Tech Exec Wellness Podcast: Conversations to Reignite Your Soul
In the fast-paced world of technology, where innovation and disruption are the norm, tech executives often find themselves caught in a whirlwind of high-pressure decision-making, long working hours, and constant connectivity. The relentless pursuit of success and the demands of their roles can take a toll on their mental, emotional, and physical well-being. However, a new narrative that emphasizes the importance of tech executive wellness as a crucial component of sustainable success is emerging. This is the story of the tech executive's journey to rediscover balance, prioritize well-being, and ultimately thrive in their personal and professional lives.
If you're ready to embark on a wellness journey that will empower you to live your best life, I invite you to subscribe to Tech Exec Wellness, Navigating the Digital Balance, wherever you listen to podcasts. Together, let's cultivate harmony within ourselves and radiate positive energy to the world. Each week, we'll explore a wide range of topics related to wellness, inviting experts, thought leaders, and everyday individuals who have transformed their lives through mindful living, self-care, practices, and holistic approaches. We'll dive deep into areas such as nutrition, fitness, mental health, spirituality, mindfulness, personal growth, and more.
Tech Exec Wellness Podcast: Conversations to Reignite Your Soul
Ep. 13: Navigating Grief & Wellness
When life throws us curveballs, the aftershocks can resonate through every corner of our existence, including the workplace. This episode of Tech Exec Wellness Podcast takes an intimate look at the collision of grief and our professional lives, with hosts Melissa, Erika, and Lisa, who bravely share their personal tales of navigating loss while maintaining their careers in tech. We delve into the delicate art of juggling emotional health with job responsibilities, acknowledging that the pain of loss—be it a job, a loved one, or even a cherished pet—demands recognition and care. Our heartfelt conversation aims to connect with you, offering solace and strategies for managing grief's grip on our lives.
As we've all witnessed, recent global events like the COVID-19 pandemic have magnified the need for comprehensive wellness initiatives in the workplace. In this episode, we underscore the critical role of such programs, exploring how they can fortify our resilience and cybersecurity practices at a time when personal vulnerabilities could translate into professional risks. Follow along as Mel, who recounts the added challenge of starting a new job amid profound loss, highlighting the imperative for both individual coping mechanisms and organizational support. Whether it's through meditation, connecting with nature, or receiving counseling, we emphasize the importance of prioritizing our well-being to navigate the complexities of grief without compromising our security and productivity.
Please visit our website https://www.techexecwellness.com to stay up to date and subscribe to our newsletter!
Hi, welcome back to another episode of the Tech Exec Wellness Podcast. I'm Melissa.
Speaker 2:I'm Erica and I'm Lisa.
Speaker 1:So we're going to. There's been a lot of uh, scheduleings and conflicts with calendars and travel, et cetera. So things are back in full swing. But we thought we would take an opportunity today to talk about grief. Oftentimes people suppress that and you're working side by side with a colleague, or even a friend, and you don't know what's going on. And I think there's always been this belief around you know, just hold it in, be professional at all times, and I think that if we suppress these emotions, it's going to hurt us from a well-being perspective. So today we're going to dive into the experiences that we've all had. So Erica is going to go through her experience with grief, lisa will go through hers and I'll go through mine, but we're going to just have a nice conversation with our coffee, sitting around amongst friends and talking about this. So grab your tea, your coffee, whatever you like, and join us. So, erica, you're up.
Speaker 2:How are you? I'm great. How are you? Thank you for the intro and I'm really excited to talk about this because, as both you and Lisa know, I've experienced some major things personally and professionally that most would tell you to hold in and, you know, don't let it flow into your personal or professional life, right. So when we decided that we were going to talk about this, I was really excited because I feel like this is going to resonate with a lot of people going through things and just trying to keep it together.
