Episode 11 transcript: Leveraging product design to create an authentic life with Jessica Baker

 Episode 11: Leveraging product design to create an authentic life with Jessica Baker

Podcast Introduction

We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life. But what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, It's the breath, depth, and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian kuzma. Join me weekly as I interview guests who make changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.

Guest Bio

Aneta: Today's guest is Jessica Baker. Jessica is a workplace strategist, people's ops mentor, and career coach on a mission to create workplaces and careers that people love by bringing unconventional thinking to the world of work. She spent the first 13 years of her career advancing through marketing, digital transformation, and product management to realize that people. The culture was her passion. Jessica then successfully designed a career pivot into people and quickly progressed to the head of people by leveraging her business leadership experience, an innovative product-centric approach to designing workplaces that people love. Jessica found instant success in elevating the value delivered to both employees and the business but then began to internally struggle with the hidden trappings that working with people in HR can bring such as organizational loneliness, stereotyping, double standards, and imbalance leadership dynamics.

[00:01:00]

Aneta: And in seeking out external support. She was grossly underwhelmed by what was available. It was this experience and a desire to continue changing the world. She reinvented her career yet again as an entrepreneur. Now, Jessica's work includes advising companies on how to build workplaces that people love through her productized approach, mentoring people, and practitioners one-on-one, and supporting her community.

Aneta: The people posse. Separately. Jessica also supports ambitious professionals through the career discovery, personal branding, and transformation process, as well as invests in nurturing her own passion projects, which include writing and community development Outside of work, Jessica's a lover of tacos and spicy Mars, an owner and of an obscene number of motivational notebooks.

Aneta: A sucker for brightly colored fashion cooks as a creative outlet and as a proud boy mom. Welcome, Jessica to the show.

Podcast Interview

Aneta: Hi Jessica. Thanks so much for joining today.

Jessica: Yes, I'm so excited to be here, Aneta.

Aneta: I'm so excited to have you. For those of us, those of the folks that know us, know that we used to work together for a few years, and then I left and you've left. But actually, we haven't had an opportunity to catch up or connect. Mostly I just know what I know about you from LinkedIn. So I'm excited today to learn personally everything that you've been up to, but also to share your story, which I know is inspirational to this audience. So thanks for joining. Yeah.

Jessica: Thank you for having me.

Aneta: Of course. So, I would love to always start a little bit with the background. So for people that don't know you, share a little bit about your background, who you are, and what you think is relevant about your background as it pertains to them when we talk about where you are today in your life.

[00:01:00]

Jessica: Sure. So I usually just start out with a quick one-liner, which is like, I'm a former product leader, turned head of people, turned coach and advisor. But really my backstory is I spent a little over a decade really building a career around digital marketing and digital transformation and really have some unique opportunities to co-found an agency. I did digital marketing for LeBron James. and I had been mentored to really want the role of the COO. He had recommended that maybe I go into product management. I had no idea what product management was, but it was digital in nature and I thought that was in my wheelhouse. I was really good at learning new fields and being able to bring my background to the table. So I got into product management. I fell in love with product management. I just loved the craft. It was a very new field that was coming up. So it was a place for me to learn something new and then be able to bring it into an organization that was still really trying to build this discipline. I loved it, And that was really an opportunity for me to take that role to the COO type role to an early to mid-stage startup. So I could clearly see how that was going to transition into that. So I had like one track going on. But what a lot of people don't know is that I had this secret other track that was going on that I always like to tell people. It's almost like I had an unofficial. Other jobs that I wasn't getting paid for until later on in, my career when I just was so passionate about helping other people love the work that they did to help them overcome the challenges that they were facing and work so much so that I would spend nights, building workshops, redesigning onboarding programs, coming up with a new performance management framework. Just because I really felt so compelled to make work better for everyone and lead that change and no one was doing it. I was lucky enough to work for companies and leaders who trusted me to do that work alongside the other work that I always did. It worked for a while. I was juggling the ball. But there really came a point in time when something had to give. I was burning out. I was working nonstop, and at the same time, I was falling kind of out of love with the work that I was doing because it was just so much. So, I really had to do some hard soul-searching. I made the decision to leave the product management world behind and move into.

