EP #72 - The Pursuit of Work-Life Integration with Jennifer Jeronimo, CEO Gaingels & Former Executive Director at JP Morgan

(gentle music) - When I've learned through time is, it's really about working smart, not hard. And I've learned throughout the years how to sort of pivot and change that mindset, not only for myself, but for my manager, as well as, and then as I started managing people for the folks that I managed. - Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins. This week, I wanted to talk a little bit about the concept of finding a work-life balance or rather work-life integration that Jennifer so beautifully describes in this interview. And I'm so thrilled to have Jennifer Geronimo come onto the podcast. She's made such a success for herself in her career. Jennifer is the CEO of Ganges, which is one of the leading LGBTQ+ private investment syndicates. She is over 20 years of experience in the finance and banking world where she was formerly an executive director at JP Morgan. Banking is, you know, we know to be notoriously very intense and time-intensive. So it was really amazing to get to hear Jennifer's perspective on striking that balance between your work and your life. And she has this whole terminology around integrating our work and our lives together, which I'll let you guys get into when you listen to the interview. We talk all about that pivotal point in her career where she figured out how to work smarter and not harder. I think this is something that, especially young adults, and young professionals struggle with, you know, around navigating how to adapt their working style from college into the professional world and finding ways to be more efficient and not burn themselves out at the same time. Jennifer gives really amazing career advice throughout this interview. And I love the emphasis she places on the importance of taking care of our physical and our mental health and finding ways to do that when you're in a demanding job. I think that's so crucial and I think it's so easy to feel like you have to sacrifice one for the other. But Jennifer shares how actually taking care of yourself will enable you to do better in your work. And, you know, finding out how to do that, I think, is the million dollar question. So, thrilled to have Jennifer here again and excited for you all to listen. But before we get into it, make sure to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer. Happy listening. Hi, Jennifer. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. Hi, Celia, such a pleasure to be on your podcast. Very excited about today. Prior to hopping onto this call, we were talking about the importance of stepping away from your computer and just getting some fresh air, clearing your mind. And that was something I really needed to do today. I noticed I was feeling just so exhausted from the start of the work week on a Monday. And it was like warm outside. And I was like, I just need to get out and go for a little walk. And I'm so glad that I did that because it really goes to show that when you put these practices in place, it can really improve your mood. And today we're here to talk all about that, about work-life balance, which I know you have a different terminology for, which I'm excited to get into. But just so grateful to have you here to share your perspective on how you've managed to find this integration between your work-life and your personal life. Yeah, well, thank you. And listen, I totally believe that nothing ever breaks down when you go and take a walk for 10 minutes, right? It's one of those things where I think we as humans will feel like we're always too busy to do things. But when you take five to 10 minutes out for your own well-being, it goes a tremendous way. And then it also makes you a ton of productive at the end of the day. So I'm excited to have this conversation, though. And it's one of my favorite topics. Well, let's start with the trajectory of your career. You're incredibly successful. And I also look up to you as a woman in corporate America and where you've gotten to-- how you've gotten to where you are right now with your career, being at a JP Morgan for so long and now also being in venture capital. And so you've clearly had a variety of experiences and starting out in the financial industry, which is notoriously pretty ruthless and intense. I'd like to start there and hear a little bit about what that experience was like while at JP Morgan being an executive director and how you managed to navigate a very stressful and competitive and intense environment, especially as a woman, too. I started in this industry in 1999, right? So the early 2000s. And we definitely did not have the tools that we had today. So a lot of the work was done by brute force sometimes. And the hours that you would, at times, put in, could be a lot, right? There have been many evenings when I first started out where I worked to 11, 12, 1 o'clock in the morning, trying to get things done. Because there was no other-- and it was such a manual process because we didn't have the right systems. And you were applauded for it, right? Everybody would say, oh, look, Jen worked till midnight. She's such a hard worker. And it was something that you allowed to happen more and more as time went on, as I got older and as I kind of matured in my career. I realized that there's a difference between working hard and working smart. And not only that, but we now have tools that takes away a lot of the manual work that you may have had to have done in the financial industry back in the day or back when I first gotten to the industry. And so what I've learned through time is it's really about working smart, not hard. And I've learned throughout the years how to pivot and change that mindset, not only for myself, but for my manager, as well as, and then as I started managing people for the folks that I managed. And I would always tell people, I don't necessarily care