Speaker 2:So, you know, throughout my life, things have not been easy for me, but I've learned a lot and I've grown a lot, and when I came into tech in 2012, it changed my life and I've said that before on a previous episode. It has changed my life for the better. I am forever grateful for this industry but at the same time, in the recent years maybe over the last four years as most have gone through some changes in the tech industry, I myself have gone through some changes and, being that working is one of the most time consuming things in my life right now and that's not to say that I don't want it to consume my time, but we work, you know, 40 plus hours a week and we're trying to maintain a work-life balance. And when I started doing well in my career and then 2020 hit with COVID and all of the layoffs started happening, I was affected originally like two times with layoffs and then, most recently over the last two years, two other layoffs. But on top of that, I've also lost a pet and I've gone through some growth stages.
Speaker 2:I've gone through some you know, positive and negative things, and I had to sit back and reflect on how this has affected me as a professional adult, a mother, a friend, you know, a sister or a wife, whatever you want to call it, because I don't think we realize that we shove our feelings down, because we're told to basically be tough and man up, or whatever term you want to use, because we have to show up professional every day. But, with work being the most time consuming thing and the thing that I do the most, I had to figure out how I balance grief, anxiety, stress and happiness all in one, because I've always been told to push it down. Have you, ladies, been told to push it down? Do you know what I'm talking about? My whole life, yeah, yeah. My whole life, yeah.
Speaker 3:So we're, going.
Speaker 2:We're familiar with this and I know that a lot of our listeners are also going to be familiar. So I had to do some soul searching and I'll tell you both and you know this, but our audience doesn't I've really gone through some transformations over the last two years, specifically after the last year when Melissa came into my life and then Lisa, you came into my life. I've changed so much for the better, but I still had to figure out how to manage my grief and I kind of had to refine myself. You know, with the layoffs I had to question what I was doing in my career and make sure that it's what I wanted to do, because I started kind of feeling like maybe I'm not meant to be in tech sales or to be in tech at all, and that took a long time for me to realize this is where I'm supposed to be. This is something that I love to do, but the grief of the job loss, the stress, the family dynamics, covid I had to figure that out and I'll be honest with you, it has taken me a couple of years to kind of still realize how I felt after COVID, lockdown and losing the gym, because that's another grief that I went through. As most people know, I'm a bodybuilder, so for me to lose the gym in 2020 and not be able to go every single day, I really had to refine myself. I didn't know what to do and then I buried myself into work and then layoffs started happening.
Speaker 2:So it's been this constant stream and reoccurring, finding myself and realizing that it's okay to grieve. I've always been told not to. You got to be strong. Your employer wants you to be happy all the time and work life balance, but it's really hard to do it as a professional and adult, a mother, and I'm still working on it.
Speaker 2:As you, ladies, know, in January of this year, we had to put down one of our pets.
Speaker 2:He was an 18-year-old Jack Russell Terrier, very important, and I had to realize how I felt and not let it flow over into my personal life, because losing a pet is like losing a parent or a cousin or a sister or a brother, and it's March of 2024 and we put him down in January and it's been a couple months and it's still really hard and leading up to putting him down and even after putting him down, it's stung and, as you can hear my voice, I'm crying because it's made me question a lot of other things like what's important in my life and how much my health and well-being is overall.
Speaker 2:So the podcast has been really helpful for me because I'm able to be my authentic self and basically break down and almost cry like a tile on this episode, but that's okay. I have been working through the grief, but I've also realized that I've been tabling and burying grief from multiple layoffs, changes, my career and just growth as an individual. And I will be the first to tell you this has been the hardest thing I've done in a long time. And yeah, I'm still working on it and the only advice I will give people is work on yourself and make sure you allow yourself to cry, because I would always hold it in or just take that grief. It is so important.
Speaker 3:I agree. You have to get rid of the grief. You have to. To me it's like a splinter. If you don't get it out, it's just going to fester, infester, infester and hurt more and more and more. So you have to, you have to cry, and once you start peeling back those layers, you're just like oh, my God, is this ever going to stop? But I promise you it does. Yes, it does. Eventually You'll get to the bottom of it.