[00:04:00]

Jessica: People and HR take what some people are calling a career-limiting move to go into that space within an organization. But for me, I just saw something. I saw a way to marry my business background and my love for product management and apply it just to a space within the business and really start creating workplaces people love and helping them create careers they loved. I went down that path. I quickly moved into an ahead-of-people role at a company. I had some really high highs. I was able to create some really great changes at scale. But I was also feeling some really low lows. And I think it's also good to talk about sometimes when you go all in on something. It may not be exactly what you thought it was going to be. So, I was experiencing a bit of those lows. Again, I'm really good at recognizing when I'm starting to feel that way and doing some soul-searching to figure out what was missing. It was really around this other calling. I guess you say, I had around designing my career around the life that I wanted.

[00:05:00]

Jessica: I had traded for a different type of impact, but I was still running myself really thin, and that wasn't the type of life that I wanted to live. So yeah, about a year ago, I was only a year into this kind of head of people role where I said, I think I need to go off and start my own business.

Jessica: I really want to become a life coach in the future. I need to start doing that work now. I called my husband and said I'm going to quit. He said, finally! Because he had been telling me for years that I needed to go off and do my own thing. So I'm very grateful I had a partner who was supportive of that.

Jessica: And yeah, it's been a year. It's been a blast. I've been exploring every facet, both of myself, and in ways in which I can add value to others.

Aneta: I love the story. So, I have so many questions. The first one I have is when you worked at these organizations. It sounds like people recognize you have this passion for HR, for people, for creating new programs, onboarding, performance management, as you said, really the entire life cycle.

[00:06:00]

Aneta: An employee's journey. Were there not roles internally that were doing something similar or was there, was it too, were you ahead of your time, do you feel like, for what you were trying to do within the organizations you were at?

Jessica: So it's funny enough, and I was probably about maybe 10 or so years into my career when someone made the recommendation, You should go into HR and I laughed. I was like, Do you know who I am? Again, I could do that work on the side, but I saw myself as more of a strategist, a business strategist, and an innovator, and even wanted to be seen as a COO. Might be seen like that. I really rejected this idea of moving into that space, and I think we all can recognize that HR hasn't always had the best reputation, so I really struggled with that.

[00:07:00]

Jessica: So I actually kept pushing it off and not entertaining it. Until later when it got to the point where I was having those hard conversations with myself, What is missing? What is it? And I then at that point was like, Oh, I'm thinking about it wrong. I was thinking that I had to change who I was. Change how I operate, change it, how I think to do that work? When in fact, That's actually the secret sauce. It's the fact that I can bring this unique way of looking at the workplace and the problems we face, just with this new lens. It's once I had that kind of conversation with myself and I surrounded myself with coaches and mentors and peers that I really respected and valued their opinion, and when I started really bringing this conversation to them, it helped open up my eyes a bit more to how these worlds could come together.

[00:08:00]

Aneta: Yeah. Isn't it interesting how we sometimes don't do what we know or think that we should be doing because somehow the perception of it isn't, doesn't match, right? So, often did you find yourself early in your career? I know this happened to me when I had certain expectations about what success looked like or what I should be doing and even just landing in the different roles. As you said, sometimes you're like, Oh, I didn't necessarily see this for myself, but I can do this and it feels pretty good. But I always had a little bit of a nagging feeling like there was something still not quite right. Just because I can do something doesn't mean that I should be doing it. So, do you feel like you experienced that throughout your career as well?

[00:09:00]

Jessica: Yes, I think that I definitely felt as though I was molding myself or shaping myself to what success looks like or what it was supposed to look like. That's very hard too, especially when you are being praised for some of those things and people see you like that's what you're known for. So when you want to say, oh, well, I want to go over here and that's like, But no, no, no, you're really great at that. That's going to get you to the top. A type of thing and you're like, Oh, okay. Like, Is that what I'm supposed to be doing? Right. And I had there, I had a really great mentor in my life who challenged me to redefine what success was to me. I loved this, just, it was a conversation we were having. We started out with what does success mean? And then she said, What does it really mean to you? And then was it real? So we were doing that. Why that deep? But why? What really? And when we got down to it, she said, like that's your definition of success.