how many hours you work. I just want to know if you can get it done and if you can get it done in a sustainable time for you. And so I think that is-- I started off, like I said, really just grinding, but it becomes unsustainable, as well. And once you kind of hit that reality is when you really have to change the way in which you do things. And I find that just in life in general, that's typically what happens. People give you advice all the time, right? And you want to listen to it, but you don't. And then it's only until your back is up against a wall that you go, I have to figure out a better way. And I think that's unfortunate. What happened to me, I had to kind of hit a wall before I really started making those changes. But it's definitely something that I talk about a lot, because I don't want people to wait until they hit that wall. In fact, makes any sense. Yeah, it's like what actions can you take that are preventative of hitting that wall? So what can you do? How can you be proactive about making sure you don't burn out or making sure that you're actually engaging in a way of working that's sustainable and respects your own boundaries and allows you to produce better quality outputs. What are steps you can take to do that rather than crisis hits and you're like, oh my god, I have to make this change. And I think that's something that we're all kind of working towards, but I think it's especially difficult to navigate for young professionals just entering the working world. I know for myself, it's definitely been a transition figuring out what does it look like to work in a corporate setting? And how is that different than the way I worked as a student? The way I studied the way I did my homework, the way I took exams. Like it's a completely different world and it's really difficult to figure out, I think, because some of the practices I notice that worked for me in college don't work for me in the working world or it's not necessarily cohesive to my team dynamic on a project that I'm on. And I think it's really challenging trying to figure out what are things I can do to ensure that I don't burn out? What are things I can do to ensure that I'm working smarter and not harder? So do you have any advice for young adults in the working world? Like young professionals just entering, how to like take that internal audit and figure out ways that work for them? So there's a few different ways to go about it. One, it's about really being intentional with your time. I always find it interesting that when you look at there's 24 hours a day. Let's just say you work eight hours and you sleep eight hours, right, that 16 hours you have all of these other hours to get things done. Now we know that sometimes you don't sleep for as long as the eight hours you may work longer than the the eight hour work day. But there is a tremendous amount of time in the day. It's about being intentional with that time and really thinking about what do I want to accomplish today this week, this month. And it sounds silly and I know a lot of people will say, oh, I do it. I do it in my head, you know, a list, making an elusive what you want to accomplish. I have three notebooks, right. One is for actual notes. One is from my laundry list and one is my actual planner that takes the laundry list and maps it out for the week, right. And so I am a huge fan of saying, all right, what are the three big things that I must get done today? Making sure, and I never try to put too much on my plate for that given day. I try to pick the three major things, the big things I have to get done because I know throughout the day a ton of little things are going to happen. Phone calls are happening. I happen to be on probably 67 hours of calls a day, right. So I know that there's only so much time that I have to get things done. So one is writing a list. Another is about really thinking about what do you want to accomplish. We spend a lot of time doing busy work. And I think it's a good thing to do to reflect on how do I spend my day. And if you really not about what do I do in those 24 hours, I guarantee you're going to find things that I spend that much time doing that. And it's it's it's burdensome in the beginning. Like I have to write out and you have to take note of what you're doing for a few days to really like map out. How much time do you spend on the phone? How much time do you really stay focused on a specific thing? How you know, how much time do you spend chatting away with with friends, which by the way, is a great thing that should always be part of your day. Because I do believe in and not just working you know, 13 straight hours without you know, coming up for air. So I think it's also about really thinking about how do you spend your day in auditing that and finding out am I really using my time in the in the best way possible. So those are two really easy things that somebody could do right away to really start managing their time. And I think the last thing I would say is you should have a few non-negotiables. A few things that you do that you may move the time around, but you know you've got to get that done for the week for yourself. This is not a work assignment. This is things that you do to sort of reset yourself. So is it working out three times a week? Is it making sure you read a book, spend time with friends, whatever it is that you find where you find your joy, making sure you schedule that in. I think it's been you know a really important thing for me to learn throughout my years because I tend to be more of a giver and and then I don't realize that I've given way too much and I've not taken anything for myself. So many great points you mentioned. I love that the theme kind of of your answer is around intentionality and that's a lot of what I discuss on this podcast is about intentionality in our thoughts and our decisions and our behavior and it's important to to remember that we need to kind of constantly