles each time. If I just write less, put more into them. It's something like that.

45:54But you, you're talking something like that, right? That's exactly right. That's a good one. They're all good. They're wonderful, actually. Good. The next is hope or have something to look forward to. And so in your personal life, that could be an anniversary or something, a birthday, that kind of thing. And in your professional life, it's that, hey, I'm going to get to work on this next project, or hey, I'm get to go to this off site in this city I've never been. So as long as I found myself in positions professionally where, when I asked myself that question, and there isn't anything to look forward to, and I'm not hopeful for what that company is doing or the people that I'm working with, that one will clearly

46:56point to something else in the first six. So that's usually the life rule that will cause me to beat Dive. Okay. Okay. Good. And then the seventh is being able to recognize good moments in the ordinary days. So it's like being present. So like I do a lot of practicing time without my cell phone and with going on hikes or doing excursions and not taking pictures the whole time. Right? I admire you. I admire you. That's good. Yeah. I hate to take pictures. My wife knows that she loves to take pictures. I hate to take pictures, but, but anyway, but it's good to have to take pictures and just, you know, like introspection and enjoying the beauty, the beauty of nature.

48:00Right. And then the same thing could be said for your professional life, right? Like, look at the things that you've accomplished. Look at the relationships that you've built. Look at the impacts you've had on the careers of other people. Like you should be able to at a given moment if you're in a good place. Think about those things. Yeah. And then the last one, which is pretty self-evident, but I think people forget about it a lot, is that you're going to have a good health, your health, sufficient to participate in being happy. Right? A lot of people out there are struggling with mental illness, physical illness, you know, all those things. That can impact you both personally and professionally. And if you've got any of that going on, you need to address that if you want to have happiness professionally or personally.

49:01Yeah. How did you come up with it? They didn't come up overnight, obviously. And clearly based on your experience and a lot of experience. But you know, you could write a book on these. You really could. Have you ever considered it? Yeah, you know, obviously. No, I haven't. But you know, like, I have tools that I've developed over my life that have helped me kind of stay grounded in who I am. And that list is one of them that I've added to, I think I started with the first two. And that was it. And then as I navigated through my career and through my personal life, I added to it. But you know, it's just, it's a really nice reminder once a month of where I'm at. It kind of like, you know, people talk about checking in with your chakra and all that kind of stuff. I don't know much about Middle Eastern medicine. But what I do know is this exercise of reflection once a month has done more for me in my career

50:08than probably just about anything else, including my MBA that I spent ridiculous money on. You know, you know, who would be very proud of you? The Dalai Lama would be very proud of you. The Dalai Lama? Oh my God. Yeah. He would. By the way, I tried to get him on the way. I was going to show and he was what 92 years old in his secretary. Uh, his secretary told me, look, uh, A, you know, how many requests we get? I said, I'm sure I'm sure, but B, he's not doing, he's not doing well. Uh, he's not doing well physically. So I said, okay, I understand, I understand. But these are absolutely beautiful, beautiful phrases and, and, and concepts that you have. Yeah. So I got to congratulate you. I, I really do. Boy, every time I learn more and more about you, to the unbelievable. Okay. I'm going to listen. I mean, you translate those to other people.

51:11A lot of people will hear those many, many, many. I'm hoping you're going to be well, hear them and, and, and first of all, I hope that they're helpful. But second of all, I'm open to adding to that list. So, well, that's, that's a pretty exhaustive list. And as I say, it's very skillfully written and, and absolutely excellent. Okay. I'm going to leave you with with a couple of points. Work, here he is, live to work versus work to live. So you know, we're, I have a whole nother segment here that we didn't get to about, um, burnout. And especially in the United States. So the United States is very close to Japan. Japan is like a, a close second, but in terms of burnout, uh, but, but that stems from many different things. Part of it is culture. Part of it is our, our identity that in our, our, our, not, it would see, it's not a collective

52:13culture. But in terms of an individualistic culture that, that work is so much of our identity. But um, that there are some, some exceptions. So work to live, I like that work to live. In other words, all these other parts of life. But if you live to work, there are certain people in this world and certain professions that are more vocations than anything now. So if you're a clergy, I religious clergy, well, you know, your, your whole life, your whole life, you don't really have any downtime in, in terms of ministering to people. Um, do you remember Tim Russell on Meet the Press? So yeah, I really, really liked Tim Russell and, um, Henry Kissinshire Nelson Mandela. I, a Charles Crowdheimer, Charles Crowdheimer, I remember so well.

53:16He was a psychiatrist and he became very well known for bipolar disorder, not him, but in describing it and writing about it. But then he went into broadcasting and writing and he said, he said, I really, really enjoy what I do. My wife knows that. And when I die, I'm probably going to be right at this desk when that happens. But he recognized that. And he says, I try to help people the best I can. And that's what brings, uh, enjoyment to me purpose and meaning to my life. And does it mean long, long hours? Yes, it does. But I, I become self fulfilled in doing that. So, so there are Henry Kissinshire said basically the same thing. So that for them work is play kind of. Do you see that? And, and so there are, there are some lifestyles or individuals who, who kind of are the exceptions

54:23to about climbing the corporate ladder. They don't really have a corporate ladder there. But, but in a sense, they do, in a sense, in a sense, maybe they define their own corporate ladder that they have their own internal corporate ladder. And it kind of like we were talking about before, make your own corporate ladder, uh, to include just yourself, just yourself. But fine, fine meaning through that. So, so whatever purpose and meaning in one's life typically translates into happiness. And of course, your family, there's so many other other aspects, I think. So, I'm going to leave you with that thought. Yes. Um, well, I think there's also another element to that. It's a generational element, right? Mm-hmm. So, um, you know, as a Gen X or my parents had a very different, um, even work ethic that

55:23I even have today. And it was very much about climbing the ladder because. Yes, yes. And that was the only thing that guaranteed you a certain lifestyle of living. Correct. Um, but that's, that's slowly changing. Um, it's true. And then I think it also comes down to identity, right? Mm-hmm. It does. So, what is your identity? And for me, um, I value my impact outside of the workplace more than inside the workplace. Yes. That's just how I think. That's how, yeah, we're all very different. Yeah. Um, but it's also because, you know, I don't have a village behind me that could enable me to, um, be my identity, be about, um, where I was in my career. Yeah. Right? Great. So, it didn't have that, and I think that's where a lot of people, right?

56:25Like, you know, I'm a single mom. So, my identity has to be about my trial. It's different. Yeah. We're all different. Yeah. So, Jackie, we're going to have to put a hold here we could talk forever and ever. In fact, we, we, we, we, we just had one segment. I have, into three, we, I have two more segments. I don't know what. So, thank you so much. I have a good, good work with my friends. I have a good work with my friends. I have a good work with my friends. I have a good work with my friends. I have a good work with my friends. So, thank you so much everyone for listening. I enthusiastically look forward to being with you. Weekly, on the counter momentum of the spin, where we will endeavor to address and work towards solving the problems of the world. Do our best. So please note that this show and all the shows in a Murk out loud talk radio go to your favorite podcast that works within 24 hours. Apple podcast, Spotify, Pandora, tune in. Amazon, I heart radio among others. I have a great day and God bless you.