Episode 328: Burnout, Sabbaticals, and the Power of Strategic Rest with Molly Rosen

High-achieving women often wear exhaustion as a badge of honor, pushing through until the warning signs become impossible to ignore. For Molly Rosen, co-founder and co-CEO of Project Next Leadership, that moment came while driving between obligations, fantasizing not about a vacation, but about simply being allowed to stop. That recognition led to a sabbatical that stretched from one year to six, a journey that ultimately gave her the perspective, resilience, and clarity to build the leadership coaching company she runs today. 

In this episode, Melissa Joy, CFP®, sits down with Molly to explore the realities of burnout for senior women leaders, the under acknowledged impact of perimenopause on career performance, and what it actually takes to build a life and career that is, as Molly puts it, human-sized. Drawing on more than two decades of coaching executives at companies like Pixar, Airbnb, DocuSign, and Samsung, Molly shares the patterns she sees most often in high-performing women, and the strategies that help them find their way back to themselves. 

What You'll Learn 

• Why working harder stops working at the executive level, and what actually drives advancement 
• How burnout differs from a bad week, and why the body often signals it before the mind does 
• The underreported career cost of perimenopause and menopause for high-achieving women 
• What it means to ask "What is it that only I can do?" and how that question changes everything 
• How to strategically step back from the workforce and return with greater clarity and purpose 
• Why women leaders consistently rate themselves lower than others rate them, and how to close that gap 
• The role of peer networks and cohorts in sustaining women at the top 

Website: https://www.projectnextleadership.com 

The previous presentation by PEARL PLANNING was intended for general information purposes only.  No portion of the presentation serves as the receipt of, or as a substitute for, personalized investment advice from PEARL PLANNING or any other investment professional of your choosing. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk, and it should not be assumed that future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy, or any non-investment related or planning services, discussion or content, will be profitable, be suitable for your portfolio or individual situation, or prove successful. Neither PEARL PLANNING’s investment adviser registration status, nor any amount of prior experience or success, should be construed that a certain level of results or satisfaction will be achieved if PEARL PLANNING is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. PEARL PLANNING is neither a law firm nor accounting firm, and no portion of its services should be construed as legal or accounting advice. No portion of the video content should be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he/she will experience a certain level of results if PEARL PLANNING is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. A copy of PEARL PLANNING’s current written disclosure Brochure discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request or at https...

Transcript

Welcome And Money Wisdom Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. I'm Melissa Joy, a certified financial planner and the founder of Pearl Planning. My goal is to help you streamline and organize your finances, navigate big money decisions with confidence, and be strategic in order to grow your wealth. As a woman, you work hard for your money, and I'm here to help you make the most of it. Now let's get into the show.

Meet Executive Coach Molly Rosen

SPEAKER_01 0:44

And we have a fantastic expert who is here to share her wisdom and what she's learned in coaching women executives on exactly this thing. Molly Rosen is a co-founder and co-CEO of Project Next Leadership, where she works with senior executives at companies like Pixar, Airbnb, DocuSign, and Samsung on leadership transitions and team development. After more than two decades coaching high-performing leaders, she hit a wall herself and took a sabbatical that stretched from one year to six years, a period that led her to co-edit Knowing Pains: Women on Love, Sex, and Work in Our 40s. Featured on the Today Show, and ultimately she built a company that this company that she runs today. Molly, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Melissa. Good to be here. So you are uh running a company that provides leadership and consulting for executives, men and women, um, who, you know, just need that insight on how to manage it all, how to integrate, you know, a job that's probably all consuming, as well as life and just how to make it all work. How did you, how did you get into this, you know, kind of life and role? How did you learn to lead leaders?