work towards bringing greater attention and intention into you know what we do in our day to day and it can be as simple as just taking that internal audit of you know how are we actually setting it at times or time because I think that really definitely can go unnoticed as days and weeks get to be so hectic and you know I love that you brought up that point around chatting with your friends like you're gonna we're gonna get to this later about like what the workday can look like beyond just work like how do we integrate our lives into our work. So I want to circle back to that but I also want to talk a little bit about that point in your career while you were at JP Morgan where it was like hitting that wall when you realized okay I'm burning myself out and I need to make a change. So can you walk my listeners through what that experience was like what happened what made you you know rethink your behavior and figure out like the changes that you needed to make so that you could work smarter and not harder. You know obviously I was already hitting wall I was doing anyway you know I'd be in the office at around 7 7 30 a.m. and I'd be anywhere from 11 12 1 in the morning right I was I'm all about achieving everything that I possibly can and hitting every goal and all this fun stuff. Great we're at and so I was I was tired I at the time I was already a mom so I felt like I was a failure as a mom I felt like you know I was stressed I wasn't happy believe it or not that's not what it was that got me to actually change and I'm so thankful for this moment so I went to go have my performance review with my box and my boss gave me a great review you hit it out of the park you did everything that you were supposed to check check check check I'm feeling great and so she said you know I'm gonna give you this rating which was a very good rating but she said this time next year that rating goes to like goes down like two or three notches and I'm like why and she said you've already hit you've hit your ceiling jam and I what do you mean and she goes well actually give you any more work to do you're already working like a gazillion hours a day and not only that she was concerned about my team because although they may not have been working the same hours I was your your team will follow you and and sort of have some of the same habits and I remember when I got so I'm like well what do you want me to do then choose until you can leave the office at a reasonable time you end your team this is going to impact your performance I left that office in such a half and I was so angry and I couldn't believe that she would tell me you know after all I did how could she now you know my work like I was the I thought threatened she threatened my you know my performance next year but I will tell you that next day I was like I have to figure something out right and so I started looking at the tasks I started being very intentional I started can't I realized I was in way too many meetings meetings that I wasn't really adding value to so I delegated some of those meetings which by the way gave some folks in my organization more exposure and some more responsibility as well and slowly I started figuring it out because if I had like I had to figure it out or else you know I was going to be monetarily impacted which is not what I wanted to help then and what I realized a few months and was not only was I getting out at a decent time was you know I had I figured out that you know I can get out like and it started like eight clock seven clock you know and then I started getting out around six p.m. time frame you know and what I realized was I wasn't intentional I was I was wasting a lot of time too like because you think you're going to work such a long day you allow for wasteful conversation right you allow for wasteful meetings but when you know you have to be out by a certain time or that you know this is you this is you know your deadline for you you become so much more effective and efficient during your day where it's I stopped maybe to chat in a little too much because I again I thought my day was 15 hours so if I wanted to spend 45 minutes talking to somebody about you know a topic I look and I'm not saying that I didn't stop having side conversations but I'm shorting all those because I knew I had certain things to get done so it was always through being threatened unfortunately that I figured it out but I will say after that it's been like sort of my mantra that I try to tell everyone like don't wait to until you hit a wall or until something happens and I can tell you six months after that I remember going into my boss's office with like tears in my eyes and I said I hope you realize you know I've been leaving early and you know an earlier and you know the whole team and I've got a much for more like palatable day but what I said was I get tucked in or what my son now I felt more like a whole person as opposed to this executive that was trying to get up the next wrong with the ladder. And to me, I was the biggest learning lesson. And by the way, nothing felt. I was still just as effective. I was still getting all my things done. But my team was happier and I was happier. It was just about being intentional, which I'll probably say a gazillion times during this podcast. But that was really what happened to me and what made me sort of realize that I had to make a change and really start thinking about balancing or integrating my life better into my work. I'm so happy that you say that because I find that your philosophy on work, life integration to be really interesting, offline we had talked about this concept around work-life balance. And you had made a comment like, no, I actually think it's work-life integration. Can you share a little bit more about what informed that perspective for you and how you see work-life integration to be different than how we all think of maybe what work-life balance is? First, it's on