Speaker 1:I think, erica, you said something that resonated with me, which is a repetitive thing, and I think one thing we have to do is give ourselves grace. I don't think there's a rule book in life we need to follow, and I think that we need to be open to transformation. And you know, I've watched you evolve over the months that I've known you and I love the person that I see you becoming. I see somebody who's very confident, someone who is showing emotional intelligence. So I would advise our listeners, ourselves even. It's okay to have those moments, it's okay to feel that grief. Give yourself some grace, and I think, in this world that we live in, it's important that we extend grace to those, because we don't know what people are going through, and I think a death of a pet is just as impactful as a person.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I agree, and one of the best pieces of advice and this is the last thing I'll say, and then one of you ladies can go next is the one of the best pieces of advice that has stuck with me was treat people how you want to be treated, because and not just as an ascended person, not just as, in a sense, where you should treat each other fairly, but you don't know what that person's going through on that day in their life, every minute, and your hello or smile or just acknowledgement could help them so much. And I'll never forget who told me that.
Speaker 3:I couldn't agree more. Sometimes the smallest things, whenever you're just in the depths of grieving, just mean more than people would ever imagine. Yeah, we had to put down a dog as well in 2020. I'll never forget it. It was unexpected. He was coughing a lot. I took him to the vet that was thinking they were just going to give him a shot of prednisone, and you know that was that. But the vet called back and said you have some decisions to make. You can either rush into a cardiac surgeon or, you know, you can let him go, and this was like in the middle of the work day. So I at the time this was COVID we couldn't go into the vets with the animal, so I dropped everything and ran there and then, out of the blue, had to let the sweet, sweet boy go. He was a 12 year old pug, he was just the feistiest, liveliest guy ever. And then, almost a week later I think a week to the day later, my mom passed. So it was just.
Speaker 3:I didn't fully grieve PJ, because I was, you know, just went straight back to work and working on it and working on a deal, getting an SOW together, and then my mom passes, and then that was just, it was expected, but no easier.
Speaker 3:It just knocked me on my ass honestly. And then, a year later, my dad you know just when I'm getting over my mom my dad passed unexpectedly in that, unless you fully feel those feelings, they're not going to go away, they're just going to get stronger and stronger. So in our Power of the Dog episode I talked about going for walks. That was one thing that was incredibly helpful just to get out and walk and take time and thinking, you know, forgive myself. That's to me that's one of the biggest things is just to forgive yourself, forgive them, for you know, whatever happened, and forgive yourself or not I think that's one of the biggest things in grief is we think we failed somebody, especially with a parent. I didn't do enough, I wasn't there enough, I didn't go visit enough. You have to forgive yourself and be thankful for the time you had and just cry. Get those emotions out of your body.
Speaker 2:That's great advice, honestly, and I do have the sense that I didn't do enough when we put Bacon down. That was our JRT for the listeners who don't know and people are like he's lived for 18 years, he's good, but it was the last piece of my partner's mom. So my partner Brad he has lost both of his parents and that was her dog. He took that dog in 2016 when she died, and for him, that's when his mother's death has hit, so it's been really wrong.
Speaker 3:Yeah, going through this, I learned that those emotions stay in your body. They live in your muscles and in your tissues, and just movement that helps get it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what you said about going back to finishing your deal. That's the stuff we do and, like you said, we need to cry and get this out, and I know that so many people are going through so many things right now, especially in our industry, and I've always been told toughen up cookie, don't cry.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or it's just a dog, let it go. It's not just a dog, that's a member of our family, and if you don't feel them, if you don't process it, it will show up, that bill will come due, and that's not one you want to put off, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you find yourself still blaming yourself?
Speaker 3:I do. Well, not as much, Not as much. You know, one of the things that I'm beginning to meditation and there's this Hawaiian mantra, ho up with no, I can't even pronounce it, but basically it translates to you know, just breathing and saying I'm sorry, please forgive me, Thank you, I love you. So when you meditate and you breathe and you just say those words, that grief will come out and really just saying it, energy isn't created or destroyed, it's only transformed. I believe that on some level, my mom and dad can hear me saying that you lost your father as well. It was I did, I did.