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah. Great question. Well, I I've been in this field really my entire career. So I actually started working in Eastern Europe back in the day when uh Gorbachev was in power, Soviet Union still existed, et cetera. So that was my early, early career. I did a lot of work uh getting to know women over in the Soviet Union and Prague, Poland, and what was going on there. So I've always had a particular passion around women, um, what's changing in our lives, how do we balance it all, et cetera. When I moved back to the States after getting a business degree, I just realized that what I loved was work around culture, around careers, around how people interacted at work and how challenging that can be, especially when we come from different places. So as I said, I've been in this, as you mentioned, for about 20 years and started Project Next Leadership with my business partner about six years ago, where we are hired by large companies like companies that you've mentioned to work with their leaders and their teams, to work with leaders individually, to work with them in cohort. And so a lot of it is around performance. It's how do you prepare for that next level of leadership? Because usually we don't know what it's going to be like until we get to that director level, VP level. And, you know, there are challenges that no one really told us about. And some of that is how do I balance life with these challenges, especially in this day and age? So that that ends up happening behind the scenes, uh, but the companies hire us very much around performance.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Well, it occurs to me as well, having been from a different perspective, coaching corporate employees, that what works in one regime of leadership, one um, you know, kind of generation of employees to may the dynamics may change quickly or over time, where, you know, the um, you know, kind of the equation for success and in navigating and managing your performance within it is differing and changes. It it makes me think of a conversation I had just today with someone who's, you know, just kind of the old guard is is walking out the door and there's newer regimes with different, you know, um whether it's allegiances or experiences. Um, so so many different interesting considerations in the work that you do, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Oh, absolutely. I mean, with the number of generations in the workplace. So you've got that and stereotypically different expectations around what is work. Do you manage your life around your work? Do you manage your work around your life, right? This is stereotypically generalizing different in some of these different generations, but also in different times in our life, right? When we're starting early career or perhaps when we're raising a family and we're balancing that. And it's true that that women on average still do twice as much as at home as men do if they're, you know, if they're in a relationship with a man tends to be the case. And for me, I've got a couple kids in their 20s who are launched. So I'm in a very different time in my career, which is uh why this is such a big focus of my life right now. So, you know, we have these different chapters and stages of life. We have different generations in the workplace. So I don't want to make any sweeping generalizations about what's needed for different people, but we're we're people, we're bringing all of ourselves to work, um, whether we're doing it consciously or unconsciously, um, clearly or not clearly. You know, we we we are. We're still bringing ourselves. And so that's that's the challenge, you know, at work.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

So, so true.

Burnout Signals And Choosing A Sabbatical

SPEAKER_01 5:45

If we can step back from that um kind of coaching perspective for a moment, I'd love to explore and then integrate into the conversation your own respite from work, your your own story of taking a year and then extending it. Um, do you mind sharing your, you know, kind of personal narrative of of um where you were and what you did?

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Sure, I'd be happy to. It's uh let's see, so I was in a point of my career that um things were going well, you know, things were going really well. And uh I was the regional VP of a consulting firm. I was traveling a lot. I was traveling actually, I realized at one point on airplane, like, why am I so tired? And I realized I was traveling every other week on a plane. New time zone every week, huh? Oh, 100%. Um and I had a uh daughter who was in kindergarten and a son who was four years older. And my son was sort of used to it. My daughter was not used to it. And um at that point, you know, she was crying when I when I left. And it's just that's tough, you know, it's really it's tough for any parent, um, certainly tough for me as a mom. And so between that and all the expectations, and then looking around at that point, this executive team that I was on who had great people on it and the company did really great things. But I looked around and realized, okay, everyone else on this team either is a man with a wife who's not working, children and wife who's not working, or two women who don't have children. And so I realized, oh, this is why this is feeling like it's feeling right now. And so what it was, so basically I was I was driving at one point, taking that, you know, I think a lot of your listeners will appreciate this, like that, you know, the five, 10 minutes of like, okay, what can I do? And there's five or 10 minutes. I've got a load of time. Okay, I can put something in the laundry, I can run to go do an errand, I can, you know, you know, et cetera.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

So here's how we're gonna survive the night.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Oh, 100%. Exactly. And so I was doing that, and I was driving my car and I was just realized like I was just exhausted. And so I had a brief, I hate to say it, it's embarrassing, um, a daydream, like, you know, what if, what if I got breast cancer? Like, I don't want to die. I just want a break. And how do I get a break? Like the idea of having a few months of, you know, I mean, again, for anyone who has had cancer, I mean, and my husband's had cancer. Like, I mean, I know what this is this is like, but so it's not a break. I know it's not a break, but it was just this idea of like, I just need to not be working in on, and I need people to not be depending on me the way that they're depending on me right now, whether it's employees or family or what have you. So I realized that's really screwed up.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