original thought. I went to a fireside chat with a bunch of really senior women across JP Morgan. And a woman said this and I totally understood what she meant. And then from that point on, I was like, I'm not going to call it work-life balance on the call work-life integration. Because when we use the concept is, when we say the word balance, it's these equal scales, right? And just as, you know, I am a great mother and an awesome leader. I can do my job really well and still be there for my family and my friends. And there is, if anybody has ever has a chance, there's a shadow of the rhymes. I did a speech at, I forget which school it was now, maybe I'll remember it after, but she spoke about, you know, when I'm really successful in one part of my life, I'm probably failing in and not that. Right? The thing is, is that there's nothing. So when I am, you know, when I completed an investor report and it's got all the bells and whistles and all the right reporting and it looks great and I can deliver it and I did it, you know, on time and all that, it might have meant I miss my son's baseball game, right? Or I miss something. And when I'm out my son's games or something like that, or I'm doing something with my family, it's likely that something at work is not getting done. For me, it's about being kind enough to yourself to accept that fact and it's more about inter, like I call it work life integration because I'm integrating my work and my life together. And but at any given time, depending on if I'm working on something at home or I'm working for something, you know, at work, it has my full focus and it should have my full focus. And that means when something has my full focus, something doesn't, but that's okay because I've given myself permission and I've forgiven myself that I'm not the perfect mom and I am not the perfect leader CEO. But you know what, when I am there and I am present, I am fully focused and I am getting it done, whatever that means. I think that's so crucial because it's so easy to feel overwhelmed by like needing to be the best at like every part of your life. Like I need to be the best mom for my kids. I need to be the best leader for my team and for this organization. Like, and it's so hard to do all those things simultaneously, which then like I think that stress at least for me can get in my head and then it actually makes me less present in the moment. And when I'm less present, I'm less effective and it's something that I've been working towards like how can I be more present at work? How can I be more present with my friends, with my family and not worrying about work or my podcast or this or that? And I think it's, it kind of goes to show how these wellness practices that we can do like meditation or exercise or finding things in your day that allow you to kind of clear your mind and practice that exercise of being present. Like that helps you be more effective in your work and in your life. So I'm wondering if there are any types of practices that are wellness related that you like to do that help you find a greater sense of compassion, you know, really believing that statement like it's okay that I am not the best mom right now or it's okay that right now. I need to let something at work go for a second so that I can be present with my son and you know, my family. How do you formulate those beliefs and actually put that into practice? So a couple of things. One, I have some really great female mentors who have shared their same feelings that, and it's funny when you look at somebody else who like you look up to, right, and they tell you the struggles that they have. You've heard the term misery loves company and I don't mean it that way, right, but it is something that you go, oh my god, if she feels that way, well then I'm not one in a million, right? You know, and you know, I'm sure you have another podcast on imposter syndrome, right? It's amazing how all women feel this way or I should even say women, I think humans generally like we want to do well and everything that we do. And I know a lot of people, especially people who aim to please, I'm definitely a people please are you want to put that smile on everyone's face and you want to be there for them, but I've learned throughout the years that, you know, as in a airplane, right, you put the mask on yourself first before you put it on your child, right? And it's very similar in that sense, right, where you just have to, you've got to take the time to put the mask on yourself because you will not be a good mom or you won't be a good leader and everybody will feel it and they will not. And you will be less for it. I hate saying it. So some of the practices that I've put in place are one, I identified some of my own pitfalls, right? Whether it be, and you know, I'll share, I struggle with confidence I've always have, right? And that was something that I worked towards, you know, meditating and reading books and really trying to gain that confidence, fake it till I make it, you know, type thing. It's true. Like in the beginning, you're faking it, but after a while, it sort of starts to come natural. So I'm big on, I'm big on meditation, I am big on self-reflecting, right? And I'm also big on like setting, setting really big lofty personal goals that aren't linked to necessarily anything you're doing right now. They can be, but they don't need to be. It depends on what your vision is and, you know, five to ten years. And so I am big on making sure I have somewhat of a plan that gets me there, you know, and maybe it's just, I do one thing each week to get myself a touch closer to it. But I always prioritize that's one of my non-negotiables is taking one step forward to a particular goal that I may have set out, set out for. The advice I give anybody is find what gives you joy and make sure it's part of your everyday. It could be reading, it could be exercise, it could be meditation, find what gives you joy and