Speaker 3:And almost a one year to the day later, my mom died November 12th 2020. My dad died October 31st 2021. Just after their anniversary. I guess he was just like. I'm not going through another one without her. You know his was unexpected and that was my mom had suffered from dementia, Alzheimer's for seven years, so hers was expected. So we had time to grieve some, you know, not fully, but we had time to process it. My dad was so much harder because it was out of the blue and he was such a strong character, lively guy that it just still I'm just like. I can't believe he's gone.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry you lost both of them. That's really tough. And one question that I have, because I know how I felt how is that made you act in your professional life? Do you feel like you're a different person after that? I am?
Speaker 3:I am. I definitely have learned balance more and also I've learned that grief is a business risk. You know, whenever you're grieving, you're not going to be fully present at your work. So, coming from cybersecurity, I consider that a definitely a threat vector that's not talked about enough. If you have that depression, if you have that grief, you're not worried about installing updates.
Speaker 3:I do, because I think about this stuff all the time, but the average person, I don't think they're going to think about going. I'm traveling for my mom's screen rule. I don't know about this network. It's just safe to log on to it. I'm not going to take the chance. I'm going to use my phone as a hotspot. You know, the average person does not think like that. That's a great point. They don't. And that's one reason why I want companies to understand hey, give your people time. Give them time to process that, because if you have a bunch of grieving employees, they're not going to be worried about your installing the updates or taking their laptop and logging on to an unsecured network. They're just trying to stay alive. Really, they're just trying to keep their life together. So consider that as a business risk.
Speaker 2:That is such a great point. I would love to hear Mel's perspective on that, because I don't think companies realize how much that can cost them just from a cost perspective, but as a security threat perspective as well. And you know, if you have companies that are grieving and they feel like the company isn't supportive, do they become an insider threat? Do they start doing malicious things internally? That's a really good topic for discussion. We won't talk about that today, but I'd love to hear from some experts on that. Mel, what do you think?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I think that we've already got non-technical people that have to follow guidelines and, like Lisa said, if you're not fully present, then you're not fully present and that could be catastrophes. But I'm sitting here thinking while both of you have spoken, and my mother. So we used to live up in Northern Illinois, chicago area, and I had just gotten an offer with Symantec and that was moving me. We were relocating to the Dallas area.
Speaker 1:My mother, I think it was two weeks or three weeks before we were to depart the area, I get a call from my sister saying hey, mom's going to the ER, she's not doing well. And I'm like what? Because my mother was 66, very active, gardening the whole mine yards. So we go up to the hospital, into the emergency room, and there's my mother and she's got a smile on her face and she's just as happy as she could be. And when you talk about regret, if I knew that was the last time I was going to see her, I would have stayed longer. Because, jogging to the nurses, she's going to be okay, okay, great. So we go back home and then things take a turn for the worse and she goes into a coma. She has a heart attack while she's in a coma and she never came out. So the doctors, the specialists, did all they could do, but it was time for us to make a decision as a family. I said, mike, good-bye to her. I visited her as much as I could and then we departed. So we got to Dallas, to the area, and literally when we got here I got a call that she passed. So I had to start work the next day and I never told my employer that my mother had just passed and kind of like y'all are saying, I got my MacBook, I did my onboarding and I pushed through it. So maybe, while I'm upset right now, it's because I didn't really grieve it.
Speaker 1:So I continued on the best that I could and I really recommend if you lose a parent or a child, you definitely have to get grief counseling. So I got myself into grief counseling and it helped a lot and I had wonderful coworkers at Symantec and then, eventually, my boss, merrick. I told him what happened and he was just beside himself. He's like Melissa, why didn't you tell me this happened? And I just had a great supportive team there. Paige Hansen actually worked at the Norton Lifelock Symantec, so I had a great environment of people that were just amazing to me. And I had a layoff from Symantec and it was crushing because I loved my team. I felt like this was my forever home and I enjoyed it. I had a great boss and Merrick it was just wonderful.