That's a cry from help.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

From yeah, like, what am I doing? So um, so I decided I need to take a year off because I couldn't really think how to do it in that job that I was in. And I will say my boss at the time was um, you know, was the CEO of the company and he was not particularly understanding about it. And that was disappointing, but it is what it is. So I thought I would take a year off. I connected uh with my husband about that. And as it turned out, you know, I've been the making more money than he had been for a bit, and he was kind of ready to step back on the fast track. And he had a career where he could do that and decided that that he wanted to do that. So we decide, okay, let's just switch for a year. And, you know, frankly, we've gone back and forth and switched a a number of times where one of us, yeah, we're we're both working, but one person is working less than they were.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Sort of like how there's the person who's gonna get the phone call when school needs a kid to get a job or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Like who was the who is the go-to parent, right? Who's the default parent, as I often say? You know, get the phone call, figure out the camps, whatever. But sometimes we'll like one of us will throttle back or throttle forward, you know, that kind of thing. So um, so he throttled forward and I actually went completely off for a year.

Resetting After Leaving Full-Time Work

SPEAKER_02 10:02

And um, I just I realized like I needed a whole year to really just restart my nervous system. I mean, it took longer than I expected. I ended up get I'd already been involved with a volunteer project that I'd started because there's nothing I love more than getting a bunch of women together to do something cool together. Like that is like my nirvana. So I'd already started a project that now I had time for. So it was that the book that you mentioned, this um Knowing Pains, Women Um Love, Sex and Work in Our 40s, which, you know, is a self-published book. We had a great time with it. It was really fun. Um, and so, but I realized I was still moving at this pace. So I, you know, we did this book really quickly and you know, got involved with lots of other things.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

So separation of employment, just fill it up with other obligations that were on the to-do list that you couldn't get to before.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

100%. Exactly. Like I was used to working at a certain pace. Um, and so I kept working at that pace, but just doing other things. And also I'm quite achievement-oriented. So it was finding different ways to scratch that itch to feel like I was achieving things.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

So it's so interesting to be I share that achievement-oriented default persona, you know, the work that you need to do to get out of or even just recognize like, oh, why do I want to do that? It's it's only to scratch that itch, but would that be better for me? Do I have time? And that takes a lot of training, a lot of um insight or or maybe hours of therapy in certain cases. Um, so I share, I just share that characteristic and know how, you know, you you naturally just keep pushing toward, you know, a way to receive that external um acknowledgement.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

100%. That external acknowledgement, that sense of um, I'm learning something new, right? Doing something new. And that did serve me well though, to be able to get back on later on. Let me talk about that. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah, no. So please share. Like then you at a certain period of time, you you're um you're staying busy, but not in the traditional nine to five cents or sixty four cents.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Let's just call it. Like unpaid staying busy. So staying busy, I did a lot of work for the food bank, looking at some solar roofing they were doing. I mean, like all sorts of things that I had no business doing. But sometimes if you're a free set of hands, um, people are, you know, they engage you to do stuff. So I learned a lot during a couple of years, and I just kept just deciding to take a little bit more time off. And I was lucky enough to be able to do that. We'd saved up some money. We had purchased a house, and like I said, my husband kind of went full throttle.