then schedule it. Just like everyday endorphins, find what brings you endorphins every day. And I totally agree with scheduling it because then it's like non-nixcus. You know it's in your calendar and you're holding yourself accountable to getting it done. And you're more likely to do it because you see it like every day. You see it on your calendar. It's like, it's so easy to say, oh, like, you know, the day got away from me and I didn't do this one thing that I wanted to do that I know like always makes me feel good. Like maybe it's like getting in a morning workout or just going on a walk or calling a friend. But it's like when you actually have it in your calendar, you're more likely to do it because you're carving out the time to be like, okay, I actually need to get this done. I think you also bring up a really important point about how like all humans want to do well. And I do think especially women are kind of like at this disadvantage because we're seen as like the caretakers and wanting to give, give, give kind of to your point earlier. And it's, I think it's easy for women in particular to kind of overextend themselves. So that's why I really love having these conversations. around boundary setting and like figuring out what your non-negotiables are. And I think it's also difficult, especially for young people because they just entered the working world. So I think there are a lot of thoughts, sometimes that go through my head and I'm sure my peers had as well around, you know, am I really, is it really valid for me to ask for this? Like is it really valid for me to put up this boundary and be explicit about that when like, you know, I've only been working for not even a year now. So how would you advise younger people in the working world to gain that confidence to like actually set those boundaries? The one thing I will say, right, is a boundary is something that, if you set a boundary, it's in my mind, and this is the way I say it, right, a boundary is something that is fully in your control. It is not a request of somebody else because that is just a request. A boundary is something that you set for yourself that you won't do, right? So I'm sorry, I'd love to go to that meeting at 9 p.m., but I have another obligation. There's, because again, it's not about what is done. You can't control someone else, right? But you can control yourself, and that's not the first, like, lesson I have around boundaries is what are your boundaries and then how do you set them so that nobody can cross them about when you put up a brand boundary, nobody can cross it only you. But if you're asking a request, well, somebody could choose, yes or no to buy a bad request. So it's just a different way of thinking about it, but when you think about it from that perspective and you realize that it's in all, it's all in your control and it's not a request, it becomes a lot easier to set them. And it's just the way in which you communicate those boundaries, right? And listen, especially for people, pleaser, starting off in a business, I'm not going to say that they're happy. We make decisions and there are times where, yes, you're going to have to work way. You know, there are times where I will have bearish weeks where I can't believe I, and I know they're still coming and they're still on the horizon where I know there will be weeks where I can't believe I made it. But those things will happen from time to time. It's about the consistency and the regularity of it that I think we need to pay mine to. And if it's something that is, if it's something that you feel is consistently being infringed, you have to think of what is the boundary that I can set to prevent that from happening in the future. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really unique perspective to bring to just kind of like defining what boundaries are because it's so easy to think like, well, boundaries can be pushed. They can be molded by someone else, but a true boundary is really that one where you are setting it in place and you're the only one that can change it. Like no one can infringe on that. Like, I like that you create a distinction between a request and a boundary because I think especially at like an earlier stage in one's career, it's very easy to equate the two. Yes. And they are very different. And listen, there's nothing wrong with asking with having requests for people. It's just they could choose to take it or not and it comes out of your control. And then that can be terribly frustrating. So that, you know, and that's not really a boundary because somebody could cross it at any time. So that's why I think it would happen. I think that's a really good perspective to provide. I also want to ask kind of related to boundaries, but something that is also a bit challenging in the working world is not letting outside noise affect like your performance. And it goes kind of back to your point around this concept of work, life, integration. So obviously we are more than our jobs. Like we have lives outside of work. We have families, friends, you know, other responsibilities, obligations. And life can come at you at a million miles an hour. And more often than not, things don't go as planned. And so it can be really easy to let external circumstances dictate your mood, dictate, you know, how you feel in a given moment. And it's hard to bring your best self to work when things around you aren't going the way that you want them to. So how do you let the outside world, the outside noise not affect you being present in your work environment? Like how do you kind of separate the two and how are you able to not let outside noise get to you? Well, one, I try to see noise sometimes if it depends on how we define noise as an opportunity. Like if something negative is coming at you, right? There may be an opportunity though. So one, I always try to find the opportunity. And if I'm dealing with a, you know, very difficult