[00:10:00]

Jessica: For me, I wrote down on a piece of paper, and it's really what I talk about now all the time when it comes to success, is that success is beyond the table. At that time, we were really conditioned to think that success was earning a seat at the table and having a seat at the table. I was doing all the things I needed to do. And once I had that realization that no success is beyond the table, I define what success is, right? And I started really being intentional about putting those things down and starting to act on them and to start being more of who I was because that's what I had defined success as being so unapologetically me. That I couldn't go back anymore and it was kind of like a slow, I feel like revealing over the last, say, five to seven years to get me to where I'm at. And again, I'm not, still not fully where I want to be, but it's that it's a new path, I guess too, to what success is.

[00:11:00]

Aneta: It's such good exercise. I do that with my clients as well, is a lot of times people say, I don't know what I want to do. So I'm going to stay where I am. But when you do the work to figure out the focus and you get the clarity on what it is? I always say once you do that, it's so much easier to figure out what you do next. It's the reason many people stay where they are because they don't necessarily have the clarity of what they really want to do. So, it sounds like you and I both experienced that. So tell me about this passion of yours. So you have this passion for people, you have this passion for the product, and really, a strong work environment. So where do you think that comes from? And tell me a little bit more about your business and how you're able to bring this to organizations.

Jessica: Yeah, I think, for the longest time, I really didn't know. Until I was really deciding whether this was something I wanted to move forward with. I had to do a lot of that deep work to figure out like, where does this really come from? Because I didn't have big plans for myself going, growing up or in college about what I wanted to do.

[00:12:00]

Jessica: But once I got into the workplace and I realized that everyone. Didn't like work, didn't see it as an opportunity to grow and they were stuck. I was like, why is it that I don't have those same thoughts? Like I see it as self-expression. I see it as if it matters. I think it really goes back to growing up. Work wasn't like some four-letter word in my household and I had really great role models to look to. My father, whom I feel has a million different careers in his lifetime, kind of just showed me that your career is a place you can be proud and you can bring all of who you are and it's a craft. And then I had my mother who was demonstrating designing her career around the life she wanted. She intentionally, Took roles in ways in which she could show up as a mother. That really stuck with me, even though at the time it wasn't something I was aware of. When I look back, I think that's a lot of where it starts from.

[00:13:00]

Jessica: So it's just something that I have zero, patients for like, not taking action. If something isn't the way you want it to be. If you don't love your work, you don't love your job, if you don't love your manager, if you don't love to change it. What I found was a lot of people didn't operate that way. So I just felt, I really did. It was like being compelled. Well then, if no one else is going to do it, I'll do it. I started there and I just think over time. I saw the impact. That's the other unique thing about being in the people space, especially when you're working in an organization. You see the impact of the work that you're doing. So when you create a really great, impactful team building. You see the impact of that. You see the impact every day as you walk the halls or hop onto a virtual zoom,

Jessica: You get to see that. I loved that part. I loved being able to see the work I was doing. The impact it was making every day around me.

[00:14:00]

Jessica: When I decided to Move out onto my own. I always knew a portion of what it was I was going to be doing was related to work. Not only because of that passion, but I did see that I had a unique view on how we could think about work and operationalize the actual function of people ops or people teams with this kind of product mindset. It's been very, very fulfilling. Both like, again, as that second job kind of came up throughout my career and now kind of being the springboard into a pivot.

Aneta: Wow! and who do you find are the companies that are most receptive to what it is that you have to offer? Are there certain types of companies or sizes or industries that you find are more progressive or that are really aware or invested in changing the culture when it comes to their people?

Jessica: The ones that come top of mind for me, especially because of the approach that I take. Which is applying product thinking to the workplace. So thinking of the workplace as a product and technology company. They get it. Whenever we're having conversations, I bring up this kind of way of thinking. They're like, Why didn't we think about that before?

[00:15:00]

Jessica: Like they kind of get it right, but they don't know how to implement it or their people teams just aren't familiar with that way of thinking or operating. I do think though still now we do have organizations that are larger and bigger and they're starting to see that. The new North star kind of people and teams needs to be, we need to build workplaces, people love. I think they're starting to get it. They're just a little bit slow to actually adopt and act, whereas the product and technology companies or the software companies, right? They're ready. They're willing to try things tomorrow. Whereas the others, as you and I both know, being in the corporate world, it's a lot bigger and a slower process for that.