Returning To Work During Menopause

SPEAKER_02 13:04

And then a couple of years in, um, I decided, you know, I I I do there were some opportunities because I had stayed in touch with people in my field who were what I call nodes or connectors. Um that I wanted to get back into work. And I do think the way to find interesting work is through people. So I'm in touch with people very intentionally. And so they knew what I was doing. They knew when I was like starting a new website or I was doing stuff that I thought was interesting. But I just, you know, I stayed in touch with them and I kept learning new things. And so opportunities did come to do some fractional work. And fractional work is a great way back in. So I did some fractional work, and I'll tell you that first job back in was I was way over my head. I have not uh I left the workplace working on the Microsoft um, you know, si series of applications and went back into the whole Google series of applications, which I was basically supposed to know as I walked in the door. It was a pre-IPO, huge company.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Um totally different culture.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Totally different culture. And I was that I was the person who was supposed to be bringing the experience to be able to know what I was doing. And I um also was just entering menopause. So I was 48, I was entering menopause. The average age at that company was 28. So I was in meetings getting the hot, you know, hot flashes, and certainly didn't think I could say anything about it. And it was just um, it was humbling. It was really humbling and probably exactly what I needed at the time.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Well, if we could just pause for a moment there, um, talking about, I don't know how you incorporate this in your coaching, but it's very under misunderstood, underreported. I know I I allude to it a lot in this podcast, but menopause has a big impact and perimenopause as well on women's careers. And it especially does if you don't know and understand some of the symptoms. Like one symptom is the ability to concentrate and focus. Can be like not everybody's the same, and there's no diagnostic tools. Your doctor is likely not going to be asking you about your menopause symptoms, um, unless you're coming in saying, I'm, I have hot flashes or I have um joint pain, which they may not um associate with menopause anyway. And so, but the economic cost of perimenopause and menopause is high and it comes with like inability to perform time outside of work. Um, for your personal career, it may be that you you were on a high achieving career track and you you either choose or it's chosen for you to get off of that career track. Um, so it's just important for people, our listeners, who may or may not have experienced menopause yet. But for most women, this will be um, you know, something that you experience over time that you need to be proactive and it really pays, just like you described, that you, your, your family had the flexibility for a variety of reasons, including good planning to begin with, um, to have choices in terms of where you were with your career and how much you were pushing on the accelerator. Um, it really gives you value in terms of your flexibility, your ability to invest in the medical needs that you have at that stage of your life. Um, it's something that it's like it sounds like, you know, stop tilting at windmills, the menopause windmill, Melissa, but it is something that is you will benefit from preparing for in almost every case.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Absolutely, 100%. And it was my mom didn't go through it. She had a hysterectomy and had passed away a while before anyway. So I didn't have really have anyone to talk to about it. I went through it before most of my friends did. Certainly wasn't gonna be talking about it this, you know, at this at the startup. Startup, that's not happening. So it was it was a crazy time. And uh, and as you said, you know, the just the concentration, the, you know, the insomnia. And I couldn't tell what what was stress of wait a second, I feel like a complete imposter syndrome coming in here after having not been working for pay for five or six years. I felt like a real imposter syndrome, even though I I feel like I did a lot of the right things to be able to get back in. But it was challenging. But I have to say, you know, the world gives you what you need to learn. So true. You know, that's what I needed to learn. I I needed to have these experiences. And now when I do work with women, I've talked to quite a few women who kind of look at me and say, wait, wait, you took some time off? Huh? You know, like that's okay. I didn't see that coming, right? Yeah, exactly. It's like, yeah, you know, I did other people can. And as you said, it, you know, financial planning and and being fortunate enough to be able to do that. But then coming back in, I loved it. And if I hadn't taken that time off, there's no way that I would have been starting Project Next leadership. I just, I don't think I would have had the confidence, the skills, the perspective to do it. And one of the things I love doing most is working with women leaders. And a lot of it is because I relate to what they're having to go through and so much of what we're having to mask as well at work.

Why Promotions Take More Than Effort

SPEAKER_01 18:43

So let's talk about that. Like that's the whole point of the conversation. I want to make sure we get to the burnout conversation as well. But when you think about coaching women leaders and you you're great at it because you know it from the inside out, what are some of the things that you automatically, you know, like some of the bullet points that you go to first in terms of getting to know them and the circumstances and challenges that they're facing?

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Yeah. Well, as uh any good coach will will tell you, ear, you're you're trying to meet them in the moment and what's happening with them right right then. And with um, just you know, thinking one of the one of the leaders I worked with early on when we started at Project Next, she was uh a VP at a tech company. She had two kids, one of whom was special needs. She was a very high performer, uh, very skilled, very smart, and you know, just exhausted, um, feeling continually needed to prove herself, cared a lot about her company. Um, but also just trying to figure out like how do I keep going, right? It just never ending or just, you know, just going. So the way that we work together is I think starting with what is important to you, right? So just doing the values work around what are you, what are you prioritizing? So we had done some of that work. Also, just I think all leaders, regardless of gender, um, should have a good sense of how people see them, how people experience them. And the one reason I think it's particularly important, again, it's important for all leaders, but for women, our research, because we have our a 360 that we use, and so our research shows that um, and data shows that for women leaders in general, the self-assessment that leaders that women leaders have is lower than other people's assessment of them. Now, that for every leader, and certainly for a lot of men leaders, that this it's the same as well. However, overall, women leaders tend to rate themselves lower than other people rate them. So, what does that mean? That means that they often um, you know, may not raise their hand for things, they may not speak up for things, they may feel like, you know, I just need to keep running harder because no one's going to recognize me if I don't. And, you know, there are other things that we need to think about, which is just working harder doesn't get you that promotion, right? That's not how it works when you're a leader. How it works is it's about your relationships, it's about the connections and it's about the needs of the company. So we're talking about all of that. Often we're getting into the stakeholder work. Um, I find it is very common for women leaders um to again just keep working harder. It's like this is how I got here because I worked harder than anybody, is often the way that leaders, women leaders are coming at it. And sometimes, frankly, that's had to be the case, you know, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

