Episode 193: Bucking the System

“I’m sick of thinking if I just smile and grit my teeth I’ll get the treatment I should get. It just doesn’t work that way. So I’ve become a lot less apologetic and a lot more brash on these issues.”

— Raina Brands

Professor Raina Brands

I knew I wanted to talk to Professor Raina Brands when I spotted a tweet of hers last year in which she revealed that her CV contained some updated, and quite personal, information - information most of us wouldn’t reveal to an employer.

In this episode Raina discusses her project to help women ‘de-bias’ their careers, something she and her colleague Aneeta Rattan write about on their site, Career Equally. She explains what that means, why it’s important, and how we can get started. She also talks about why she decided to get personal in public and what the response has been.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

Episode 186: Our Obsession with Winning (and how to re-think)

“Suddenly it was...this is not about having fun, now you need to be a serious athlete. We are here to win. That’s all that matters. ”

— Cath Bishop

Cath with her silver medal at the Athens Olympics

The culture of winning pervades our lives. From sport to the classroom to the workplace, we're supposed to 'kill it' or congratulated for 'crushing it.' But all that crushing can take a toll on the psyche, as Olympic athlete Cath Bishop can attest.

cath bishop

Cath spent years training in her sport, rowing, and competed in three Olympic Games. When she left sport she thought she'd left the obsession with winning behind. Instead she found it was pretty much everywhere.

In this episode we discuss what winning actually means if you want to achieve long-term success (which looks a lot different than what most people think of as 'success.') We talk about the gendered language around winning, and the young female sports stars who are rejecting the winning narrative.

Cath is the author of The Long Win: the search for a better way to succeed.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

And per my teaser in the show, check out the Ask A Harvard Professor podcast - I’d love to have Prof. Claudia Goldin on this show. She was their guest in this episode.

Episode 185: Women Getting Paid

“He said, ‘Let me stop you right there...you never, ever discount yourself, you never let anybody diminish your worth right before your eyes.’”

— Adrienne Graham

Photo via unsplash

“Step back and think, how am I feeling about this? What am I dreading them saying to me when I ask for this? What do I think they’re going to point out is a reason why I don’t deserve this salary?”

— Natalie Reynolds

In this show we're talking about women getting paid.

Two business owners weigh in on how to charge for your services and how to respond to people who ask if they can 'pick your brain.' We tackle a question from a woman who knows she's paid less than the last man who did her job, but asks if she's happy in her work, how much should she care? And we hear from a negotiation expert on how to use the negative voice in your head - the one that says 'you can't ask for that much!' - to help you get what you want.

This episode distills some findings from past shows. I'm using it as a springboard to more coverage on women and money in 2022. If there’s something you’d like to hear covered, let me know.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

Guests today are Adrienne Graham, Kathy Caprino, Jacquette Timmons and Natalie Reynolds.

Adrienne and Kathy originally featured in episode 52, When Women Work for Free. Jacquette was in episode 81, Money vs. Fulfillment, and Natalie Reynolds was the sole guest in episode 128: You’re Worth It - the Power of Negotiation (part 1).

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Further reading: How I Came to Believe I Deserved More by Abby West.

The Luxury of Not Putting Money First by Tanzina Vega.

God, Grant Me the Confidence of a Mediocre White Man by Tracey Lynn Lloyd.

These articles are all from TueNight.com, a great site aimed at GenX women - however, I don’t think there’s much exclusively GenX about these three pieces. Check out the rest of their series on women and money here.

Episode 184: The Long Game

“Playing the long game at a really core level is about...how can we take action today that will make tomorrow better or easier? I think about it as doing a favor for your future self.”

— Dorie Clark

Dorie Clark

“I saw a window maybe of four or five years where I felt I needed to maximize the chances that I was going to meet someone and...that having a family would be back on the cards.”

— Tom Waterhouse

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A lot of people are quitting their jobs at the moment. In the US, more than 12 million people left jobs voluntarily between July and September. They are fed up, burned out after months and months of pandemic working, and some are wondering, what am I doing this for anyway? Is this what I really want to do with my life? If not, what do I want to do instead?

In this show Dorie Clark helps us answer some of those questions, which all involve the need for long-term thinking. She talks about the ideas in her new book, The Long Game: how to be a long-term thinker in a short-term world. We discuss how to carve out time to think about the future, identifying what’s most meaningful to you, and casting off the expectation that you ‘find your passion’ (too much pressure!)

tom waterhouse

We also meet consultant Tom Waterhouse, who had a long-term plan to have a family before it was too late. But realizing his dream meant infuriating his bosses.

Tom is the host of the podcast If I Had Been Born a Girl.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

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Further reading: Women and the Liberating Power of No by Anna Holmes in The Atlantic. I mention this in the episode - a great, nuanced piece.

Dorie is offering a free strategic thinking self-assessment that you can download here to find out how much of a long-term thinker you are.

Episode 177: Couples That Work

“It’s framed as a choice question: how do you pick the right person? But I found the right person and then things started to get complicated...you want a career and you’re deeply in love with someone. Then what?”

— Jennifer Petriglieri

Jennifer (R) and I during our interview

Books and articles offer career advice OR relationship advice. They rarely consider the link between the two. Yet dual-career couples are everywhere, and anyone who's part of one knows your careers can only run in parallel for so long At some point, life is going to get complicated - and not only if you have kids.

So how do you make it work?

INSEAD professor Jennifer Petriglieri, author of Couples That Work, has spent years researching working couples and learning from their experiences. In this episode we talk about the three transitions couples go through over the decades, and what her research (and her own career and home life) have taught her about the roadblocks couples face, and how to navigate them.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

Next time you’ll hear a short show where Jennifer answers listeners’ questions about their own dual-career dilemmas.