[00:16:00]

Aneta: Well, and with greater implications. Right? And more complexity. I know we talk about this, We read articles all the time about the great resignation. We see the numbers. We see that more people are leaving and they're starting maybe their own businesses or doing something else. So, was that a surprise to you? And two, how do you feel that helps your message of what you're trying to do with these organizations?

Jessica: I don't think it was a surprise. Obviously, we say like the pandemic really just accelerated. Something that was brewing. Because, and what I'm noticing, I think this across kind of the employee base, but especially some of the younger generations. They are very aware of the trappings of a career and of work and the impact that can have on their life. They have a greater sense of agency over it. I think what we were starting to see is that it's kind of coming across everyone is feeling like, okay, like I don't have to work here. I don't have to be miserable. I don't have to work 70 hours a week.

[00:17:00]

Jessica: I can take ownership of my career and what I want. I can be brave enough to ask for what I want. That's really where I am when I'm talking with companies. That I'm highlighting that and the reason why I highlight that is that most companies experience that 15, or 20 years ago when we saw the same thing start to happen. When on the business side, when we started noticing it was like the age of the customer, right? There was a customer obsession and it was like because customers started feeling like they had a voice. They had control over choosing whom they wanted to work with. They had the ability to influence what businesses did through social media.

[00:18:00]

Jessica: So. I often liken it to that because it's the same thing that I feel like we're starting to see in employees that's the impact they're having on businesses and in workplaces today and why we as people, leaders, or as founders, CEOs, executives need to start looking at it in that way and think about how we're designing the workplace to solve their problems. Their needs and how to do it kind of delight them much like we did 15, 20 years ago with customers.

Jessica: Yeah, it's a great point, great connection there. I always feel like people are awakening to their power and it's a recognition like, Oh, I can decide that this doesn't necessarily suit the life that I want to live. Let me do some work on figuring it out. What does work? So you've used the phrase a couple of times and you even said your mom did the same thing.

Aneta: And I know something that's near and dear to my heart is designing a life, an integrated life is what I always say. Where you do things that you're passionate about and you also live life and all the other things outside of work that you're passionate about in a way that works. So what did that look like for you? Is that something that you've fully figured out? Are you still working through it?

[00:19:00]

Jessica: So, I have again come from a product management background. When I was really kind of doing a reassessment of my life. I applied design thinking methodologies and I really sat down and said, what's the vision for my life? I was doing a lot of exercises like, what does a day in the life of Jessica look like in x number of years? And when I was doing those exercises. I found myself wanting to spend more time with my family and have more time for my passion projects. I love writing. I have future plans of writing more, and so I saw that. But when I looked at what my life looked like day to day, it didn't look anything like that. So, I really sat down and started to design. What type of career could I have? That would allow me to live the life that I want. And I'd always planned on eventually having that lifestyle career or like the portfolio career where I'd go and start my own business. I'd be a life coach. I'd maybe start teaching yoga.

[00:20:00]

Jessica Baker: Like I something. But I always thought it was a lot farther away. When I went through that exercise. I started to really ask myself like, What's stopping me from pulling that goal forward and just saying? Well, I only want to work where I feel like I'm making money for 20 hours. A week, what would that look like? What else could I do with my time? I planned it all out. That's really what was, when I left, it wasn't just to have a greater impact on the world of work and have a greater impact on people's lives to help them live better at work and life.

[00:21:00]

Jessica: It was also because I wanted that life and I wanted to start living it now and not wait. So, that's out of the gate. I didn't try to work 60 hours a week and I know that a lot of people talk about it when you're starting your own business. It's the hustle. I didn't want that. I wasn't trading, as they say, I'm not trading, working 60 hours for someone else to just go work 60 hours for myself. Like, no, no, no. Like, that's not what I wanted. I was really intentional about how I designed my time. I was really intentional about setting what success looks like. Balancing that with both works, and being a better mother, being more present, and spending time writing. Working out every single day, those types of things. So I was very intentional about designing my time.

Aneta: I think it's amazing and it shows a lot of restraint. I know personally for me, it took me probably a couple of months to completely detox and sort of train myself out of working as many hours as I was.