It is so true. Like so many times that is what gets you from entry level to middle management. But what worked once doesn't always it sometimes things change in terms of what you're rewarded for. And it's it's so strategic at those mid management and executive levels in terms of. Your network, your alliances, your um who who you're helping, how you're helping. Um, and so, you know, that is much more of a minefield than, you know, I'll just be there more hours or, you know, answer the emails faster and get that project done on the deadline and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Yeah, 100%. It's uh, it is much more, as you said, about those those relationships, the stakeholders, the um how are you coming across, like the whole notion around executive presence is a loaded term, um, particularly for women. Especially with gender, yes. Yep. And uh so but there's there's a lot to that one as well. Uh, but you know, some of it is just letting people know that you you do want to move up. Um, but uh but a lot of it is also are you in the right places at the right time? Are you positioning yourself correctly? Do you have the right sponsors? You know, these are that people know that we're often talking about with leaders. Uh, but it is it is that is why having a good sense of how people see you is so critical because we don't, we're we're bad judges. All of us are bad judges of how other people see us and how we come across. We know how we intend to inside of our own heads, but that's not necessarily how people see us. So uh so those are some of the things that we work on with frankly any leader, including women leaders.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Um, but a lot of it is when I'm working with let women leaders, I often love working with them as a group so that they can hear from each other so that they can recognize that they aren't alone in what they're feeling.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Well, and I also think for women leaders that are listening, I know when I have my business owner cohort of financial advisors, like they're not in my neighborhood. They're not in the drop-off line typically. They're around the country, but we've met each other at conferences and along the way, but they're so important because you can't always share some of the, you know, business challenges you have that are just way different than who your friends in town, you know, like their day-to-day experiences. And so it's so important to build that um network of peers that can understand from the have a perspective that is similar to yours and have similar challenges. And if if you're in a male-dominated field, um, it may, they may not be close to home. Um, and that's okay. Uh, but find those people that you can trust to really say how it's going.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

Absolutely. Absolutely. And and listen, I mean, I love that you're in a group like that. I'm in women's presidents organizations and I love my chapter. They're just an amazing, supportive, so skilled, so smart, you know, group of women. And running a company is not the same as being a senior leader in another company. They're both really hard for different reasons.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Totally. And working in a small business versus a corporate environment too is like entirely different um pitfalls and opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Yes, exactly. And so to have others who can, so I typically work with women leaders who are in big companies. So we're working through that. But for myself, having a a group of women who all run businesses and have, you know, just the entrepreneurial terror at night, uh, that that is true for pretty much any entrepreneur I've ever met. Just, you know, is this, is this gonna work? You know, is like how are we gonna take care of our employees, you know, et cetera, et cetera. That's that's true for any entrepreneur I've ever met. So the these are different, these are different issues. And um, and I just think that having that kind of cohort is critical.

What Burnout Feels Like Physically

SPEAKER_01 25:39

So speaking specifically to burnout, have you found strategies that are most useful to either, like, first of all, like how do you know if this is burnout versus, you know, depression or just apathy or like not being in the right job? Um, how do you distinguish amongst the various um potential, you know, maladies of you know, feeling uneased?

SPEAKER_02 26:04

You know, I I can't say I'm a I'm a I'm a practitioner, so I'm not sure that I can give that. Um, I will say I know it was burnout for me because it was sustained for over a period of time. There was probably a little depression anxiety, you know, worked into the mix there.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

And significant. It wasn't, you know, like just like, oh, I hate today.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