person, right? I see the opportunity and Jen showed you a sort of relationship building stuff and show how you can turn this around. Like it's, it's, yeah, I'm talking to myself constantly, right? I'm approaching myself. But I, you know, so I always try to find the opportunity and I re-frame very big on as soon as I feel like, oh, ho, ho, or what was me, which listen, I do, I do, right? I then go, all right, you can feel that way for two seconds, Jen. All right, great. Where's the opportunity here? What do you want to learn out of this? What do you've been a gain out of it? And it may not be all roses. Listen, I can't make everything positive, but there may be something I'm learning from that or something I'm gaining from it. But there's always, I found nine out of 10 times I can find some opportunity, right? The second thing that I think I do, you know, I do think is important is really think about where it's coming from number one. And you know, something I always tell my son, you'll hear me say that all the time, but it's not what happens to you. It's how you respond to it. And so we can only control what we can control. And one of the things that we can control with noise is either to focus on it or to not focus on it. And if it's not something that needs to be focused on, focus on it, right? And again, kind of like my first thing is there are less than that because there's always teachable moments and everything, even in the worst of situations of the most negative, there's a teachable moment. But then there are times where you go, this doesn't serve me to even really be thinking about it's somebody, you know, I can't control it. So I can only go into control my reaction to it, which is you could ignore it, you can learn from it. You know, it's really how you want to handle that particular situation. And again, the third thing I would say is always sort of go back to what is your overall end goals to things. That's where we should always be focused on. I love to tell my team all the time because it's so easy. And I've been saying this my whole career, you can spend a full day working on nothing that really moves the needle. And any, any job I've ever had and every team, and any team that I've ever run, you could probably spend a full day just in the day, right? But what really makes us, you know, excel is doing those big things and achieving those big things. So if you always have in your mind, what are the big things you're after? Is this noise impacting that? If it's not, kind of let it go. And I also believe it is just don't take things personal. First off, half the time we get it wrong when we take things personally, we misunderstood what somebody is saying. That is not exactly their intention. You don't know what's going on with that noise, right? So not taking it personally. And then listen, if you do take it personally and ask the question and actually find out if that's true. Did you mean to, you know, when you said that, I felt this way, is that how you wanted, is that how you wanted me to feel? Right. It's things like that. It's, you know, little techniques that I've used in I've learned throughout the years of how to deal with it to really get to the heart of the matter. And I could say, nine, nine, it's 10 times. I've misinterpreted it. And it actually, there was a different, the person, that's not what the person was trying to come across way for happy. I think that not having that victim mindset to kind of go back to an earlier point you brought up is so important because when we fall into that mentality, oh, what was me? Oh, why did this happen to me? It's self perpetuating and it's negative and it's not productive. And it's also to your other point around, is this serving me, choosing to focus on things that actually see. and like we'll further you. So I really love your answers. And I'm also just curious, how do you see your experiences at JPMorgan and now being a CEO? How has your career and the lessons that you've learned through failures and kind of hitting that wall? How has that shaped your perspective on leadership and how you choose to lead teams and how you choose to coach people, you know, focusing on work life integration and bringing greater wellness to their own workplace? - I have found that it has served me tremendously well to take my teams while being into account because when they see that you care about something outside of what makes that person successful, they will go through brick wall through them. Right, just like, 'cause they go, you know what? Wow, and there's been so many times that I will say, someone goes, "I'm not feeling well, I'm like, "Log all right now." And they're like, "No, I can't love you." No, no, no, no, I'm telling you now, you need to lock off, you need to get some rest. You can let me know tomorrow, how you're failing. If you're still not feeling well, please, don't, right? Or somebody tells me, "Oh, this catastrophe happened," you know? Or even I broke up with someone, I find that the little bit of, you know what? Take the rest of the day and go deal with that. And you've got my full support. I hope everything goes well. Maybe a little advice in between, if they're open to it. But those little tiny things were made across me an afternoon. That's a, that's a year's worth a good will from that person. And I am very transparent with my, with my teams. I always say, I do that so that there is this mutual, you scratch your, you know, you do for me, I do for you. So that you remember, like, so when my back is against the wall, you know, I need something you may come to my rescue, right? Or you'll try to help me. It's that sort of mutual alignment that you have. But I find that, you know, throughout my years, it's funny of managing people. I was like, wait, you know, one was, I was afraid to tell anybody what to do. 