Speaker 1:So I think throughout my life I've lost a lot of people. I've lost good friends, I've lost pets and I think when I was in the military, because I was losing a lot of people in my life, I just kind of became hardened to it. I would be upset, but I remember when we were in St Thomas over the holidays and my best friend, sean, got a call from his partner that he passed, and I was like, wow, the hits just keep coming and I think that it's good to be resilient. But I also think that you got to take time out and you got to feel this, you got to process this and I think that in the work environment you cannot be treated as a transaction, you cannot be treated as a widget. I mean, these are human beings with feelings and I know myself as a leader. I want to promote the well-being of my employees. I want to make sure that if something is going on, that they can have an open door conversation and say, hey, look, this is going on and that way we can facilitate the work or whatever meetings and this person can go and be with their family.
Speaker 1:So, erica, I know you've mentioned your pet. I mean, I think that's one of the hardest losses I've ever had, lisa, with your parents. I mean, if you look at the three of us and you look at our social media, you don't know the hell that we've been through, the pain that we've been through, because, erica, you and I've talked about this before On social media you have this image right and nobody sees the peaks and valleys of your life Like on paper. Oh, there's all the success. You're highly educated, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But behind the curtain or underneath the layers, this person, lisa, you lost your parents. Erica, you lost your pet, you've had losses with companies and that's the thing we keep going on and we have this resiliency and I call it grace under pressure. You know we're these steel magnolias, if you will, but I want our listeners to know that it's OK to not be OK. You matter. Do not put all of this on yourself. Go to grief, counseling, talk about it, feel it. And that's just my experience.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry for your losses as well and thank you both for sharing that, but I do have a question for you. So, Lisa, Mel, you are both a little bit higher. Well, Mel, you're an executive and Lisa's higher in her career than I am, meaning you're more senior positions. What do you think that companies can do to support their employees as well as protect the risk?
Speaker 3:Sometimes it's just the easiest thing. The easiest thing to let them know their value. Take some time. First of all, bereavement leave is not long enough. Three days is not enough for when you lost a parent as a manager, let them know that they're valued. We want you to take a few days, take a week and work through it. We're going to do everything we can to help you while we're going through this major life event, this major life transition, and it could be anything it can be. There are other things that cause you grief more than you know. Not more, but as much as loss of a parent, loss of a relationship, loss of anything, any loss, anything that causes you to grieve.
Speaker 2:I think that needs to be recognized. That's great advice. I mean even people that are going through relationship breakups or divorces. I feel like people don't think that that's grief. My opinion is that it is grief, and I think that companies need to be more supportive. What about you, mel? I mean you touched on it a little bit as a leader, but from a business risk perspective and just basically being a human. What are you saying companies can do?
Speaker 1:So I think we're going through this paradigm shift. So, erica, I know when you and I connected and I said, hey, let's do this podcast, it really resonated with you and I think that we're agents of change because we're having the hard discussions that nobody's having. My recommendation to an organization is kind of like y'all were talking about at least that you were talking about a business risk. It's like, erica, I know we've talked about this before on our episodes, but with the lockdown, with COVID, it's not normal for somebody to be isolated. It's not normal for people to use gloves to go out and get your groceries or door dash. And you have put the world's population, all these children, teenagers, parents, singles, etc. You've put through the most extreme thing ever to promote safety. And me, being a military veteran, I was okay. I mean, I got through being at sea for a year. It is what it is Before the normal civilian, the normal person out there. This was a life impacting situation.
Speaker 1:So I think what companies need to do is they really need to look at wellness as not only a business risk, a cyber risk, but also productivity, and right now we're in an economic downturn. So is it really going to hurt the business to say to your people take the time you need. Or is it going to be bad if this person turns to substance abuse or eyes off the ball from work and loses productivity? Is it worth it to tell people to just deal with it, or do we have the uncomfortable conversation around? You know what these are human beings? We've had some really crazy things happen over the last few years. Let's address the well-being. Let's address getting people getting out and walking to recalibrate. So I think, erica, the conversation needs to happen now. I mean, what do you think in your professional life, being in cyber as long as you happen do you think now is the time to have these discussions?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think that now is more important than ever before because, as you both know and the industry knows, the attacks are increasing. Things are only getting worse. From that perspective, and I think that companies personally, I think they should look at wellness programs within and offering some sort of support to their employees because, like you guys both mentioned, productivity is going to be off, things are going to get missed and there's people that can't afford counseling, so maybe they can utilize their employee benefits for that and do some sort of offer. I mean offer yoga classes or whatever you want to do as an employer, I think, to keep your employees and to keep them happy and lower business risk.