[00:22:00]

Aneta: There was a funny quote I read the other day. It said, Entrepreneurs are the only people who would work 80 hours for themselves so they don't have to work 40 for someone else. Yeah, I just thought it was kind of funny because that is true for some people, that is a perception, but it sounds like you didn't necessarily go down that path. So what did you do? How did you slow yourself down going from a hundred miles an hour to like whatever your new speed was? Like what did you do for yourself?

Jessica: Well, I will say like, much like you, it took me a while. Like I think the biggest step right is at least just defining what I want it to be. Trying to live that way every day. Even though I know that every day, it's not going to be perfect. I mean, I used to joke around that as I could set like a speed record for getting up, feeding kids, getting them out the door, getting dressed myself like I was like, I was so proud of myself of how quickly I could do that and like be so efficient. when I put it into my plan. I want to spend my morning like I want a slow morning.

[00:23:00]

Jessica: Like I imagined what it would feel like to have a slow morning and I wrote out what like what feelings I would feel? What things I could be doing? It was hard at the beginning because I would be antsy, like waiting to just hop online or get to doing something that I thought was more productive. But, again, it took me a while. It probably was about six months before I was able to do it. And have a good conversation with myself while doing it. Meaning I wasn't sitting there saying, you could be doing something different. What are you doing wasting your time? Like, all of those things. So, I tell my clients that too because we have this belief that just one day you wake up and you're a new person. It doesn't work like that. You put down what you want it to be. Know that it's going to take time like that, your time from now until then is just practice. Just practice trying to become the version of yourself or become the version of the routine that you want and give yourself grace when it doesn't happen and celebrate sometimes when you did it and you're like, I didn't have one negative thought about spending my morning sitting in my chair reading my book and having my coffee.

[00:24:00]

Aneta: I love that! Give yourself permission to do differently. Celebrate your success along the way and also just I think the routines do help. It's like you said, the practice piece of it is just knowing what your new schedule looks like. So, do you have specific routines now? Like, are things that you're so disciplined about that you don't want to ever give up. Are there things that you absolutely have to do every day?

[00:25:00]

Jessica: I think the biggest thing for me is organizing my time to where my energy is. I am very rigid about it, I don't take client meetings in the morning. That for me is the time when I'm working on myself and I'm doing deep work. And again, I love writing, so I write morning pages every day. So, like that's something that I don't want to give up. Then my afternoons are when I feel like I can be more extroverted and I can give of myself to others. And so that's really when I spend those times. I also have a book that ended my week. So I don't take any clients on Mondays or Fridays. It allows flexibility both for my well-being and working on things that I just want to work on that don't feel like it has to produce something. It's when I do some of my more creative writing. Also, it's when I, especially down in the summertime. Like I can spend more time with my children or with my family. Both of my parents are retired. I've really been trying to integrate into my routine having breakfast with them where I never would have done that previously. Those are the days. Okay. So I want to have breakfast with my parents. Like I try to book it for a Monday or a Friday. I don't feel rushed. I don't feel like I'm cheating myself out of personal time or work time. It fits perfectly.

[00:26:00]

Aneta: I love that! I do the morning pages myself. I just find that it's one of the best things to do. If you guys don't know Julia Cameron I think is the author, right? so an amazing book. But the other thing that you, when you're talking about, follow your energy, so there's a book called "When" by Daniel Pink. I don't know if you read it. The entire book. I think you'd like it because you are already doing this. His entire book is about knowing when you have the greatest amount of energy and then being able to schedule your day and what types of activities you do around it. But also he shares on average information. So, when to schedule surgery, when not to go in for surgery. If you have to go to court, like when the most lenient sentences are versus not.

Aneta: It's fascinating and it's all science-based, so check it out. He's amazing.

Jessica: Yeah, I'll definitely have to do that.

[00:27:00]

Jessica: Yeah, but one thing, on average, 2:55 PM is the least productive time for most Americans. So I always say, if you're doing something around three o'clock. It's probably not going to be your best work. It might be a great time to take a break. Go do something, go outside, make a cup of tea or coffee or something. So anyway, a little bit of tidbit. Yeah. But I think you'll enjoy it because it sounds like you're already knowing how to do that in your day and also your week, which is beautiful. I mean, a lot of people aspire to that. Yeah, I think so too it. That takes doing the work to then start just paying attention to those things and making slight tweaks and changes, right? So noticing what's really the time of day or what I ate or did I go, did I work out in the morning? Did I work out at night?