It was like no, it was over time. It was just, it was a feeling in my body of tension that would leave. And I think I I've come to believe that so much of wisdom is being able to recognize what our body is telling us before our mind can recognize it. And uh, and at that point I wasn't paying any attention to my body. It was mind over matter, mind over body. You know, I'm just I can do this because if I don't do this, then what kind of role model am I being for my children? Right. That was part of it, you know, and and others. So so it was um, yeah, so it was burnout because it was over a period of time, because it wasn't just a bad day at work, and because it was just, it was just sort of never ending. So the insomnia that we were talking about, it was just, it, it just didn't stop. So I recognized too, then after I stopped, like how long it took for me to physically recover. So that became one of my goals when I stopped was about just getting healthy again, taking care of my my body again. And, you know, frankly, it's it's a really important part of my life right now, you know, just having that, being able to sustain physically what um the kind of life that I want to lead and to have the energy that I want to have. But I wasn't doing that before, you know, it was like, how am I gonna fit that into work and family and everything else? So I think it's just it's um we all experience different things in different, different ways. Uh, but I think for me it was just I was driving so hard and I didn't know how to stop.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

So um I'm hearing that you're um even though there's physical manifest, but burnout can be, you know, like about mindset, about how you feel. Um, but that it's so important to incorporate your physical well-being in order to tackle anything else if you're not taking care of yourself, if you're burning the candle at both ends, yeah. Um proverbially, then it it's gonna be really difficult to tackle the other challenge, like the other things needed to um deal with or combat burnout.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Yeah, absolutely. It's just it was just exhaustion. And it's one of those things. It's easy to say, it's hard to do, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:48

For sure. It takes reaching the schedule, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Yeah. We all know we're supposed to eat well. We all know we're supposed to exercise, we all know we're supposed to get more sleep. Nobody needs to be told that. Everybody knows that. So the question is just what is the impact on your life right now? And what what are your options? And it can feel the the more tired and stressed we are, the fewer options it seems like we have because our minds just aren't able to have the openness to be able to see that there are other things possible. So we have we get tunnel vision when we're exhausted. And so I had tunnel.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

And our time frames are super short too. It's just like, how do I get through the day and then the week? And then you just wake up and it's a new year, but you haven't really had any moment to appreciate what's happening over time.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Yeah, absolutely.

Making Life Human-Sized Again

SPEAKER_02 29:42

I had a client who uh basically came to me and we were just working individually together, and she was, you know, very, very successful in her career. She had a couple of young kids, and she said, I'm exhausted, and I feel like my life is just moving so quickly without me. And I I don't feel like I'm living in my life right now. I feel like my life is living me and it's going so fast, I feel out of control. So what we started with was just trying to get her to be in the moment. And again, no one needs to be told this. We all have heard these things a million times before. So, how to do that and what is keeping us from recognizing what is here right now. And that is why, you know, it's why people get into meditation. Yeah, people have different different ways to be able to do this, but but for her to be able to find her own way to be able to be here now, as opposed to being trying to be with the kids, trying to be on her phone, responding to the message from, you know, her manager, trying to keep up with the news. I mean, it's just it's never ending. So, how do we pare down our life in a way that is human-sized? Because right now, what we have in our life, especially with AI, with everything, all the opportunities and the needs that we seem to have to be able to do more, right? Because we can do more, we should do more. It's not human-sized right now. And we need to recognize that our physical bodies haven't changed that much, even though the technology has changed so much. And I'm in Northern California, right? So this is sort of our world as well. It's just we're like epicenter of it. And it's it can be exhausting, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Well, the inputs that we receive, I think that's one of the issues in thinking about how I talk to people about how you take investment, investment information or economy signals. The inputs we receive, you know, you used to listen to the night, our parents used to listen to the nightly news and read a newspaper which didn't have like attention seeking, click here, click there. It was like a in black and white, you know, even. Um, unless it was, you know, Sunday. And um you the amount of information that we just naturally take in, even if you're not on your screens all day, is uh multiples of, you know, many, many, probably millions of multiples more than what we were taking in um 50 years ago or 30 years ago, even. And so that has impact on every level. And every time people think say that AI is going to take away our jobs, I was like, great, like why don't you take half? Because it seems to be only cramming in more um for many people. So that like that is why this conversation is so relevant, not only because our listeners are those mid-career leaders who are looking to take care of themselves and everyone else, but also um because of the world we live in.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Yes, well, 100%. And that's yeah, that's a huge part of this context.

Do Only What You Uniquely Do

SPEAKER_02 33:02

I I think what was helpful for me was asking myself, which I continue to ask myself, what is it that only I can do?