Speaker 2:This is one of the most important discussions that I think we should be having, because one thing that really makes me sad is I'm LinkedIn. Daily. I'm seeing people in our industry becoming homeless and they're dealing with grief and loss and that's we don't know what else they're going through. So when they find a job, finally, it's a relief for them, but are they going to need some sort of help? So I think companies should kind of look at creating wellness programs or some sort of offering, because bereavement is not enough, but it shouldn't just only be for death. You know what I mean. It should be for just everyday life.
Speaker 1:No, I agree with that as well, and I think that you talk about cost of therapy et cetera, and I think that you can find sliding scale services out there and again, we're not medical professionals, but that's something that's available. But I was going to suggest looking at YouTube, not for counseling, but for yoga, for meditation. A lot of that stuff is free and for me I practice meditation by myself it's not something I'm going to do in a group setting because some of those emotions can just come out of nowhere. So I would never do personally a group meditation, because I think it's a private practice and I think people have their ways of meditating. I sometimes do Buddhist chanting Nam Yohoran Gayo, and I want to do that by myself. I don't want to do that around other people. So that's my two cents.
Speaker 2:That's great, Lisa. What about you?
Speaker 3:I'll also add another layer Since COVID before COVID, you went into an office. You know, if, for whatever reason, home life wasn't so happy, at least you got a break. You got to go to the office. If your office life was not ideal, at least you got to go home to a happy home life. And since COVID there's not that, there's really not that break. You know, it's like you're in one place all the time, all day long, and if you have something you're grieving you don't really have an escape. I think it's, you know, imperative that you know people find a way to get out, to get out and get out in nature. There's so much. Just go like be around some trees. That helped me a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, and what happens personally, if I'm going through something, I try not to shut down, but I also I don't know if you both have noticed I haven't really talked that much since last Friday or Thursday or Friday, because I'm going through some things and I'm trying to work it out personally, because some people just need that by themselves time. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but for me personally, I'm working through some things and I need to be, show up and be the best friend, employee, mom, a sister, wife, whatever you want to call it. But I am taking this time to process and people take it personal when you do stuff like that, and I always try to communicate. I'm just going through some things, you know, I'm trying to figure it out, but in a work setting you don't really have that option.
Speaker 2:Like you said, there is no separation with the work. You know, with everybody working from home and I know that's a really hot topic that employers want you back in the office, but I know when companies are not doing it, for you know any sort of like well being purposes, but I don't think people realize that. You know, although you had to drive two hours to get to work or you're gone. You had that separation. You know you're not constantly reminded of the pet that used to sit next to you or your mom sitting down with you, whatever you want to call it. I've kind of been thinking about that myself, being a salesperson. Just, customers are so happy to see me again and they've never been happy, you know, to take vendor meetings. Well, they are, but they, you know things drain them. But now, like just seeing the change pre COVID versus now, people are so much more interested in meeting in person and being engaged.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and you and I are so much alike. I'm one to you know like I go off to myself, to you know process, and I don't think it's the best way to handle it personally, because you know they're a partner and a, you know, friends that want to help. And I think that being able to talk about what you're feeling is the first step into letting it go, because whenever you just sit by yourself and you know, try to let it go, you're not really letting it go, you're just processing it over and over and over and there's so much to just say in this is what I'm dealing with and just getting it out of your energy space.
Speaker 2:I don't know which one of you mentioned this earlier, but we're afraid to kind of show that grief and personally I don't want other people to take on what I'm going through, because I'm an empath, and I don't want them to take over my emotions, because some people you know, especially people that are intuitive or in line with themselves, they take on others emotions and we need to stop feeling bad about letting it out.
Speaker 3:Exactly, Exactly, I mean, at some point you have to. You have to set that heavy load now. You know you can't carry it around forever. Yeah, so that's one of the most important things that I learned was to actually talk. You know, talk to my partner, talk to my friends and accept the help that they're wanting to give.