[00:28:00]

Jessica: So, I become Uber aware of all of the things that are around me. Kind of gives me energy or drains my energy as well as the type of work that I'm doing. I thought so too when I first started. I was expecting to get more into consulting and project-based work and that's where I started and then I quickly noticed. I was drained. I didn't want to do that work. It was so draining. The relationship, the engagement that I had with clients wasn't just what I wanted and so same thing, I just was like, Okay, I got to pay attention. I got to make a change. I don't have to do this type of work if it's not giving me the energy and it's not creating the impact that I wanted and so that's what also what I've been doing for the last year, is just kind of tweaking to the work that I'm doing based off of how I'm feeling and the impact that I feel like it's having on others.

Aneta: Yeah! And it is, it's constantly evolving, isn't it? And I think that that's the beautiful part about entrepreneurship is that it does.

[00:29:00]

Aneta: When you decided to leave, you said one thing earlier about some people who thought it was a career-limiting decision to leave what you were doing because you're very successful in what you were doing before and do something different. What else? What are some of the things that people maybe said thinking it was in your best interest and had you listened to them? Maybe you would've stayed because I got plenty of advice as well.

Jessica: I think throughout my career I've heard this and it's one of the areas that I believe that I did a really great job not listening to was picking a lane. Just pick one area and go all in. I think my entire career has been anything but like again, I started out like in marketing and then moved to transformation, then e-commerce, and then I've just I've done a lot of different things and I did that because again, that's what gave me energy and I hated feeling like I was boxed in on something and it also brought a lot of value every time I went to do the next thing because I had an experience that no one else did. I was just adding on top of it.

[00:30:00]

Jessica: So, I'm really glad that I didn't listen to that advice because I got that a lot. I think some of the other advice that I was getting that, if I look back now, I would have probably pushed back on is this belief that I had to be the expert that I needed to be the expert. I needed to be respected and I needed to be liked. That was one when I was kind of coming up with that for myself. I think I strived for that. I probably could have put my energy elsewhere. If I had listened to this idea I needed to be the expert and I needed to be respected and I needed to be liked in order to be successful.

[00:31:00]

Aneta: Yeah. Isn't it amazing thinking back? We have a finite number of energy cells, right? What we're able to do on any given day and when we think back on what we spent our energy on, that could have been used for something more productive. It's amazing and some of the things I see all the time with clients and even with organizations are people-pleasing. They need to be perfectionists. Knowing everything, as you said, sort of being an expert on everything. A lot of these things keep people stuck and they also keep them in very low energy because it's exhausting trying to be and does all those things. What are some of the things you released? What did you let go of where you're like, I don't, there's no room for this anymore in my life. Any of those limiting beliefs or doubts or old stories?

Jessica: I think, this belief that I had to fit into the mold again like I just started. It was almost like once I committed to being more of who I was every day. I felt more fulfilled and I felt like I was doing more of my best work. So, I really started just to release this feeling that I had to be like everyone else in order to be successful. I always like to share these little quirky little things. But there was one point in which everyone I was surrounded by people who were successful, dressed a certain way, and acted a certain way, and I did that and then it was like even so much like I wouldn't wear jeans.

[00:32:00]

Jessica: I was like, No, no, no, I can't wear jeans because the successful people around me don't wear jeans. So I don't wear jeans. I dressed up every single day. My nails were always done. I always tried to look very polished in that kind of traditional Way. It was like once I started being like, well, I mean, I like that stuff, but like, I like wearing bright colors and I like to just wear some more unique clothing and I don't like to do certain things that other people like to do. I wouldn't talk about those like I never talked about the fact that I wrote like I was a writer. So yeah, I kind of just started to let a lot of that stuff go and every day just tried to be more and more like myself, bringing it more to the forefront.