'Cause, you know, it was a brand new manager and I was scared to then swing the pendulum completely the other way and being a bit of a, you know, a real serious driver of people to the point where it wasn't healthy, right? And then I sort of found that balance where I realized a happy team makes a great workforce, which, and we get things done, and we get things done with a smile and we're happy. And listen, you could succeed and it could have crushed your soul, right? But, you know, if you had the right people around you and the right team around you and holding hands and working on it together, it makes it a lot more palatable. Then just, you know, a team where everybody is just driving towards their own particular goal. It's just not fun and it makes a really hard task, 10 times harder. And so I've found throughout the years, it's been about, if you show care with other people, they will show respect to you. - It's like bringing a sense of humanity into the work that you're doing. And I think when people feel supported, they feel like it's a psychologically safe environment. And so they feel like they can come to you to talk about what's going on and feel like, you know, they have your support to go take care of whatever is going on in their life. And then if there's that trust, they feel, I think there's like a greater self motivation to get the work done. And it's more enjoyable. So it's a win-win. If there's not a culture of that, then I just feel like it's so much harder to enjoy the work that you're doing and feel like you're progressing throughout your career. And maybe this culture wasn't, you know, as prevalent 20 years ago. And it hopefully we're kind of trending towards this direction now in the workforce where managers and more, you know, executive people are valuing, having a psychologically safe environment and like what that looks like. - No, absolutely. And it reached so many more benefits than the that true drive mentality of like driving and driving until they break type mentality, which when I first gotten to the industry, it was a little bit like that. But you definitely see a lot more, you know, focus on health and wellness and wellbeing. And I also say this, I mean, it's when people start getting sick, those things are long term, you know, now it's not one day out. It is, you know, maybe two weeks out, maybe they get burnt out and they're going to be out for a while or maybe they quit because they were just so unhappy. Those outcomes are not good outcomes to me. As opposed to maybe giving somebody a little time, a little extra time to finish something, giving them some time off and say, listen, clear ahead. And, you know, whatever it is that they need to take care of themselves, I can guarantee you that the long term effect of newing on would have been a whole lot worse. It kind of goes with eating well, right? You know, and I think in our society, and this is why I think people struggle sometimes with this is because we're all about immediate, right? I want that, I want that because it tastes good and we're happy, but if we don't treat our bodies well, we don't eat well, we don't exercise. In the long run, when you get older, you're going to feel those effects of that. It is very similar with, and that's physical, similar with wellbeing, you know, and it's about taking care of it before it gets out of hand. Like you mentioned, at the beginning of this episode, finding those practices to be proactive instead of reactive to that moment of crisis, and what can you do to prevent that from happening? And I think it's just so valuable to hear this at a young age, at a younger stage in my career, and for my listeners, you know, mostly young adults that are tuning into the show. So hopefully you have all taken away a lot of pieces of advice from Jennifer today because she has shared just so much valuable wisdom, and I think it's just a great reminder to do that, that practice of that internal audit and really figure out ways to be more intentional with how you spend your time and find the things that bring you that sense of happiness in your day to day, during the work week and outside of the work week. That being said, my final question to you, Jennifer, is something that I ask every guest that comes onto the podcast. What is something that brings you a bit of endorphins in your day to day life? Definitely checking things off my list. I love to accomplish things, and for me, meditation is super key in keeping me sort of happy and healthy, and then obviously exercise, although, I go into, you know, I do it and I don't, but I try to at least across those three things, I make sure I'm prioritizing them as best as possible so that I can keep having that positive outlook that I need to have. Absolutely, and I think those things also can kind of wax and wane too. Like sometimes I have the time and the energy to exercise as often as I can, and then other days, I need to give myself the grace to just take a rest, and that's just as valuable. So I love that answer, and I think it's a great reminder as well. Jennifer, how can people get connected with you? How can they find you on LinkedIn, and also check out everything that you're doing with Gaines'ils? So they obviously, you could go to my LinkedIn page, just connect with me, I connect with everybody who wants to chat, I will do coffees, I will do zoos. That's probably the best way I'm not big on social media, so I don't have a whole ton there, but absolutely rejects me on LinkedIn, and you will hear from me within 24 hours, I will set up some time. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure having you on the podcast, and I just appreciate the advice, I think it's something we all need to hear, and it's really inspirational, so thank you. - Thank you for having me, I really appreciate it. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening, and remember to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer. Don't forget to keep spreading endorphins, and find things that bring you endorphins every day. See you next time. (upbeat music)