Speaker 2:That's great advice. Yeah, I'm still working on that. You ladies know that.
Speaker 1:Well, when we talk about take a load off, I mean there's that one song and then we were talking about I don't know if people remember this commercial I'd like to buy the world a coat and keep it company.
Speaker 3:I mean, I love that commercial.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for me, like I see myself, you know, and Erica, you talked about this earlier but I see myself reinventing myself. I mean, I had my days where I'm a bear, but I think where I am 90% of the time is this free spirit hippie. I love everybody, I want the best for people, I want everybody to be having a abundant life, enjoy themselves. I mean, that's what I wish for the world, that's what I wish for my friends and people I work with is hey, let me give you a coat. Well, people probably like Pepsi, but let me give you a coat. You know what? Let's smile. And I think, when you talk about the whole vendor thing and the meetings, again, it's so cool and it's even better now that you can get your hair done, you get your eyebrows done, because I tell you, when you couldn't get any of those services done during COVID, I was like I am not going on camera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I get that. I couldn't get my hair done for a while because we weren't able to see our hairdressers. That sucked.
Speaker 1:I think this has been an enjoyable session for us all. I mean, this was a very hard episode for the three of us and I mean I'll give you all like time for your parting words here, but from my perspective I think this was a great conversation to have. We were supposed to talk with confidence. But she's on route, she's traveling, and we decided, hey, we don't want you stressing out, so we'll reschedule. Not a big deal. There were some glitches with our software, but it's all good.
Speaker 1:But I really liked that we took the time and that's one of the things I like working with Erica is that you know you'd be my co-pilot If I was flying a jet. You'd be my co-pilot because I'd be like Erica I need you to take over. I need to like blow my nose or something because you picked the ball up and you ran with it and we're like Lisa, we need you to dial in. You know can you dial in and you know we just kind of. That shows that we can pivot, that we're adaptable, and I think that's okay to pivot and be adaptable. But darn it, if you're feeling like crap, go take a time out, go to the park Lisa wrote an article on playgrounds and stuff. Go swing on the swings. Go do the teeter-totter. Just go out and enjoy life. It's not that serious. That's all I have. I'm off of my self box, but Erica Lisa.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree. The biggest thing I've learned love yourself enough to not carry the heartbreak around. We are all doing the best we can. I did the best I could. And every situation, just forgive yourself and let it go, and it just feels so much better to say I did the best I could, they did the best they could. I love you, I forgive you and I know you feel the same way on the other side. You know process it.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love what you have both said today and thank you for sharing. I will tell you that I did not expect to start almost bawling my eyes out. I had to hold it back During this episode. It's been a great episode.
Speaker 2:My parting words for the audience and for both of you, ladies, is similar to what you're both saying Let it out, allow yourself to process however you do it, whether it's meditation or the unhealthy way, like I did the last couple of days. Just shut down and process it, and I'm working on that. Like I said, I need to get better at allowing people to listen and vent. The other thing that I want to say, the advice that I give to organizations is sometimes just checking in with your employees Me as an individual contributor and not yet in a senior management role. Check on your people, especially for sales.
Speaker 2:We work remote, whatever that is. Just send a message or give them a call and say, hey, how are you doing today? Because that message or that call could be everything that that person needed to know that their employer values them and that they care about their well-being. Because I think we've lost that over the years, where it's all business and you're not supposed to bring personal life into it, but it's okay to check on your employees and employees. Don't feel afraid to check on your manager Maybe your manager is going through a rough time or just coworkers in general and just be more open and authentic. I'm working on that. It's always a work in progress, but that's all I got. Ladies, any last parting words before I close? I'm good, right?
Speaker 3:on to what you said, I agree 100%. Check on your manager too. There are people too.
Speaker 2:As always, we appreciate you for tuning in. Please make sure that you subscribe to our podcast on a variety of platforms and check out our website at wwwtechexecwellnesscom. You can stream us on all platforms. Take care and thank you for tuning in.