[00:33:00]

Jessica: Now I really have no time and energy to try to be what other people want me to be. I have just gone full like, this is who I am? This is how I think about things. Not that I'm not open to learning new things. But this is who I am. So, especially now when I work with clients, I think, I'm often met with you don't, huh? You're not like most of the other people in HR and I'm like, Yes, you're exactly right. That's to your advantage. It's those types of things I think that is probably the biggest one that I've let go of. there's the perfectionism thing. I grew up. I was a gymnast. For almost 15 years. So that created a lot of perfectionist tendencies. That I carried over into school and my career. Over time, I think, again, just being in the work that I was in and product management. It's all around just trying things like knowing going in. It's not going to be perfect and so I've used that kind of mental model for myself to know that I might have a vision of what I really want to be that perfect vision, but I'm not trying to create that perfect vision today. I need to create something and then the next day's going to be a little better, and eventually, it'll get to where I want it to be. But that's really helped me for sure.

[00:34:00]

Aneta: I love it! I love it! So you've talked about your kids and your family. What have they noticed? Do they ever say, Hey mom, you're different, or do they notice anything about you, before and now as you're working for yourself?

Jessica: I think I'm around more. I mean, I'm definitely, my husband has said how I am a lot more mellow or not, I'm not carrying a whole lot of stress and anxiety around with me. My kids say I'm around more. I used to jokingly tell the schools. Don't put me down as the first person to contact to put my husband down, right? I was that parent and so now, Being able to, especially during the summertime, be able to pick my kids up early and go to the pool. I didn't do that stuff. Taking them to school and just being there. And I feel like I, that's probably the biggest noticeable change is just being present, being there, or integrated into their lives and not bookending the morning and the evening.

[00:35:00]

Aneta: Yes, for sure. And I love that you're doing breakfast with your parents. That's amazing. Something that you can never, you can never get this time back. So it's wonderful to be able to have that. Yeah. So the title of this podcast is Live the Width of Your Life, and it's based on a Diane Akerman quote and about living not just the length of your life, but the width of it as well. So what does that quote mean to you? How do you live the width of your own life?

Jessica: I think for me, How I live the width of my life is I've always been very attuned to and listen to my curiosity. So I often use that as my guide to push myself into doing other things and kind of just follow it. Like where is this going to take me? Where is this going to take me? What is it that I can learn? That's really helped me kind of push myself kind of outside and in this thought that I like to feel the fear and do it anyway. There's, there's that. I got to the point in which it was very similar. I didn't want to end up at the end of my life and be like, What is it that I like?

[00:36:00]

Jessica: What impact did I really have? Did I just have a career? Did I just have a title and that wasn't going to be enough for me? And so, again, following my curiosity and kind of having that thought feel the fear and do it anyway, and yeah, just this thought that I need to push myself and I also want to demonstrate that for my children too. I think I talk a lot about pushing yourself to do more things and try things and kind of living your entire life. I say that to them all the time. Like, you don't, you want to live your entire life. So yeah, I think that for me is the big piece.

Aneta: Oh, I love it! Follow the curiosity and it is. These kids, what they see as a model is what they bring later in life. You talked about the impact of your parents and how they modeled certain behaviors when they came to their career and their passions, and how it impacted you. So, congratulations, Jessica. I'm so happy to see everything that you're doing.

[00:37:00]

Aneta: I can tell. Through your smile and your energy, you are doing what you should be doing, which is amazing. So, let everyone know how we can best support you. Where can we follow you? Where can we learn more about what you're doing?

Jessica: Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn. I took a little bit of a break over the summer. Slowing things down. But I'm always on LinkedIn, Jessica Baker. You can go to my website, Jessica- Baker and I'm also on Instagram. I'm under the Handle Workplace Revel. So, if you would like to call me, that'd be great. I'm always up for conversations and it can be about things related to the workplace or careers, but also, again, I'm just naturally curious about what other people are up to. So, if anyone ever just wants to have a chat. I'm always up for that.

Aneta: That sounds great. We will include all of those notes in the show notes below. Thank You again for joining us today. I loved our conversation, and if you're listening and you enjoy today's show, please like it, rate it, share it with friends, and people that would enjoy today's story, and subscribe when our next episodes are available.

[00:38:00]

Aneta: Thank you, Jessica. Continued success to you and I love reading all your posts, so continue leveraging your writing. We love it. Thanks. Have a great day!

End.