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Elevate and delegate, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Like, yes, exactly. Exactly. Because there, I when I work with women, I often hear them, especially when I used to do a lot of career coaching, I would hear them say, Well, I can do this and I can do that. And like, I'm not asking you what you can do, I'm asking what you want to do, which people don't, especially women, don't always, because it's like, I can do it, so I should do it.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

It's like what do you that equation is not working anymore?

SPEAKER_02 33:41

No. And what is it that you're you you uniquely can do? So for me, when my kids were young, there were other people who could do certain things for them, like coach them um, you know, in sports, which is not my, you know, my my strength anyway, or you know, feed them lunch or what have you. Like it's a great thing to be able to do these things. And if that's what brings someone joy, they should do that 100%. But for me, that wasn't what I uniquely could do with them. I could, you know, only I could answer their questions as their mother. Only I could, you know, do certain things. So it was just, I think it's for all of it. It's to ask ourselves, what is it you love doing with your kids, with your friends, with your work? And what is it that perhaps others can do, perhaps better than we can? Now, it doesn't mean that we all don't have parts of our life that we don't love, you know. I mean, that that we, you know, that it's that's life. But I ask leaders that all the time, again, any gender, you know, what is it that you only you uniquely can do? Because if we just do everything that we can do, or even everything that's most comfortable to do because it's familiar, we just burn ourselves out. We can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

And it has to be, I think, probably for most of the people you're working with and many of our listeners, on the personal or family as well as on the professional and making space for yourself, even if it seems selfish to you who re realizes your family and work gives so much. And so I love that like kind of add edit change list of or add subtract edit list of, you know, like what am I going to outsource? What am I going to quit doing, even if, you know, like that I'm not mom of the year? Um, and and what can I, you know, at work ask other people to do, which would probably help them achieve more and do more and also help me?

SPEAKER_02 35:38

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. It's just, yeah, it's it's that having that discretion, right? That how do we do that? Yeah. So anyway, again, things that are easy to say, hard to do. So then, you know, how do we recognize what is getting in our way of doing that? What is it about our pride? What is it about our finances? You know, what are the reasons?

Using Coaches And Planners For Options

SPEAKER_02 36:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Well, and I would just mention as we're wrapping up, first of all, I could talk about this all day. And, you know, we both lived it as well as we're we know and help others who are doing the same. Um, for those of you listening where this resonates, there's so many different ways from executive coach to therapist to um, you know, programs that are more approachable in terms of cost, um, that you can kind of tackle some of these um burnout conversations or or just career conversations in general. And also don't let the boundaries of your financial planning engagements stop with your investment accounts, because these are absolutely relevant discussions to have. Um, if you're working with a financial planner who can see um outside of your accounts, um, you know, talking about like, I don't know how long I want to work in this position. I may want to look for a different job or I may want a sabbatical. That absolutely is something that you can figure out whether it's doable through conversations with um investment professionals and financial planners or wealth managers. So do know that there's help out there. And hopefully we've inspired some healthy conversations, um, both um, you know, like between two ears as well as with others.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Yeah, love that. Thanks, Melissa.

Where To Find Molly’s Work

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Molly, where can um people find more about you and the work that you do?

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Yeah, we're at Projectnextleadership.com. And uh again, I'm at Molly at Projectnextleadership.com. So I'd love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Molly, thanks so much for the discussion. We loved having you. Thanks, Melissa. Appreciate it.

Share, Review, And Closing Notes

SPEAKER_00 37:51

Thank you for listening to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. If you found value in this episode, the best way that you can support the podcast is to forward an episode to a friend or leave a review. Go to ProPlan.com and the podcast link to get all the resources and links mentioned. This presentation by Pearl Planning is intended for general information purposes only. No portion of this presentation serves as the receipt of or substitute for personal investment advice from Pro Planning or any other investment professional of your choosing. Copies of Pro Planning's current rent and disclosure brochure and from CRS discussing our advisory services and fees are available upon request or on our website platform at PerlPlan.com. The information that we share is meant to educate and inspire, not serve as personalized financial advice. Everyone's situation is unique, so be sure to consult with your own financial professional for guidance that fits your life. And just so you know, the opinions shared in this podcast are Melissa's own and those of our guests. They don't necessarily represent any organizations with which Melissa is affiliated. For more important disclosures, please go to our webpage at proplan.com.